3. Kayla
The disappointment and frustration pulsing through the air is so palpable that I can almost feel it physically vibrating against my skin. However, I keep the casual expression on my face as I sit there in the chair on the other side of Dad’s desk. Leaning back nonchalantly, I cross one leg over the other while Dad finishes his lecture.
Though, lecture is probably not the right word. Perhaps tirade. Admonishment. Scolding. Yeah, those fit better.
“Do you have any idea how much your childish antics cost me?” Dad leans forward in his chair and angrily stabs his finger down on the glass tabletop between us. “Not only financially, but professionally too?”
I know that he is not actually waiting for an answer, so I just sit there in his pristine office in silence and hold his gaze. Sunlight streams in through the floor-to-ceiling windows that make up two of the walls in his penthouse office. The light plays over the white walls opposite them, and it glints in the sleek metal and glass furniture throughout the room.
“You’ve gone through eight bodyguards this year alone!” Dad continues, his blue eyes flashing. “Eight. And word has spread through their ranks. I’m lucky that my own bodyguards haven’t quit out of solidarity too.”
I roll my eyes. As if they would ever quit. His bodyguards have been with him for years. They’re loyal to a fault.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me,” he snaps. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to keep finding new bodyguards for you all the time?”
“You could just stop doing it,” I say, raising my eyebrows expectantly. “And just let me live without being shadowed by a bodyguard all the time.”
“After what happened to your brother? No.”
Guilt twists my insides. Glancing down, I fiddle with the watch I always wear around my wrist. My brother’s watch. Or it was supposed to be, anyway.
“It’s not the same,” I say quietly, still looking down at the watch.
“Are you seriously telling me that things wouldn’t have been different if you’d had a bodyguard with you that day?”
“Well… no.” I look up, meeting his gaze again, and then throw out my arms in frustration. “But this is nothing like that! I’m twenty years old. I’m a university student. I don’t need a babysitter.”
He draws his pale brows down in a look of disapproval. “A bodyguard is not a babysitter. It’s someone who will keep you safe.”
“From what?” The words tear out of my lungs, full of anger and exasperation. “We deal in real estate, for God’s sake! It’s not as if I’m a mafia princess.”
“No, but I’ve still made enemies. Not to mention the risk that someone might kidnap you for ransom.”
“Kidnap me?” Staring at him, I shake my head. “You can’t be serious!”
“I am. Which is why?—”
His words are cut off by a short beep from the office phone on his desk. After blowing out a breath, he presses a button.
“Yes?” he says.
“Sir,” one of his assistants says on the other end of the line. “They’re here.”
“Great. Send them up.”
He presses the button again, ending the call. Pushing his chair back, he stands up and then brushes a hand over his blond hair as if to smooth it down. Suspicion pulses through me as he buttons his suit jacket and straightens his cuffs.
“Send who up?” I ask, slowly rising to my feet as well.
Dad walks around his desk and moves towards the center of the room. “I’ve hired a new bodyguard for you.”
“What?” Scrambling around my chair, I hurry after him. “But I thought you said that no bodyguard in this entire state would take the contract.”
“I reached out to someone else.”
“Who?”
“The Hunters.”
Shock clangs inside my skull, and I jerk to a halt on the floor. Blinking, I just stare at my father for a few seconds while I try to process what he actually said. When time still doesn’t make his words more logical, I quickly close the distance between us and grab his arm, turning him towards me.
“The Hunters,” I echo. “The legendary hitman family that’s connected to the Morelli mafia family.”
Dad nods. “Yes. I’ve done business with Jonathan Hunter before. Mostly retrieval jobs to recover some documents that were stolen during…” He gives his head a quick shake as if the details of that don’t matter. “Anyway, I reached out to him about finding a bodyguard for you and he said that he has the perfect person for the job.”
I just stare up at him with wide eyes. “You hired a hitman to protect me?”
“Yes. Now, be nice.”
Before I can retort, the door is opened and two men stride across the threshold. I whirl around to face them.
The man on the right looks to be in his late forties, with straight brown hair and sharp blue eyes. Which means that he must be Jonathan Hunter. The guy walking beside him can’t be anyone other than one of his sons. While their facial features are not overly similar, they’re built the same. Tall and broad-shouldered. I swear, the younger guy is even more muscular than his father.
I study him.
Like his dad, he also has brown hair. But as opposed to Jonathan, whose hair is straight and neatly styled, this guy looks like he has just rolled out of bed. His loose brown curls are effortlessly messy in a way that makes him look annoyingly hot. And his light brown eyes glitter in the sunlight streaming in through the windows.
“Jonathan,” Dad says as he holds out his hand to the legendary hitman. “Thank you for agreeing to this. I know that it was an unusual request.”
