The bathroom was not the sanctuary Harlan had hoped for. There was no plush bench in the corner she could collapse onto. It was all broken stall doors and wet surfaces, littered with discarded paper towels. Nonsensical insults and drunk philosophical sayings were scrawled across the yellow tile walls.

Harlan fought the urge to clean. When she was mad nothing worked her adrenaline down like a good dirt scrubbing or chasing away dust bunnies. All it would take is ripping that giant roll of paper towels off the wall, and she could start.

Another half-dressed girl, who looked like she’d been dipped in a vat of glitter, wobbled by and Harlan felt tears begin to gather in her eyes. What if this was it? What if she’d truly peaked, and everything from this point on would be the next disaster she never imagined could exist. Like a building with a hundred stories and she just kept falling through the floors, one painful tumble at a time.

“Are you all right?” an unfamiliar voice called from behind her. Before spinning around she began to spill her guts. A volcano erupting.

“I’m on a date with a kid who used to sell me stuff from the Boy Scouts. And my ex-husband shows up because I’m pretty sure he’s following me around.” Swallowing back the emotions, she felt a small tingle of comfort knowing bonding with a stranger in the bathroom might be the silver lining. Maybe every girl had nights like this.

“Sara-Beth are you all right?” the girl asked again, clearly not talking to Harlan at all. “Don’t pass out in there before you unlock the door,” she called into the stall. “Sara-Beth?” When there was no answer the girl hiked up her little leather skirt and clumsily crawled beneath the small area between the bottom of the stall door and the floor.

Harlan shivered at the thought of how many germs were being mopped up on that girl’s clothes. Or worse, on whoever was in the stall who’d probably passed out face down on the public toilet. She was far too old for this shit. Her first instinct was to call the mothers of all these girls and demand they be kept home until they could make better choices.

“How did I get here?” she breathed out, completely defeated. Closing her eyes, she bit down hard on her lip. Pushing her way out of the bathroom, Harlan gave up giving a damn whether Ben or Rylie had heeded her directive to leave or at least leave her alone. Let either one of them get in her way right now and she’d make them regret it.

“Harlan,” a deep voice rumbled from a solid chest that suddenly blocked her path in the small hallway outside the bathroom.

“What?” she barked, blinking back the shadow of the tears she’d fought off. “Who are you?”

“I’m your security detail,” the man announced, still blocking her from passing. The shadow he cast made the hallway dark.

“No,” she laughed humorously waving him off, but he didn’t move. “I don’t have a security detail because I fired them all. My brothers don’t want to listen to me, but I can take care of myself.”

“They don’t.” The man smiled, nodding his head in agreement, moving his sandy blond hair back and forth. His eyes were a cloudy blue and gray, now fixed on her face. Harlan broke the stare first, flustered by the perfect symmetry of his flawless face.

“You’re fired too,” she said, folding her arms defiantly. “Goodbye.”

“That’s not how this works.” He looked over his broad muscular shoulder as another man approached. With an apologetic clearing of his throat, he gently moved Harlan to the side. Just the touch of his fingertips, warm and strong on her arm, sent a shockwave up her back. A tattoo on his wrist peeked from the edge of his crisp white button-down shirt. A bad boy?

There had been a revolving door of bodyguards assigned to her by her brothers, but she’d found a way to kick each one to the curb. Either paying them off, driving them mad with her stubborn attitude, or losing them so they were deemed unqualified to protect her. Most of them were fools hired for their brute force and stern appearance.

This man however, looked far more model than meathead. As much as she wanted him gone, she wasn’t quite sure she was finished drinking him in either.

“I’m not to let you out of my sight tonight. I intended to continue working outside your view, but unfortunately it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to do that right now.” He was glancing back over his shoulder and checking his watch with an unease that unsettled her.

“How long exactly have you been working outside my view, which, let’s face it, is basically just stalking me.” Control had been something Harlan had clung to for years. When things went wrong, she held tight to the few things she could manage. But now, there seemed to be nothing that was just hers anymore. Not even her privacy. Worst of all, none of it was her own doing. It was her father’s bad business dealings and gambling that had put her and her daughters in danger. It was her husband’s drinking that ruined the dreams she had for her future. Control was a distant memory.

“It’s not stalking,” he bit back, looking insulted, focusing a steady stare on her. “I was hired by your brother Emmitt to protect you in light of the fact that you and your daughters were recently abducted and kept hostage in exchange for your father’s gambling debts. They feel the risk is still substantial.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” she shrugged off, though in truth the memory of the ordeal still kept her awake most nights. “Answer my question. How long have you been following me around?” The idea that this gorgeous man was lurking around without her knowing, watching her when she couldn’t watch him, seemed unfair.

