Page 13 of Single Mom's Bodyguards
“Already sent in an unmarked car for a perimeter sweep. We’re rebuilding the cam system ourselves—quiet and fast. You’ll oversee that install.”
Of course I will. Because when someone needs to control every variable down to the MAC address of a thermal cam, they call me. “What about her ex?”
Sean doesn’t look up. “Waiting on a deep scrape from our legal contact. I’ll do the soft recon tonight.”
“She gave us permission?”
“She gavemepermission.” His voice is clipped. Final.
I glance at Huck. “You good with the schedule?”
He nods.
“Great. And what happens when we’re all in the same room with her again? You know,frequently, since she’s our client now.”
Sean’s jaw ticks. “We’ll be professional.”
“And when that stops working?”
He finally looks at me. “Then we adapt.”
Adapt. Right. Because nothing says “stable business model” like a woman who broke all our brains and caused a decade of unresolved tension pacing around the office in heels.
“You really think we can protect her without…crossing lines?” I ask.
Sean holds my gaze. “We’re going to protect her no matter what. Lines or not.”
Huck finally speaks. “We already crossed the line the day we let her walk away.”
I hate that he’s right. But I’ll be damned if I let anyone else touch her again. Not after what she’s been through. Not after what we didn’t do the first time around.
We should have stopped her from hooking up with Oswalt. I knew it then, and now, I can’t stop blaming myself. That’s probably the real reason I’m stalling on the job. It’s not our friendship, although it is a factor. So is our business. If this goestits up, Orion could fall apart. But what’s truer is this—now that I know what that piece of shit did to her, the guilt is gnawing at me.
Being frustrated with myself won’t fix this. I exhale hard and head for the door. “I’ll start mapping out her tech profile. I want full system access before nightfall.”
Sean nods. Huck just watches me with that silent, knowing look that says I’m not as unreadable as I like to think.
I don’t look back. Because if I do, they’ll see it. That I already made the mistake I swore I wouldn’t. I let her in again. Just by being near her, hugging her, smelling her, I’m in my head. I don’t like it.
She’s already in everything now.
Every gut instinct. Every twitch in my hands when I think about the kind of man who could put his hands on her and sleep at night.
It’s been a long time since I let myself care about anything other than clean code and predictable risk. Since I let myself feel like the kind of man who could matter to her.
There’ve been women, God knows. But none could hold a candle to Bailey. I told myself it was ridiculous. That I’d romanticized a childhood crush. That it was puppy love and I had to get over it. Never managed that trick, though.
Seeing her today—same fire, same fight, sameeverything—it messed me up.
I close the file on the screen. I already know what it says. The truth is, we don’t need to run diagnostics to know she’s worthprotecting. We don’t need full clearance or an operations map to know the call’s already been made.
We’re taking the job.
My reflection stares back from the dark window—older, broader, harder than I used to be. But some things haven’t changed. I still remember what she looked like the night we made that pact. All of us pretending it was noble, not cowardly. All of us lying to ourselves.
We said we’d never make her choose. But what if she didn’t have to?
Dangerous thoughts.
