Page 28 of Idaho

"That's ridiculous-"

"Do you want to go home?" I asked her.

"No," she muttered.

"Then you need my help. Don't you?"

She sighed heavily. "Yes."

"Then you do as I say."

Her eyes narrowed on mine. "Fine."

"Good girl."

Her lips parted and she stared at me in shock. "Don't talk to me like that."

I chuckled. "Like what? You're being a good girl, aren't you?"

Her cheeks flushed and I knew I'd hit a nerve. She was a good girl, but she wanted to be bad. I could see it in the way she responded to me. The way she'd kissed me back. The way she was reacting right now to my words.

"You're not going to tell my father about this, are you?" she asked, changing the topic of conversation abruptly.

"No," I agreed. "Not yet."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not going to call him until we know what happened last night and have a plan for moving forward. There is a remote chance it was drunken assholes, but more likely, almost guaranteed, that it's something else. I need to know for sure before talking to your father."

"Thank you." She let out a sigh of relief. "He's going to insist that I come home. I don't want to leave here."

My brows lifted as I studied her. "What's so important about staying?" I didn't want her to leave either, but she was so dead set against it, it would help to understand why.

"I just told you." She looked away from me. "I need to finish my PhD."

"There's more to it than that, Duchess, you can get your damn PhD online," I said with a shake of my head.

She stiffened, but didn't respond.

"Fine, keep your secrets for now," I told her. "But I will find out what they are."

"Why? Why do you care?" She sounded exasperated and I couldn't blame her. It wasn't like I had a reason for this other than the fact that I wanted to fuck her. And protect her. But she didn't need to know my true motivation yet. She wasn't the kind of woman you fucked and discarded. Which meant that was off the table. There was just something so vulnerable about her. It spoke to me. Enough that I was offering myself up to play bodyguard. It was going to be fucking brutal trying to keep my hands off her.

"I'm a businessman, Duchess," I told her. "I don't do anything without a reason."

Her eyes narrowed on me as though she were trying to read my thoughts. "My father." She sounded defeated and disappointed, but it was easier to let her believe that was where my true motivations were. "You want something from my father."

She was forgetting that I didn't have a fucking clue who she was until she told me. She was probably used to people using her to get close to her dad. I'd play off that insecurity, because if I continued to tell her how much I wanted her, we'd end up in fucking bed together and then I'd have a real shitshow on my hands. Heir or not, Eva wasn't going to be allowed to marry some American biker. For all I knew, her father had already promised her off to some asshole who had the pedigree he liked. I would just make trouble for her, and that was the last thing I wanted.

I let her statement hang in the air. I didn't want to lie to her, but I could see she was already drawing her own conclusions. Her eyes darted away from mine as her shoulders drooped. It was almost fucking impossible not to go to her and give her comfort, but I managed to hold back.

"Okay, then," she said a few moments later, after she pulled herself together. "What do we do now?"

"I have more rules to go over with you," I told her, crossing my arms over my chest. Her eyes flashed back up to mine and she glared at me.

"Just because I'm agreeing to this doesn't mean you get to boss me around."

I stepped forward until I was directly in front of her and leaned down until we were almost nose to nose. "That's exactly what it fucking means, Duchess. You tried things your way and look where it got you. Now we do them my way. You'll obey the rules or pay the price."