Page 33 of Serve ’N’ Protect

When Markus dropped his arm from her shoulder to close the door, she missed the solid reassurance he had given her. Without it, she began to crumble and turned so he wouldn’t see her lose her shit.

“How you doing, Morgan?” he asked gently.

She nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat. Then silent sobs bubbled up from a well she’d thought long dry. Markus’s arms came around her and he pulled her back against his chest. The silent sobs turned to audible ones as her body trembled and the tears flowed like a waterfall.

“Shh,” Markus whispered, his breath grazing the top of her head. “I’ve got you.” She gripped his thick forearms, clinging to him for several minutes while she sobbed out ten months of pent-up anguish. “He doesn’t deserve you. You’re better off without that numb nut in your life. Somewhere deep down, you know that.”

She laughed but it came out more like a blubbery, wet snort. “Numb nut? You are blunt, aren’t you?”

“I call things the way I see them. Your ex is an idiot.”

“Actually,” she said, turning in his arms, “he’s a good man.”

Still holding her, Markus repositioned his arms around her back. “If you say so.”

“He is.” Aside from the tiny bit about only showing up after he’d discovered she could stand on her own two feet. She pressed her cheek against Markus’s chest. “I don’t blame him for leaving me.”

Markus’s deep voice rumbled against her face. “A good man would never have left you, and he wouldn’t have come back under false pretenses.”

“So you heard all that.” She lifted her gaze to his. “Why didn’t you leave? You exposed yourself unnecessarily.”

He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I—” Ghost snorted. “Sorry,” he said, glancing to where Ghost sat next to them in front of the door. “We wanted to make sure you’d be okay. Besides, it was worth it just to see the look on Hugh’s face.”

She sniffled against him, then realized she’d made a damp spot on his shirt just below his thick pectorals. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, tilting her chin up with the tip of his finger. “You were too easy on him. It’s okay to get angry, you know. Might even be cathartic. Personally, I’d have bashed him over the head with that cane.”

She laughed, trying not to think about how good it felt as Markus began wiping away her tears with the pads of his thumbs. “Thanks,” she said. “For staying and for making me laugh.” Because, wow, it had been a really long time since she’d laughed sans sarcasm.

“Anytime.” He smiled but not in the same way he’d smiled at Hugh. That had been facetious and designed to throw Hugh off guard, which it totally had. This one radiated genuine warmth, full and bright, teeth and everything.

She’d done it, fulfilled her mission in making him smile. Too bad it had taken her ex-fiancé showing up out of the blue and her turning into a blubbering idiot.

The heavy weight that had been pressing down, suffocating her at times, didn’t exactly float away. Now, it was only hovering. A step in the right direction.

Fierce determination took hold. She wanted to walk without a limp. As Markus had said, she wanted to cycle and run, to play volleyball again. Not so that she would be attractive to a man, but for herself, so that she would stop feeling like that broken toy.

She took a deep, cleansing breath. “Let’s find the time to work out tomorrow.”

Markus winked. “You’ve got it.”

Chapter Twelve

Markus wasn’t the only one affected by all the inactivity. For the second time in the last five minutes, Ghost nudged Markus’s elbow with his snout. By this time of day, they’d normally be well into their shift on the north grounds of the White House, with Ghost giving the evil eye to a few sightseers who inevitably pushed their cameras too far through the perimeter fencing’s bars. Like him, Ghost was itching to get back out there and do his job.

“Sorry, buddy.” With his free hand, he urged Ghost to roll onto his side so he could give him a belly rub while he worked. Ghost uttered a discontented, high-pitched whine, then decided he might as well take Markus up on his offer and rolled over next to him. With his other hand, Markus clicked the restart arrow to continue viewing footage from the party.

This particular feed was from the front door cam. Delivery trucks finished unloading then either headed out to Dupont Circle or parked in the small lot behind the mansion. Capitol Florist. Dupont Rentals. Benny’s Beverage Barn. A large black passenger van with tinted windows pulled up then discharged at least a dozen people carrying instrument cases. Doesn’t everyone have an orchestra at their beck and call? When the crown prince of Saudi Arabia threw a party, he went all out.

From everything Markus had seen on the news, the crown prince was doing his best to restore relations between the U.S. and his country after a slew of questionable actions his father had undertaken that had led to worldwide criticism. Some outlets were suggesting it was time for a more progressive regime, one more tolerant of today’s ever-changing socioeconomics.

He yawned, reminding him of the whine Ghost had made minutes earlier. This had been a giant waste of time so far, but as Cassidy had said, what else did he have to do?

She was probably hard at work on that audit. He could imagine her sitting at the kitchen counter or on the living room sofa, surrounded by all that Christmas cheer as she pored over documents or entered numbers into a spreadsheet. He’d never understood how anyone could work at a desk all day like accountants did. Like she did.

When Markus hit that special spot on his dog’s chest that he loved, Ghost’s hind legs started kicking as if he were running a marathon.

There was a lot he didn’t know about Cassidy Morgan but after yesterday, he had better insight. The last year had been rough on her, to say the least. That dipshit trying to horn back into her life under false pretenses hadn’t helped any, yet she’d handled the situation graciously and peacefully, like a seasoned politician. Markus would have been satisfied smashing his fist through Hugh’s head and calling it a day. But it hadn’t been his place to intervene. He’d done that enough just by virtue of eavesdropping.