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It didn’t take Havel long to realize Leeza wasn’t responding to his kiss. He broke it off and stepped back, lifting his hands in apology, but before he could say sorry she punched him.
It was so surprising that, for a few seconds, he didn’t realize what had happened until the pain hit.
He wasn’t surprised that Leeza had hit him; she’d always had a fiery temper, even if she spent most of her life suppressing it. She wasn’t one to take a forced kiss without retaliation. What was unexpected was the strength behind her punch and that he hadn’t seen it coming.
He was a security specialist working in a profession where most men didn’t live to his age without becoming an expert in combat. No one snuck up on him. No one got the drop on him. Because he was vigilant. Never let his guard down… until he became so consumed by a kiss that he stopped paying attention.
Leeza was holding her fist in her other hand, a pained expression twisting her delicate features.
“You okay?”
Her dark chocolate eyes glittered as she narrowed them to slits. “I punched you in the jaw and you’re asking if I’m okay? Jesus, it feels like I hit concrete.”
Despite the tension between them, he grinned. “I’m hard all over, sweetheart, in case you were wondering.”
Her lips twitched with amusement as he maneuvered around her to the fridge. Opening the freezer, he took out a bag of frozen peas and gently took her hand in his. He placed the peas across her reddening knuckles and pressed her other hand on top. “Hold this.”
She complied easily, automatically falling into her familiar pattern of listening to him when he gave an order. He’d acted as her personal bodyguard for years and she’d learned to trust him without question. In fact, he fully intended to use her easy compliance to manipulate her into marrying him. Leeza wasn’t one to protest authority, but she was sneaky, so he’d have to be on his toes.
“Thought you took martial arts. Didn’t you learn how to align your knuckles? Or did you skip punching day?” He dug through the kitchen drawers until he found the dish towels, took one out and lifted the peas from her hand, wrapping them in the towel.
“It was my first time hitting something other than air,” she admitted. “And I didn’t put a lot of thought into my form before I threw the punch.”
“Come on.” He gripped her shoulder lightly and turned her toward the living room. Stepping past her, he grabbed the plastic sheeting covering the couch and yanked, tearing it away, then waved at her to sit.
She sank into the cushion with a sigh, her eyes closing as she leaned back, her dark hair a messy halo around her head. She looked exhausted. And it wasn’t just because of the past few days. It was clear that months of being on the run took its toll. As much as she despised being dragged back to Prague like a lost dog, he sensed her relief at finally having a safe place to settle down with her son.
He dropped onto the cushion next to her and took her bruised hand in his, setting it on his knee and pressing the frozen peas against her knuckles.
She watched him, her dark eyes awash with tired curiosity. He wondered what she was thinking.
His rage at her rejection came and went, but it never dimmed the love he felt for her. He’d tried to eradicate it from his head and his heart over the past several years, and despite watching her with another man, all he managed to do was cage his feelings.
He watched as her gaze moved across the room, finally settling on the floor near the front door.
The sorrow and confusion on her face was so heartbreaking it was everything Havel could do not to drag her into his arms. She wouldn’t accept his comfort though. Not yet.
“He died there.” Despite the agony marring her delicate features, her voice was flat when she nodded toward the floor.
Her stepfather had been killed in the apartment when he attacked Jozef who had defended himself by launching a rocket at his uncle. It had been chaos for a while, and many lives were lost including Dasha, Leeza's mother. It was Krystoff's death that changed the face of the Koba organization as Jozef rose to power.
“How do you know what happened here?” Havel frowned as he realized Leeza shouldn’t know the details of her stepfather’s death.
“I was here,” she whispered, looking at him with shimmering eyes. “I met some friends in Zmatek for a couple of drinks. My bodyguard got a tip-off about the attack, but I was separated from him and I decided to wait across the street during the chaos. I was worried something had happened to him and when things died down, I made my way back inside.”
It was Havel who’d tipped off her bodyguard. He’d sent a text seconds after Jozef gave the order to have her killed. It was the one and only order Jozef had given him during their long friendship that Havel had disobeyed. No one knew and Havel intended to keep it that way.
“What was the bodyguard to you?” He knew the man she spoke of because Havel had assigned him to Leeza’s detail.
“Pavel was…” she choked and stopped, taking a breath before continuing, “He was loyal and friendly. I liked him, but he…”
“Didn’t make it,” Havel finished for her, his voice grim.
She nodded.
“What did you see?” Havel hated that she knew what’d gone down at the club. It had been a gruesome sight, not something she should’ve been involved in. He hadn’t known she was there, because at the time, he’d been bleeding out from a gunshot wound on the floor above the club.
“It was horrible.” Her voice was strained and she lifted shaking fingertips to her lips, her gaze faraway. “I recognized some of the dead. They were bodyguards, house security… people I’ve known for years. I rushed up the stairs to Jozef’s suite to see if he and Shaun… but I found Krystoff instead.”
