Chapter 8
chapter eight
privacy? i don't know her anymore
I’ll admit it. Having a shadow had more perks than I was expecting.
Not that Marcus needed to know that. His ego was already so big I was surprised it didn’t have its own zip code.
But in the week he’d been glued to my side, little pieces of my life had started to stitch themselves back together.
I walked to Pin’s instead of ducking into cars with blackout windows.
I pulled a Flo’s apron over my head for the first time in three months.
Hell, I’d even shown up to a 1pm class. Granted I left ten minutes later but still, it was progress.
And for the first time in a long time I was, dare I say it, happier.
Until Marcus Romano reminded me of his presence and burst that beautiful bubble I was living in. Because, well, I think he just enjoyed being a dick.
Without asking, he’d torn through my phone like it was a weapon waiting to go off.
Resetting this, rewiring that, and handing it back to me like I should’ve thanked him for turning it into a live-stream of my own life.
He said it was to trace the mystery text, but with every buzz I half expected him to lean over my shoulder and read it aloud.
Some days, I’d go to grab a coffee or lock the bathroom door and catch myself hesitating, like I needed clearance first. He wasn’t invasive, not outright, but the air between us carried that itch of being watched. Like someone had peeled off one more layer of skin I hadn’t meant to shed.
I had to remind myself that it was for the greater good.
Still hadn’t sunk in, but here’s to manifesting.
But I think the biggest not-perk of all was when I saw his oversized car pull up at the townhouse next door this morning, and a team of people unloaded suitcase after suitcase onto the sidewalk and up the steps beside ours.
I swallowed down half a crumpet and threw on my dressing gown, shoved on my slippers, then marched down our porch steps until I was stood before him.
“What’s going on?” I asked, my arms folded, reading glasses slipping down the bridge of my nose.
He lifted his sunglasses and rested them on his forehead. And like they always did, he looked at me like he was regretting ever learning my name. “That’s not a very neighbourly tone.”
A scoff tor through my throat. "It's eight in the morning, that isn't the time for neighbourly tones."
Sniffing a laugh, he looked at his bags, picking the largest one out of the boot with one arm, his tanned, tattooed muscles flexing under his tight black shirt. “What does it look like is going on?”
My slippers scuffed on the street as a scoff tore from my mouth. “It looks like you’re moving in next door.”
He dropped the case to the floor and rested his body with one arm up on the boot door, his smile dripping with sarcasm. “Look at you pointing out the obvious before 9:00 a.m.”
My face scrunched as he stepped around me and I spun to watch him dump his case on the sidewalk. “Do you just become a dick when the wind changes or something?”
He shook his head. “When the sun goes in, actually.” His smirk was dripping with mischief, but it soon vanished when he began up the steps.
I was quick on his heels, my arms flailing as I followed him up. “Are you gonna tell me why you’re moving in next door?”
He shrugged, fumbling in his pocket for the keys. “No one lives here and I didn’t exactly love the idea of just camping in my car whilst watching your house every night.” His head flung to me. “It’s just a precaution.”
“A precaution that feels like I’ve lost the last of my privacy.”
He jammed the keys into the door and paused before twisting, his gaze burning me.
“I think you lost the right to proper privacy when you became the internet’s version of royalty.
” He twisted the doorknob and the door cracked open.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some unpacking to do.
” His eyes swept up and down my dressing gown.
“You’ve got half an hour to be back out here. I’ll drive you to class.”
“But—”
Before I could finish, he slammed the door in my face. The last thing I caught was his shit-eating grin.
“Arsehole,” I muttered, low enough that he couldn’t hear, though I knew if he did, he wouldn’t say a thing.
For someone with opinions on everything, Marcus wasn’t exactly Mr Talkative. We’d exchanged maybe five sentences since that night at the Prada event last week, and shared countless silent car rides and sidewalk meetings—none of which made him any less of a stranger.
When it became obvious he wasn’t about to braid my hair and swap secrets, I did what any rational twenty-one-year-old would do—I Googled him.
The basics came easy: CEO of Romano Security alongside his brother, the country’s number-one company for keeping people like me from being hunted, stalked, or worse. Fine. Impressive. Whatever.
But the personal stuff? That was harder. There were no picutres, which I found odd. A few puff pieces naming him “Hottest Business Bachelor of the Year” or whatever crap they came up with to keep the corporate boys excited.
But then… nothing. The trail went cold. No photos. No interviews. No scandals. No receipts. For a man with a grin that cocky, it was almost suspicious how carefully he’d erased himself from the outside world. Like how the world perceived him was at the bottom of the list of his priorities.
I certainly knew what priority number one was.
And right now she was staring back at me threw the window… Christ I needed to run a brush threw my hair.
My slipper-covered foot kicked the door before I hopped over the wall that separated our front doors, and slid inside before he charged back out here.
I pushed the door shut behind me, but as I passed the living room, the sound of scurrying and a loud thud stopped me in my tracks.
My brows knitted as I stepped inside, then froze at the sight of my housemates, scattered across the room in the least casual “casual” poses I’d ever seen.
I crossed my arms, hip cocking to the side. “Were you spying?”
