The Trouble with Valentine's. Kelly Hunter

all hell-bent on guiding you through life? I mean, honestly, Nick, I’m twenty-four years old and I’m not a slow learner. So what if I make a mistake or two along the way? I’ll fix them. I certainly don’t need my brothers charging in to straighten me out every time I step sideways.’ Hallie’s chin came up; he was beginning to know that look. ‘I can take care of myself. I want to take care of myself. Is that too much to ask?’

      ‘Not at all. What you want is freedom.’

      ‘And equality,’ she said firmly. ‘And it wouldn’t kill them to show me a bit of respect every now and then too.’

      Right. Nick quelled the slight twinge of sympathy he was beginning to feel for her brothers and concentrated on the bigger picture. Freedom, equality, respect. He could manage that. It wasn’t as if she was asking for the sun, the moon and the stars to go with it.

      ‘I want you to know that even though I’m paying you a great deal of money to deceive my future business partner you have my utmost respect,’ he stated firmly. ‘We’re in this together as equals.’

      And to the drinks waiter who had appeared at his side, ‘Two single-malt Scotches. Neat.’

      CHAPTER FOUR

      PREPARING THE HOUSE FOR the arrival of Nicholas Cooper and his wife wasn’t a difficult task. Jasmine often acted as hostess for her father. Anything from arranging dinner parties to organising tickets and dealing with invitations. Personal assistant, Kai had called her more than once, but it was only to humour her. Jasmine contributed so very little to the running of this household, what with the housekeeper who came in three times a week, and the gardener who worked every morning and Kai who saw to the cars and the dozens of other things her father requested of him.

      Bodyguard, her father still called him, only Kai had never been just that.

      She really didn’t know what he was.

      Eleven years old, she’d been, when her father had brought Kai home one night shortly after her mother’s death. It had been Jasmine’s bedtime and she’d been worried because her father wasn’t home yet. She’d worried about everything in those days.

      Her father had called her into his home office and she’d stopped in the doorway, not dressed for visitors but unable to look away from the young man standing so straight and still beside her father. In profile, he’d been the most beautiful boy she’d ever seen, and that included on the television. And then he’d turned to look at her and his face had been so pale and he’d looked so incredibly lost. As lost as she felt.

      ‘Meng Kai’s going to be living here with us,’ her father had said, and Kai’s lips had twisted into a bitter smile, even as he offered her a small bow. Jasmine bowed back, lower, because Meng Kai was older, maybe eighteen, and Jasmine knew her manners.

      She’d looked up at him again, wanting to ask why he was staying with them and for how long, and maybe she would ask her father those things when they were alone, but not now. Her father wouldn’t like it if she asked those questions now.

      ‘He’ll be staying here indefinitely,’ her father said quietly, as if reading her mind, and the utter silence that had followed had been clouded with an emotion that to this day Jasmine couldn’t quite define. Maybe it had been despair.

      ‘Did they take Meng Kai’s mother too?’ she’d asked, and her hushed voice had rippled across that silence and made the boy flinch.

      ‘Something like that,’ her father had offered gruffly – her father didn’t like to talk about what had happened to her mother, Jasmine knew that, but household staff gossiped and Jasmine had big ears and silent feet and she knew full well what had happened to her mother. She knew what loss felt like. And so too – it seemed – did this Kai, who still hadn’t spoken and whose eyes skittered away from hers every time she looked at him.

      ‘It’s okay,’ she said and stepped hesitantly forward, first one step and then another until she reached his side. She slipped her hand inside Kai’s and frowned when Kai tensed and sent her father a panicked look. Her father looked tense too, but he said nothing, so Jasmine filled the gap. ‘They can’t get us here. We just have to stay away from the windows and not go outside without permission and do exactly what the guards say. You’re safe here. No monsters can get at us here.’

      Kai had looked down at her and there’d been a world of pain in his beautiful black eyes as he’d replied, ‘I know.’

      ‘Kai’s a bodyguard,’ her father had said finally. ‘He’ll see to your protection.’

      There had been bodyguards on the grounds and in the house for weeks – at least half a dozen of them at any one time. Jasmine didn’t know why they would need any more, or why her father would choose a bodyguard so young.

      She did know – instinctively – that Meng Kai was special. ‘Are you like Bruce Lee?’

      ‘No one’s like Bruce Lee,’ Meng Kai said.

      ‘Jackie Chan?’

      ‘No.’

      Jasmine eyed him speculatively. ‘Maybe if you smiled.’

      But Kai hadn’t smiled. Not during those first few months. Not for a very long time, and then only rarely.

      Meng Kai had moved into the apartment above the garage, he’d had free rein of the house. It hadn’t been long before the housekeeper and the gardener and Jasmine’s tutors all answered to him. Jasmine had answered to him too – such a timid little thing she’d once been. No thought of disobedience – if Kai or her father told her to do something, Jasmine did it. So eager to please. So damn lonely, only Kai hadn’t wanted to be friends with her. Not at first.

      And then the levee had given way and all of a sudden Kai had unbent – though only with her – and Jasmine had taken full advantage of his change of heart. Kai become her confidante, her sounding board, the big brother she’d never had. Kai was comfort, he was protection, and most of all he was hers.

      To all intents they’d been family, Jasmine thought grimly, returning to the now just long enough to place new toiletries in the guest bathroom. Father, older brother, younger sister.

      And then Jasmine had turned sixteen and Kai twenty-four, and Kai had fought hard for Jasmine to have more freedom, more friends. ‘She’s too sheltered,’ Kai had said bluntly, during one of his rare arguments with her father. ‘You have to give her room to grow. You can’t make her world this small.’

      ‘She has everything money can buy,’ her father had countered.

      ‘She needs freedom. We both do. She can’t continue to look to me for all those things you don’t allow her to experience any other way. Send her to school. Let her make friends. Widen her focus.’

      Part of her had applauded Kai’s words. Part of her had been fearful. To this day, Jasmine didn’t know which emotion would have won out, because her father had been immovable.

      Jasmine’s home-schooling would continue as usual. Her strictly regulated social outings would continue, as usual.

      And no matter what Kai had said about needing his freedom, Kai had stayed too.

      On the morning of Jasmine’s seventeenth birthday, Kai had taken her to the flower market. She’d thought of the trip as a birthday outing, at first. Thought that Kai had wanted to please her, and he had pleased her. He’d bought her street-stall food and given her one of his rare, unguarded smiles when she’d purchased a fake jade turtle on a leather band and slipped it over her head.

      She’d been truly happy in that moment; and Kai had reached out to untwist the little turtle and his knuckles had brushed her skin and his eyes had met hers and then he’d withdrawn his hand slowly, almost casually, and put his hand to the back of his head as he’d turned away.

      Such a fleeting touch shouldn’t have had the power to throw Jasmine’s world into chaos.