The Alpha Bodyguards Books #4-6

Chapter Twenty-Two

W hat the fuck just happened ?

He gave me words, more than he ever had, but then he did what Preston Vos did best. He walked off, throwing me away as if I were his to begin with.

And just as I was sure he’d intended, he’d gutted me.

But I was missing something. Something crucial. He’d wanted something. He was looking for something. Searching for it. Desperate for it. I could feel it deep in my bones like you could feel the impending pressure drop of a hurricane, but I didn’t know what he was expecting. He couldn’t seriously expect me to say I regretted my son, that knowing my sweet boy now, I would choose differently. I would never say that.

How could he even ask that?

He’d cradled my sleeping son in his arms like he was meant to be his father, but then he’d thrown me out like yesterday’s trash?

What the fuck was that?

I couldn’t tell, because all I saw was red. God help me, I was angry. So very angry, I didn’t have a single inch of room in the flesh and blood that housed my body to make way for any other rational thought.

I didn’t want to think about seven years ago.

I didn’t want to undress my choice back then and bathe it in the hindsight of time.

I wanted to hold on to the anger of his rejection, both then and now, and drink in self-righteous rage that he’d turned me down, because if I didn’t, I had nothing left.

Nothing except my own mistakes.

And I couldn’t breathe through them.

I couldn’t breathe watching broad shoulders and too many tattoos and perfectly chiseled muscles walk away from me forever because in the deep, dark corners of my soul that I kept protected from the light of day, I held on to the notion that Preston Vos was mine and he was always meant to be mine and that made him everything to me. It made him Nash’s father. It made me not alone. It made my wounded heart belong somewhere safe.

But I wasn’t safe.

Not anymore.

And that made me angry.

Blindingly angry.

My feet carried my body as my irrational anger fueled my outrage and I followed him.

Right into the bathroom.

Right as he was taking his shirt off.

A back full of ink, so much ink , stopped me in my tracks.

He didn’t even pause.

He stepped out of his shorts.

He knew I was here.

He knew everything.

He was probably counting my breaths or my steps or the seconds I stood here. But staring at him, it all became background noise as my anger deserted me and I caught my first glimpse of a man I realized I knew nothing about.

“Why?” I demanded.

Only in boxers, tossing his shorts on the floor, he paused, but he didn’t turn around. “Why what?”

“The tattoos.” There were so many of them, they all became one. And he’d lied. There was no part of him not inked. Unless under his boxers he’d left his ass untouched.

He turned the shower on.

With a collection of five showerheads that belied the warehouse space we were standing in, water began to come from two opposite walls and the ceiling. It created an oasis of luxury I never imagined Preston Vos to exist in.

“So?” I pushed, impatient.

Turning to face me, his unwavering gaze met mine. “I was born one person. I became another.”

Jesus.

I didn’t even know what to say to that. Did I allow my heart to feel the weight of his admission? Could I stop myself from feeling sympathy for all of the broken parts of him if I wanted to? Was I dealing with a rational, sane person? Was my son in danger being here? Had he designed this bathroom himself and had it built? The questions swirled in my head like a storm you wanted to escape but had no shelter from.

So I gave in and let one of the questions out. “The ink covers who you used to be?”

For three whole breaths he stared at me. Then he became the Preston I knew from our weekly encounters.

“Tuesday before last, when you entered the café, you were in blue scrubs, bright pink tennis shoes, your hair was pulled back in a bun, and your name and position were embroidered over your left chest.”

This was classic Preston.

All of my encounters with him over the years consisted of him sprinkling random factual statements on me. Usually interspersed with an offhand compliment. Or other times, he simply watched me and said nothing. I knew the drill. Nothing I said would alter the course of the conversation. He would say what he wanted, when he wanted.

“Okay.” Acknowledging him, I waited.

“Three weeks ago, on Wednesday, you wore black scrubs, bright blue tennis shoes, and your hair was in a ponytail. Both days you ordered a tuna melt and orange juice.”

I remembered. “And both times you paid.”

He gave me a barely perceptible nod in acknowledgement. “That Tuesday you wore gold hoop earrings, a gold necklace, and you carried a white sweater hanging over your purse. The Wednesday before you wore small silver hanging earrings, a silver bracelet and you had a purple sweater on over your scrubs.”

I kept my mouth shut.

“Both days you were working. Both days you were a nurse.” He paused, studying me. “But both days you were still you.”

I liked bright colors. My uniforms at work were not bright. The connection clicked. “And the tattoos?”

“The ink makes me who I am.”

Or he was hiding behind it, hiding a past I knew nothing about. “There’s so much of it, it all becomes one tattoo.”

“I am me.”

“Yes, you are,” I quietly confirmed as steam filled the space around us. A man unlike any I had ever known.

His gaze drifted over my shoulder. “Undress.”

“I… what ?”

“There’s blood in your hair, on your shirt and on your left arm. Undress.” Without looking at me as he rattled off my list of soiled offenses, he moved toward the door. “I’m going to check on Nash.” He walked out.

It was the first time I’d actually heard him say Nash’s name out loud, and my heart tripped. But then I stood there because I was at a complete loss. Was he coming back? Was he going to shower? Was he going to give me space?

Jesus. I hadn’t been this nervous since… the last time I was around him. Or basically every time I was around him, or rather, he was around me, because until tonight, I’d had no idea where he lived.

Not thirty seconds later, with his expression locked, his eyes not landing on me, he walked back into the bathroom, and suddenly I was ashamed of myself. I should’ve been the one checking on my own son, but Preston Vos took his clothes off and I forgot everything.

Without a word, he stepped around me and took two towels from the linen closet. I guess that answered the question whether or not he was showering.

“How is Nash?”

He set the towels on the sink near the walk-in shower. “Asleep.”

Desperate to keep him talking to me, feeling a loss so profound, from his words, from his change in attitude toward me, I asked what I should’ve before walking off my own damn property. “What happened at my house? When we were inside?”

“We fired. They fired back. The police were called. They took off before they arrived, and Luna smoothed things over with Miami PD.”

“They know where I live. How is it ever going to be safe to take my son home?” A home my mother had raised us in. A house that was a decade past falling apart and that Ty had been begging me to sell. A property that André Luna, via his friend Neil Christensen, was now offering me a way to get out from under the crushing debt of it.

“Luna, Christensen and your brother will handle the situation.” Preston didn’t say it with confidence, he stated it as if it were fact.

“What if they can’t handle a problem like Estevez?”

“Javier Estevez, Julio’s brother, was also a problem. He was eliminated.”

“By André?” I don’t even know why I was asking. Preston, like my brother, was all about the whole need-to-know thing.

Preston tipped his chin at the shower and ignored my question. “Water’s running.”

I stared at a man who seven years ago had promised me the world, then rocked my twenty-year-old self with the best kiss I’d ever had. But Preston wasn’t that man anymore, and I wasn’t that young, na?ve woman who thought she was invincible.

His face hardened by the toll of war, his disposition closed off from emotion, his body honed by the sheer need for physical strength, Preston wasn’t a twenty-five-year-old guy with all the right words.

He was a man.

A man who scared the hell out of me. But my heart wouldn’t accept the signals my brain was sending, so I stood there.

Wanting. Waiting. Hoping for a sign.

But Preston didn’t give me one.

So my stupid heart picked up the gauntlet he hadn’t put down, and my brain got in on the action and fired synapses before I could stop myself.

I reached for the hem of my shirt and took my tank top off.