His office is huge, twice the size of the office he’d started in all those years ago when I was just a toddler running around with pigtails and overalls and Converse sneakers. I smile, thinking about how far he’s come. How far we’ve come together. “Janine took him on a tour of the floor, he should be back shortly,” he tells me referring to his assistant. He eyes me from behind his desk and sends a hand through his chocolate brown hair that is graying at the temples—thanks to me because he only has two sons and they don’t give him half as much stress. “Listen, I know you’re not thrilled about this, but we just want to keep you safe. Your mother is a bit shook up about all of this. So is your dad.” He swallows and lets out a sigh. “So am I.” He leans forward. “For what it’s worth, I would be really sad if something happened to you.” He blinks a few times before turning to his computer. “And not just because you’re my biggest client.” I roll my eyes and his green irises find mine. “I’m serious Shay.”

  I wave a hand dismissively. “I know, I know, I’m the daughter you never had blah blah blah.”

  “Never wanted, but that’s neither here nor there.” He gives me a side smile just as a knock sounds on the door.

  “Ah, this must be Damian.” He stands and adjusts his suit jacket just as the door opens behind me, and when I turn around all of the air leaves my lungs and I can feel my heart hammering in my chest as I take in what is possibly the best-looking man I’ve ever seen in real life.

  And I have seen a LOT of good-looking men in real life.

  Dressed in a black suit without a tie making him look like he just stepped of the runway, Damian has to be somewhere over six feet because I’m five seven and I can tell he will tower over me once he gets closer. He has dark hair, cut short, blue eyes, and a square jaw hidden by a light dusting of stubble. My eyes trail down his form quickly. Broad shoulders. A trim waist. Muscles I make out under the suit. A hint of a tattoo peeking out from under his suit sleeve on his hand.

  Holy fuck.

  “Hello.” I finally speak, and I’m not sure how much time has passed but Cooper doesn’t miss a beat so maybe I wasn’t ogling him as openly as I thought.

  “Shay, this is Damian Hunt.” He nods towards him and then back to me. “Not that she needs any introduction, but Shay Eastwood.” He points towards me before moving back to his desk and my cheeks heat.

  Damian holds out his hand and I slide mine into his, shaking it slowly. His handshake is firm and when I look down, his fingers completely envelop mine making me feel small and feminine next to this big, muscular man. He has this air of ruggedness while still being very clean-cut, and a vision of him lifting me into his arms and pushing me against a wall as my legs wrap around him flashes through my brain.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Miss.” His voice is smooth, rich, deep, and sexy as hell.

  Fuck.

  I absolutely cannot have a crush on my new bodyguard.

  “You too,” I squeak, yes actually fucking squeak, and I clear my dry throat not knowing what else to say.

  I’d been given his file last night, to learn a little bit more about his background, so I don’t know what to ask him that I don’t already know at this moment. Thirty years old. An undergraduate degree in computer engineering. A tour overseas with the Army, followed by security once he retired. A black belt in karate and a whole laundry list of fighting techniques, not to mention a self-defense teacher and still a trainer for the military when needed.

  No one is getting by him and the thought makes my toes curl in my shoes.

  “So, with this being a trial period, I was thinking he’d accompany you for the rest of the day and all week and we’ll see how it goes.”

  I realize that Cooper has been talking this whole time and I turn around to face him. “What?”

  “You’re not on set this week, so we thought this was the perfect time for you guys to get to know each other a little.” We were on a recess for the spring, and we wouldn’t be back to filming for another two weeks which means I have more free time than usual. Veronica, some of our cast mates, and I were even toying with the idea of a trip to Vegas this weekend.

  “Okay, sure.” I turn my gaze towards him. “I…have to meet with my trainer and then I’m meeting some of my friends for lunch and maybe some shopping.” I wince, suddenly feeling juvenile and immature to this worldly man that has spent the last ten years being noble and heroic.

  He nods and pins me with a glare that both annoys me and turns me on a little. I raise an eyebrow in question, wondering why he’s looking at me like that when he speaks. “I would advise that you don’t try and give me the slip, Miss Eastwood. If I can’t trust you, you’ll have to switch to shopping online or having brunch at your house. You’re also not twenty-one, I would advise you not to try to order a drink.”

  Okay scratch being turned on, now I’m just annoyed.

  My mouth drops open and I turn towards Cooper who is fighting a grin as he types away on his computer avoiding my eyes completely. “Oh, you can go now.”

  “Cooper.” I glare. My back is to Damian, so he can’t see the look of rage I am giving him.

  “Bye, Shay!” He salutes, effectively dismissing us.

  Present Day

  I’d barely touched down in LA from my very quick trip to Canada when it was decided that I had to go straight to Cooper’s office, despite it being five in the morning.

  I didn’t want to go; I wanted to sleep for the next week. Crawl into a hole and disappear until I need to be back on set in a few weeks to begin the final season. I could feel the tension in my shoulders and spine. My head and back ached. My heart ached. The last thing I wanted to do was go to my manager’s office with my entire public relations team to do damage control.

