The Alpha Bodyguards Books #1-3

Chapter Seven

“S tart talking,” he barked .

My whole body shook.

My stomach in knots, my heart pounding, I hugged myself tighter, but all I could see was him being thrown through the air then slamming into the ground.

“You… you were thrown.” I couldn’t stop seeing the image of his strong body being flung back like he was nothing, then the impact when he hit the ground meters away, and him lying there prone. All because my car had just exploded.

Exploded .

A car bomb.

Oh dear God .

The tremors moving through my body took up residence in my limbs, and I tried to suck in a breath, but all I got was a lung full of the scent of gasoline and acrid burning.

“Who wants you dead?” he barked.

I pushed in on myself with my crossed arms, but I couldn’t stop shaking. “I don’t know.” The letter writer had never said he wanted me dead. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

“You’re lying.” He flew around the corner at double the speed limit, handing the giant vehicle as if it were a sports car.

As the velocity and shift of the vehicle pushed me toward the door, I thought about a seat belt. But what would a seat belt matter if this vehicle exploded? “I’m not.” Shocked and terrified, my words had no force behind them .

“We’re past the fucking games, Princess.” He bit out the last word, using my title as a weapon.

I’d never wanted to be a princess less than I did in that moment. “Where are we going?” His place? Like he’d said on his phone call? Did it matter? Did anything matter if we were being followed? Was he hurt? Was he bleeding? “Are you injured?”

He took another sharp corner and checked the review mirrors. “Goddamn it, answer my question!”

“I-I have no idea who would want to kill me.” I choked on the last two words. “Nothing like this has ever happened.” The explosion replaying in my mind, over and over, didn’t even seem possible.

He drove through downtown traffic and circled a block he’d already driven twice.

“Start giving me a list,” he ordered, talking and driving faster than seemed safe. “Disgruntled employees, psychotic ex, people who hate your country, someone pissed about the gallery show, anyone who hates you.”

Desperately trying to swallow down overwhelming panic, I tried to focus on the question. “I don’t have any disgruntled employees, and I don’t have an ex.” Unless I was dealing with the artists who showed their work at the gallery, or the few employees I had, I kept to myself. “I can’t think of anyone who hates me.” My employees were loyal, and my security guard, despite his shortcomings, was an old friend of my father’s.

He pulled into the underground garage of a high-rise downtown. “Any death threats, any threatening phone calls?”

I glanced down at my purse where I had all the letters. Oh God, please, please let me be making the right choice.

“No,” I lied. Technically, there’d been no death threats to me and no phone calls, but the letters had explicitly stated to not tell anyone or my employees would suffer. Terribly.

The bodyguard expertly angled the vehicle into a tight spot and threw it in park before turning in his seat. His stare intense, his eyes hard, his chest rose and fell twice before he spoke. “Car bombs are not random.”

Holding my breath, I fought not to flinch, to not even blink.

With a tight, controlled shake of his head that said more than words ever could, he looked over my shoulder and scanned the garage. “Wait.” He got out of the vehicle.

A second later he opened my door, but he didn’t stand back to let me out. Wrapping his thick, long fingers around my wrist, his other hand went around my waist and he angled me out of the SUV the same way he’d angled the vehicle into the tight parking spot—quickly and efficiently.

Once I was on my feet, he moved me forward and stepped against my right side. Dropping my wrist, his hand moved to the small of my back while his other went to the gun resting on his right hip.

Constantly scanning the garage and the ramp into it, he propelled us toward the elevator and hit the call button. The doors slid open on an empty car, and I remembered every word of warning he’d given me earlier.

I didn’t step in.

The pressure of his hand on my back increased, and he issued a single, controlled word. “Clear.”

His voice, the tone, the authority, the command of it, it was like a switch. My short, quick breaths gave way to an inhale, and oxygen I didn’t realize I’d been starving my lungs of filled my chest and I stepped forward.

Not breaking the mere inches that separated our bodies, he followed my lead and pushed the panel for the top floor.

I turned, and his intense gaze landed on me.

Blue eyes that I had assumed were nothing more than part of a too handsome face studied me like they could see every crack in my tenuous grasp on composure.

I sucked in another breath, but this one did nothing to fill my lungs with much-needed air. The scent of burning intensified by a thousand, and I was reliving the explosion all over again.

His shrewd eyes locked on mine, and he dropped his voice. “Tell me.”

The first words that came to mind that weren’t about the letters fell out of my mouth. “I smell burning.”

