Page 12 of After The Storm
Roman had never put any real thought into why there were no women who worked alongside them, other than Persephone. Now that Kate had asked the question, he tried to find an answer that wouldn’t elicit another argument with her.
“Not that I know of yet, but I’m not in charge. I just go out on the assignments as I receive them.”
Slowly, Kate lowered herself to the bed and sat down. “So who is in charge? Another guy like you?”
The hint of contempt in her tone bothered him, so he quickly explained how Project Artemis had come to be. “No. A woman named Persephone started Project Artemis after she was kidnapped. She and the man who helped her escape her captors run the group and the focus is on helping women like she was helped.”
Looking up at him, she forced a tiny smile. “Oh. Well, it’s hard to say anything bad about that, I guess. So you and the others who work in this Project Artemis put yourselves in harm’s way for women like me who you’ve never met for what reason? Do you have a death wish or something?”
Whatever else Kate Sheridan was, she definitely had a way of making him laugh. Chuckling at her question about them having a death wish, he thought about Xavier and Gideon and considered the possibility that one of them might. Marius definitely seemed to like the job more than most of them, so maybe he did too.
But he definitely did not have a death wish.
He shook his head. “No death wish. It’s just my job to help you. That’s it. If I can do it without getting hurt, all the better, but I know my duty being part of Project Artemis. Your safety is my top priority.”
Kate looked at him with a strangeness in her eyes. “And your other priorities? What about them?”
Confused, Roman shook his head again, not understanding her questions. “What do you mean other priorities? My job is to protect you.”
“That’s it? Who’s paying for you to do this for me?” she asked, her suspicion clear.
She still didn’t believe he was there to help her.
“Nobody pays us to protect anyone. Project Artemis is self-funded,” he answered proudly.
“So you do this for free? Are you independently wealthy? Did your family invent shoelaces or something, so you don’t have to work a regular job?”
Roman had to admit this woman had a way of making him want to laugh one minute and walk away from her the next. He’d never met anyone so unwilling to trust in his life.
“No, my family is just like most people’s. No shoelace empire here. Project Artemis pays me to do this. Now, have I answered enough of your questions so we can get out of here?”
She stood from the bed and put her hands on her hips. Clearly, he wouldn’t be spared more questioning, so he waited for the rest of her interrogation. He just hoped all this question and answer business wouldn’t put them in danger. He honestly had no idea who might be after her, and he had a gut feeling it would only be a matter of time before whoever they were found out where she was hiding.
“I have about a hundred more questions, but at the very least, you need to answer one more.”
“Fine. What do you want to know?” he asked, relieved she only wanted to know the answer to one more question.
Kate stared up at him for a long moment and asked the only question he didn’t want to answer for her. “What is your last name, just Roman?”
And there it was, the one piece of information he never shared with clients. Most of them didn’t ask, strangely enough. They were too busy hoping to live and doing whatever it took to make that their priority to care what his name was. To every one of them, he’d been Roman. It gave him a way to keep them at arm’s length so he could do his job more effectively. He didn’t want to ever get close enough to any client to share that part of him.
Letting a client in like that could endanger both of them. He never wanted to risk that again.
“You can just call me Roman, okay? Let’s go.”
He turned to walk toward the door, but Kate stopped him by grabbing his arm. Looking back, he saw she didn’t plan to give up on this.
“How am I supposed to trust a person who won’t even tell me his last name? You know who I am and things about me I’d rather you not know, for God’s sake. Do you think I enjoy having a near perfect stranger knowing someone out there might want to kill me and thinking I can’t take care of myself? I’m not asking for your blood type or how many people you’ve slept with. I just want to know your last name.”
“A and less than ten. Can we go?” he answered, pulling her toward the door.
“Damnit, Roman! You expect me to trust a man who comes waltzing into my motel room who won’t even tell me his whole name? No way. I’ll take my chances on my own. I’m not trusting someone who refuses to tell me something so simple.”
He closed his eyes and tried to remember he needed to be patient with her. That her world had been turned upside down in the past day and she’d lost someone she cared for. But the truth was, what she asked wasn’t simple. Telling her his full name meant sharing with her something he’d never shared with any other client.
It meant letting her in just a little more than he’d ever let anyone else in since…
“Kate, let’s go. My job is to protect you, and that’s what I intend on doing. If that means having to carry you out of this place over my shoulder, I’ll do it. I’d prefer not to go that route, but I will do it.”