Chapter 3
three
Finn
I slide Rosalie off my lap to fetch her the water she still doesn’t have and a box of tissues she didn’t ask for, then scale the ladder to the loft that is my bedroom.
I’m dragging a clean T-shirt over my head when I return to the living area, but this time I seat myself at a professional distance on the smaller sofa opposite Rosalie and Dakota, who’s curled up next to her leg and watching me with wary brown eyes.
So much for man’s best friend. My pup has clearly shifted her loyalties, and I don’t blame her. If it’s a toss-up between the pretty woman with tearstained cheeks and the asshole who made her cry, I know who I’d want to sit beside.
“I never realized you had so much ink,” she comments.
I glance down at the khaki-colored cotton covering the pictures on my chest, abdomen, shoulders, and upper arms. “Nothing above the collarbones. Nothing below the elbows. Makes it easy to hide them when I need to.”
“Smart,” she murmurs.
“Thanks.”
Rosalie’s shoulders rise in a deep breath as she runs her gaze around the place.
An open-concept kitchen, dining, and living space that at best could be called cozy.
Mismatched rugs, both threadbare and new.
A wide-screen television set on an old hand-carved entertainment unit and patched floral-print curtains at the casement windows.
Vaulted ceilings with exposed timber beams and a nineties-era kitchen with a two-burner stove.
The shadowy heights of the loft at the top of the rickety-looking ladder.
The kindest word to describe the place would be rustic.
It’s clean and tidy. It has electricity and hot water.
It’s private and it was built out of love, and that makes it worth more than any designer Los Angeles compound.
I’m probably only one of half a dozen people who think so, but that doesn’t make it less true.
“Your home is nice,” Rosalie says as she toys with the screw cap on her water bottle. “Have you been here long?”
“Yes and no.”
Her forehead creases with exasperation, and I shake my head.
“You talk. I listen. Let’s start with why you drove all the way out here with no personal security in a car that doesn’t belong to you, wearing a designer wedding dress you don’t need—and no shoes.”
Rosalie lifts her dress to expose her ankles and checks out her pink-polished toenails before she abruptly raises her head again. Hope shines in her eyes. “Does this mean you’ll take the job?”
“No. It means I want to know why I found you crying on my kitchen floor.”
She throws a troubled glance toward the spot, and her manicured hand strays to Dakota’s coat.
“I don’t know why it took me so long to admit that Chip is a bad guy. I mean, I’ve known for a while, but I couldn’t find the courage to do something about it. But he is, you know? A bad guy.”
She pauses for my response, and my jaw feathers.
I’m not her bodyguard anymore, but it’s still the dynamic that defines our relationship, and it’s not a bodyguard’s place to voice opinions on his client’s personal life.
It’s definitely not his job to pass judgment on her choice in men.
But Rosalie’s fiancé is a world-class creep, and I could tell as much from the first and only time I met him. The day after that night.
Rosalie nods to herself with a contemplative tilt to her mouth.
“You agree. No—don’t try to deny it. I can tell.
And as long as I’m not paying you to be diplomatic, you may as well say exactly what you think.
It would be good to know there’s at least one person in this world on my side.
Someone to tell me I’m not paranoid or weak for running away. ”
Rosalie’s lonely. She’s alone. And it’s his fault. Time to cut through the bullshit.
“The guy’s a dick,” I agree. “And you’re better off without him.”
Rosalie stares, blinking quickly, before she suddenly sits up straighter. “Exactly. And that’s why I’m here. I need somewhere to hide while I figure out my next move.”
“Hide? From him?”
What the fuck did that monster do to make Rosalie have to hide?
“From Chip,” she agrees. “From Lauren, my personal assistant. From my security team. And from the press.”
“Wait.” I set my elbows on my knees and lean in as she raises red flag after red flag. “Why do you need to hide from your assistant? Or your personal security?”
Rosalie nibbles her bottom lip as her fingers tighten in Dakota’s fur.
“You can trust me,” I assure her, “with as much or as little as you feel comfortable sharing, but if you want my help, the more I know, the better.”
“So… you’ll take the job?”
I growl a little, a deep rolling protest that comes from my chest, and she bites back a tiny smile.