“Anything for you, Trent,” he replies as he shakes my dad’s hand. “You know that.”
Next to him, the younger guy flicks a quick assessing look over me. Then one side of his mouth tilts up in a small smile as he meets my gaze again. My heart jerks in my chest. Don’t tell me that this is the guy that Dad has hired as my bodyguard?
As if the universe had heard my stunned thoughts, Jonathan draws back and instead motions at the younger guy. “This is my youngest son, Jace.”
Dad reaches forward and shakes his hand as well. “Nice to meet you, Jace.” Then he pulls his hand back and gestures at me. “This is my daughter, Kayla, who you will be guarding.”
Jace shifts his glittering eyes to me and holds out his hand. “Kayla.”
A ripple rolls down my spine at the utter confidence in his voice and at the way he says my name.
I’m still so stunned by the direction this has taken that I only manage to take his hand without actually saying anything. His hand is warm and strong around mine as he gives me a firm handshake.
This is the guy who will be my bodyguard? Up until now, it has only been middle-aged men. But this guy can’t be more than a couple of years older than me. And why the fuck does he have to be this ridiculously hot?
“Dad, this really isn’t necessary,” I blurt out, and turn towards my father once Jace has released my hand.
Annoyance and embarrassment flicker in his blue eyes as he shoots me a sharp look. Then he turns back to Jonathan. “You’ll have to forgive my daughter. I was just telling her about this arrangement when you arrived, so she’s still a little surprised.”
Jonathan waves his hand casually. “No worries.” Then he nods towards the door. “Perhaps we should give them a moment to introduce themselves while we finish up the final details?”
“Yes, that sounds great.” Dad turns to me. “Jace will start tomorrow morning, so one of my guards will take you back to your apartment when you’re done.”
“No, wait,” I protest, my mind still scrambling for a way out of this. “I don’t need a bodyguard to?—”
“Kayla.” He shoots me a stern look. Then a smile slides home on his lips as he motions for Jonathan to follow him out the door. “This way, please.”
“Jace,” Jonathan says, glancing over his shoulder as he walks towards the door. “I’ll meet you back at the car.”
“Yeah,” Jace simply replies, but he does turn slightly to watch our fathers leave.
I glare after my dad in both anger and frustration.
Then my gaze slides back to Jace.
My pulse flutters as I watch the way his muscles shift when he flexes his hand.
Fuck. This is the guy who is going to be living with me in my apartment now? It was bad enough when it was a random middle-aged man watching me every time I stumble home from a party drunk or every time I walk out of my bedroom with messy hair and morning breath. But now it’s a guy my own age. And not just any guy. This guy.
I quickly rake my gaze up and down his body while he’s still watching my father close the door on the other side of the room.
He’s wearing a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt that only serves to accentuate his insanely sculpted body. And the way he’s standing, the entire way that he carries himself, just screams effortless confidence. This is a guy who is both ridiculously hot and powerful, and he knows it.
“I know,” Jace says.
A jolt shoots through me when I realize that he has just caught me staring at his body, and I snap my gaze back up to his face. His eyes glitter and there is a little smirk on his mouth as he looks back at me.
It immediately makes annoyance pulse through me.
If this guy thinks that I’m going to make this job easy for him just because he’s hot, then he has another thing coming. In fact, I’m going to do the opposite. Just because he has the nerve to be both attractive and my age, I’m going to be even more of a demon to him.
He thinks that he can handle me?
He thinks that he can charm me with his glittering eyes and sexy smirk and smooth-talking voice?
Ha. Good fucking luck. I am going to drive him fucking insane.
“What?” I reply to his comment, and raise my eyebrows expectantly.
That cocky smirk stays on his lips. “I know what you were thinking.”
“Oh?” I give him a flat look. “Do enlighten me.”
“You were thinking that I look like I’m good in bed.”
“No, I was actually thinking that you look like someone who preheats the microwave.”
He opens his mouth to respond, but then pauses. His brows furrow as he frowns while staring at the wall behind me for a solid ten seconds. As if he is trying to figure out what that even means.
Then he blinks, apparently finally having realized that it was an insult, and snaps his gaze back to me.
“Hey, what the fuck?” he protests, shaking his head at me with a bewildered frown on his face.
“The fact that it also took you ten seconds to figure that one out isn’t really helping your efforts to disprove my assessment.”
“What are you?—”
“But nice try, Sparky.” I flick my hair back behind my shoulder and start towards the door. “I’ll text you the address to my apartment. Don’t be late.”
“Hey, what the…?” he blurts out, but I just keep walking. “I…”
A wicked grin shines on my mouth as I saunter up to the door and push it open.
“It’s Jace!” he calls after me.
I laugh under my breath while giving him a nonchalant wave with the back of my hand. Then I disappear out the door.
This is going to be so much fun.