Scotland for Christmas. Cathryn Parry

he couldn’t! She covered his phone with her hand. “Please!”

      If he made that call to his boss, then his boss would call her uncle’s people. She wouldn’t be able to control how the problem was presented, or what the solution might be. She couldn’t have that.

      Jacob closed his eyes for a moment. He didn’t seem to be enjoying this standoff between them, either.

      She had to convince him to be her ally. God knew, she was tired of fighting all on her own. She needed someone to understand her and what she was going through. But she needed to proceed in a way that didn’t tell him too much about herself. She had to be careful what she shared.

      “I have a hard time because...I really can’t trust anyone, Jacob. I’m not allowed to have confidants. New York is not my home. I have to watch myself...all the time.”

      “Most of the people that I work with and protect feel the same way,” he said gently. “Isabel, I drove a guy last month... Let’s just say he’s from a nation hostile to this country. But he’s in town speaking to the United Nations, so my job was to protect him while he was visiting here. He doesn’t trust anyone he meets, but he trusts us.”

      She chewed her lip. She wanted to believe him.

      “You know why he trusts us?” Jacob asked. “Because we—people like me—we’re discreet. We don’t even tell agents from our other government bureaus if they ask. We can’t, and we don’t. Because if we did, we’d never be trusted by other protectees. I won’t betray you, Isabel. I won’t tell anyone what I heard or saw today. No matter who was to torture me, I would die with your secret.”

      It was so tempting to trust him. Oh, how she wanted to believe!

      He waited, looking at her.

      “I need to call my uncle first.” She reached for her phone. “Then you may call your office.”

      Jacob closed his eyes. A horn sounded behind them—the light had changed, and they’d both been too occupied to notice. Jacob roared the SUV forward and pulled into an open spot before the curb, right in front of a fire hydrant. He set the gear into Park.

      “May I,” he started to ask, turning in his seat to face her, his voice shaking. “May I tell you what I think? About...him?” With an intense look, he leaned toward her. “My professional opinion of your ex-boyfriend?”

      She was immensely curious about the intense feeling he had. The anger over what Alex had done.

      It was so tempting. She dared to look into his eyes and nod.

      “People don’t just fall in love out of the blue,” Jacob said. “They put themselves into situations. Over there, in Scotland, he put himself into a mind-set where he was open to another woman.”

      She hadn’t thought of it that way.

      Jacob gazed into her eyes. It was like the heat of the sun, warming and comforting to her. “It isn’t your fault, Isabel. It wasn’t your fault that he strayed.”

      Jacob thought all that?

      “But...that’s not how it will look to other people,” she said.

      “Other people don’t know the truth.”

      “Well...how does it look to you?”

      “I see that you’re incredibly strong.” Jacob nodded to the university buildings beside them. “Look where you live, far from your home, in this big city, in a foreign country.”

      “It’s not like I have a choice. Of course I have to be strong. I’m expected to be strong, and I am what I’m supposed to be. It’s what I need to do.”

      He was silent, listening to her, so she continued explaining, sorting it out in her head as she talked. “I cannot fail here, Jacob. When we heard my uncle was getting ready to name a successor, I went to him and asked him to consider me. Even though I’ve worked in positions of responsibility throughout our different divisions, he replied that I wasn’t qualified because I didn’t have an advanced business degree or experience in international finance, like my cousin Malcolm.

      “So I found the best, most prestigious program that I could, and I applied. They accepted me, and now I’m here, working as hard as I can with my end goal in mind. I have to be successful. If not, I’ll never be chosen to run my family’s company if I seem to fail in anything I do. And that includes managing my relationships. That’s the way he looks at it. Cold and clinical. But I don’t want to be that way, and—”

      Wait a minute. She put her hand over her mouth. Was this even true?

      And worse, why was she saying it aloud to him? She hadn’t meant to tell Jacob anything private about her or her family. If Uncle John found out, he would be quite displeased.

      * * *

      JACOB HADN’T WANTED to like her or feel sympathy for her. This was the opposite of what he’d intended. He hadn’t really wanted to get her talking and to understand her.

      He knew her world was shattered. In his mind, she could never be a failure. Or cold, or clinical. But he could imagine how she felt now, after her breakup...unanchored, mortified, upset. He understood why she wanted to go home and lick her wounds, but he couldn’t let her. He needed to get her to go to Vermont with him. The only way he knew how to convince her was to continue to talk to her, which felt strange to him.

      Secret Service agents were taught never to confide with their protectees. His training was working against him.

      He rubbed his face with his hands, cold with sweat. He was so close to John Sage. Maybe if he’d had his backup team with him, including some female agents, it wouldn’t be so difficult. Jacob wasn’t used to working alone, especially with an attractive woman.

      She was just so beautiful. That blond hair, those big blue eyes that brimmed with tears. So expressive, but only here with him. She hadn’t cried in front of the boyfriend, and Jacob took some satisfaction from that.

      Jacob flexed his hands on the wheel. He had no template to work with in this situation, so he was winging it. So far, nothing had worked in getting her to really trust him, and he knew why, because he remembered this feeling. Slammed upside the head by a lover’s betrayal. Crushed in the heart, and in the most public of places.

      “What are you thinking?” she asked, darting a glance at him nervously.

      It had started to rain, so he’d turned on the wipers. They thump-thump-thumped against the window at regular intervals. He glanced in the mirror and saw his own expression. No poker face here. That’s what she was reacting to—what he felt about her situation, not what she felt.

      He got the impression that she was usually more in tune with what other people thought of her than with what she thought. To some extent, she was a people pleaser.

      Maybe Rachel had been that way, too.

      He leaned back and closed his eyes. “I was in your shoes once,” he remarked. “I was just thinking about that.”

      He felt a change in her energy. The leather seat made a squeaking noise as she sat up straighter. Her eyes were boring into him; he could sense that, too.

      “You were dumped?” she asked in a low voice. Anticipating. Wanting to hear more about it.

      He inhaled deeply. Danger zone. He’d never even discussed this with Eddie. Not really. “That’s not the point.”

      “Oh-ho!” She sat up straighter. “So it’s okay for me to be crushed and for you to know every detail about it, but it’s not okay for you?”

      “Hey, I’m just your driver.”

      “Really? I don’t see you driving me home the last few blocks like I asked.”

      He opened his eyes. “Is that what you want? To give up? A successful woman like you? You don’t think it will