Page 11 of Taming Scarlet

It simply wasn’t enough to keep my penthouse, to continue to eat all my meals out of the house, to go wherever I wanted on vacation, to buy whatever clothes I desired.

Maybe that made me spoiled, but if my father wanted to point fingers on whose fault that was, he’d have to direct that finger toward himself. I was a product of the childhood he’d provided. I got everything I wanted. I went on luxurious vacations with him and my mom.

Then, of course, after my mom died, leaving me all alone save for my wretched nanny, since he was always at work, he overcompensated for his absence with monetary things.

If he didn’t like who I’d become, the blame was squarely on his shoulders.

And yet, I was forced to deal with these invasive bodyguards.

Not to sound like a complete twat, but some of them were fucking creeps. It didn’t matter that some of them were old enough tobemy father, I’d caught several of them peeping in on me when I changed or when I was in the shower.

Even the ones I thought were decent guys ended up doing something that pissed me off or made me uncomfortable enough to become such a monster that they had no choice but to quit.

The last one, a guy I’d caught taking pictures of me when I had a face and hair mask on in the privacy of my own damn home, had been run out of the penthouse thanks to extended and relentless sleep deprivation. I waited until he passed out, then woke his ass up with some loud noise or another.

Three days was all it took to send him packing after that. Not before telling me exactly what he thought of myspoiled,bratty, andselfishbehavior, though.

There hadn’t been a single ‘good guy’ in the bunch so far, so I was under no delusions about this one.

All that handsome probably let him get away with shit that the other, less attractive, men who’d been pushed into my life couldn’t.

I had my eye on him, that was all I could say.

He would do something shady as hell eventually.

They all did.

Then I’d have to figure out how to run him out.

Something about the way he carried himself, though, made me think he wouldn’t be as easy as the rest.

I reached for the door at the coffee shop, only to see his arm shoot out over my head, grabbing it instead, and pulling it open for me.

Good manners didn’t mean he was a good guy, I reminded myself as I moved inside without so much as aThank you.

As I waited in line, I caught him in my periphery. Not behind me, expecting me to pay for his coffee like most of the others would, even though I knew they all had their own expense cards, but standing over near the door.

His dark eyes scanned the room. Almost like he was looking for threats.

What was this guy, ex-military?

Did he expect someone to shoot up the place?

Or, maybe, to rush in and kidnap me for ransom?

I mean, that wasn’t that far-fetched, actually.

Once, while on vacation abroad, there had been a near-miss incident meant to extort my father.

I’d been twelve and shoved into a car as I walked past the open door.

Luckily for me, and unluckily for them, I was smart enough to just… scoot across the backseat and exit the other side door then scream bloody murder.

Last I heard, they werestillserving time for attempted kidnapping and extortion once they found a letter in their car.

You didn’t fuck with my father’s lawyers.

They nailed those guys to the wall.

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