I’m not smiling as I think about the notice I received from the mayor this morning about a fistfight over a house rental on the nearest property to the estate, or the irate phone call I received from the police department about the paparazzi outside the Crownhaven gate.
“We have more potential matches than we know what to do with, and the summer season starts soon. I’m…worried.”
Her look is sharp. “Worried about the security risk?”
I nod. Nour is ten years older than me and has way more real-world experience. Her gaze grows thoughtful. “You’ve never been their personal bodyguard, right?”
“We’ve never needed it. I run the security center and I drive them sometimes, but the estate is mostly quiet. Some paparazzi following Aiden when he got married last year, and we get the usual kidnapping and extortion scams. But now—” I bite my lip. “I think Tristan will need a bodyguard.” Fear threads through me. I’ve been on detail like this before, but never for someone I care about.
“He will. We’ll do five days on, two days off. You’ll need at least two of us, maybe three. More is better because you’ll always have someone at the estate and someone with the principal.”
Her tone is all business. I think of Tristan as a friend, but she thinks of him as the principal. As a target.
She must see the concern on my face, because she gives me a considering look. “You care about him.”
“He’s special,” I say. Then quickly amend it to, “The family is special.”
Nour’s brows go up. “Are you and he…”
My face heats and I quickly shake my head. “No. God, no.”
And after this morning,hell no.
“Are you planning to stick around once he’s married?”
I blink. “Of course. Should I not be? I love my job.”
She gives me a speaking glance. “How many wealthy wives want to keep a hot, young bodyguard around?”
“What do you—me?” I choke the word out. “You meanme?”
“You’re a twenty-six-year-old smoke show, Katie. You told me he runs with you every morning.”
“To stay in shape,” I protest.
“Because he can’t run alone?” She snorts. “You think she’ll be okay with that?”
There’s a dropping sensation inside me, like I’m in free fall. “You think his wife will fire me?” Even as I say the words, I hear the potential truth in them. Tristan might not want love, but he is infinitely lovable. He might try for a business arrangement, but his wife might want more. I don’t think I have a place in thatmore.
Nour’s hand settles on my shoulder. “I’m not trying to scare you. But I think about the best clients I’ve had. The ones who paid well and tipped me at Christmas. The ones who listened when I saidduckand stayed home when I said it wasn’t safe. They still weren’tkind.”
My mind flashes to all the events I’ve been to with people in Tristan’s circle. I’ve driven the siblings to enough parties, sat in enough back rooms, and been treated like wallpaper enough times that I know exactly what she means.
People in his world are rarely kind, not unless it means they can get something in return.
“Shit.”
“Exactly,” Nour says. “Just be careful.”
Cold sinks through me, hollowing my stomach.Everything is changing.It’s exactly what I thought at the party, and yet here, faced with the evidence of exactly how much is out of my control, I feel like I’m going to be sick.
What didSienna say about the apps again?It’s a numbers game. Right. I haven’t done this inyears.Last time it was dismal. Corny one-liners and misspelled texts galore. I remember wondering why the majority of the male population feltheywas an appropriate pickup line.
Inevitably, my job would come up and the conversation would go one of two ways—weirded out because I seemed more masculine than them, or weird because they were trying to prove they were comfortable with it.
Tristan doesn’t think it’s weird.
Oh my god.
