Billionaire Bodyguard Summer (Sunbreak Harbor Security #12)

Chapter 1

one

. . .

Agent Menesiena

“Any reasons why we shouldn’t hire you?” Sloane Archer, Head of Sunbreak Security, leans on the desk with both elbows, studying me, eyes honed in, deep frown on his face. “You came highly recommended by the financing entity. Demanded, really.”

He has every right to be suspicious.

I could name a dozen reasons why they shouldn’t hire me, more than.

For one, I am the financing entity.

He doesn’t know that.

“Any conflicts of interest we should be aware of?” Rafi Haddad, COO, talks while he looks at his phone, either distracted or pretending to be.

I shift in my chair, but I’ve got nothing to be nervous about, not in here. If they don’t hire me, I’m going to pull the funding. Do it myself, solo, no backup, no cover, toe to toe with Harvey Blagas, if I have to. Anything to protect her.

But they don’t know that. Not yet.

“None that I can think of,” I lie. I don’t say: I’m in love with the client, desperately so, and I have been since the moment we met, when I pulled her from a fire down at the club where she worked for the scumbag I despised.

Sloane shuffles through a thick file in front of him. “Do you know the name Harvey Blagas?”

“I do. I spent years trying to put him away, when I was a sheriff.”

Rafi glances up at me, hawk-eyed now, sizing me up. Sloane scribbles something down on his clipboard. Pen and paper. You don’t see much of that anymore. Old school. Guess it makes some kind of perverse sense that a security company would shy away from electronic records.

“Any prior knowledge of the client, Ms. Saul??”

I wonder if that’s Mia’s real last name. I honestly don’t know. I don’t know a lot of things about Mia. Though I can describe in explicit detail the way she smells. The feel of her skin on mine. The sound of her laugh, her sobs, the way she moans when she bears down on me and comes hard.

Sometimes I doubt if Mia is really her first name. I let a lot of things go when she’s near me. Including the truth.

I’d probably kill just to see her again, and I know for a fact I’d die for her. Last time I worked as her close protection, I nearly did.

“No.” I make strong eye contact to cover the lie, and I hope like hell these two didn’t delve. When I had Skelly make the call to set all this up, I made sure he told them I was pre-vetted, background checked. Clean as a whistle.

I have no judgment when it comes to Mia, none whatsoever.

There’s a billion dollars in my bank account, and I could do anything, anywhere I wanted, at any time.

Instead I spend all my time and energy desperately trying to protect her, to keep her safe, begging her to stop working for Harvey.

I’m chasing her while she’s chasing him and his crime syndicate all over God’s occasionally green earth.

She’s every thought I’ve had since we met.

I can’t stop. I don’t know why.

Sloane and Rafi think it’s the District Attorney’s office in Halo City who’s paying to guard Mia, part of a witness protection program. Nope. I’m the one who hired Sunbreak Security to guard Mia. Then told them I had a candidate for the job.

Who I strongly suggested they hire.

Me.

“And you’re living here, in Sunbreak Harbor?” Rafi stares through me, and I wonder again if they don’t already know the answer to every question they ask.

“Yes. Currently.”

I’ve been sleeping on a little catamaran I rented since I trailed her here from Halo City, parked in a slip over at the marina.

I was inspired by the possibility of Mia conceding to my demands, or pleas, is more like it, a big fantasy of her finally saying yes, this was it: she was finally done with Harvey, done with the sex work.

Especially after he tried to have her killed.

I had a vision of guarding her, protecting her through the testimony, and then sailing away with her into the sunset.

Even though that’s technically impossible. On this coast.

Then again, I’m rarely realistic when it comes to Mia.

“We have a few reservations about hiring you.” Rafi sets his phone down and gives me a long stare. I meet his gaze.

“I understand.” I’m bluffing. I don’t understand. I don’t know what they know.

Sloane raises an eyebrow. “Harvey Blagas is the target of a multi-state investigation, and Ms. Saul? is a key informant. This deserves a team, not an individual.”

Now I get it. They think I don’t measure up.

And they’re right. I was a sheriff in a small town, and now I’m a crapshoot of a bodyguard. If I was smart, I’d have Sunbreak Security hire a real professional, a whole slew of them, and be done with it. Keep my distance.

I can’t. I need to be around her.

I’m a grown-ass man, with no history of addiction except her.

Mia’s my drug.

She doesn’t feel the same about me. Mia tolerates me for a little while, and then she cuts and runs at the first opportunity, with my heart in her hands.

It’s hell. And yet, she’s my heaven. I can’t quit trying.

Not after Halo City. Not after she was nearly killed.

If nothing else, I need to see her through to safety, out of this life that she refuses to leave.

“But for some reason, the funders requested one person. You.” Sloane and Rafi aren’t stupid. This doesn’t add up and they know it.

Sloane hands the clipboard to Rafi, and he takes his time reading whatever’s on it.

I’ll protect Mia no matter what. I’ll find a way. Though it’s a hell of a lot easier with an arsenal at my disposal and a group of professionals backing me up. She’s slippery. Last time I guarded her, she drugged me and escaped.

Then she got kidnapped.

And that wasn’t the worst of it.

I thought her days with Harvey were over.

It’s always the same: first in East Greenwich, then Halo City.

I save her life. I work like hell to earn her trust. We seem to be on the same page.

Eventually. Or I’m deluding myself, thanks to the all-consuming lust. I begin to think she almost, maybe, might actually love me.

And then she disappears. Leaves me flat. Gone to trail her prick of a crime boss wherever he goes.

The ocean’s calm and flat outside, over Sloane’s shoulder. I clear my head of the entanglement of Mia and I mimic the placid water so I don’t blow this interview completely. But I can’t stop imagining being in the water with her, her hands on my body, her legs wrapped around my waist…

Rafi pulls a sheet of paper from the stack and sets it in front of me, hands me a silver pen with Sunbreak Security embossed on its side.

“Welcome to the team,” Sloane says. “If you agree with the terms of the contract, go ahead and sign.”

I pick up the pen and sign on the line. I don’t read the contract. I’m here to protect Mia. Nothing binds me except that.

“We recommend you buy a pair of flip-flops so you can blend in a little better around here.” Rafi eyes my cowboy boots, a holdover from my time as a small-town sheriff.

“Not a chance in hell,” I say, and Sloane smirks, though his eyes are still intent and scowling, studying me.

“Welcome to Sunbreak Harbor, Agent Menesiena.” But Rafi’s eyes aren’t a welcome. Not at all. I’m sure he’d be just as happy to chuck me off the top of this renovated lighthouse.

And if Mia wasn’t in danger here, I’d willingly go.