Sam

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OUR TRIP TO HAWAII was fantastic. It was romantic, full of stress relief, and filled with warm sun and beautiful views. It was a place I didn’t want to come back from, where all my worries seemed to rot away. From the sex to the crystal-clear waters to the music we danced to, everything had its confined space, and everything seemed perfect.

But now, we were back.

Our week together made everything seem so far away. The ordeal with Jacob. All the high-alert moments and guarding Derek's home. Getting away for the week and being able to unload that stress and allow everything to fade to the back of my mind made everything feel so distant and strange. Coming back to San Francisco was almost an out-of-body experience. Getting back to the role I was supposed to play and the job I was supposed to do proved harder than I initially thought it was going to be.

And that wasn't good.

“Report,” I said.

“Welcome back,” John said. “How was the vacation?”

“Wasn’t a vacation, John. It was a getaway so Derek could get his head back in the game. Now, status report.”

“Things were fine here. No perimeter breaches and no suspicious characters. Same with his company. No trouble. No fires to put out.”

“And no Jacob,” I said.

“Yep. No Jacob.”

“How the hell could he disappear into thin air?” I asked.

“It’s a question that’s been rattling around in my mind once I was able to deal with the fact you weren’t going to tell me where you and Derek went.”

“I had our location locked down,” I said. “The fewer people who knew, the safer he was.”

“I’m your second in command. You can let me know your locations.”

“Not this time, John, not unless it's necessary. You know this. You know why.”

“It was frustrating, that’s all. You didn’t check in often.”

“You’re lucky I checked in at all. We were in an area with sparse communication signals,” I said.

“At any rate, it was annoying. Had you needed backup or had something happened, more information than necessary would’ve needed to have been communicated. There were too many risks with that decision, especially since you went alone.”

“I understand your concerns, and I have logged them. Now, have we gotten anywhere with Jacob’s accounts?”

“No activity on his company card, and his other assets are frozen. The man can’t make a move, so it's doubtful he’ll do much. Plus, he’s got half the world looking for him right now. If he pops up anywhere, we’ll know about it.”

“I don’t get it. How does he pop up with a gun, try to shoot Derek, and then disappear off the face of the planet?”

“Derek?” he asked.

“Mr. Steele has a first name, yes.”

“So, you’re on a first name basis with our client,” he said.

“Doesn’t that usually happen when we take a long-term job like this?” I asked.

“It does. It’s just that when that happens, I can usually expect the man to try and make a move on you. Want me to give him a rundown of how this works?”

“Not necessary. If anything inappropriate comes up, I can handle it like I always do.”

“Well, tell ‘Derek’ it wasn’t like Jacob’s initial plan was to personally kill him, only to threaten him until he stepped down from his position.”

“Those letters didn’t speak that to me,” I said.

“The man could get into this house. If he wanted Mr. Steele dead, it would’ve happened. You know that. But with his previous security detail being as terrible as you said and Mr. Steele hiring us, it could’ve made the man desperate. Shooting him in his office could’ve been a last-ditch effort to get what he wanted.”

“That’s true, and it’s an angle I’ve been thinking about. But you know me. Prepare for every terrible scenario and everything else is a pleasant surprise.”

“You mean like the best friend none of us suspected?” he asked.

“Shut up. Your report’s done,” I said with a grin.

“Come on. You gotta joke about it a little bit.”

“Maybe when Derek’s life isn’t hanging in the balance any longer, and we’re done with this job, sure. But for now, you’re dismissed. Go check up on things at the company.”

“Sure thing, Sam.”

I watched John leave the premises before I went in search of Derek. Despite my insistence, he had me pick out a few outfits to bring home from the trip. The issue with that was, I’d only left with a toiletry bag, and being surrounded by trained security men meant they would notice if I came back with more luggage. So, Derek was tasked with getting our stuff in while I got John’s status report of how things had gone in our absence.

I found him later in the room I’d set up for myself in his home.

“I still think you should’ve brought the navy blue dress back,” he said.

“That thing was ripped beyond repair, thanks to your hastiness,” I said.

“I could’ve had it repaired.”

“Or you could buy me another one.”

“Now, there’s an idea,” he said with a grin.

I crossed the room and strode to him, allowing his arm to slip around my waist. He pulled me close to him as my hands planted on his chest, feeling his strength and naked warmth underneath his suit. The man looked glorious sprawled out in a bed, but damn, could he wear a suit, tailored to his muscles with some of the finest fabrics this world had to offer.

He looked luscious in them.

I lifted my mouth to his and placed a kiss on his lips. His hand came up to cup my neck, supporting my head as the kiss deepened. Our tongues lapped against one another and fire shot through my veins. I could feel my body pressing deeper into him as his hand worked its way underneath my shirt.

“We better be careful,” he said. “We aren’t in Hawaii anymore.”

“Ah, such a moment-ruiner,” I said as I pulled away.

“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Derek Steele, and I ruin all sorts of things.”

I giggled at his words as our foreheads fell together. His breath was soothing, a constant reminder that I was doing my job correctly. My hands felt for his heartbeat, a physical reminder of the life pulsing through his veins. He was safe whenever he was with me, and I would always make sure that was the case whether I was his bodyguard or simply a woman he wasted his time with. If there was something endangering him, I would be there to help him out of it.

At least, that was what I wanted to do.

“Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I admit something?” he asked.

“Of course, you can,” I said. “You can tell me anything.”

