Chapter 8
KATIE
“Twenty yards,” Nour calls as she sights down the arm holding her service weapon. We’re at an unused corner of the property that I frequently use for target practice. Nour comes here to shoot with me once a week, and then we’ll usually spar in the gym.
“Go.” I give the command into the microphone of the safety headphones.
There’s a muffled pop of bullets, and holes bloom on the target.
“Nice cluster. Looks like an inch or so.”
Nour shrugs and holsters her pistol. “I want fifty yards and half an inch.”
“Of course you do,” I tease.
“Gotta be the best, Katie.”
I know what she means. Nour and I are underestimated at every turn in our jobs, and we need to be better than any man just to get half the respect. Nour even more than me, and especially with the jobs she takes.
I unbuckle my holster and step up to the line we’re using.
I’ve never shot a human. I don’t practice shots to kill. I practice shots to incapacitate. Kneecaps, shoulders, feet.
This is my job.
Most casual shooters at a range go for target practice. They focus on headshots at different distances. They use two hands. That’s well and good.
But if I’m ever in a position to shoot someone, it’s unlikely it will be with both hands. It’s more likely that I’ll be shoving Tristan into a car and covering him or aiming at someone while I can barely see what’s going on.
The thought of the Prince siblings in danger is what keeps me coming back here.
“Go ahead,” Nour says.
I still my breathing, preparing for the startle response that I mimic by jerking my body forward, then drawing and shooting without thinking.
Three bullets are out before my vision focuses fully on the target.
Target shooters shoot in a circle. Tight.
Combat shooters shoot in a spray. Left kneecap, right kneecap, foot, foot, hand, hand.
I eject and slap another magazine in, then repeat with my left hand, then again, faster, before I’m out.
I’m breathing hard when I finish, and we both take long, bracing gulps from the water we’ve brought.
“Nour, are you looking for work right now?”
She tips her head. “Why? I mean, yes, but why? You hiring?”
“You’ve seen the videos?”
“The whole world saw the videos.” She grins. “Look for my sister’s application. I told her not to bother with rich guys, but she won’t listen.”
I grin. Nour’s sister is a beauty influencer, and Nour is as protective as a mama bear with her. Has been since they moved from Beirut when Nour was only ten. There’s no way she’d let her near Tristan.
I’m not smiling as I think about the notice I received from the mayor this morning about a fistfight over a house rental on the nearest property to the estate, or the irate phone call I received from the police department about the paparazzi outside the Crownhaven gate.
“We have more potential matches than we know what to do with, and the summer season starts soon. I’m…worried.”
Her look is sharp. “Worried about the security risk?”
I nod. Nour is ten years older than me and has way more real-world experience. Her gaze grows thoughtful. “You’ve never been their personal bodyguard, right?”
“We’ve never needed it. I run the security center and I drive them sometimes, but the estate is mostly quiet.
Some paparazzi following Aiden when he got married last year, and we get the usual kidnapping and extortion scams. But now—” I bite my lip.
“I think Tristan will need a bodyguard.” Fear threads through me.
I’ve been on detail like this before, but never for someone I care about.
“He will. We’ll do five days on, two days off. You’ll need at least two of us, maybe three. More is better because you’ll always have someone at the estate and someone with the principal.”
Her tone is all business. I think of Tristan as a friend, but she thinks of him as the principal. As a target.
She must see the concern on my face, because she gives me a considering look. “You care about him.”
“He’s special,” I say. Then quickly amend it to, “The family is special.”
Nour’s brows go up. “Are you and he…”
My face heats and I quickly shake my head. “No. God, no.”
And after this morning, hell no.
“Are you planning to stick around once he’s married?”
I blink. “Of course. Should I not be? I love my job.”
She gives me a speaking glance. “How many wealthy wives want to keep a hot, young bodyguard around?”
“What do you—me?” I choke the word out. “You mean me?”
“You’re a twenty-six-year-old smoke show, Katie. You told me he runs with you every morning.”
“To stay in shape,” I protest.
“Because he can’t run alone?” She snorts. “You think she’ll be okay with that?”
There’s a dropping sensation inside me, like I’m in free fall.
“You think his wife will fire me?” Even as I say the words, I hear the potential truth in them.
Tristan might not want love, but he is infinitely lovable.
He might try for a business arrangement, but his wife might want more.
I don’t think I have a place in that more.
