"Do you worry he won't honor that?"
"No." She let out a weary sigh. "No. He gave his word. Guy like that saws his tongue off with a rusty knife before he breaks his word. But he knows, and when he looks at me—"
"He'll see his daughter's friend. An amazing woman. He'll see what you too often forget to see when you look in the mirror. Courage."
She eased away now. "Lot of people making noises about how brave I am today."
"Well then, why don't you be brave enough to tell me the rest of it. You already had trouble on your mind when you walked in the door this evening."
"Yeah, I did. We need to talk, but I have to go throw up first."
"As long as we have our priorities straight. Come on then." He slipped an arm around her. "I'll hold your head."
* * *
She sicked up the worst of the booze, downed, without much protest, the mixture Roarke pushed on her when she was finished. She took a blistering shower, dressed in loose pants and a muscle shirt, and felt human again by the time they regrouped in her office. She added one final cure, black coffee, then filled him in on her visit to Dockport.
"You're thinking by Dallas dude, she means me."
"It's a strong possibility, one I passed by Mira on the way home. She agrees with me. I'm the only woman who had a part in taking her down, and that makes me her competition. No, more like her opposition. She comes back to my turf, kills here, and shows me she's back and ready to rumble. But she takes you out, she beats me. Whatever happens in the battles before or after, she wins the war."
"A reasonable theory, and an interesting one." He swirled brandy. Unlike the rest of the group, he hadn't touched a drink at the D and D. "I wonder how she expects to get through my security, to get close enough to me to cause me any harm."
"Roarke—"
He smiled, leaned in as she had. "Eve."
"Cut it out. Look, I know you've got ace security, the best money can buy. I know your instincts are better yet. But she's smart, she's thorough, and she's very, very good at what she does."
"So are you. Which," he continued, "would add another edge for her. How to kill me when I'm so completely, even intimately protected."
"You'll add to your security," she said briskly. "We'll work out the logistics of that, get some input from Feeney. I'll put cops on you, mix some in with your people at your midtown office. I'll need to know your schedule, down to the last detail so I can have men planted wherever you have meetings set up. If you're going out of the city, using any transpo, it needs to be scanned and swept first—coming and going."
He sat back, sipped his brandy. "We both know I'm not going around with cops on my heels."
"You'd prefer protective custody and me keeping you locked in this house?"
He angled his head. "You know my lawyers will tear any attempt at that into tiny shreds, so let's save both of us the time and trouble."
"You hard-headed son of a bitch. I'll chew your lawyers up and spit them back out on your thousand-dollar shoes."
"You can try."
She sprang to her feet. "I pick up that 'link, I'm getting authorization to lock you up, at a location I see fit, and slap a goddamn bracelet on your wrist until I'm sure your ass is safe."
He got to his feet as well. "Then I pick up the 'link, make my call, and have a restraining order trumping your bloody authorization before it's printed. I won't be caged, Eve, not by you or anyone. And I won't hide or run, so put your considerable temper and energies into tracking your woman, and I'll see to my own ass very well."
"It's not just your ass anymore. It belongs to me, too. Goddamn it, I love you."
"And I love you right back." As his temper ebbed, he laid his hands on her shoulders. "Eve, I'll have a care. I promise you."
She shrugged his hands off, paced away. "I knew you wouldn't do it my way."
"Do you think I'd be where I am if every time there's a threat I bolt into some safe house? I face what comes at me. I deal with it. I deal with it a bit different than I once did."
"I know. I know you're more savvy about security than anyone, but will you let Feeney look things over?"
"I've no problem with that."