Chapter 3
Rhett
Avoiding the middle of the room, I snake along the perimeter to find her. Stepping past a few wallflowers who look more like introverted deer caught in the headlights of a big, noisy crowd, when compared to the loud bunches of women crowded up in cliques throughout the center of the venue.
There are more men here than I would have guessed. Some are readers, some are agents, or publishers, from what their name tags tell me. Some look like they’re here from media outlets. I catch snippets of conversations as I walk through the room.
“Oh, right, I represented Dean Carter and Abby Zenneth on that big audio deal last year. Huge fallout between them. Tragic.”
“We just acquired the eighth installment of Portia Henry’s fantasy series. The hybrid werewolf-merman species she’s working on is iconic.”
“Did you get a chance to read Bailey’s last two books? I hear the guy in this one is morally gray perfection.”
All normal industry chatter, I’d imagine, though I’m not sure what morally gray perfection means. And why Bailey is apparently writing about it.
Another huge, silver caviar tray swoops past me, narrowly missing my nose when the waitress trips on her own foot. At the last second, I duck out of the way, holding her upright, then swivel around when I hear that laugh again.
It’s closer now.
Hearing it takes me back to so many memories. Sand stuck between my toes, glimmering green eyes across a bonfire, a smile meant only for me. Warm and inviting.
Then, I see her.
And every wall I reinforced the last two days to protect myself from the first sight of her tonight comes crashing down.
She’s standing near the opposite wall, almost hidden, with what looks like a reporter.
The lanky woman beside her is holding up a tape recorder with a photographer standing off to the side. He’s busy examining a copy of the book being launched tonight with a large camera in his other hand.
Only Bailey’s face is visible across the crowd, but the sight of her smile makes me smile, too.
There you are, Bailey. In the flesh and everything.
I glance around to see if anyone else in the room is watching her like I am, but I’m alone in that.
Right now, I have her all to myself.
And unlike the untold number of summers I spent trying my best not to stare at that smile while she sunbathed beside my sister off the docks up in Cedar Shores, I let myself take her in now, and it makes everything in me unwind.
Bailey’s auburn hair is twisted off her shoulders, showing off that gorgeous, long neck of hers, with a swoosh of bangs she can’t seem to keep her hands off of, outlining a row of thick lashes that frame each of her sharp green eyes.
Lips glistening, even from here, like a goddamn candy apple — one I have to force myself not to stare at.
And, when I shift my eyes down even more, I have to take a breath to stop my knees from buckling.
That dress she’s wearing looks like it might have been painted right onto her body.
If it wasn’t for the thousands of sequins bouncing light off each one of her curves, I might believe it was.
Fuck.
She’s exactly the same, except completely grown up.
Only one year younger than us, the girls had kept Axel and me busy every June through August. As your typical teenage boys, there was always some type of annoyance to cause or prank to play on our sisters, which spelled trouble every year.
Such as how many times I could throw Bailey into the lake before Labor Day.
The summer I hit seventy-three, she’d started coming out in her swimsuit before breakfast, just to avoid getting another outfit wet by noon. And I can’t say that I hated it.
The first couple of weeks that summer, she’d run away from me, shrieking each time I jumped out of my newest hiding spot, crouched and waiting to throw her over my shoulder and carry her down to the water.
But she’d stopped running and had started walking beside me to the edge of the dock without a fight.
Then she’d just jump off the side without me having to throw her in.
Honestly? If her goal was to take all the fun out of it so I’d stop trying to toss her in, it had nearly worked.
Until that morning. After so many times of her going in easy, she’d earned enough of my trust that we stood shoulder to shoulder at the end of the dock, me waiting for her to jump.
But she didn’t. Instead, at the last moment, she spun around and shoved me as hard as she could.
I flew over the edge, twisting mid-air to pull her in too, but was so taken off guard that I dropped in without her.
By the time I surfaced, Bailey was sprinting to where Hollis was cheering her on from the sand.
They’d planned the whole thing out together.
Bailey ran, colliding with Hollis at the shoreline, where the two of them took off like a shot, screaming into the woods behind the houses where they hid for the rest of the day.
They must have gotten hungry, or cold, or both, eventually smelling whatever Dad was cooking on the grill for dinner that night, while our moms were inside, probably chatting about how they were going to punish us boys for scaring the girls away the rest of the day.
Eventually, our sisters had slinked back out of the tree line, grinning from ear to ear. Bragging about their victory in finally getting me back — but Axel and I were ready.
The girls didn’t make it further than the dinner table before we each had one thrown over our shoulders, yelping and pounding on our backs all the way down the dock, where we tossed them in.
Grinning at the memory, I make my way closer, leaving a wide arc around them while Bailey and the reporter talk.
Look at how much you’ve matured, kid. Caviar at your own party.
From Axel’s little sister and catching minnows off the dock with me, to this.
A renowned book release party in the middle of New York City.
Your seventh, if my count isn’t off.
Taking her in feels like a glimpse into a past life, and I watch her longer than I normally would.
My mind was still too clouded, barely home a day, when I’d seen her at my parents’ Christmas party — back when she was wearing that damn sweater I think I meowed at like a fucking asshole — but now?
There’s nowhere else to go. She’s the job tonight, and I use everything I’ve got in me when running a security detail — senses heightened, mind razor-sharp — so, for better or worse, I absorb her.
She is the reason I’m here, and my entire body ignites at the thought that someone else might be in this room right now to hurt her.
I tear my line of sight off Bailey to canvas the room once more, but her laugh brings my eyes rushing back. The curve of her lips, the way her skin glows from the light coming in through the window, like a magnet finding its opposite charge across the room.
How have we gone this long?
She laughs once more, this time nearly doubling in half, but I spin away from her instead of toward the sound.
There’s someone in the room watching me.
I can feel it before I get eyes on whoever it is. The hair on my arms rises under the weight of it. Like a meter always running in the background of my mind, spiking when I pick up on something being off.
I spot him.
It’s a man. Standing against the opposite window. He flicks his gaze away, but not before our eyes meet for one hair of a second.
His expression is dark.
Angry.
Ruminating.
Like he’s surprised to see me.
And not happy to be caught.
He appears to be alone. For now, anyway.
I wait a beat to see if he turns to anyone else he might know.
Stalkers always start as loners.
Slinking around spaces not meant for them.
Keeping to the shadows until they want to be noticed.
He shifts to the other foot, then steals another quick glance at me. So quick, I would have missed it if my eyes weren’t already right on him.
This time, he looks downright pissed.
This is our guy. I know it.
I start walking toward him, wanting to ask why he’s here.
But he clasps a hand over his chest, square in the middle, like he’s feeling for heartburn, and immediately turns toward the door that leads outside.
I pick up my pace and nearly trip over a loud, metallic crash right in front of me.
Black specks of caviar spill out across the floor and down the dress of the woman I’d heard discussing Portia Henry’s fantasy series earlier.
The woman’s mouth hangs open, arms splayed out.
The waitress immediately stuffs a handful of cocktail napkins into her outstretched hand, and they both begin to apologize to each other for the mess. A mutual run-in now blocks my path.
I push past them, but that point-two seconds of taking my eyes off the guy has given him enough time to leave my line of sight.
“Fuck.” I’m already fuming.
I spin on my heels, using my full height to flush him out of the crowd, casing the room, but it’s useless. He’s managed to leave or duck into another hallway and out of this room. Possibly already running down the sidewalk outside.
I make a split-second decision and head toward the doors, hoping it’s the right choice, but I immediately collide with someone else, nearly knocking her to the floor.
But when I grab her arm to steady her before rushing outside, I realize it’s the one and only woman I’m here to protect.