“Fine,” she says. “But did you know that when you came on board last year, you were the only person on my entire protection team that I hired myself? The only person I’d hired for any team in the last three years?”
I didn’t know that, but her question is rhetorical.
“I wasn’t supposed to do it,” she continues, “but… I don’t know.
That moment is the first time I remember being aware that Chip’s need for control was out of control.
I waited until I was alone, then opened my laptop.
I did an internet search, chose an executive security firm on a whim, and sent an inquiry. And they sent you.”
That security firm belonged to a military buddy—someone I considered a best friend who built his own private protection business after he was medically discharged five years ago.
I never had any intention of getting into the bodyguard game, but I also wasn’t prepared for how lost I’d feel leaving the SEALs after ten years of service.
How I’d miss having a reason to get out of bed every morning.
My buddy Jack needed help and I needed focus, so stepping up when he asked was a no-brainer.
In hindsight, taking the job with Rosalie wasn’t the kind of help Jack needed, but given everything that happened last spring, I don’t know if I’d change anything. And that’s a hard thing to admit even to myself.
“I didn’t know Chip was going to fire you,” Rosalie adds. Her expression is open and honest. “After what happened in New Orleans, I thought he’d want to promote you but…”
My fists curl as fear flickers in Rosalie’s eyes.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” I tell her, referring to both the attack and what happened afterward, and it occurs to me that maybe she doesn’t want to talk about any of it.
Certainly not a crazed man with a knife in her penthouse suite, but perhaps not even what happened afterward.
That brief moment between us, if it happened at all.
Being in her orbit again, I’m reminded of how exceptional she is, and it’s laughable that she ever thought of me as more than just her bodyguard.
It’ll be easier to get through the next few hours if I believe that.
So if she doesn’t want to talk about that night, then neither do I.
Rosalie clasps her hands in her lap. “After New Orleans, Chip said the situation was too serious to risk inexperienced people on my team. He hand-picked everyone after that. Everyone. Everywhere.”
I bristle at being labeled inexperienced. I wasn’t the one who put Rosalie in danger, and who knows what would have happened if I hadn’t been there to answer her door?
“What about Lauren?” I ask. “She was your assistant long before last year. That makes one person you can trust.”
Rosalie’s throaty chuckle sounds forced.
“She’s been sleeping with Chip for weeks, if not months.
And she spies for him. Tells him where I am, what I eat, what I say, what I don’t say.
Not that he doesn’t manage every facet of my life anyway, but there are some things women only share with other women, you know? ”
Her hands fidget in her lap, and I wish I could reach out and settle them.
Rage is rarely helpful in situations like this, but just because I know to ignore it doesn’t mean my blood isn’t boiling.
Rosalie laughs again, a nervous sound that aims to trivialize her hurt, and I wonder if, despite the circumstances, she still loves Chip.
I suppose, if I’m being charitable, I can understand why.
Chip Daniels is a music industry mogul—a record executive and producer responsible for some of the biggest acts in the business.
Fifteen years Rosalie’s senior, he’s also her manager and has been since her first label dropped her at twenty-one.
Chip and Rosalie went public with their relationship a year later and they’ve been together ever since.
This isn’t the kind of information I usually know, but Rosalie’s personal life was part of the background file I had to read when signing on as her bodyguard. I know more about her than she realizes.
“I’m sorry about Lauren,” I say. “Sometimes people let you down.”
Rosalie shrugs. “She was never my friend. Just another person on the payroll.”
Money. Just one more thing wrong with the world.
I’ve got no interest in it, and I’m not a man who exchanges his time for a dollar and never thinks about the cost. When Jack asked me to take the gig protecting Rosalie, I didn’t say yes to collect the paycheck.
I took the job as a favor to a friend, and I took it seriously because a woman’s life was at stake.
And from what Rosalie is telling me now, maybe in some ways, it still is.
“So what do you need?” I ask.
Her face lights up, and beside her, Dakota lifts her head and blinks. “You’ll take the job?” she asks again.
“Nope.” I raise my hand when she starts to argue. “I’m not just another person on your payroll, Rosalie, and if I take your money now, you’ll never believe that.”
“But—”
“What do you need?”
