The Alpha Bodyguards Books #4-6

Chapter Twenty

S he pushed bites of cut meat around on her plate.

“You don’t like steak?”

“No, I love it.” She’d barely touched her food.

“Then what’s wrong?”

She glanced toward the entryway. “When did my suitcase arrive?”

“Early this morning.”

“Mm-hmm.” She nodded. “Before or after you gave me your clothes?”

“Before,” I answered truthfully.

“Then why did you give me your clothes to wear?”

Because I couldn’t fuck her, but I wanted my mark on her anyway. “Mine were closer.”

“It is a big apartment,” she mused.

Penthouse, I silently corrected. “Eat some more.”

She stabbed a bite of meat and slowly chewed before swallowing. “Why are you a bodyguard?”

“I don’t want to work in an office.” It was mostly the truth.

“Doesn’t it upset your family?”

Like she wouldn’t believe. My father most of all, which was why I did it. “They would prefer I did something else.” My father had even tried to bribe me into coming to work for him by giving me the penthouse and the Range Rover when I didn’t reenlist with the Marines.

“Who’s they?”

“Pardon?”

“Your family?” she asked. “I mean, besides your sister.”

“Just my parents and my sister.” Which I was acutely aware was more than she’d ever had.

“How old is your sister?”

“Thirty-three. She’s two years older than me. She runs the day-to-day operations of my father’s company.”

“Wow. She must be… good at what she does.”

She was ruthless. “My father’s been grooming her since she was a teen.” Since the day I’d caught him cheating on my mother and told him he was dead to me, he’d flipped his attention to her like the callous tyrant he was.

“Mm.” Genevieve took another bite of steak.

I changed the subject. “How did you wind up in foster care?”

“Teenage mother. She tried to raise me. Kept me until I was six, then she couldn’t make ends meet anymore.” She shrugged like it was no big deal, but her hand tightened around her fork.

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugged again.

“Do you remember her?” As much as I hated my father, I couldn’t imagine not having a mother. I didn’t talk to her often. I steered clear of most interactions with my family because my father turned everything into a clusterfuck anytime I showed up at the house or called my mother. So I avoided it altogether, but I did check in with my mother once a week with a text.

“I remember her red hair.” Unconsciously, Genevieve pushed a red pepper around on her plate.

“Did she ever try to contact you, or vice versa?” I couldn’t imagine what she’d been through.

“Nope.” She got up and cleared her plate. “Should I load my plate in the dishwasher, or do you have a maid?”

I stood and cleared my plate, purposely brushing past her as I opened the dishwasher. “I don’t have a maid, and I neither earned nor paid for this penthouse.”

She stiffened. “This isn’t your place?”

“It’s mine.” I rinsed my plate and put it in the dishwasher.

“But you didn’t buy it?”

I took her plate from her. “No, my father did and gifted it to me.”

“Is that why you hate him? Because he gave you a condo?”

“I never said I hated him.” For my mother’s sake, I didn’t speak ill of him out loud.

“You said you weren’t anything like him.”

“I’m not.” I tossed the few utensils I used to cook dinner with in the dishwasher.

She watched me a moment. “So, he doesn’t want you to go into the family business?”

“He does.” I couldn’t remember the last time a woman had asked me questions about myself, let alone grilled me.

“But you aren’t going to?”

“Not if I can help it. My sister has it handled.” I shut the dishwasher. “My turn. Why haven’t you signed your divorce papers?”

Her face turned bright red. “Brian told you that?”

Leaning against the counter, I crossed my arms. “Yes.”

Her head dipped, and she folded her arms across herself as if for protection. “He shouldn’t have told you that.”

“Why?” I demanded.

She looked up at me defiantly. “Because it’s none of your business.”

“Isn’t it?” I played hardball. “You kissed me. I don’t get to know why a married woman lies to me then gives me something only her husband should have?”

Anger, fast and hot, spread across her features. “He’s not my—”

“Watch it,” I warned.

Her arms dropped to her sides, and her hands fisted. “Watch what ?”

“What you say to me next.” I leaned toward her. “Do not lie to me again.”

“I did not—” She stopped herself.

Then she stepped around me, went for her suitcase and yanked on the handle. The flowered bag fell over.

Jesus. “Need help?”

She growled, but she didn’t say shit. Jerking her bag upright, she dragged it down the hall as one broken wheel shimmied it back and forth behind her.

A second later, the door to the guest room slammed shut.

I started the dishwasher and strode to my bedroom. Throwing on a long-sleeved moisture-wicking shirt and sneakers, I grabbed a baseball cap and walked back to the guest room. Feeling generous, I knocked.

“Go away,” she said through the door.

“Open up.”

“No.”

“Now,” I ordered.

Five seconds later, she yanked the handle to open the door an inch.

I pushed it open. “I’m going to the gym. It’s downstairs in the building. Don’t open the front door for anyone.”

Her back to me, staring out at the ocean, she didn’t reply.

“Genevieve.” Goddamn it. I wasn’t going to apologize for asking the question earlier. “Turn around.”

She spun and let loose. “I don’t have to do what you say just because you say it.”

I studied her a moment. Anger flaring, her hair tangled, her suitcase on its side in the middle of the floor, she was a mess. But I’d meant what I’d said to her last night. She was beautiful. Beautiful in a way that was raw and broken, but she wasn’t defeated. Far from it.

“Do we need to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” she snapped.

“The kiss.” Or the way her body melted every time I put the slightest bit of dominance in my tone. Or why she hadn’t fucking divorced that prick from the hospital.

She spun back around. “Go to the gym, Sawyer.”

I walked out, and my cell vibrated with a new text.

Sullivan: Stop putting off your sister. Get your priorities straight and sign the quarterly paperwork.

I deleted the text from my father and went to the gym.