“Accelerant,” he clipped, holding on to his anger at me. “From the bomb.” His gaze didn’t waver. He didn’t even blink as he tossed words at me like weapons.

The elevator hurtling us toward the sky, I felt my self-control plummeting toward the solid ground we’d just left behind. “I’m afraid of heights,” I whispered.

His shoulders dropped, and his chest rose with an inhale. Then he moved.

The scent of pungent burning enveloped me as his huge arms wrapped around me. His voice, quiet and deep and no longer menacing, rumbled from his solid chest. “You’re okay.”

My arms at my sides, I didn’t move.

“Calandra,” he stated.

“Sophia,” I corrected, no longer sure who I was.

He said nothing.

His arms holding me tight, his hands still, his breath moving in and out of his very much alive body, he held me until the elevator slowed to a stop.

The doors whooshed open.

“Come on.” Releasing me only to wrap an arm around my shoulders, he scanned the hallway, then led us toward one of only two doors in the long hallway.

I silently watched as he entered a code into a keypad next to the door. The lock clicked, and he pushed the door open. Cold air rushed out along with the scent of him pre-explosion.

Gently pushing me forward before closing and locking the door behind me, he nodded toward the open-plan living room. “Grab a seat.” He walked into the kitchen that faced the living room and its wall of glass overlooking the Miami skyline.

I stepped toward the couch but stopped a few feet from the windows and stared.

Steel and glass and sky cranes and the ocean in the distance.

My already jumping stomach took a nosedive, and my arms tightened around my middle. I tried to breathe through the fear of heights mixing with my new fear of explosions and tell myself I was safe.

Held by a steady, strong hand, an opened water bottle appeared in front of me. “For the record, I like Calandra better.”

I took the water with a shaking hand, but I didn’t comment. In truth, so did I.

He stepped next to me. “Believe it or not, you’re safer up here.”

I took a sip. The ice-cold water slid down my throat, taking some of the burning scent with it. “Not in a hurricane.”

“Depends on the hurricane force winds.” He glanced at me before looking back out at the city. “Category two or higher, probably not. Most every other scenario, a secure high-rise is safer than a ground-floor building. Trust me.”

I didn’t comment. I took another sip, willing the tremors to stop.

As casually as if he were my boyfriend, his warm hand landed on my nape. “You ever witness an explosion before?”

My back stiffened. I shook my head.

His fingers made slow circles while his other hand took my purse from my white-knuckled death grip. Tossing it on the coffee table, he reached for my water and casually took a sip before leaning over to set it down next to my purse.

His hand still on the back of my neck, he straightened to his full height. “You know what I think?”

No, and I didn’t want to know. The letters in my purse, him almost dying, me almost dying—everything was coming to a head. I was sure he thought a lot of things about a lot of stuff, but I didn’t want to know any of it. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want my life spiraling down this hole, and I didn’t want to want the man standing next to me.

I wanted to crawl in a hole and disappear.

Or have his arms back around me.

And that was a dangerous, dangerous thought, so I said nothing.

Smoother than if he’d choreographed it, his huge body moved in front of me, and once again his arms were around me as if he knew what I needed more than I knew myself.

His head bent and his breath touched my ear. “I think you need to drop your guard, put your arms around me, and take a minute to let it go.” He held me tighter. “We’re safe.”

Oh God. Don’t cry .

“You’re not injured.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “You’re safe.”

Something close to a sob escaped, and I reached for him. My hands fisted two giant handfuls of his shirt, and suddenly I was holding him tighter than I’d held anything in my life.

“That’s it, sweetheart.” He stroked my back, my hair.

“You almost died because of me,” I cried.

His hand rubbed up and down in a caress that was all at once familiar and new. “I’m fine, and so are you.”

My thoughts a mess, everything in my life falling apart, I stupidly let my feelings bleed out. “You were angry with me.” I needed to tell him about the letters.

He pulled back to look down at me. “That’s why you’re upset?” He stroked a strand of my hair like he was familiar with me and as if it were as natural as breathing to him.

Flustered by his caress and his gentleness, but hating confrontation and nowhere near in my right mind to address it, I pulled away from him and told myself what he thought of me was irrelevant. He was a stranger and nothing more than someone I’d hired. But oh my God, he was perceptive.

And for some reason, in that moment, despite his overstepping of bounds and familiarity with touching me, or maybe because of it, I felt close to him. Closer than I’d felt to anyone since my mother had passed, and that was a slippery slope.

Trying to backpedal, I crossed my arms so I wouldn’t reach for him. “No, I was just stating a fact.”