“Since about two hours after you fired the last guy,” he explained, his jaw clenching tightly. “I was hired specifically for my ability to stay out of your way. But like I said, that won’t work tonight. I’m sorry for that. I understand you don’t want security. I was trying to give you the illusion of privacy.”

“Gee, thanks,” she huffed, watching the way his face stayed level and unaffected no matter how much attitude she gave him. “What’s so special about tonight? If you’re supposed to be in the shadows, lurking around behind me, go do that until I can get my brother to fire you.”

“I’d like to. But I’m going to have to throw your ex-husband out on his ass. He’s making a lot of noise out there, and it seems as though he intends to make a scene. Maybe worse.”

“I thought you were supposed to protect me from kidnappers who probably couldn’t care less about me, considering the deal my brother made with them. Rylie isn’t a threat. He’s my problem, and I can deal with him.”

“Your problems are my problems as long you are my client. My instructions were to protect you from anything that arises. Anything.”

“I don’t need to be protected from Rylie. If anything he’ll need someone to keep him safe from me. He’s never laid a hand on me. He won’t start now.” Harlan propped her hands on her hips and tried to look bigger than she was, but next to him it was pointless.

“If you could hear him out there,” the man started, a flash of anger like lightning in his eyes. “He needs a reminder on how to talk about a woman. I’m about to give it to him.”

“What’s your name?” she asked, scanning his face again. He had a scar across his brow that zigzagged, leaving a little patch of bare skin, and another small scar on his forehead, close to his hairline. Harlan usually hated the look of a man with a beard, but this guy’s rebellious unkempt facial hair was perfectly suited to his boxy jaw. If he weren’t in her way, if he weren’t making her feel like a child, she’d probably blush under the heat of his stare.

“Rocky,” he answered in a hushed voice as another patron passed.

“That’s not a name. That’s a movie. What’s your real name? The name I need to give my brothers when I tell them to fire you.”

“My full name is Dallas Rockland. I picked up the name Rocky somewhere along the way. You call me whatever you want.”

“That’s not a blank check you want to write a girl like me. I have a wicked sense of humor.” When his face lit with a small smirk, her chest fluttered.

“I’m not calling you Rocky. As a matter of fact, I don’t plan to call you anything, but to make this formal, Dallas Rockland,” she exaggerated every syllable in his name, “you’re fired. Or you will be, so just go.”

“Again,” he emphasized, still looking unafraid by her threats, “your brother Emmitt has made my orders very clear. I am to protect you, stay out of your way and out of your line of sight, unless a situation arises where I have to step in.”

“What is he paying you? I’ll double it.” Her hand came up to her clutch as though she could pull a wad of money from it, and she arched a challenging brow at him.

“Not possible,” Dallas said, his lips in a tight unwavering line.

“What do you mean not possible? I have money. I can pay double what he’s paying you.” Her voice rose a few octaves as his condescension grew.

“He’s not paying me anything,” Dallas clarified. “I’m paying him back.”

“Your debt is cleared then,” she countered angrily. “Whatever you owed him I’ll pay him, and you can move on.”

“I owe him my life,” Dallas answered, his blue eyes closing for a long beat as the words left his lips. “And that debt isn’t something you can settle for me.”

She opened her mouth to argue but closed it again quickly. Her brother’s military experience was legend but rarely spoken about. Emmitt’s deployments had been wracked with danger and, though she frequently wanted to wring her brother’s neck, she had no doubt many lives had been saved because of his service. “You served with Emmitt?”

“No, I’m not military. I’m a . . . no . . . I was a police officer.” The discomfort on his face was hard to watch, a world she’d just jabbed at without realizing it.

“A little young to be retired,” she said, watching to see if his expression would change.

“It’s time for us to go,” Dallas stressed, finally waving her by, as though the coast was clear.

“Fine,” she grumbled. “But when we get out of here I will call Emmitt, and he will tell you to leave me alone. He’ll order it. He can’t control my life.”

“And I’ll respect that,” Dallas agreed as they made their way back to the raised platform that would take them past the club dance floor and out the door.

“I checked the back exits, and I don’t think they’re suitable. We’d have to circle back around through an alley and that’s not ideal.”

“The door I came in is fine. Rylie won’t do anything.” Harlan truly believed that. Her ex-husband was a lot of things, but violent wasn’t one of them. Now she was worried about where he might end up. If he’d drunk himself sick, how would he get home? Wherever home was now.

Logically, leaving the marriage had been her only option. There was an obligation to her children that couldn’t be overlooked. But when she saw the brittle and crushed pieces of the man she once loved, guilt filled every inch of her body. These were his choices, his failures; she couldn’t save him. She was not enough.

