Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
“You need to come home now. You’re fucking embarrassing yourself and me.”
She pulled her arm, lifting it just enough to make sure the camera caught sight of his hand on her arm. “Release me now. You’re hurting me.”
“You belong to me. I will fucking kill you before I let another man touch you.”
“Get him,” Rowe ordered.
Cole wasn’t sure if Rowe was talking to him or the other bodyguards who were waiting in the wings to take the bastard out. Cole squeezed Derrick’s wrist at a pressure point, getting the man to release Monique with a shout of pain.
“You have no right to touch her,” Cole snapped.
“I’ll do whatever the hell I want.” Derrick threw a wild haymaker at Cole, but thanks to plenty of training with his coworkers, he had no problem dodging the blow. He delivered a brutal straight punch right into Derrick’s nose. His head snapped back and he hung frozen in the air for a second, balanced on his heels, then collapsed onto another couple’s table.
Customers screamed and jumped from their tables. The restaurant erupted into chaos as the bodyguards and police charged in, scooping Derrick up and frog-marching him out of Rialto.
On his way out, Derrick was sure to shout plenty of death threats at both Monique and Cole, not that he paid much attention to them. The important thing was that Monique was safe and away from that monster.
From across the room, Cole spotted Ian as the man seemed to helplessly throw his hands up in the air, but he didn’t seem angry in the least. All the servers and bussers rushed out onto the floor, cleaning up the mess, plying the customers with fresh wine and complimentary desserts.
Cole turned toward Monique, who was standing and staring wide-eyed and shocked at him, as if she couldn’t believe they’d succeeded. Or maybe she was shocked that Cole had punched Derrick.
“Are you okay?” he inquired, hesitating to touch her after she’d been grabbed by her ex.
She nodded a couple of times before the words finally came out. “Yes. I—yes, I think so.”
Ian wove across the room with a relaxed grace and gently wrapped one arm around her shoulders. “Hi, Monique. I’m Ian Banner. Rowe warned me that this might happen. Why don’t you come to my office so you can get away from all this noise and relax? I can get you some water or maybe a fresh glass of wine.”
Her eyes widened and she whispered, “Chef Ian?” She went with the man, her attention lost on the local celebrity. Cole nearly laughed. Ian had a disarming sweetness about him that put the world at ease. She was in good hands.
Someone clapped their hand on his shoulder, and Cole snapped his head around to find his boss standing beside him. Rowe Ward was a short, stocky man with brilliant red hair and a twisted grin, usually put there by his equally twisted boyfriend, Noah Keegan.
“You did good work,” Rowe declared.
“Did we get what we needed?”
“Oh, yeah. I already showed a cop the recording off the camera and he laughed. Even if we didn’t get that, the threats he was shouting as we pulled him out are likely enough. It doesn’t hurt that the cops have plenty of witnesses to question. She’s going to be okay.”
Cole nodded, releasing a long sigh of relief. Monique struck him as a nice, caring person. She didn’t deserve to be haunted and hounded by an asshole like that. “That’s good.”
“Yeah,” Rowe drawled a bit strangely. He paused and scratched his bearded jaw. “Unfortunately, I think you might have a problem now.”
Chapter Two
“Let me think on it,” Rowe said. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll figure this out.”
Cole walked into Ward Security early the next morning, still thinking about Rowe’s last words to him prior to sending him home. Sleep had eluded him most of the night, leaving him groggy and his brain sluggish. His knuckles ached over that punch. Had he broken the man’s nose? Bastard had a nose of steel.
At ten till eight in the morning, the former warehouse-turned-office was largely a ghost town. The calm before the daily storm of chaos that crashed over the place. And it was always chaotic, whether it was the regular self-defense classes or the sparring and training sessions for the bodyguards or simply the antics of his coworkers.
And Cole loved it—both the quiet and the chaos.
Ward Security was more than a job. The place had become a second home to him. He loved the usual noise, the plethora of different personalities of his coworkers, and the general friendly atmosphere.
This was the first job he’d ever had where he really felt like part of the workings. Part of a team. His contribution made a clear difference in the lives of the people he supported as well as the clients of Ward Security. He couldn’t imagine working anywhere else.