Chapter 1
Paisley
Two and a half years later
“Please, just take it.” I plead with the man as he slams me against the bricks. My face instantly scrapes against the grainy wall in the deserted, stinky alley.
“I don’t want your money, bitch.” He kicks my legs apart, and blood and tears drip down my face, the salty copper taste bitter enough to stir the bile in my gut. I swallow down the fear as I try to focus enough to survive and not do something stupid.
I’m terrified. And even though I should be thinking of a way to get out of this or trying to fight him off, I can’t help but think that my father was right. I should have listened to him. He owns a freaking bodyguard agency, so it’s not like he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
All I wanted to do was pursue a dream. I never had a lot of aspirations in my life… only one. And it was something I’d dreamed about ever since I was a little girl; to live in New York City.
My birth parents met in this city. On a freezing cold New Year’s Eve many, many years ago, they kissed each other at midnight and were inseparable from then on. Even in death, they stayed true to each other and went at the same time.
Plane crash.
On their anniversary.
I don’t dwell on their loss, and I also never had a chance to really. But the one thing I always promised myself… I only ever made this one promise, and here I am. Living in New York.
My adoptive parents, Polly and Erik, have been so supportive. Polly more so than Erik because he didn’t want me going to New York at all. If he had it his way, I’d live with them forever.
I fought with him, telling him I’d be fine and that nothing would happen to me. We got into it because he wanted to have a man on me, and I told him I’d never talk to him again if he made one of his bodyguards follow me. I needed to do this on my own. So much had been taken from me, and I needed to feel I had control over my life.
Now, I wish I’d listened to him.
I scream at my attacker to get off, figuring maybe if I make enough noise, he’ll run away or someone will hear me. But that only gets my head bashed into the wall.
“Shut the fuck up.” He presses a gun hard into my temple as his other hand fumbles with his belt.
This is not happening. I cannot let this happen.
My dad has taught me enough self-defense to get myself out of a number of bad situations. But actually having a gun held to my head is terrifying.
Knowing he only has the one hand, I take advantage and use both of mine to yank his arm away as I whip my head back, praying to do damage and not get a bullet in my skull. He wails as I feel a rush of moisture hit my scalp. I don’t look back as I run out of the alley and toward the sidewalk.
He screams profanities at me, and just before I round the corner of the alley, the unmistakable sound of a gun firing makes me scream.
“Oh, my God. Miss.” A man jogging rips his earbuds out just as I get in front of him, tripping over a crack in the sidewalk. “Holy shit.”
All I can feel is pain. My arm is on fire as it slams into the ground at an awkward angle. He lowers himself so he’s close, and my head becomes fuzzy as I look around. A sticky wet stream rolls down my hand and drips off my fingers, tinting the gray sidewalk red.
A lot of commotion sounds around me, but I’m suddenly too tired to see what’s happening. Very distantly, I hear a siren, but as I drift off into nothingness, all that surrounds me is darkness.
* * *
Before I open my eyes, I remember where I am. Hospital smells are unmistakable. The annoying feeling of an IV irritates my arm, and the heavy blankets are scratchy. The stupid beeping of the machines makes me want to plug my ears. It’s dark outside, so I must have slept through the day after my arm was stitched up. Only I would land on a piece of glass and puncture my wrist and sprain it at the same time. Luckily, I only had that and a concussion. And I’m so thankful for that. It could have been so much worse.
But even through all the noise and the smells and the pain in my arm, I know he’s here.
I can feel his presence in the room, just as I’ve always been able to whenever he’s around. It’s been years and confronting him scares me more than the whole being attacked thing… but in a completely different way.
When I left for New York about nine months ago, he wasn’t around. In fact, for a couple of years before that, I barely saw him. The last time I did was when he kissed me. Then he left. I know his work is busy, and it often takes the guys away for long periods of time, but I missed him. And I’m so mad that he left and didn’t say goodbye. We were friends. At least I thought we were, and it really hurt when he up and left.
I’m just about to ask him what he’s doing here when the door crashes open. I’m surprised it took him this long to get here. Derik barges in, and I track him as he stalks across the room.
My adoptive dad’s real name is Erik, but I went to call him dad one day the two names accidentally combined. He told me he thought it was cool because it was just ours, so I usually call him Derik.
Ignoring me, he grabs Royce by his shirt. I only get a quick glance at him, but Royce is even more handsome than I recall with dark hair and a scruffy beard that I remember tickling when he kissed me.
“Where were you?” Erik slams him against the wall, and Royce doesn’t even try to fight him off. “Where the fuck were you?” he screams in his face.
Royce still doesn’t answer, but his green eyes find mine, and in them, I see so much remorse. Disappointment. He feels guilty for some reason, and I don’t know why when I haven’t seen him in so long. I don’t even know why he’s here. I don’t want to want him here.
Erik brings his arm back, and I wince when his fist connects with Royce’s jaw. I don’t understand why Royce doesn’t fight back. I’ve seen him fight before—when he and the guys were sparring in the ring at the gym, and once when a drunk man tried to grab me at the fair when I was fifteen. I’ve seen his strength on several occasions, so I know he can hold his own.
Royce can kick some serious ass, so his lack of defense baffles me.
Erik slams him again. “This is on you.”
“I fucking know that.” The agony in those words crushes my heart.
“Stop,” I try to yell, but my throat is scratchy, so it comes out weak.
Erik whips around as if he’s shocked I’m here or something. “Jesus Christ. Are you okay?” He shoves Royce away and takes three strides to my side.
“Yes. What’s going on?” I look back and forth between the two men. “Why is he here?”
“You got fuckin’ attacked is what’s going on.” Erik growls. “I told you something like this—”
“Stop.” I put my hand on his arm. He’s right, yes, but I can’t let him win that easily. “Something like this could happen anywhere.”
