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Holy shit.
My mind is reeling as I make a pit stop in the bathroom to wash up. I splash on a bit of cologne—not too much. Girls like that. Then I leave my room and knock on Layla’s door.
My pulse is racing. Everything’s different now.
“Come in!” she calls.
When I open the door, I spot Layla seated on the sofa with the remote control in her hand. For a moment, I’m speechless as I stare at her. Her parents released me from my promise. That doesn’t mean my boss would be okay with the idea of me dating my client, but it doesn’t say anything in our employee handbook specifically banning me from doing that.
“Jason? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” I close the door behind me. “I’m fine.”
As I stand there staring at her, I don’t see a client. I see a beautiful young woman who takes my breath away. One who’s no longer off-limits to me. I’m completely at a loss as to how to proceed.
Do I tell her?
Hey, fun fact—your parents said they’d be fine with it if we started dating. What d’you say?
What if she doesn’t want that with me? What if I’m just a bodyguard to her, and she’s not looking for anything more? Would that makemethe presumptuous, entitled prick? And how do I find out if she’s interested without putting her on the spot?
Everything just got really complicated really quickly.
She eyes me warily. “Are you sure everything’s all right?”
“Absolutely.”
Smiling, she points to the switch on the wall. “Would you mind turning off the light?”
I turn off the chandelier and join her on the sofa. Suddenly, just sitting next to her takes on a whole new meaning. A wall—a barrier—between us is suddenly gone, and my body is lit up like a bonfire.
She puts her feet up on the coffee table, and I smile when I see she’s wearing socks with panda bear faces on them. She starts shuffling through the movies on demand. “What do you want to watch?”
“It’s your turn to pick,” I remind her.
She looks pensive. “I’m trying to think of something a guy would like.”
“Anything you choose is fine, really.” And it’s the truth. I probably don’t have the attention span right now to concentrate on a movie. I’m preoccupied by the fact that she’s right here beside me and her parents have untied my hands.
“How about the new King Kong movie?” she suggests.
“That sounds great.” Seriously, we could watch anything, and I’d be happy.
As the movie starts rolling, I check her blood sugar level, and it is good, just like she said.
“You’re in a good mood,” I say. “You’re not upset over what happened with Reese this evening?”
She shakes her head. “Not really. I didn’t want to go out with him in the first place. I just wanted to go on adate.” She shrugs. “Now I have.”
“You should have told me you didn’t want to go out with him. I never would have encouraged you to go if I knew you didn’t want to.”
“It’s all right.” As she settles back on the sofa, her arm lightly brushes mine, and she glances up at me with those big, beautiful eyes. “I’m glad you were with me tonight. Thanks for what you did.”
“You don’t need to thank me. I—”
“Please don’t say you were just doing your job.”
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
