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Ever.
Sighing theatrically and rolling her eyes, she decided to pretend she didn’t know them from a pen. And it was true. She knew nothing about them. Well, except that when they weren’t protecting people as bodyguards, they went around unaliving them. They’d certainly accumulated enough ways to do it.
Soon she was tempted to ask them to demonstrate at least one way to get rid of someone so she could use it on them.
They were insufferable. Arrogant, terrible jerks who clearly had no issue disrupting her life.
Not only did they have her boss locked in, but he was also totally okay with three strange men who looked like movie stars hanging around the office watching her work.
How had they done that? Since going through a divorce, her boss had turned into a mean, cranky man, and everyone walked on those proverbial eggshells around him. Rayne knew that under normal circumstances, he would have packed her up and sent all four of them on their way.
But there he was, accommodating them, ensuring their comfort by bringing them chairs to sit on, arranging coffee for them, and freaking cookies.
But for her? It was the worst. There she was seated in the center of the freaking office, like a woman with a scarlet letter on her back, her coworkers enthralled as they whispered to one another about her business, particularly why three men had arrived at the office before she had, rearranged her life, and not for a second did they take their eyes off her.
She got accosted at the water cooler, the bathroom, and the kitchen.
The women swooned over them, the single ones bold enough to ask for their numbers. When she said she didn’t even know their numbers, they all jumped to the absolutely wrong conclusion that Rayne was hogging them for herself. Arg. What she wanted was to hogtie them to chairs in which they sat and toss them in the river. Yeah, that’s what she wanted to do.
The guys at the office puffed out their chests and tried to compete. She didn’t have the time for that.
The day couldn’t end quickly enough. She was, of course, the first to leave. Fifteen minutes early, but screw that. She was certain that if she didn’t move, no one else was going to.
Point blank ignoring them as they followed her, she marched to her car, climbed in, and took off without a backward glance.
She couldn’t bear doing this again tomorrow. There was no way she was going back to the office. In her car, she called her boss from her hands-free set.
She was due about two weeks' leave and now seemed like the best time to take it. She had prepared to fight her boss over it, but the man said she could take as long as she needed. What had they done to her boss?
Despite starving and craving an entire bucket of chicken and six extra double-thick milkshakes, she drove past her favorite chicken haunt and headed home to the slice of cheese in her fridge and a still-edible apple. That and her nighttime caller.
By the time she got to her door, cold dread filled her. Her door was already open.
Oh god. They knew where she lived. They had found her. They were going to slit her throat if she didn’t pay up.
Panic swirled deep in her belly. She wanted to throw up. Part of her wanted to turn around and flee, get on a plane, and just disappear. How had one tiny, really infinitesimal situation—a misunderstanding—blown up into full-scale terror?
She was still in the process of contemplating facing her fate or fleeing when the smell of food wafted through the small gap in her door. She had thought her tormentors had found her, but it had been the other lot of mentors instead, and she was going to hit them over the head with shoes for scaring her like that.
Also, what? She lived a very busy life with tormentors to the left and right of her.
Aggravating beyond reason, she used every ounce of force she had in her and shoved the door open.
They had gone too far. And then suddenly, she remembered Monty’s words. They were going to be her shadows. Day and night.
Day and night.
She would have preferred if it were her other lot of persecutors. At least she knew where she stood with them, also compared to the three men occupying her tiny apartment, they were infinitely less dangerous despite wanting to give her face a lift with their fists.
Chapter Five
Rayne stormed into her apartment, ready to go fisticuffing with them.
"What are you doing here? Wasn’t the office bad enough for me? Be glad I didn’t pepper spray you guys and then hit you over the head with my shoe before I called the cops.
Although maybe I’ll still do the pepper spray part."
She rummaged in her handbag, then found the canister.
