Rafe arched one brow. “He’ll be fine. I didn’t hurt him.”
I crossed my arms and scowled. “So this is my life now?”
He shrugged. “Pretty much. At least as long as you work for Grace.”
I screwed my hands into fists and wanted to stomp my feet like a little girl. “That kind of sucks.”
“Sorry,” he said again. “I have a list of people who have the okay to be alone with you. That guy wasn’t on it.”
“Can Iputhim on it?”
“Yes. After a background check.”
I gave him a long look. “How do I know you’re for real? I mean, why didn’t Grace tell me about you before tonight?”
He sighed, like he’d heard the question a million times before, and pulled out his phone. He jabbed a couple buttons and waited until Grace picked up the video call, then passed the phone to me.
“Victoria?”
I stared at her face on the screen. “I didn’t know my bodyguard was starting tonight.”
“No?” She looked away, down at her desk – she was still at her desk after ten on a Friday night? “I’m sorry. I thought I’d mentioned it.”
“You did not.”
Her gaze returned to mine. “Again, my apologies. But I did tell you this would be part of the contract. Are you...displeased with Rafe?”
I glanced over to where he stood a few feet away, unmoving, unsmiling, muscles popping. I was, but not in the way she meant. “I guess not.”
“Wonderful. You’re in good hands with him.”
I’ll bet I was. Those hands were enormous. My face went hot. Before I knew it, without a goodbye she’d ended the call. I returned the phone to Rafe. “I’ve got three hours left in my shift,” I said and walked back inside.
“I’ll be here,” he said as he followed me, and he was, the whole rest of the night.
“What the hell happened out there?”Charlie asked later, when the crowd thinned and we finally had time to talk.
I told him as much as I knew, and he shook his head in sympathy. It was after one o’clock in the morning when we finally closed out the register and wiped down the bar for the last time. “I’m not sure when I can work again,” I said. “I’m getting my first real assignment next week and…”
“I know. Don’t worry, I’m interviewing for someone permanent. I love ya, Vic, and you’re gonna be tough to replace, but it looks like this new gig of yours might get complicated. I can’t have your bodyguard roughing up the customers, ya know?”
I did know. I gave him a hug.
“Does this mean I'm on the approved list?” he said.
“You are most definitely on the approved list,” I said, loud enough that Rafe could hear. “Forever.”
“I’ll drive you home,” Rafe said when we got outside.
“I live two blocks from here. I can walk.”
He took my arm and steered me toward a sleek black Cadillac. “Not at night. And not while you’re working for Grace.” Then, as if I was a kid who couldn’t be trusted, he put me into the passenger side and closed the door behind me.
I sat in silence, not telling him my address, but apparently he didn’t need it. A few minutes later we pulled up outside the townhouse. I reached for the door handle and was out in a flash, but he was right beside me.Fine.Since it was dark and going on one-thirty in the morning, I acquiesced and let him walk me up the front steps. Honestly, if things were different, I might have liked this royal treatment. Being escorted home, having potential boyfriends screened, was kind of dope. But it was all happening too fast. I felt edgy, not myself, like I’d been dropped inside someone else’s skin.
Rafe walked me all the way to the door, his head continually on a swivel. He checked out our postage stamp of a front yard and the narrow driveway along the left side of the house. “What’s back there?”
“Just two parking spots.”
