Her Enemy Protector Read Online Free Page B

with something a whole lot more believable than that.
    The man called Joe smiled again. “Julia’s going to marry a guy named Jim. He’s a friend of mine. A good man. As for when, I don’t think they’ve set a date yet. Things happened pretty fast between them.”
    “How did she do it?”
    Joe frowned. “How did she fall in love? Who knows? These things just happen.”
    Carina laughed. “No, no. How did Julia get away?”
    Chagrin flashed across Joe’s features, lowering his guard for a moment and drawing her to him even more potently than his physical beauty.
    “Ah. As I understand it, she contacted some people in the U.S. government who helped her hide from your father.”
    She narrowly eyed the man across from her. He was built like a soldier, as disciplined in his reactions as a soldier, and he’d been floating around in the ocean, wearing the high-tech diving gear a soldier would have. She took a chance. “Don’t you mean she contacted Charlie Squad? You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
    Joe leaned back, staring at her evenly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said flatly.
    Yeah, right. The denial clinched it. This guy was definitely a soldier from the Special Forces team, which was her father’s nemesis. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d listened to Eduardo rant and rave about Charlie Squad and what a pain in the ass they were. Hope flared in her chest. If Joe was part of Charlie Squad, she might just stand a chance of getting away, after all.
    He interrupted her thoughts. “The important thing is that your sister’s safe and happy. She’s worried about you, though. She thinks it’s imperative that you get away from your father immediately.”
    Relief and joy reverberated in Carina’s breast, along with a hint of envy. Julia had gotten away. Out from under their father’s oppressive control. No more acting as his banker, no more house arrest, no more gorillas following her everywhere she went.
    No worries about friends turning up dead in her bed.
    Cari replied wryly, “I think it’s imperative that I get away from my father, too.”
    “What’s the rush?” Joe asked lightly.
    A shudder of lingering horror whisked down Cari’s spine. She still couldn’t sleep with the lights turned off. For the first week after Tony’s death, she couldn’t even walk into her room. And now she had to have a light on to even step inside what had become a ghost chamber to her. Her father refused to let her move out of the room and had called her a coward for being frightened of her own bedroom, so she’d been sleeping awkwardly on the loveseat in the corner.
    A pair of warm hands gripped her icy fingers. “Hey. Are you okay? You look a little pale.”
    She took a tremulous breath. “Sorry. It was rude of me to get distracted like that.”
    A melting smile. “Not at all. I’m just glad you’re here. I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t come.”
    She sighed. “It took me this long to get out of the house. As it is, a whole carload of my dad’s thugs are with me. Freddie and Neddie, my usual bodyguards, are downstairs, and three more are outside in the limo.”
    Joe frowned slightly. “Then I guess we won’t be making our escape from here tonight.”
    Cari blinked. “You’re serious? You were really expecting to take me away tonight?”
    He shrugged. “It would’ve been nice if it were that easy. A guy can always hope, can’t he?”
    She was silent while a waitress approached and set a glass of mineral water in front of her. She fiddled with the wedge of lemon perched on the lip of the glass, bemused by Joe’s choice of drinks for her. Most men plied her with booze to help along the cause of getting into the sack with a famous party girl.
    The waitress retreated and Cari said, “My father’s a really powerful man. Dangerous.” She added for emphasis, “Deadly dangerous.”
    “I know.”
    Joe’s quietly uttered words made her look up at him sharply. His gaze