23. Wesley
23
WESLEY
The plan was to turn on the bathtub and leave her alone.
But after seeing her struggle to take off the necklace and pull the pins from her hair, I find myself standing behind Nina and doing both of those things for her. My groin stiffens when I notice her slipping robe in the mirror. I turn my attention to these hairpins as she fixes it, but her nipples poking through the thin material doesn’t help.
She steps to the claw-foot tub and moves to undress. Is she trying to kill me? My subtle attempt to leave results in my shoe scuffing the ground as I stumble. “I, uh—I’ll—I’ll give you some privacy.”
“What?” Nina tightens the robe as she whirls toward me, panic filling her eyes. The look is clear enough: don’t leave me alone . I bite the inside of my cheek and chide myself for getting hard right now. I gesture to the tub before turning my back to her.
Get it together.
The water trickles as she dips inside. I wait another few seconds to turn back. She curls her knees to her chest, the puffy bubbles blocking the side of her breast. I sit on the bench beside the tub, examining my bruised hand as a distraction. Anxiety pumps through my body.
I shouldn’t be this turned on right now, but the thought of scooping her from the bathtub and kissing every inch of her body intensifies with each second. She briefly dips under the surface and pulls her wet hair aside, revealing the slope of her neck. I nearly fall to my knees and press my lips to every drop of water on her honey skin. My eyes land on the growing bruise around her throat and my chest wrenches painfully.
Nina lathers shampoo through her hair, her soft cries filling the otherwise silent room. I don’t know why I do it, but I shift closer on the bench and offer to take over. There’s no time for embarrassment; she leans on the edge of the tub, her head angled toward me as if she wanted me to offer. I roll my sleeves to my elbows and dip my hands in the warm water behind her before squeezing more shampoo out of the tiny bottle.
“I don’t mean to be difficult,” she says in a small voice.
I’m not good at comfort. Being open and gentle has never come easy to me, but all I’m sure of is that I don’t want Nina to feel like she’s a burden.
“You’re not being difficult,” I reply as gently as I can, my fingers rubbing the soap into her scalp. The tension in her shoulders starts breaking apart. Her breaths become longer, body becomes stiller, and I slip further into the kind of man who would do anything she asks.
“He spoke to me,” she suddenly whispers. She inhales a strained breath. “He said ‘ we don’t want you here. Death to the monarch. ’ And then something in Maldanian.”
I keep my tone steady. “Do you remember it?”
“No.” Her voice breaks. “And I’m trying really hard to. But I just?—”
“Don’t worry,” I say, still massaging the shampoo through her hair. “It’s all right.”
For a few delicate moments, the only sounds are the light trickling of water with each of her movements and the suds on my hands.
“Neen?” Maia calls, and I don’t have the chance to panic before she appears behind me. If she’s surprised to walk in on this, she doesn’t show it. Nina doesn’t react to her sister’s arrival. I rinse my hands quickly in the bathwater as Maia nods toward me. “I’ll take over. Thank you.”
“You’re not leaving, right?” Nina asks when I reach the door.
“I’m not leaving.”
While Nina is with Maia, I use the time to debrief with Jack over the phone.
The name Anton Robert echoes in my mind. I list various ways I can make him suffer. Scream. Beg for death. Breaking each of his fingers would be the start. His eyes would be the final parts I torture before killing him; I want to be the last thing he sees.
“They were able to repair his eye socket. He’ll have brain damage, but he’ll survive,” Jack says.
“A shame.”
I should’ve smashed his head into the marble floor. The feeling of his skull cracking would satisfy me.
The meeting lasts an hour. From a quick glance, Anton is average with no red flags. Born and raised in Kosita to a middle-class family. He worked in the treasury office for three years. I tell Jack that Anton spoke to Nina, and neither of us knows the phrase death to the monarch to be tied to a group.
