Page 63 of Guarding My Love

Here they went. “Sure,” he said. “Do I have to answer it?”

“I’d like you to, but that doesn’t mean you will.”

He didn’t like the hurt in her voice. “Go on. What?”

“You’re thirty-two and have this really nice house and boat. You’re single. You come from what sounded like a lower income upbringing.”

“And you want to know how I got it?” he asked.

“Just curious. Did you win the lotto? You’ve only said you work in security and technology. I mean, sure there is money there, but unless you own the company. Which maybe you do,” she said, frowning.

“I don’t,” he rushed out to say. He wouldn’t lie. “But I do have a VP in front of my title if that helps any. I’m smart with a good degree. Let’s say I earn everything I’ve got and am wise with my money.”

He wasn’t going to go into his investments and he sure the hell wouldn’t say all the businesses he owned some shares of stock in or the bonuses he might have gotten with each new acquisition that West made.

“That’s fine,” she said. “I think I do well for myself, but it’s only been the past year or so. Before that, I had a decent job but not what I wanted. Now I’m where I want to be and love it. I hope it continues.”

“Is there a reason it wouldn’t?” he asked.

“Not that I know of, but things can happen. I know that. Nothing is guaranteed unless your daddy owns the company you work for like Landon. But even then, that isn’t guaranteed either.”

“Has he bothered you again?” he asked.

“No. I told you he replied that he missed me and I ignored it. This was after I told him I was done and to leave me alone.”

“Do you want me to put some other security on your house?” he asked. He gave her his cell phone number so she could reach him if she needed to.

Maybe he wanted her to have it for another reason altogether, but it worked out well this way too.

“No,” she said. “I’ve spent too much of my life feeling as if I was living in a bubble and don’t want to do it anymore. It’s all good. He’s harmless.”

“Not harmless if he’s still bothering you,” he said.

“I’m not worried. I’m really not,” she said. “And now I know I can call you if I need you. Does that apply if I wake up in the middle of the night from a sexy dream and don’t like that I’m alone?”

“Shit yeah,” he said.

She laughed. “Not sure I’ve got the courage to do that.”

“I want you to have the courage to do that,” he said. “I want you to feel as if you can do anything in the world you want.”

“That’s the sweetest thing ever.”

“Now I sound like a wuss,” he said.

“Don’t feel that way. No one has ever encouraged me like you do. I like it. I really do.”

“My family says it’s my wheelhouse to teach. I don’t have the patience for it.”

“See,” she said. “That’s the funny thing. When you’re showing me things, you do have the patience. Sort of. Not the day you carried my ladder in. You were grouchy then. Oh, and the day my lawn mower almost blew up. Maybe you’re right and you don’t have as much patience as I think.”

“Both those times you almost got hurt,” he admitted. “That is why I was grouchy.”

“Oh, I didn’t think about that. So not only were you saving me and teaching me, but you were protecting me.”

“Something like that,” he said. And wondered how deep of a hole he might have just dug for himself and realized there wasn’t a shovel in sight to get out.

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