Page 19 of Protector Next Door
12
Xander - One Week Later
This woman is dangerous.Little but fierce, the strength of a wrecking ball in the form of a feather. She’s beautiful but that’s not why she’s dangerous. It’s just the little finishing touch that makes her absolutelyperfect.
I just closed on a very coveted, valuable contract. I shake hands with everyone at the table and everyone not at the table - the secretary in the corner taking notes, the intern who spent fifteen minutes in the beginning of the meeting trying to set up the PowerPoint while his boss fumed at the front of the room. I told him it wasn’t a problem and took the opportunity to ask him if he’d heard of the hottest new dating app, the one that Bryce tried to steal from Samantha. She sold the app to a startup because she wanted to focus on other things. I told the big boss at the head of the table that the thing about dating apps is that there’s inherent irony in their use - if they succeed, you delete them. You only use dating apps because you haven’t yet found the person you want to be with. It’s like medicine. The medicine companies are only in business when you’re sick. If you have a chronic condition, you keep taking the medicine. Samantha rattled all of this knowledge off while we driving home from the conference. She likes irony. She loves pizza. I’m obsessed with every little detail of her life and I dig into her social media accounts so I can ask her to give me the overview of everything that’s onthem.
Who is this guy? Do I have to worry abouthim?
No, baby, she says as she twines her fingers through my hair and I kiss her.You don’t have to worry about anyone. There’s no other man for me butyou.
The first thing we did when we got home after the conference was get a nice thick set of privacy curtains installed on her windows. She fought me atfirst.
Will I be able to see out the windows? I don’t want anyone looking in, but I also don’t want to not be able to see out!!! What about the palm trees? What was the point of me buying a house that had palm trees if I’m not allowed to watch themswish??
When her voice pitches up at the end I can tell how many exclamation points or question marks she would add to the end of the sentence were she writing it. I’m wrapped up in shocking, stupid love with her. We push and pull at each other without ever growing an inchapart.
After I shook the hands of everyone at the table and grabbed my phone from my back pocket as I stepped into the late afternoon California sunshine, my heart clenched when I saw I had two missed calls from her and one voicemail. I callher.
“What’sup?”
“We have a…situation.”
Ifreeze.
“What isit?”
“Okay,so…”
“Come on, out withit.”
She doesn’t sound nervous, despite her multiplecalls.
“Did you listen to thevoicemail?”
“No, I did not. I called you. What is it? Are youpregnant?”
An audible gasp leaps from her throat. I smile with my lips turned down at the sides. I don’t know where that came from - neither her reaction nor mycomment.
“Do you want me to be pregnant?” shebreathes.
“Would that change theanswer?”
“No.”
“Comeon.”
“It’s my dad,” she says. I can feel her slumping down onto the couch with her feet up. Now that it’s been confirmed she is not pregnant I know that there’s a beer in her hand. The temperance is strong with this one. She’s moderate in all things but love. It’s why I think she likes me to take control a little in the bedroom. She’s exact and deliberate, calculating, cool. But that doesn’t make her timid. It only takes a little ignitor fluid to get her rearing up togo.
“Your dad is not a situation,” I reassure her. “I am going to talk tohim.”
“No, I mean…the situation is not my dad, exactly. The situation is that stupid freaking internet people are saying that I had sex with some old guy and now my dad is pressing me foranswers!”
Shit.
The situation between me and Samantha is, I admit, complicated. Or, I should say, if not complicated, then complex. It’s now that I’m hit with the regret of not telling her father about ussooner.
“I’ll call him as soon as I gethome.”