Jack doesn’t protest my decision to work through the night. Once we’re finished, he sends me the security footage of the incident. At first, Anton’s demeanor is normal, perhaps a little tense, but that’s expected when talking to Maldana’s princess. The two of them briefly talk; Nina is oblivious to him inching closer. My grip around my phone tightens when he lunges at her, hands latching to her neck. With one arm around the balcony edge, she tries to fend him off. The attack lasts exactly fifteen seconds before I run up and clamp my hands over his eyes, digging my elbows into his back and yanking him to the ground.
I lock the phone and shove it in my pocket. Closing my eyes, I lean my head against the wall. My heartbeat is steady. Exhaustion can be easily controlled, but my mind has never been more at war. Fifteen seconds. She had no protection for fifteen fucking seconds.
How could I have let this happen?
Nina’s safety is my responsibility. Apprehension had nagged me beforehand, but I fought my instincts in order for her to have a moment of privacy. Beck would have ignored her protests; Wesley is trying to be better, and good men respect boundaries. I continue blurring the line of expectations as her bodyguard. If I push her boundaries, she’ll distance herself. If she does that, she might end up out of my reach altogether—especially when I need to be closer.
I shouldn’t dedicate this much of my emotional capacity to my client. At the same time, I don’t have a choice. From the day I met Nina, all I wanted and all I can be is because of her. It may be unhealthy, but she’s the first light I found on the other side of who I was.
In the following hours, Mason and I don't take breaks except to use the restroom. Christopher Doukas, the hotel busboy, rolls up a cart of food for us.
“From the chef,” he says in Maldanian, which I’m sure is Jack’s doing and the chef isn’t working at two in the morning. We thank him anyway and devour the huge plates of chicken alfredo. Maia leaves the room not long after, and I resist the urge to check on Nina or ask how she is. But after another forty-five minutes, Nina’s bedroom door opens and she leans on the threshold, peering up at me with red-rimmed eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I can’t sleep,” she says with a shrug. She feigns indifference. “Do you want to play UNO?”
I blink, unsure if I heard correctly. Boundaries . This would break so many boundaries. I can say no, that it’s not appropriate, but it may be too late for that considering I washed her hair while she was naked in the bathtub.
“All right.”
I leave the door ajar as I follow Nina inside. Her hair is in two braids. I assume Maia did them since she could hardly take the pins out of her hair earlier. She wears an oversized Wilton University t-shirt and short shorts. My hands ache to replace my gaze caressing her slender legs. I tamper my disappointment when she tucks them beneath her as she lowers onto the sofa. I sit on the other end while she deals the cards. It’s been over a decade since I played, but the rules are simple enough.
The game is quiet, save for the few huffs and whines when I set down a plus-four or a color she wasn’t hoping for. I win the first round. I’d let her win if UNO was a game more of strategy than chance. But I’m dealt with another plus-four that I have no choice but to use since I’m out of reds and twos. She glares at me, slapping a hand on the cushion.
“Seriously?”
I shrug and say nothing despite the crack in her voice. I want to make sure she has enough water, to ask if she needs painkillers or if the buzzing sound stopped. But I continue the game and listen to the cicadas and crickets singing outside.
Nina squeals when I toss in a blue seven. She starts slapping down cards like money. “Skip, skip, skip, reverse, three, eight, and plus-flour. UNO !” She holds up her final card with a grin.
“Wait—”
“You’ve hit me with two plus-fours! How’s it feel?”
Damn. I forgot how much I hate losing. I stutter as I study my new cards. “Not—not great.”
She picks the color yellow. I set down a yellow three and, as expected, she tosses in her last card and quips, “I win!”
I huff, a smile tugging at my lips.
I gather the deck to shuffle, and Nina suddenly asks, “Where is he?”
“Who?” I look up, only to realize she’s staring at my damaged knuckles.
“The man. The one who?—”
“The hospital,” I interject, dreading what the end of that sentence would be. She watches me, waiting for more detail. I clear my throat as I start dealing the cards. “I broke his eye socket. He’ll have brain damage, but he’ll live.”
She hesitates. “Do you feel guilty?”
The question surprises me. “No,” I say, staring at her bruised neck while I finish dealing. “I don’t feel guilty.”
I feel homicidal.
But she doesn’t need to know that.