I needed to stop this.

I needed to show him the letters and tell him about the threats to injure the people close to me if I said anything to anyone. I needed to tell him the truth, then let him handle this. My car had exploded. I could’ve been in it. He could’ve been in it. He’d been close enough to the explosion to die, and he’d been thrown like a rag doll, but he’d still kept me in his sights. Jumping up like he hadn’t been thrown ten meters, he’d immediately gotten me out of harm’s way. A man who could handle a car exploding was more than capable of handling a few letters.

I needed to tell him. My mouth opened, but then nothing came out.

His hand skimmed down my arm. “I’m not angry at you, Princess.”

I took another step back and words flew out of my mouth, quick and sharp. “Don’t call me that.”

I wasn’t worthy of the title. A princess didn’t run from fear. Not from a stalker, and not from a fear of abandonment. But just like I’d done all those years ago after my mother died, I was retreating.

I wasn’t being brave or worthy of a royal title. I was stepping away from a man who could help me the same way I’d pulled away from my father after my mother had died. I didn’t want to be close to anyone, and I especially didn’t want to need anyone. I was being foolish to the point of danger, but I lied to myself and told myself I was protecting my staff.

Except I wasn’t.

I was withholding information that was crucial and selfishly wishing everything would go away.

I wanted everything to go back to how it was a few weeks ago. Before the letters started arriving. Before I needed help. Before I knew what it felt like to be held by this man in front of me. Before I needed anything except the safe life I’d carefully cultivated around my gallery and my home. Paintings and buildings never disappointed you, they never left you.

But this man in front of me, he would leave. Once the job was done, he would leave.

I hugged myself tighter, wishing I’d never heard the sound of his quiet voice in my ear as he held me.

Fighting for rationality, fighting for a grip, I forced myself to remember who I was. “I meant please. Please do not address me as that.”

A line formed between the bodyguard’s eyebrows as he took in my crossed arms. “All right.”

The tightness of an inhale held too long released, and my chest fell with an exhale. “Thank yo—”

“Who wants you dead?” he abruptly asked.

Dead.

Dead, dead, dead.

Like a metronome, his last word took up a tempo in my head, and I reached for the water. “No one.” As if breeding lies had become my own personal epidemic, I bred another. “No one that I know of. I’m not important to anyone.”

“Look at me and say that,” he demanded.

Using all the lessons on decorum my mother had taught me, I wiped my expression clean and turned to face him. “I do not know anyone who wants me dead.” The letter writer had never threatened to turn me into fire and ash. That had to count for something.

Not for one second did the bodyguard look like he was buying my story. “What about someone who wants to get back at your father?”

I would be lying if I said I hadn’t already thought of that, as well as a hundred other crazy ideas revolving around my stepmother and any other less-than-agreeable person I could think of back home. But I wasn’t from the dramatic type of royal family you see on a made-for-TV movie. My life wasn’t about sinister plots to overthrow the throne. I didn’t even feel like I was true royalty.

My father made no secret that he’d had a daughter out of wedlock with a woman who died before he could marry her, but I was no one in my country of birth. I was a princess in name only. My half brother was the true heir. Besides, I’d given up that life and moved to Florida, to my mother’s birthplace.

“I am removed from my father and his country,” I explained. “I have no claims on his throne, and everyone who matters knows this. I have no intention of ever going back to Naximos to live, and as far as I know, there are no sinister plots to overthrow my father or to get to him on any level.” If there was, my father would have told me, or warned my aged bodyguard, Nikolas. “My father shares the profit of the casinos with every citizen of Naximos. They love him.” My half brother would have big shoes to fill when the time came for him to take over my father’s reign.

“That doesn’t mean someone isn’t trying to harm him by going after you.”

And that was a rational truth I could not ignore. If something did happen to me, my father would be heartbroken. I knew he loved me. The time for being selfish was over. I needed to tell Damian about the letters and put a stop to this. Inhaling to steady my nerves, I opened my mouth. “I—”

“Wait.” He held his hand up before taking his cell phone out of his pocket and holding it up to his ear. “Tyler.” He listened a moment, then his gaze drifted. “You sure?… Copy that.” He hung up and looked back at me. “The car in front of yours belonged to a foreign diplomat.”

I didn’t see how that was relevant. “I don’t know anyone in that building except Mr. Luna.”

“The diplomat was there to see his side piece before going in to work,” he explained.

I frowned.

“He’s had threats before,” he added.

I blinked.

Damian finally spelled it out. “His car was the same make and color as yours.”