Page 46 of The Bodyguard

She no longer needed caffeine to wake up. Her brain jolted to an unfamiliar level of hyperawareness. Angela smoothed her hands down the side of her robe as a wave of last night’s abandonment crashed over her. She tried to ignore it. “It’s fine.”

He scrutinized the vanity. “My head went to a dark place, and I just needed to roll.”

She hated he wouldn’t face her. Hated that she wanted him to explain more. But more than that, she wanted to bury the emptiness that arrived when he’d left and kept her tossing and turning all night long.

He looked into the vanity’s oversized mirror and studied her.

“Let’s forget it,” she offered then retreated for her coffee. Angela used the seconds-long reprieve to settle the disjointed tension in her chest and returned to her walk-in closet.

Sawyer perched on the edge of her vanity. He held her gaze and then looked around. “Your closet is the size of a living room, you know that?”

She laughed, happy he’d moved on. “Working for Titan has its perks.” Angela folded herself onto the fainting couch and tucked her legs underneath her. “All right, we’re getting ready to go to the US. Why don’t you tell me everything you know? Then I can get dressed and pack a bag.”

“Parker pinged me. We have briefing books ready and a jet booked to take us to North Carolina.”

Her mouth parted. Booking planes and organizing briefing books? Those responsibilities were her job. “Who did that?”

Sawyer shrugged. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m supposed to do that.”

The corners of his lips lifted upward. “Actually, right now, you’re not.”

Disentangling herself from her regular job was worse than figuring out how to dress for the unknown. She didn’t know how to handle the situation. Jared wouldn’t know the first thing about making transportation arrangements. Parker was too busy. Angela often worked in proximity to Amanda, but their jobs didn’t overlap. Even if they did, Amanda had too much on her plate at the moment.

“Ange.” Sawyer watched her. “You can’t do both jobs well. You have to let Titan do what Titan does.”

She agreed—but who? How? Suddenly, the immensity of her haphazard job switch hit her. Angela pressed her hands against her temples. “Oh my God. What have I gotten myself into?” She didn’t know a damn thing about gathering intel. She knew how to arrange for safe houses—and, oddly enough, that was because she’d studied for it in a way. Her college degree had been in event planning and hospitality. She was an organizer. She could manage agendas and facilities. Could she do what Jared needed her to if she hadn’t spent four years studying? And somehow, she thought she could just hop into the field and investigate? Sawyer had been right.

Their phones pinged. It was too early in the morning for a message to be related to anything other than the job. She hurried out of the closet and found her phone. “It’s Parker.” It was getting close to the middle of the night on the east coast of the US. She returned to the closet and saw Sawyer’s expression had darkened as he glanced up from his phone.

Her stomach lurched. “That look doesn’t bode well.”

Sawyer’s eyebrows arched, apparently in agreement that it wasn’t good.

She opened Parker’s message.

The Feds were sniffing around. Your mother looped them in.

Angela could’ve predicted that would happen, and her mother could’ve held out for longer, but Angela didn’t expect much from the woman who day-traded information.

“Keep reading,” Sawyer grumbled.

Special Agent John Patterson will be in the hotel lobby in an hour to meet with Angela.

“Great. The Feds want to tell me I’m wrong and crazy all over again.” She tossed her phone aside and groaned. “At least that helps me figure out what outfit to wear.”

Sawyer snorted.

The phone pinged again. Angela rolled her lips together. Intuition said that the news would only worsen. “What’s it say?”

Sawyer quickly skimmed the message. His expression landed like a sucker punch into her gut.

“What?”

The muscles in his neck tightened, turning the crank on her punched stomach. “Sawyer?” She didn’t wait and grabbed her phone.

Special Agent John Patterson is a shrink.

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