Free Sleeping with the Playboy by Julianne MacLean

might as well tell you that I’m not involved with any of them now. I’ve been busy lately and keeping to myself. I haven’t had much of a social life, and contrary to what you think, those messages you heard didn’t all come the day you arrived. They’ve been accumulating over the past couple of months, and I’ve been saving them only because I never seem to get around to returning the calls.”
    â€œBut what if they’ve all been sitting by the phone all this time, waiting for you to call?”
    â€œI doubt any of them have been sitting by their phones, at least not over me. They’d move on to the next guy pretty quickly.”
    â€œHow can you be so sure? Maybe one or two of them truly are waiting for you to call. Maybe you’re treating them carelessly and you don’t realize it.”
    â€œNo, Jocelyn, I wouldn’t do that.” His voice was so direct, his tone so indisputable, she couldn’t even contemplate not believing him. “Besides, none of them ever had their hearts invested in me. It was only their ambitions.”
    â€œTheir ambitions?”
    â€œYes. You know, the Won’t-Mother-be-proud-if-I-snag-myself-a-rich-doctor kind of ambitions.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œI just know. And I never wanted that kind of asuperficial relationship, no matter how attractive or successful a woman was.”
    She gazed into his smoldering, green eyes, stunned by everything he was saying. She knew she had been misjudging him all this time, but she’d had no idea to what extreme. She’d imagined he was the kind of man who would use other people for his own enjoyment, but in fact, it seemed to be the other way around. He was the one being used, and he—as far as she could see—didn’t like it.
    Shallow, he was not.
    â€œIs that why you’ve never married?”
    â€œYes and no. I haven’t met the right woman, certainly, but I haven’t really been looking, either. Marriage just isn’t at the top of my to-do list these days.”
    â€œSo what’s been keeping you so busy lately?” she asked, changing the subject. “Besides watching out for stalkers?”
    â€œI’ve been raising funds for a grief counseling center for children.”
    â€œNo kidding.” The waiter brought the wine and Donovan tasted it and gave it the proverbial thumbs-up. The waiter began to pour some in Jocelyn’s glass, but she stopped him after the first splash. “That’s enough, thank you.” She never drank on the job.
    â€œAre you ever going to let your hair down around me?”
    â€œMy hair is down.”
    â€œYou know what I mean. Are you ever going to forget that you’re my bodyguard, and just be a woman?”
    Jocelyn cleared her throat. The implications of that question were disturbing to say the least, especially the way she’d been feeling lately.
    â€œThat might be dangerous. If I let down my guard, even for a minute, that would be the time something disastrous would happen. Rule of the trade.”
    That wasn’t the only reason why it would be disastrous, but she didn’t want to go there.
    Donovan sat across from Jocelyn, admiring the way she looked in the flickering candlelight, wearing that elegant off-the-shoulder black dress with the earrings Doris had helped her pick out to match.
    He could tell by the way Jocelyn carried herself that she had absolutely no idea—not a clue—how incredibly beautiful she was.
    Or how she was driving him insane keeping him on this side of the table, with the bodyguard-principal lines so firmly drawn. He’d chosen this restaurant for a reason, so she could relax for a few hours between walking in and walking out, and he could have a chance to try and bring out the woman in her.
    Because he knew there was a real woman in there—a fascinating and passionate one—buried somewhere deep down inside and anxious to come