Once Upon a Marriage

Elliott sipped again. Things were getting out of hand. At least inside him they were.

“It’s not like it used to be,” Marie said, no hint of a smile on her face.

“What does that mean?” He’d only known her three months. Maybe if he reminded himself of that fact often enough, it would lessen the effect she had on him.

“We used to talk. All the time. You’re the first man I’ve ever known, other than Liam, who I could talk to without measuring my words. I could just be myself with you...” Her voice faded and he wanted to know what she was thinking. Wanted to know everything that was in that fascinating and completely unpredictable mind of hers.

“I’m hard to talk to now?” Elliott groped for ways to extricate himself. They weren’t immediately obvious to him.

“I don’t know, anytime I’m free, you’re escorting me upstairs and are gone.”

“I’m working.” Completely true.

“Yeah, that’s what I told myself. But the shop’s closed now. The doors are locked. The blinds are shut. Liam and Gabi are safe upstairs.”

He acknowledged the statements with a drop of his chin. “So talk.” Her mother wanted him to keep her from getting hurt. If something was bothering her, he should know about it.

What if Threefold was having financial trouble?

There’d been no indication. And no indication, either, that Liam Connelly was foolish or frivolous with his money.

Or his father’s company, either.

So what was bothering her?

“I just...you know how my mom sends me all those studies to read, and...” She broke off again. Shook her head. “This has nothing to do with any of my mom’s studies. The truth is, I rarely read them anymore. Most of what I know is stuff she repeats to me ad nauseam when she calls.”

“How often do you talk to her?” He’d wondered. Several times. He’d asked Barbara and she’d just said that she and Marie spoke regularly, in a way that let Elliott know that she didn’t consider the information pertinent to the job he was doing.

“Used to be a couple of times a week. Lately it’s more like every couple of weeks. Ever since the last time my father wanted to get back with her and I wouldn’t get involved—maybe three or four months ago—she calls less and less.”

Since Elliott had been on her payroll and had been giving her regular reports.

“Anyway, the thing is, you know so much about me...everything, really. You probably even know what kind of toilet paper I buy.” Not that he accompanied her inside the store all the time, as he had the one time they went together. She and Gabi had gone to the grocery together that week, with Elliott waiting right outside.

“It’s only for a little while, Marie,” he said, leaning forward. “It’s common for someone who’s not used to being protected to get a bit of cabin fever. You’re used to your freedom.”

She shook her head. “It’s not that. Though probably with Liam it is. But...”

He waited. Withstood the long look she gave him. And wasn’t at all as prepared as he’d planned to be when she suddenly blurted, “What do you want out of life?”

“What?”

“What do you want? What are your goals? Do you ever want to get married? Have kids? You know everything about me, and I know nothing about you.”

She could have whacked him over the head with a baseball bat and he’d have been happier. And better equipped to deal with her, too.

His immediate reaction was to shut her down with a single word. No.

But those big brown eyes bored into him. Trusting him to tell her the truth. He, who was bound by ethics to lie to her. “You know I have no siblings and that my parents were killed in a small plane crash when I was two.”

He’d given her his life story late one night. Before he’d realized how dangerous sharing would be.

How the compassion she’d shown him, a grown man trained to protect, had touched him.

“And you have an aunt and cousin in California. Yes, I know. But that doesn’t tell me a thing about you. About your life. Or your goals or...”

It shouldn’t matter. He was a bodyguard. On the job.