Page 48 of Auctioned to the Billionaire Bodyguard

He slowly picked his way through the course, climbing at the pace of a sloth.

“I’m not waiting on you any longer. I’m getting cold up here,” Nadine complained. She looked over the side of the wall. The other side was a rappel wall. She tossed a leg over, grabbed a rope and started down.

“No! No, no, no,” Marschall yelled, running full speed to the other side to try to stop her. “You don’t have a harness!”

I ran, too, afraid I was going to see Nadine flat on the ground, spread out like a starfish. Instead, by the time I got there, she was dusting off her designer dress and standing looking back up at the wall.

Marschall gawked at her. “You’ve never done a rappel wall before?”

“No.” She held out her hands with her palms showing. They were bright red and looked a little scratched up. “I don’t like thatside very much. It hurt my hands. And,” she held up one bare foot, “I got a blister,” she finished dramatically.

Marschall smiled. “Welcome to St. James Security. You just passed your entrance exam.”

She stared at him. “Seriously? I could be a security agent likeByron?”

“Well,” he hedged, “Byron’s the best I’ve ever trained. By the end of his training, I felt like he was training me,” he laughed.

I shook my head, smiling.

“But you could definitely become a very good St. James Security agent,” Marschall continued.

She stared at me. “Oh my God. I want to do it.”

My eyes widened. “Nadine are you serious?”

“Yes. Why not?”

“I thought you liked real estate.” I leaned in. “And you don’t reallyhaveto work, you know.”

“But you’re moving the headquarters to West Bay, right?”

Marschall’s head jerked around to look at me. “What?”

I held up my hands. “I’m still in discussions with Dad about it. Why don’t you come to dinner, and we can all talk about it?”

Marschall nodded, looking concerned.

“You wouldn’t have to move,” I assured him quietly.

He looked relieved. “Good. My kids are happy at their schools, and my wife has an established practice.”

His wife had been a high-powered attorney in DC. After she had kids, she wanted a slower pace and started her own practice in nearby Woodbridge.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Nadine said, putting her hand on Marschall’s forearm. “I just thought Byron might need trained agents from West Bay.” She looked at me. “We could be work buddies!”

I grinned. “That we could.”

“Little help, please,” a weak voice called from the rock wall.

We all hurried over to see that Reynolds was only halfway up the wall and seemed to have given up completely.

“I gotcha,” I climbed up, let him put his arms around my neck, and carried him down on my back.

“Please don’t tell anyone about this…” Reynolds started as I set him down.

“Oh, I’m telling everyone. I’m going to go on local TV shows and tell everyone that I beat your ass on a super elite training course,” Nadine crowed.

“Ma’am… Nadine, this is a top-secret course. You can’t tell anyone what you’ve done here today.”