My new assignment.
Dios mío.
I watch her cross the helipad, cataloging details the way I've been trained to. Five-four, maybe five-five. Petite but not fragile—there's curve to her hips, her chest, the kind of body that was made to be grabbed. She's not looking at the house. She's looking at her phone, frowning at it like it's personally offended her.
No signal out here. I could have told her that.
She looks up and sees me in the doorway, and for just a second, she stops. I see it—the quick assessment, the way her eyes travel up my body and catch on the tattoos, the scar, the parts of me that don't fit in her world. Most people look at me and see a threat. She looks at me like I'm a puzzle she wants to solve.
That's going to be a problem.
Charles Sterling's instructions were simple: Keep his daughter alive. Keep her off social media. Keep her on the property until the threat is neutralized. He didn't say anything about keeping my hands off her. He didn't have to. That should be obvious. She's the client's daughter, fifteen years younger than me, and so far out of my league she might as well be on another planet. I'm an ex-con running a security business held together with duct tape and favors. She's a billionaire's princess who's never heard the word "no."
This job is my ticket out of the void. Sterling's connections can legitimize everything I've been building for four years—proper licensing, government contracts, the kind of work that doesn't require me to pretend I don't see things. I need this to go clean. I need to keep my distance.
And then she walks past me without a word, heading straight for the east wing like she owns the place, which I guess she sort-of does, and I catch her scent. Something expensive and soft, vanilla and my cock stirs in my jeans like a fucking traitor.
Down.
I follow her. She doesn't acknowledge me until I start laying out the rules, and then she turns with those blue eyes blazing, all righteous fury and pouty lips, telling me she wants a different bodyguard.
No.
I see the moment it lands. The shock that someone isn't giving her what she wants. She's not used to it. Probably hasn't heard that word since she was a child, if ever. Her cheeks flush pink and her jaw tightens and she looks at me like she wants to claw my eyes out. I've faced down men with knives who scared me less.
"Go to hell," she says, sweet as poison.
"I've slept in worse places."
It's not a lie. Eight years in Corcoran will cure you of any illusions about hell. But I don't tell her that. I turn to walk away, already calculating security rotations and perimeter checks and anything else that will keep my mind off the curve of her waist in that expensive little outfit—
"I'm going to make your life hell. You know that, right? I'm going to be the worst assignment you've ever had."
I stop. I should keep walking. I should not engage with the bratty princess who's trying to get a rise out of me. I should remember that I'm a professional, that this job matters, that she's young enough to be—not my daughter. Not quite. But young enough that I should know better.
I look back at her. She's standing in the hallway with her arms crossed, chin lifted, daring me to react.
Brat.
"I spent eight years in prison, Miss Sterling. You're not even close to the worst thing I've had to survive."
I leave before I do something stupid.
The adjoining room is small and sparse. All I need is a bed, chair, and monitors showing every camera angle on the property. I requested minimal furnishing. Less places to hide, easier to sweep. Also, I don't need comfort. Comfort makes you soft.
I check the perimeter readings. Motion sensors active. Gate secure. No movement on the road for the past three hours. Thethreat assessment Sterling's team provided is thorough—some obsessive fan who crossed the line from worship to rage, detailed enough in his messages to warrant real concern.
You're going to die screaming.
I've seen what men like that are capable of. The ones who fixate, who build entire fantasy worlds around women who don't know they exist. When the fantasy breaks, they break with it. And they want to take the object of their obsession down with them.
Diamond Sterling has no idea how much danger she's in. Or maybe she does, and that's why she's acting out. Fear makes people stupid. Makes them push against the people trying to help them.
I should feel sorry for her.
Instead, I'm thinking about the way she saidgo to hell. The flash of heat in her eyes. The way her body language shifted when I told her no—not retreating, but leaning in, like she wanted to see what would happen if she pushed harder. She wanted a reaction. She wanted me to lose control.
And part of me, the part I've spent fifteen years trying to bury, wanted to give her one.
