Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 141165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
I’d just like to be next to him.
To be a wingwoman.
His confidante.
His right-hand.
I want to slip into his back pocket.
Possibly even literally sliding my hand down south and squeezing his…oh-so-inappropriate, Jane.
I try not to pulse. Now is definitely not the time. But the air has lightened as chatter returns, cats scampering around everyone who’s gathered here, which includes Farrow, Donnelly, Oscar, Quinn, Thatcher, and Jack.
I sit on a stair, nibbling on a chocolate turtle, and I find myself picking my bodyguard out of the small crowd.
Thatcher stands incredibly stoic at the front door. He’s shrugged off his flannel, his plain gray crew-neck snug on his firm build. Features hardened, biceps chiseled, and shoulders braced in a vigilant stronghold.
His narrowed gaze slides along the room and lands on me.
I inhale a soft breath.
His chest rises.
I ache to talk to him. To ask how he’s feeling. I ache to be closer, for his large hand to hover beside my arm or waist. I ache for so much between him and me that I shouldn’t welcome or invite.
But we are allowed to converse. We should talk.
Reach out, Jane.
Just as I begin to stand, Thatcher detaches from his spot, and he crosses the room. His attentive gaze never leaves me.
My heart begins to race, and I lower back onto the old creaking stair.
My bodyguard halts at the banister. Towering above me, the staircase too narrow for more than one person to sit.
“Thatcher,” I greet.
“Jane.” He asks, “How are you doing?”
Chocolate melts between my fingers, and I lick my thumb. “I’m doing fine. I’m more concerned…” about you.
My voice fades completely. We both seem to tense in our silence, but the room is quite loud as SFO, Jack, and my cousins talk.
I break our quiet. “How are you feeling?”
Thatcher drops his voice another cavernous octave. “The same.” He holds my gaze much more securely. “I feel a strong responsibility to you.”
Dear God, let me breathe properly. “To protect me,” I state for clarity.
He nods firmly, but another raw emotion almost surfaces through his tightened gaze. He blinks and deadbolts it shut.
To protect me.
I push my wavy hair off my shoulder, hot all of a sudden. I need to backtrack, and I’m curious, of course. “What you found in the box, it doesn’t affect you? It’s not every day that bodyguards are sent roadkill.”
Security hasn’t discovered who dropped the package via a drone, but the anonymous delivery included a mutilated squirrel and a note:
For the tall bodyguard.
Fuck you.
That was all.
Omega thinks it must be a vexed suitor from earlier this morning. Someone Thatcher must’ve accidentally angered.
His expression darkens. “I’ve seen a lot worse than a dead squirrel.” He ends there. Cut and dry.
I hesitate to prod. “Can I ask you something more personal?”
He looks readied. “Go ahead.”
I rest my elbows on my knees, my mint-green tulle skirt splayed over them. “Have you seen worse while you’ve been in security or before this job?”
“Both,” he answers without pause. He checks over his shoulder for a millisecond, and I track his brief glimpse to the fireplace. To Farrow.
Farrow is holding Maximoff’s cheek and whispering in the pit of his ear. Less serious, I think, since Farrow smiles wider and wider with each word he murmurs.
I frown. “It involves Farrow?”
He gives me a serious look.
Nate.
The realization strikes me cold. The night that Nate was apprehended, there were only two bodyguards on the scene: Farrow and Thatcher. And he’s telling me that night was more horrific than a dead mutilated squirrel.
I want to express my guilt for trusting Nate, but it’ll open a dam and I’m not ready to drown in those feelings.
“Turtle?” I offer, holding up the tin of caramel pecan chocolates.
Thatcher has never rejected one before, and he doesn’t now. We eat turtles and face the room together.
I whisper to my bodyguard, “It seems Akara and Sulli are back on good terms.” They had an awkward month or so after Greece, but their buddy-guard friendship is intact.
The Omega lead, a six-foot-two commanding Akara Kitsuwon is dressed in his usual Studio 9 muscle shirt and backwards baseball cap, and he shares the Victorian loveseat with Sulli. Fuzzy pillow on their laps, their hands are clasped together in an intense arm-wrestle match.
I missed their bet, but they look about tied right now.
Thatcher studies them a little longer, and then his attention drifts to the corkboard. Where Oscar and Donnelly are surveying the photographs of suitors while eating Sun Chips and a pudding cup. I think they must have temp bodyguards covering their clients for a short bit so they could help Akara move in.
Jack and I make eye contact from across the room, and he treks over to the staircase to greet me. “Jane,” he says; his charming smile radiates a thousand feet in all directions.
The exec producer is very charismatic, affectionate, and a good friend to me and Maximoff after so many seasons filming We Are Calloway . We shed our armor and share our insecurities in the docuseries, usually with Jack first.