Page 12 of Reluctantly His

“You need to leave.” Her words would have been so much more convincing if her voice hadn’t shaken, or if she’d actually had the nerve to hold my gaze.

“Do I really need to explain to you the danger you put yourself in with this stunt? It is my job to make sure you don’t become a kidnapping target.”

I was hired because Lucian was worried about all the socialite kidnappings going on… as if his son wasn’t directly responsible for one and indirectly responsible for the other.

Her fingers gripped her cello bow tightly. “Would you please—would you lower your voice? Everyone is staring.”

“I don’t give a flying fat rat’s ass who is staring, Charlotte. Now get your shit and let’s go. Now.”

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind I’d catch hell for speaking to her this way, but at this moment, I didn’t give a damn.

The little brat had outmaneuvered me, and it was my own fucking fault for not taking this seriously. I knew better. As in the military, it wasn’t my job to question my orders, it was my job to follow them.

I had accepted the job as her bodyguard. There was no excuse for not giving it my full attention.

If something had happened to her under my watch…

Her jaw clenched and tears burned behind her beautiful brown eyes at my harsh tone.

“Fine,” she bit out before she slid her chair away from me so she could stand up without actually touching me.

She put her fancy cello into its no-doubt, ridiculously expensive, luxury case, and locked the massive metal latches in place.

A gentleman would have offered to take the case and carry it for her back to the car.

Thankfully, I was not under any such compulsion.

The girl with the purple hair tried to block our path. “You’re not leaving, are you, silver spoon?”

Charlotte kept her face lowered. “It’s for the best. I don’t want to disrupt rehearsal.”

The girl turned to the man who’d tried to confront me earlier. “Ian! Are you just going to stand there?”

The man cleared his throat as he fluttered his hand from his chest to his waist, then back to his chest, then onto his hip. “Sir, I think I must strenuously object to this intrusion.”

I took two steps toward him, towering over his slim frame. With a nod, I said, “Well, go ahead then. Object. And see what happens.”

He blinked several times as he lowered his knees and waved his arms behind him, searching for a chair. As he fell back into one, he cleared his throat again. “On second thought, Ms. Manwarring, you are dismissed for the day.”

I bared my teeth. “That’s what I thought.”

As she passed me, I gripped the back of her neck, squeezing just enough so she knew I could hurt her if I wanted, and marched her out of the auditorium into the empty hallway.

The second the door closed behind us, she shrugged out of my grip and turned on her heel to face me.

“You didn’t need to do that,” she said, glaring at me like she was trying to exert dominance. I had never had a kitten before, but I imagined they were about as scary as she was.

“Yes, I did. You broke my rule.”

“Fuck your rule.”

Her eyes widened in surprise as if she had never heard such a foul word come from her own pretty lips.

My gaze narrowed. I had had just about enough of this. “Speak to me like that again, and I’ll show you precisely what little brats with foul mouths get.”

“I hate you.”

She turned on her heel to march out of the building.

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