Page 12 of The Bodyguard

Sawyer chuckled. Angela wasn’t a stick in the mud. Last night was proof of that. The ladies hadn’t even bothered with a glass of wine. They danced. Played trivia. Goofed around. All in all, Angela seemed to let the assassination attempt disappear from her mind. And he never saw her checking her phone for a missed call or text message from Paul. “All right. Not in all circumstances.”

“Sawyer, scroll up.”

He thought twice, took a shallow breath, scrolled, and read Paul’s messages, which asked when she would come home. Sawyer cleared his throat and swallowed hard. He ran his hand into his hair and then shrugged. “That’s pretty self-explanatory, Ange.” He offered her phone back. “He wants to see his girlfriend.”

“Not-uh.” Angela scoffed. “The only time I’m asked to go somewhere is for some kind of political reason, something orother that my mother needs to trot out her stolen-and-returned daughter for. He’s asking as her staffer, not as my boyfriend.”

Sawyer shifted and repositioned his legs. Angela wanted an honest assessment. He didn’t have any context about the boyfriend or know her to be unreasonable. Still… “That’s kind of harsh.”

“It’s not. It’s—” Just as suddenly as she’d thrown this conversation onto his lap, she tried to back away. “It doesn’t matter anyway.”

His eyebrows cocked. “Why’s that?”

“I can’t show up in the US without a proper plan and lots of planning. He knows that. Besides, I’m not returning to the US until I have to testify.”

His chest tightened at the idea of Angela walking around without him to keep her safe. But there was a US-based team that was more than capable. Boss Man would put Angela inside an armored bubble and not let her out until the risks were erased. That should have been a small comfort, but now it was one more thing needling Sawyer.

“Maybe I am being harsh. I don’t know. This is why I need your perspective.” Angela pushed her phone back. “But you have to read the whole thread,” she pleaded. “Please.”

He frowned. “I don’t know, Ange.”

She pressed her lips together. “This will drive me crazy if I don’t hash the whole thing out with you. Once you read the thread and I get this out of my system, I won’t ask again.”

Sawyer took the phone and read Angela’s most recent messages after those asking for a good time to connect.

Can you call me when you have a chance? Today was a lot.

The time stamps on the two messages were about an hour apart. Sawyer pinpointed them as having been sent after he haddeposited her safely in her suite following Jared’s briefing. He hadn’t asked her if she wanted to talk. He should have.

Sawyer gave her a quick side glance. “You said yesterday was ‘a lot’? That’s a bit of an understatement.”

“I already explained how Paul and I are. Besides—” She gestured to her phone. “I’m not interested in what I said. I want your thoughts on whathesaid. Scroll up.”

Sawyer returned his attention to her phone and scrolled for a moment but paused. “Did you touch base with your mother about what happened?”

“Not in a million years would I bring that up to her. Someone else will tell her.”

“But it’s not going to be you?” he laughed.

“No way, it’s not going to be me. Someone else.”

That someone would most likely be Boss Man—if he hadn’t already, which might relate to his radio silence. Sawyer turned the possibilities over and watched Angela to see if she had made that connection.

“We can figure my mother out later. Can we focus on this first?”

If she’d connected Jared’s absence with telling her mother, Angela wasn’t sharing. He returned his attention to Paul’s messages.

Babe. What would you think about coming home?

Babe? You never got back to me.

I think you should come home.

Move home.

Babe?

We’re all busy, Angela. The Senator agrees with me. You should come home.

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