Page 38 of Unguarded

Monroe smiles, shaking her head. Katherine goes over to sit on the sofa next to her, her eyes bright with excitement. She’s wearing a purple velvet blazer, a tight black dress, and six-inch Louis Vuitton stilettos.

“Has anyone been online today? Have you seen what they’re saying about you?”

Monroe’s smile fades. Her eyes rise to meet mine, blinking slowly. I can practically hear her thoughts abouteverything that happened—from the left hook I threw at the photographer to the stolen moped. I could have royally fucked things up in the eyes of the media last night.

Like I give a fuck.

But she does. My stomach muscles tighten.

She gives a lot of fucks about the media’s perception. It’s her entire career.

Monroe shakes her head warily, biting that damn lip. Katherine taps on her phone, screen mirroring it to the large TV hanging on the wall so everyone can see. It’s a social media video from last night outside the venue. The on-screen text reads,Monroe Blue spotted with a hot new man!

The video is of us already on the moped, stopping at a red light. Monroe’s hoodie flies off, and she looks directly into the camera. Her face is recognizable, but all that can be seen of me is the back of my head. It has millions of views.

The room is completely silent as Katherine swipes to the next video. This one has even more views. There’s no on-screen text, but it’s a clean shot of me and Monroe escaping down the passageway from the fans. It takes me a second to realize that it’s the man with purple hair filming us as he follows us toward the dressing room. The camera shakes as he gets closer. The audio is muffled, but the camera is clearly knocked out of his hand as he crumples on the floor after I punched him in the face. It keeps filming us as we escape down the hall.

Unease inches up my spine. The video cuts, but it doesn’t turn off. The cameraman’s face fills the screen as he speaks directly to the viewer. The skin around one of his eyes is a purple-blue hue, a shade darker than his hair. He’sspeaking Korean, but the text on-screen auto-translates into English.

“You saw that, right? I was capturing content after the Monroe Blue concert when her bodyguard punched me in the face for getting too close to her!” He points at the black eye, grinning widely. “Now, I’m not saying I didn’t deserve it, but what I can’t help but notice is that he didn’thaveto hit me like that, right? I mean, he’s a huge motherfucker, big barrel chest and over one-hundred and ninety centimeters! I was just filming them! I wasn’t even asking her for a picture, an autograph, nothing. As soon as I got close enough, he didn’t even warn me to back off. He went in for the punch, and I fucking collapsed. It was like he really wanted me to get the fuck away from her. What do you guys think this means?”

Katherine skips to the next video. This one is back outside the venue, but it shows me and Monroe walking in the crowd. We don’t think anyone has noticed us, so I wrap my arm around her shoulders to keep her close to me just in case someone does. She leans into me before looking up into my eyes … which reveals her face to the person holding the camera.

The girl behind the camera gasps, speaking quickly in Korean as she follows us across the street. “I knew it was her! Look!”

Thankfully, her path is blocked off by the crowd, and the video ends before I was caught stealing the moped.

Katherine pauses it. Her eyes are wide, face lit up and animated like she just won the lottery. The room is brimming with stunned silence. Brooks is trying to hide a knowing grinas he glances at me. I don’t react, folding my arms across my chest and planting my feet wide.

Katherine reaches for Monroe’s hand. “At first, I was worried about the spin this could take. If people thought you were cheating on Zade, that could look bad. But we’ve always known the fans weren’t reallyloyalto Zade. They can sense there’s no spark. Barely anyone even likes you two as a couple. I thought the answer might be you rekindling things with Clint, but now, I think we need to shift gears.”

Katherine looks over at me, as if seeing me for the first time through new eyes. She scans me from top to bottom, her smile growing.

Monroe’s brows pinch together. “What do you mean? They’re not upset about the guy with the black eye?”

Katherine laughs, shaking her head. “My gosh, no. No one cares! It’s still early, but it appears that they think the overprotectiveness is all very romantic.”

My fists clench tightly. The protocols I’ve broken, combined with the lack of professionalism, are sure to cause an issue. The security team and her manager already want me gone. Even though nothing happened, it looks bad. Really fucking bad.

“I guess this is as good a time as ever to tell you. I broke up with Zade before the tour. We agreed to keep it out of the public.”

Katherine gapes at her. “Well, good for you, putting on quite the show. We can tell the public when the time is right that you and he were over before this footage was leaked.”

She’s been single this entire time.

I’m glad I didn’t find out before we cuddled in a coldhotel room. My self control was already hanging on by a thread.

The news sends an unwanted thrill through my system. Their relationship never seemed very authentic, but the fact that she ended it with him makes me feel strangely … lighter.

Katherine skips to another video.

This one is a blonde American influencer with a microphone. She speaks excitedly into a microphone. “Did anyone else end up on the Korean side of social media today? I was scrolling mindlessly at two a.m., and I saw the most bizarre thing. A content creator was following Monroe Blue after her concert last night, and he was basically assaulted by her bodyguard! This man is huge and sexy as hell, and he just dropped the creator with one swing. Bam! There’ve been videos popping up of them together all over the place every minute. Him guiding her into a hotel, him opening her doors, him scanning the crowd at the concert with a death glare. People are trying to figure out who he is because he’s way too hot tojustbe her bodyguard. I mean, Zade who? Clint who? We want this guy. We need to find out who he is, but for now, we’re just calling him Watchdog. He’s fuckingfine.”

Katherine pauses the video. “Do you realize what this means?” She looks from me to Monroe. “This means we have our new juicy story to feed the fans! Love triangle is out; hot, new, mysterious bodyguard is in. You’re more desirable than ever—movie stars, ex-boyfriends, bodyguards,everyonewants a piece.This is exactly the kind of viral story we needed to kick off your world tour!”

15

MONROE

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