  After hours of going back and forth on how we were going to “spin this” for appearances, we are finally pulling into the gated community where I live in Beverly Hills and the exhaustion from being on the go for almost twenty-four hours, including a flight to another country, is hitting me hard. Coupled with the feelings of annoyance over where things are forced to stand between me and Paxton, makes me feel like the walls are closing in. We make it through my private gate and up the driveway and my eyes flit to Emmett, my gardener, trimming the hedges that line the driveway and I give him a wave through my window. When my door opens, Damian, who’s been quiet ever since we left Cooper’s office, stands next to it just as he always does.

  For the first few months that he was the head of my security, he wouldn’t even let me into my own house when I returned from being out without doing a thorough sweep of the property to make sure I wasn’t in danger. But after he had a top of the line security system installed that he could access twenty-four-seven through his phone and a gate you needed a perfectly clean background check and fingerprints to get through if you weren’t already on my carefully approved list, he backed off.

  I slide out of the limo, push my sunglasses to the top of my head, and narrow my eyes at him.

  “Why are you being so quiet?”

  He’s still wearing his sunglasses so I can’t see his eyes. I’m not surprised he doesn’t take them off, though I know he’s looking at me.

  “What would you like me to say?” he asks before turning and walking away. “I assume you’re not going anywhere right now?”

  I fall into step with him and he enters the code to my front door. I leave the door open so the driver can bring my bags in, but I follow Damian towards the kitchen which is located in the back part of my house. “No. I don’t have any plans to go anywhere.”

  We walk into my state of the art all white kitchen, and he stops, placing his hands on the island in the middle of the room, and lets out a sigh.

  “So, you’re staying with him?”

  “I am not staying with him,” I scoff. Though I kind of am, I suppose. He removes his sunglasses and shoots me a look that says he’s not buying whatever I’m selling, giving me that one arched eyebrow that is both sexy and annoying. “It’s not that simple, Damian.”

  “Isn’t it?” A scowl finds my lips and I think he regrets his choice of words because his eyes soften slightly. “He’s cheating on you, Shay.”

  “I know that Damian. I saw it with my own two eyes, remember?”

  He nods before turning to face me head on and I see the sincerity in his eyes but I can still sense his irritation. “You deserve better than that, you know.”

  My heart squeezes in my chest hearing his words, knowing that he’s right, and also that maybe he wants better for me. “I know, but my PR team is not advising me to stay with him forever.”

  “Let me guess, just through award seasons?”

  I hate how transparent this all seems and how obvious it is as to why I would stay with him. “It’s not just about that. Being with Paxton has opened a lot of doors for me professionally and to their point, I don’t want to risk blowing up a relationship that might be directly connected to me landing a role in a movie or my next potential project.” My father did always say it isn’t what you know it’s who you know, and as of late, Paxton knows a lot of people.

  Right now, it seems that my team is on the same page that he owes me.

  “You don’t need him, Shay. You’re very talented. People are beating down your door to work with you. You’re up for an Emmy this season. Your career is at an all-time high.” I push away the smile that is pulling at my lips after hearing what I believe to be his version of praise. He thinks I’m talented?

  I stop myself from going down the rabbit hole of what his words mean and remember why he felt the need to say them. “For television, sure,” I argue, “but there’s a whole different world that I have yet to break into and with LA Dreams going into its final season, I want to keep my options open. I haven’t decided what’s next and the idea of movies does seem like the logical next step. I’ve been doing television since I was thirteen and I’m twenty-three. I just want to see what else is out there. I’ve been playing the same character for ten years across two different television shows and there’s a lot of pressure and speculation and excitement surrounding what my next project will be.”

  My parents always wanted me to have a well-rounded portfolio. They always said when LA Dreams ended, pending it ended on the studio’s terms and not for getting canceled, movies would be the next natural step. They didn’t want me to risk getting typecast into the role I had been playing for years: the popular, quirky, loveable, and very outgoing girl that everyone had come to love. A flicker of pain moves through me that this is the first major decision I’ll be making without them.

  “So, you’re using him?”

  I blink rapidly recalling the very same question I asked my PR team when they laid out this plan. “They want me to use the situation to my advantage,” I say repeating back the very words they had said to me. Damian rarely has much to say about my career unless it directly affects my safety. There were times he’d advised against appearances or parties, of course, but that was the extent of it so for him to have this much to say is out of the norm. He doesn’t reply. “Are you judging me?”

  He shakes his head. “No. That’s not my job.” He lets out a sigh. “I just don’t know who you have looking out for your personal interests and I wouldn’t want you getting forced into something you don’t want. Maybe this is the right thing for your career, but is this the right thing for you?”

  I let his words wash over me as I move towards my refrigerator to pull out a bottle of San Pellegrino. I’m grateful my assistant went shopping while I was on my five-minute trip to Canada because there was hardly anything but takeout in here when I left. I grab a container of strawberries and pull them out.

  “I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “Do you think this is a bad idea?” Damian is smart and perceptive and can see things most people can’t. Obviously, with his line of work. He can see a million different ways something could play out within a second.

  “I don’t think he should get away with what he did or what he’s doing.”