He shakes his head. “Something like this should never happen to my goddamn daughter.”
“You can’t protect me from everything everywhere all the time.”
“I can, and I took precautions so something like this wouldn’t happen, and it still fucking did.” He narrows his eyes at Royce, and I sit up.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Royce looks down, and Erik’s jaw clenches.
“Royce,” I whisper, knowing he never can ignore me when I say his name, and he shakes his head. “Royce.”
Finally, he looks at me, and before he opens his mouth, I know what he’s going to say.
Royce
“Are you serious?” She pushes herself away from Erik, and in the process, she forgets about her sprained wrist. “Ow.”
“Stop moving,” Erik growls at her.
“I can’t believe you.” She looks at the two of us and shakes her head. “How long?”
Neither of us give an answer, so she says the one thing again that she knows makes me weak as shit. “Royce.” God. My name out of her mouth, rolling down her tongue and passing through her lips does something to me.
“You were never alone, precious,” I respond, not giving a shit that Erik’s sitting right here. That’s what she is to me. So goddamn rare and precious it’s making me sick seeing her in a fucking hospital bed with a bandaged wrist and scrapes on her face.
“Are you serious?” she repeats, this time with tears in her beautiful blues. “You’ve been following me since I moved here?”
“It was for your own protection, Paisley.”
I wince at Erik’s statement because I know how bad it looks to Paisley. I knew she would be furious when she found out.
Erik is her dad, but I know her. He told me I had to stay hidden or he’d find someone else to do it, and there was no way I was letting someone else look after her. She had no clue I’d been following her for months, and that I’d intercepted at least three men intent on grabbing her. But none of that makes up for what happened to her today.
I will never forgive myself for letting her get hurt on my watch. Never.
“And I told you I didn’t need it. Look what happened when I had it anyway.” She throws her arm up, and I have to look away from her. It’s bad enough to see her banged up, but to hear her talk about it and imply it was my fault—which it was—makes my stomach bottom out. “Leave.”
“Pais—”
“Please,” she whispers and turns her head away from both of us.
“I need to talk to the cops anyway. I’ll let you get some rest and be back later,” Erik placates her.
Her eyelids lower, and she shakes her head gently. “I just want to be alone.”
I can tell he’s going to disagree with her by the way he squeezes his fists together. “I’m not leaving until we figure out what’s going to happen from here on out. I’ll be back later.”
She licks her lips and wipes a tear from her face as she peeks through her wet lashes at me. “Please just go.”
I walk across the room and stand right by her, leaning down so my face is close to hers. Noses brushing, I tell her, “I’m so fuckin’ sorry, Paisley. I promise you this will never happen again.” Because she’s going to know that I’m here from now on. No more of this hiding shit that I didn’t want to do in the first place. I knew something like this would happen eventually. I’ll take the blame, but Erik has a part in this, too… headstrong asshole.
“Royce, this—”
“This changes things.” It changes everything. She needs to know so much, but right now, the only thing we’ll be discussing is the fact she’s not going to so much as breathe without me by her side.
The bastard who attacked her took her purse. One of the witnesses said they heard him yelling as he ran away. He said he’d get her or something along those lines. Chances are he’s just a druggie who will toss her shit after he takes anything valuable, but I never take a threat lightly. And a threat against Paisley…
Erik clasps his hand on my shoulder, and I stand fully, but not before grazing my finger across her hand. “Get some rest.”
Instead of answering, she rolls to her other side, and I reluctantly leave the room. As soon as we get into the hallway, he drops his hand, and we walk to the stairwell. The loud click of the door shutting is the signal I need. “You ever put your hands on me again, and I swear to Christ, I won’t hold back.” The only reason I did was because it would have upset Paisley if I had retaliated.
He leans against the wall and crosses his arms.
I know, I know he knows I’d never do anything to harm his daughter. But he’s a good dad, and he cares about her. I can’t fault him for that, but I will not put up with his shit. I get that particular trait from my father, who I haven’t spoken to in years. No desire to, either. Not after what he did when my mom died.
Shaking my head to rid myself of those thoughts, I clear my throat. I’m not going to stand here and have a pissing contest with Erik. “You can go do whatever the fuck you’ve gotta do, but I’m not leaving her.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“You gonna make me?”
With a tilt of his head, he assesses me. “Where were you?”
My teeth grind together, and I take a breath through my nose. I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t drill me as soon as I called to let him know what happened. I knew he’d want to ask me face to face, plus he wouldn’t want to waste that time when he could be making arrangements to get from his home in Cali to here. “I’m still trying to figure it out. I didn’t get the alert that her door opened, and since I doubt she shimmied down the fire escape, the only logical conclusion I can come up with is the security system failed.”
“You should have been paying better attention and heard the door on your own.”
My head aches, and I pinch the bridge of my nose to relieve the pressure. “I did hear the motherfuckin’ door, but I had just got out of the shower. She normally doesn’t leave that early, and by the time I got dressed, she’d already hopped on the bus. Except she didn’t go straight to class like she has every single Thursday for four months.”
“I pay you good money not to lose her.”
“If I didn’t have to fuckin’ hide from her, I wouldn’t have lost her. Despite what you think, she’s smart, Erik. Every time I got too close, she knew.” From the beginning of this assignment, I hated that she didn’t know I was on her. That’s not what I do. I keep people safe by being close to them. It’s pretty hard to do when said person isn’t supposed to know you’re there, and it’s even harder when you live next door to them.
I took this job, one, because it’s Paisley. And two, I don’t trust anybody else enough. She’s mine, and even though she has no clue, that means I’m the only one who’ll be guarding her.