“You’re right; he won’t do anything,” Dallas declared. It was far more about what he would allow, and not what Rylie would try.

“You picked up another guy in the bathroom?” Rylie cackled, spilling half the contents of his drink on the floor as he charged toward her. “My lawyer is going to love these stories. I’m going to have my girls back by the end of the week. You’re screwing some kid who’s barely legal then you’re on to the next guy. Some stranger.”

“You aren’t ever going to have your girls in your life until you stop drinking,” Harlan reminded him, saddened by the reality of how far Rylie had fallen. How much he’d lost. But also angered by the fact that he’d let it happen to him, and to all of them.

“Slut,” he bit out, a rage building in his eyes. “One of these nights you’re not going to make it home. I won’t need the courts then. The girls will be mine.”

“Let’s go,” Dallas said, putting his body between Rylie and Harlan as he guided her toward the door.

“One of these nights you’re going to end up face down in a ditch, lying in mud like the pig that you are.”

Her face burst open with hot embers of fury. People were staring now, listening over the music. Laughing. Judging. She had a diatribe of rebuttals, a thousand insults that would make him shrink down or maybe make him strike back, and she wanted to use them all.

Dallas placed a firm hand on her shoulder and gave her a look that could not be argued with. Just a subtle raise of his brow, a glare that said stay put.

He backtracked toward Rylie, and she was certain Dallas intended to crush him. Not metaphorically either. There was no doubt that he could reduce him down the way you might smash a soda can flat under your boot.

She knew every expression on Rylie’s face, the road map of his emotions. The way any wife does of her husband. Fear pulsed through him.

Rather than cocking his fist back or reaching out for Rylie’s neck, Dallas just leaned in. It was only a moment or two, a few whispered words, but whatever he’d said had Rylie frozen. The best he could muster was a simple almost imperceptible nod of understanding.

“Let’s go,” Dallas repeated, now at Harlan’s side again.

“What did you say to him?” she asked, her cheeks still hot and flushed.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s handled. Let’s just get to the car. This is a shitty area, and I’d prefer the rest of the night be uneventful.”

“My car is that way,” she corrected as they stepped outside. She pointed to the parking lot they were moving away from.

“I know,” he replied, keeping his eyes roving over every inch of the scene in front of them. “I’ll have it picked up tomorrow. We’re taking my car.”

“I’m not an object,” she said, stopping in her tracks. “I’m not something Mathew can broker into safety, and Emmitt can’t control the danger out of my life. You can’t just make me do whatever you want.”

“You’re right,” Dallas agreed, looking slightly somber now. “You’re not an object. You’re not property. You’re their sister. You’re their only sister.” He stood there looking at her expectantly as though again, he’d won.

“So what? That means they get to run my life? Both of them have made questionable choices over the years, and no one has stepped in and demanded anything of them. Why should I be any different?”

“Because you are,” he answered quietly.

“I consider myself a feminist, and I don’t appreciate the assumption that being a woman makes me less than—” Before she could go on, he jumped in with a passion in his voice.

“I consider myself a feminist too,” Dallas assured her. “These aren’t mutually exclusive ideas. You’re someone’s mom, Harlan,” he said. The sound of her name on his lips made her pulse with excitement. “For two people on this planet, you are their whole world. Their everything. That’s what makes you different.”

“But still—” she tried, but his voice grew louder.

“A man just looked you in the eye and told you one of these nights you won’t make it home. You’ve been used as a bargaining chip by the mob to hurt your father. That might be over, or it might not be. Is it fair that you need some stranger following you around in order to protect you? No. Is it damn lucky you have people who love you enough to insist you have it anyway? Yeah, it is. Everything about what I’m doing is a nuisance until I’m the guy taking the bullet for you. Then suddenly having me around doesn’t sound so bad.”

“You aren’t going to take a bullet for me,” she scoffed, starting to walk again, realizing there would be no level of debate that would get her out of this situation, at least for tonight.

“I might not have to,” he agreed with a shrug. “But I would. That’s how this works.”

“I don’t want anyone taking a bullet for me,” she insisted. “You don’t even know me. You don’t get to decide your life is worth less than mine.”

“It’s not something that needs to be decided. Trust me. You’re a mother. You’re a daughter. You matter to people.”

“And you don’t?” she asked, watching the profile of his face fall slightly at the question.

“I don’t. Now get in the car and take up your fight with your brothers. I’m driving you home.”

“I’m not going home,” she argued, stopping again just short of the car and making his face grow tight with more frustration.

“Why not?”

“Because I have an overnight babysitter, and I just had the most embarrassing night of my life on display for a club full of people. I’m going to get so drunk I forget my own name. You want to be on the payroll? Then buckle up, because tonight I do need protection.”

“From who?”

“From myself.”