Rosalie is silent for a moment, the cast to her head speculative, but then her tight nod says she understands me.
“A couple of days to figure out my next steps?” Her request sounds like a question, her confidence still building, and I’m careful to not let any reluctance show on my face.
“As soon as Chip realizes I’m not coming back, he’ll want to control the narrative.
Public perception is everything in this business, and he won’t let it get out that I left him because he’s an emotionally abusive cheater.
I just can’t deal with the media or the paparazzi or the rumor mill right now.
I need quiet and space and a chance to think without all the noise.
Maybe I’ll find the strength to take back my life, because I can’t give Chip more of me than I already have.
” Her voice drops low enough that I need to lean in to hear her. “I can’t.”
That fucker’s not taking anything else from this woman. Ever.
“You won’t,” I tell her. “And it’s a deal. A couple days on your own, which will give you time to figure out your next move. This place is yours. I’ll—”
“You’re not leaving, are you?”
Rosalie’s eyes widen, her hand straying toward Dakota and her fingers tightening in her coat.
“This is a one-bedroom cabin,” I explain. “A one-bed cabin. There isn’t room enough for both of us.”
“But…” She looks around the bungalow again, this time with a shortness to her breath. “We can make it work. I’ll sleep on the sofa.”
“Rosalie—”
“I don’t want to be alone. Not here. Not like this.”
I sigh and nod slowly. “Yeah. I know.”
She sags and releases a relieved breath. “So you’ll stay?”
“I’ll stay—on the sofa.”
“This sofa?”
Her snort is surprisingly indelicate and my lips twitch. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” she says, but I like that she’s trying not to smile. “Nothing at all.”
“Okay. So if we’re going to do this, let’s do it. Where’s your phone?”
It’s in her purse, which is small enough to have gotten lost between the sofa cushions and the fabric of her dress. When she pulls it out to show me, I’m pleased to see her phone’s switched off.
“I didn’t want to deal with Chip,” she explains. “If he’d called me on the way here, I might have turned around.”
“You did the right thing. I assume he has some kind of tracking app on this thing?”
“Just the one installed with the phone.”
I nod even though there’s a good chance she’s wrong. “This cabin is a black spot for cellular networks. It’s safe to turn on your phone again, but switch it to airplane mode to be safe, and then wait until I remove any tracking software before you connect to my Wi-Fi.”
“Okay.”
She tucks away her phone again as I get to my feet.
“I’ll get your luggage from the car and then make you something to eat while you change.
I’ll keep it simple. You might not feel hungry now, but you’re running on adrenaline and your system needs fuel before you crash.
No gluten. No dairy. No meat. No processed sugars. Did I get that right?”
No idea what’ll be left in my kitchen after I subtract my favorite food groups, but I’ve been in tougher binds than this.
Rosalie hops up so fast I hesitate.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“My luggage?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
She responds with a shamefaced wince. “I… don’t have any.”
“You don’t have any?”
She throws up her hands like I’m the unreasonable one. “I didn’t know I was running away when I left the house this morning! It was spur of the moment. I didn’t even have my own car. All I have is my purse and this dress.”
“Okay.” I nod with equilibrium I don’t feel. Nothing’s ever simple. Not with Rosalie. “You can wear something from my closet tonight, and tomorrow… tomorrow, I’ll find you some clothes.”
She waits below while I climb the ladder to the loft and rummage around for something appropriate. The best I can find is an old button-up flannel.
“Here.” I offer the shirt to Rosalie, then stand there like an idiot as she holds it up to get a better look. “I don’t suppose you can make it up the ladder in that dress.”
She glances at it and then shakes her head with a light laugh. “Ah, no.”
“I’ll wait outside while you change.”
I’m halfway to the door before she stops me. “Um… Finn?”
“Yeah?”
“I need to ask another favor.”
“All right. What is it?”
Her graceful throat works as she tosses her head, and wearing that dress while she does it, she’s a princess commanding her subject. This ought to be good.
“I can’t take this gown off by myself. It has too many buttons and they’re all in the back.”
She can’t be serious. “So… what do you expect me to do?”
There’s that chin lift she loves so much, followed by an order I can’t possibly obey. “I need you to stay and undress me.”