Goldie’s eyes flicked to mine, her body stiff against the fireplace. “No. No, absolutely not.”
Rory peeled her nose from her book, which would’ve been normal had it not been upside down. “Spying?” She repeated the word slowly, like she’d never heard it before. “Why would we be spying?”
Daisy, who was nestled on the floor, right underneath the windowsill that coincidentally looked out onto the porch, lifted her head, her curls bouncing with the spring that only came from it being freshly diffused. “We’re just… being casual. This is us being casual and not at all spying.”
I fought a laugh, my bottom lip sinking beneath my teeth as I nodded. “Oh. Cool.” My eyes darted to each one of them. “If you’re all just being casual and have no pressing questions about where I just was, then I’ll head up to my room to get changed—”
“What’s he like?”
“Why did he have bags?”
“Where on earth did you find him?”
“Does he just exist with that smouldering look or does he only do that with you?”
I rolled my eyes as I turned back around.
Such busybodies, this lot.
I sighed, the air filled with the secret that I loved a good gossip as much as the rest of these girls, as I collapsed down onto the sofa on the back wall, crossing my legs. “He’s… weird.”
Like a flash, all the girls shuffled to face me, falling out of their staged poses and handing over their attention to me.
“He doesn’t look weird,” Goldie hummed, her chin nestled into her palms.
My face screwed as I tucked my hair behind my ears. “Not a weird weird, more of a mysterious weird.”
“That’s hot,” Daisy giggled.
Disagreeing was pointless. It was hot. But that didn’t cancel out the arsehole-ness of him.
“Even so, I don’t fucking know the guy. He just showed up at the doorstep last Monday, was very cryptic about why he was here, and then appeared in the corner of the conference room and didn’t mention to Louellen that he’d been to see me.”
Repeating that all in my head only made the questions start to pile up again, and this time I couldn’t hold them in.
“He’s hell-bent on keeping me safe, and I just don’t get it.”
Rory shrugged, sweetness popping in her rosy cheeks. “Well, he’s a bodyguard, right? Surely he’s just doing his job.”
“But it’s not even his job to do.” My hands raked through the damp ends of my hair.
“He’s the owner of the company, he shouldn’t be out here actually doing the job.
The only explanation he gave me was that the whole reason he built his company was because of an incident like what happened between me and… ”
I didn’t say his name. It was banned in this house.
Instead I flailed my hand.
Daisy shuffled as she gathered her hair at the top of her head, wrapping a broidery scrunchie around her curls.
“Maybe it’s just guilt.” She shrugged, her hands still in her hair.
“If I’d built a company because someone was attacked, and then years later the same thing had happened under my watch, I’d probably want to do everything I could to ensure that person’s safety. ”
“She’s probably right,” Goldie chimed in, slipping to her knees. “There’s probably nobody he trusts more than himself, and therein lies the out-of-the-blue protectiveness over you.”
I didn’t say anything, just nodded. But the girls clearly saw the windswept look on my face and all bounded over, squeezing on the couch next to me, filling every spare gap.
Their arms wrapped around me, but it was Rory who spoke. “It’s not something to worry about, and that is all you need to realise to feel calm, Cor.”
Daisy nodded. “Exactly. It probably just feels weird because you’re only just going back out into the world and everything feels off-kilter.
” She ran a hand over the crown of my head.
“But I know that I feel better about you rejoining society with someone there to watch over you, and from everything you’ve told us—”
“And everything we’ve googled about the guy,” Goldie added, her smile playful.
“He seems committed to making sure no one lays a finger on you.”
I huffed a laugh. “Committed to making sure that the breeze doesn’t blow at me the wrong way, more like.”
Rory shrugged. “It’s better than having no one to watch over you at all.”
My smile pulled tight as I looked at Rory, her eyes filled with the wisdom that I wished I had twenty-four-seven access to.
But before her words had a chance to find a home in my mind, a bunch of raised voices sounded from outside the window. All four of us exchanged glances before hurling off the couch and smushing our faces up against the window, just in time to see Marcus standing over Tristan on the porch.
“I’m not asking you again. Who are you and why are you here?” Marcus grunted, and only now did I realise that calling Tristan Harper the most intimidating person that I ever knew, looks-wise, wasn’t true anymore.
Tristan’s chest popped, stuffing his hands in his dark jeans as he jilted his chin up towards Marcus. “I already told you, I’m here to pick up my fucking girlfriend. Now if you don’t mind, mate.”
Before Tristan could so much as take a step, Marcus blocked him, barely separating them by an inch.
“I really should not be this turned on right now,” Goldie whispered as her mouth gaped, her face pressed against the glass.
Marcus grunted as he looked Tristan up and down. “You don’t have clearance yet to enter. For all I know you could be anyone.”
“I’m Tristan fucking Harper. Do you not listen to the radio?”
“I have better things to do than waste time making my ears bleed.”
My head fell into my hands. "Dear lord."
“I’m gonna go save him,” Goldie said as she stood up, rushing out of the living room and heading for the door.
I turned to Rory, but my eyes were still laser-focused on Marcus. “Remember how you said that having him was better than no one.” She nodded, and I said a silent prayer. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”