“I don’t feel like I can really progress forward until Jacob’s caught.”

I nodded my head as I took a step back from his body.

“Are you regretting Hawaii?” I asked.

“No. Hell, no. Nothing like that. That was a bad way to phrase that. I feel like I’m never going to fully enjoy what life still has to offer me with Jacob running around out there.”

“Understandable. We’re trying everything we can, but he’s not making a move.”

“I get that. I’m not blaming you for anything. I just wanted to tell you what was rattling around in my head.”

“It’s normal to feel that way. Things are resolved but not really. No more letters. No more threat to your company. But because he isn’t in custody, it’s hard to see the future when all the ‘what if’ scenarios are running around.”

“See? You’re much better at articulating this shit than I am,” he said.

“Because I’ve had a lot of time to endure them, but here’s the reality of the situation. It could be months before we catch him.”

“Months? Why would it take that long? Aren’t the FBI and Interpol looking out for him?”

“They are, but arranging that did take a bit of time. Less than a day, but less than a day to someone who had an escape plan is enough time to get out of the country and settle somewhere with no extradition laws.”

“Wait a second. Are you telling me my former COO who tried to shoot me dead has fled the country?” he asked.

“No, but I am telling you that not having him on the radar yet is weird. We overlooked him because of predisposed biases on both sides, but now that we know it’s him, we can’t put anything past him. If this was something in the making, a plan of some sort that he hatched, then we have to consider that he had resources to use if he were to get caught.”

“Then, what are your working theories?” he asked.

“I just told them to you. Things don’t add up. The attack in the garage. The hospital stay. How friendly he was with me. Every interaction I’ve had with him is suspicious now that we know he was the one pulling the strings. But then we have something else to consider.”

“And what would that be?”

“That Jacob was another pawn in this game.”

Derek looked at me with a blank stare. He ran his hand through his hair, taking a step back to the bed. He sat down with his hands in his lap as his mind began to spin, and I worried about what that revelation would do to his paranoid frame of mind. It was my job to keep him afloat on working theories, but with the slow switch in our relationship, I felt a growing need to volley these things off him that I would normally speak with John about first.

“You think someone else is doing this? Like they threatened Jacob or something?” Derek asked.

“I think it’s odd for someone like Jacob to want to kill both of us. When I went down in your office, he was reloading. The sounds of the gun. The fiddling around. He was loading himself up for a second round. He was desperate and had every intention of killing both of us. Why?”

“Because killing me got him his seat, and killing you got you out of his way? You could’ve overpowered him in a second. Hell, you did that night,” he said.

“That’s one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is to theorize that he was talking with someone else running the show. Someone else who’d bribed him or threatened him and wanted you to step away from your company. I get hired, I follow you around, and it’s only a matter of time before they want me dead too. Remember, Jacob was someone under the assumption that I was your girlfriend. He never knew I was your bodyguard.”

“Holy shit, you’re right.”

“So why would he elect to kill some feeble woman on your arm?” I asked.

Derek buried his face in his hands and heaved a heavy sigh. The relaxed, open, happy man in Hawaii was gone and had quickly been replaced with the man I’d met. The high-strung, close-minded, overworked businessman who was having a hard time understanding anything going on around him.

“So what do we do now?” he asked. “Where do we go from here?”

“We continue doing what we’ve been doing. Until Jacob is caught and until you feel safe again, we stay. Continue our surveillance. Monitoring his accounts. You keep on with your company, rebuilding businesses and turning them around. John and I will keep providing protection, and I’ll stay on your heels. We keep you safe until this is wrapped up.”

“And what if this doesn’t wrap up? Hm? What if it never stops?”

I slid my hand into Derek’s, slowly prying it from his face. I laced our fingers together, trying to draw on the last of the Hawaiian warmth from his skin. He turned his eyes toward mine, and I saw how desperate he was, how tired he was of this already, and how anxious he was to get back to his life.

“It will,” I said. “Because I’m the one running this show. It always gets resolved with me. My track record shows that.”

“Your track record shows no one gets killed with you,” he said.

“That, too, but I’ve never had a case I couldn't wrap up. Ever. Remember our conversation about scorekeeping? What’s my ideal number?”

“Zero,” he said with a sigh.

“Exactly. And that’s not changing with you, so get some rest. Prepare yourself to go back to work. You have a company that needs you and a facade you need to keep up. Your media presence isn’t exactly fantastic, so that mask you keep on is going to be important now more than ever.”

“I know,” he said as he straightened his back. “I know.”

“Promise me one thing, Derek.”

“What can I promise the most beautiful woman in the world?”

“Remember to take showers. You really stink if you don’t.”

We laughed on the edge of my bed, trying to push the stress away with the joy we were trying to recreate. Derek released my hand, slid it behind my body, and then rubbed my back to try and soothe me. He knew I felt the way he did. He knew the stress was mounting on my shoulders again as well. Not only were we trying to save his life, but now we were trying to conceal a budding relationship from the team so no one tried to remove me from my post. Derek was right. The emotions I felt whenever I was with him made me better at what I did. They made me want to help him more, and they motivated me more than ever to figure out where the hell this son of a bitch was.

It made me hungry for justice, and that was fuel I was going to need for the ride ahead.

“I should finish unpacking,” Derek said as he stood.

“And then, you get some rest. Your email can wait until tomorrow,” I said.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a grin. “If you feel it’s best.”