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“Aw, crap,” I mutter.
“Ashford?” Lionel blinks at the burly man stalking towards us before meeting my gaze again. “As in the Ashford family?”
I grimace. “Yeah, I’m afraid so.” Scrambling off him, I shoot to my feet and give him an apologetic smile. “I really have to go, but I’ll see you around.” I wiggle my eyebrows. “And thanks for the assistance.”
Lionel sits up, looking very confused, and stares at me as I skirt around the room until my bodyguard, Max, is no longer blocking the door. Then I make a run for it.
“Ms. Ashford,” Max snaps as I dart across the floor and skid into the hallway on the other side of the door. “We’ve talked about this. You have to stop doing…”
The rest of his sentence is drowned out by the thumping music. But it can’t block out the sound of his feet stomping down the corridor after me. People leap out of the way as I hurry towards one of the rooms at the far end. Well, everyone except two blonde girls who are leaning against the wall opposite an open door, looking very suspicious.
“Is everything ready?” I ask as I reach them.
“Yeah,” Jenn replies.
Her younger sister, Aurora, nods towards the open doorway. “But make sure you don’t move the plastic sheet. If you ruin the floor, our housemates are going to kill us.”
“I won’t. I promise.” I blow them a kiss. “Thank you.”
But I don’t have time to wait for their reply. Darting into the deserted room beyond, I push the door almost all the way shut. Then I grab the bucket waiting for me on the floor and leap up onto the chair by the wall. With steady hands, I balance the bucket on top of the door. Once it’s in place, I jump back down and hurry over to the middle of the room.
I have just barely checked that the wide plastic sheet is still in place before the door is shoved open and Max storms across the threshold.
“Ms. Ashford,” he growls. “My patience is at an end. If you don’t?—”
The bucket falls from the top of the door and tips down over him.
Red paint splashes down over his head, his black suit, and the plastic sheet that covers the floor.
He stops.
For a while, nothing moves. From the middle of the room, I watch as Max simply stands there. Red paint slides down his skin and clothes and drips down on the floor. That muted dripping is the only sound in the room.
Slowly, he looks down at his ruined suit. Then he wipes paint from his face before dragging his furious gaze up to me.
I grin. “It could’ve been blood. But it’s not.”
He forces out a long, angry breath. “That’s it. I quit.”
Victory pulses through me.
Raising a red-smeared hand, he stabs a finger at me. “Good luck finding another bodyguard. I know everyone in the business, and I will warn them all to steer clear of you. No professional bodyguard within a hundred-mile radius will touch you with a ten-foot pole.”
Yanking his hand down, he flicks more paint onto the plastic sheet before whipping around and stalking out the door.
A wide smile spreads across my lips as I watch him leave while I finally reply, “That’s what I’m counting on.”
My entire life has been monitored. For almost as long as I can remember, I have had a bodyguard lurking over my shoulder and watching my every move. But that stops now. I want freedom. Independence. And now I will get it.
Over the years, I have scared off dozens of bodyguards, but my father has always found someone else to take the job. But no more. After the absolute hell I put Max through, word will spread to everyone in the business.
I’ve finally won.
Because no one will be crazy enough to come anywhere near me now.
2
JACE