Nour’s hand settles on my shoulder. “I’m not trying to scare you. But I think about the best clients I’ve had. The ones who paid well and tipped me at Christmas. The ones who listened when I said duck and stayed home when I said it wasn’t safe. They still weren’t kind.”
My mind flashes to all the events I’ve been to with people in Tristan’s circle. I’ve driven the siblings to enough parties, sat in enough back rooms, and been treated like wallpaper enough times that I know exactly what she means.
People in his world are rarely kind, not unless it means they can get something in return.
“Shit.”
“Exactly,” Nour says. “Just be careful.”
Cold sinks through me, hollowing my stomach. Everything is changing. It’s exactly what I thought at the party, and yet here, faced with the evidence of exactly how much is out of my control, I feel like I’m going to be sick.
What did Sienna say about the apps again? It’s a numbers game. Right. I haven’t done this in years. Last time it was dismal. Corny one-liners and misspelled texts galore. I remember wondering why the majority of the male population felt hey was an appropriate pickup line.
Inevitably, my job would come up and the conversation would go one of two ways—weirded out because I seemed more masculine than them, or weird because they were trying to prove they were comfortable with it.
Tristan doesn’t think it’s weird.
Oh my god.
My fingers race over the screen, typing in my email to my old account. My phone auto-fills the password. This is really happening.
Welcome Back, Katie! The app is thrilled to see me. I pace into my tiny kitchen. I am not thrilled. I am decidedly uncomfortable.
I am also twenty-six years old, and on the continuum of never been kissed to sexually confident, I’m probably further to the left than I’d like to be.
My old profile fills the screen. I squint at the photo. It is fine? I think? Blurry and a little out of date, but—I scroll briefly through my phone—I don’t have any other pictures, unless they’re with Tristan.
I bite my lip. I think that’s a no-no. Ugh, whatever. I scroll through the relevant sections, deleting the old details, updating my age—I’m twenty-six now, not twenty-three, and save it.
A man appears.
I lurch sideways into my dining table. My finger slides over the screen.
Congratulations! The app rains confetti. I’m not sure what I’m being congratulated for until it announces in bold letters—It’s a match! More confetti.
Another man is on my screen now, and I catch myself judging his facial hair and his posture.
He’s holding a dog, at least. Points for him.
Sienna told me men do that because they want to seem approachable.
So maybe he’s not approachable and just trying to game the system?
Or maybe I should be glad he’s socially savvy enough to try? One of us has to be.
Shit. My finger hovers. I imagine him doing the same thing—eyeing that blurry photo of mine, with a friend looking over his shoulder. I swipe before I can lose my courage. No confetti this time. My stomach plummets, and I toss the phone down.
I don’t think I can do this. I yank the fridge open and pull out a nonalcoholic beer. I’m not on shift tonight, but anything could happen. As much as I want a drink, this beer-flavored beverage will have to do.
I take quick sips and eye my phone like it will jump off the table and force me to start talking to strangers.
Because that’s the next step. Swiping is fine, but it’s the talking that gets me. Well, the talking and what feels like the endless judgment of it all.
It feels like shouting pick me into the void, except the void doesn’t shout back. Instead, the void sends you dick pics and asks if u up?
“God, Katie. A therapist would have a field day with you.” I take another sip of beer and force myself to pick the phone back up. Man #1 has messaged me. Clancy. That has to be a fake name, right? I don’t know a single Clancy under seventy-eight.
Hey, he writes.
Not a promising start. Clancy needs me to carry the conversation, and god, I don’t want to.
I can make conversation. I can be funny.
But I have to be comfortable. And when I’m with strangers, I so rarely feel comfortable.
I feel like I’m watching myself from above, wondering if I’m moving my hands too much, or if I’m being boring.
It feels like I’m dredging up a core memory of a little girl waiting to be picked. If she just wore her nicest dress and her best pair of shoes and was polite, she’d get a family.
I set the phone back down. I’ll try again tomorrow. When the sting of the conversation with Tristan has dulled.
Let’s give it a go, Bailey.
I know what would happen. Eventually, I’d want more with Tristan Prince, just like I’ve wanted more with every friend or boyfriend I’ve clung to.
That little girl is still inside me and she’d marry him and she’d want him to pick her.
I refuse. I will not be that girl and I will not marry him just because it’s convenient.
What does Sienna always say? The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else?
Well, I’m getting under someone else. As fast as humanly possible.
And I’m never thinking about how attractive Tristan is ever again.