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KAYLA
The walk back home didn’t do anything to help me cool off. In fact, it just made me even more angry. Especially since Jace walked so close to me that I felt like I was being suffocated by his massive body hovering over me. It got to the point where I even tried to physically push him farther away, which of course didn’t work. And that just made me even more furious.
Stalking into my apartment, I try to slam the door shut before Jace can get through. Or to slam it right into him. Or preferably both.
Neither plan works.
He just yanks up an arm and grabs the door before it can hit him. I grind my teeth as I release the handle and storm across the threshold. Jace follows with a casual smile on his face, as if none of this fazes him in the slightest. Nothing ever does.
“I’ve said it before, little demon,” Jace begins from behind me as he closes and locks the front door. “If you’re civil, I’m civil. So stop trying to ditch me.”
Stopping in the middle of the living room, I whirl around so fast that I almost knock over the potted plant next to the couch. Anger still courses through me, and the casual expression on Jace’s features is just making it worse.
“Then stop following me everywhere!” I snap back at him.
Jace shoots me a look while closing the distance between us. “You know I can’t do that. It’s literally my job to follow you everywhere.”
Deep down, I know that he’s right, of course. He has literally been hired to follow me everywhere. And none of that is his fault. But I’m too angry to be logical. Especially since Jace is… well, Jace.
I can never slip away from him like I always managed to do with my other bodyguards. And I can’t make him frustrated and drive him to quit like I did with all the others. And worst of all, he has somehow managed to make me like him, which none of the others ever even came close to doing.
And I fucking hate him for that.
“Then quit!” I scream back at him in response. The words tear out of my lungs with both anger and desperation.
Emotions flicker across Jace’s features for a second. But it’s too fast for me to decipher. Then that casual expression is back on his face again, and he shrugs.
“Can’t do that either,” he says.
Frustration rips through my insides as I stare up at him and snap, “I don’t want you here!”
“Unfortunately for you, that’s not up to you.”
“I don’t need you! I don’t need a fucking bodyguard.”
“Your father seems to disagree.”
“My father.” I practically spit out the words. Rage still courses through me like molten fire, and I start pacing back and forth on the floor, because if I don’t do something to expend all of the restlessness inside me, I’m going to explode. It feels as if lightning is flashing through my veins as I turn my head to meet Jace’s eyes while I continue pacing. “My father is acting as if we’re in the mafia. We’re a fucking real estate family! No one is going to assassinate me.”
Jace nods a couple of times, as if conceding the point. “No?—”
I throw out a hand. “See? Even you agree with that.”
“But,” he continues, cutting me a look as he picks up from where I interrupted him. “Someone might kidnap you and hold you for ransom. It’s not as dangerous as being assassinated, obviously, but it’s still an experience that I assume you want to avoid.”
“Kidnapped?” Stopping my pacing, I give him an incredulous look. “No one is going to kidnap me.”
He crosses his arms over his broad chest as he stares me down. “Your family is one of the richest families in the entire state.”
“So?”
“So, that gives desperate idiots a motive to kidnap you in order to extort money from your father.”
“Are you even listening to yourself?” Staring up at him, I shake my head at him in complete disbelief. “Are you actually hearing the words coming out of your mouth right now? Kidnapping a rich heir and holding them for ransom?” An exasperated sigh rips from my lungs, and I stab a hand at his chest. “No one does that! This isn’t some crime drama on TV.”
“Yes, they do. These kinds of things do happen. More than you think.”
Anger sears through me, and I give his chest a shove as I glare up at him. “I know that you don’t live in the real world, but I do. Your world might be full of spies running across rooftops and highspeed car chases and sniper rifles and all that action hero stuff you see on TV. But my world is not like that. My world is just business classes and annoying homework and coffee with my friends and loud parties full of drunk rich kids.”