  “He’s not getting away with anything. We aren’t together. We were never a couple that engaged in a ton of public displays of affection and he’s in Canada so it’s not as if we would be spotted out socially anyway for the next few weeks. There are a few events we’re scheduled to appear at together over the next few months and then my PR team will re-evaluate with his PR team over what comes next. I don’t even need to talk to him except while we’re in public.”

  I don’t respond and he doesn’t say anything else. He just stares at me, his blue eyes are emotionless and hard and I frown at the way he’s looking at me.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” I whisper before turning around to grab a glass from my cabinet. I’m preparing to hop on the counter to grab it when I sense his presence, and when I turn around, he’s standing behind me. He grabs the glass that was just barely out of my reach and pours the sparkling water into the glass for me. I narrow my gaze at him. That’s…new. I was used to him doing things for me but not usually things I could easily do for myself and rarely while I was home.

  “I don’t like it,” he says, breaking me from my thoughts. He slides the glass to his right for me to grab. “I like order and organization and I think this has the potential to bring chaos and a lot of drama to your life and I work very hard to avoid that for you. This is going to make my job harder, you know.”

  “I do.” I hop up on my counter so I can be closer to his eye level and take a sip of the water. “Don’t be mad at me. How about a raise?” I give him my best cheesy smile and slide a hand under my chin.

  He shoots me a glare. “I’m not mad at you and you know it’s not about the money. I worry about you, okay?” His eyes dart to mine from where he was staring into space. “Someone has to.” His nostrils flare angrily and I can hear the implication. My parents would be livid over Paxton cheating on me.

  They went to war over me for much less. Shitty directors, rude co-stars, and news outlets they felt didn’t treat me with the respect they thought I deserved—my parents were there to let anyone and everyone know what wouldn’t be tolerated.

  So, a potential cheating scandal and a man who broke my heart? They’d be out for his blood.

  And his reputation.

  And probably monetary compensation for emotional damages—my dad was a great lawyer.

  His words slither down my spine and I hate the way it makes me feel. Almost like they’d be disappointed. He doesn’t wait for me to respond before he’s moving out of the room and towards the front door without another word. Damian stays in the guesthouse that sits just to the left of my house. There have been times he’s stayed in the main house, but for the most part, he has his own space. The door slams behind him just as I meet the familiar hazel eyes of my best friend, Veronica Walters.

  “What’s his problem? He almost ran me over coming in.” She points behind her as she pulls her sunglasses off and tosses them in her bag before moving around the island and pulling me off the counter into her arms. “Hiiii.” She envelops me in a hug, squeezing me hard. I texted Veronica everything that happened from the plane and I had to beg her not to call Paxton and cuss him out. I am still not one hundred percent sure she listened.

  “He has some thoughts over the fact that publicly I’m not breaking up with Paxton yet.”

  She lets me go and leans against the island. “Probably because he’s in love with you.”

  I shoot her a look, tired of that same narrative she’s been spewing for years. “He is not.”

  “Have you seen the way he looks at you?”

  He’s my bodyguard, of course he’s got his eyes on me all the time. “Like he’d take a bullet for me?”

  “Exactly!” she squeals.

  “That’s his job.”

  “That’s not how he looks at you.”

  I roll my eyes and my lips form a straight line. “What?”

  She puts her hands under her chin and beams from ear to ear flashing me her hundred-watt smile that has scored her countless toothpaste commercials and print ads. “He looks at you like you’re his reason for breathing and that’s why he’d take a bullet for you not because of what you pay him.”

  “V, he is not in love with me.”

  “I don’t know why you’re fighting my theory so hard like you haven’t been horny for him since the first time he looked you dead in your eyes and told you no.”

  I wince remembering that night and embarrassment flares through my body in memory.

  “First of all,” I hold a finger up, “it was before that,” I joke, “and secondly, it was a harmless crush when I was eighteen. Can you give it up? Besides, don’t you remember what happened the one time I tried it?” Before I’d met Paxton, I’d tried to channel my inner Whitney Houston from The Bodyguard—yes, I realize how cliché that sounds, and let him know that I was interested by not so subtly asking him out. He was definitely not having it and we definitely did not end up in bed together.

  I would say that movie gave me unrealistic expectations, but I know quite a few people that have fucked their bodyguards.

  Unfortunately, I am not one of them.

  “Because he knows that being with you in that way would get in the way of protecting you! Hello? Besides you had the whole dead parents thing going on for a while and he’s all you had and kind of took on a parental role.” She bounces up and down on the balls of her feet excitedly. “It’s actually quite romantic.”

  I blink at her several times. While she’s the only person who can get away with using humor to talk about my parents’ deaths because it’s the way I cope with it, I’m a little irritated that she’s making it a part of this theory that Damian has feelings for me. “You’re actually quite annoying.” She shrugs and moves around me to open my refrigerator and goes straight for the bottle of rosé in the door. She grabs two wine glasses and I put a hand up to stop her from pouring me a glass. “I’m jetlagged and exhausted and haven’t eaten much. I am not getting wine drunk with you right now.” I shake my head knowing that one glass of wine with Veronica could quickly turn into two bottles.