“And how exactly are you going to pull that off?”

She had a point. As much as he might want to, he couldn’t exactly throw her over his shoulder and drag her out without attracting the attention of at least a few good Samaritans, right along with the prison guard behind the bar, who probably had a handgun tucked away somewhere.

Lucy sauntered off, ass wiggling. She found another table, this one holding an older and tougher crowd. His temper surged. She was a big girl, and if this was the way she wanted it, to hell with her.

He began to elbow his way toward the door, then paused. Some of the women were watching her a little too closely, probably because they didn’t like the male attention she was attracting. But maybe they were trying to place her face, and if that happened … He imagined cell phones pulled out, cameras clicking away, people pressing in on her …

He ordered a club soda, leaned against the bar, and watched her until the men at the table got uneasy and stopped talking to her. She tried another table, but he had his glare on good and strong, and they didn’t roll out the welcome mat either. Instead of calling it a night, she came toward him, the ass-wiggling a thing of the past. Her footsteps were firm, her eyes steady, and beneath all that makeup, she looked like a woman who knew her way around the world’s power centers.

“Thanks to whatever it was you ordered for me, I’m sober,” she said with deadly seriousness. “I know exactly what I’m doing, and I don’t need your protection.” She lifted her chin. “I’ve spent a decade under guard. That’s more than enough. As of right now, we’ve broken up. I want you to leave.”

A blinding fury claimed him, the kind of fury he’d thought was behind him. He slammed his drink down on the bar. “You’ve got it, sister.”

LUCY HAD GOTTEN RID OF Panda, but she’d also lost her party spirit. Why did he have to show up and spoil everything? Still, she shouldn’t have flown off the handle like that. It was Temple’s fault. Her smug certainty that Lucy had fallen in love with him had made Lucy panicky.

She shouldn’t be. Temple was wrong. Lucy wasn’t the kind of woman to fall in love with one man two and a half months after she’d been in love with another. And she especially wasn’t the kind of women to fall in love with someone who was so guarded that he refused to reveal anything about himself. Still, some part of her wished she hadn’t announced they were breaking up quite yet, even though summer was nearly over and he’d be leaving soon.