Page 23 of Sweet Temptation

She was strong, but right now her other survival instincts were kicking in—she was going into flight mode. Mentally, she wanted as far away from this event as possible.

Maybe she was in denial about the seriousness of it all.

But this was gonna hit her in the cold light of day tomorrow. Hard.

And tomorrow, I’d need to talk it all through with Brody. Because his client didn’t seem to have the first clue how vulnerable she was in this house, and maybe in her life in general.

I wasn’t sure Brody really got it either.

I was kinda pissed off about the whole thing myself, and I’d just met her.

Why the fuck didn’t this woman already have security?

I watched as she shot me a look that I read as somewhere between annoyance and surrender, then disappeared up the back hall to her bedroom.

Brody sighed. “Your guy outside… You’re leaving him here tonight?”

“Andre? Fuck, no. He’s been pounding Crown Royal. I’ve called him a cab.” Then I said the thing I’d been considering without fully committing to it until it came out of my mouth. “I’ll stay.”

Yeah. So, I’d just assigned myself to bodyguard duty.

Something I’d sworn up and down, to myself and everyone I knew, that I wasn’t doing again.

Ever.

Naveen was gonna have a fucking field day with this shit. Half the reason he’d thrown me that “retirement” party tonight was because he didn’t believe for a fucking second that I was never taking another bodyguard assignment.

When I said I was retiring, though, I fucking meant it.

But I just couldn’t walk out of here tonight. Because I knew if I did, I wouldn’t feel right about it.

“You sure?” Brody asked me. Even he was probably wondering why I didn’t just get on the phone to one of my guys and go home to bed.

“Yeah. It’s just for tonight.”

It was just for tonight.

That’s what I promised myself.

“Alright,” Brody said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Makes me feel better to know you’re here, actually. We’ll talk in the morning, yeah? I’ll bring Jude in. He’s in Australia, on tour with Dirty, so he’ll have to join us on FaceTime or something.”

“Sounds good.”

“Get some sleep if you can,” he said, and I saw him out.

I waited with Andre until his cab came, then headed back into the house and locked the door behind me.

Despite Maddox’s assessment, I went through the house and personally checked every door and window, though I left Summer’s bedroom alone. I’d already locked the doors on her balcony before Maddox and I cleared out of her room. And the woman had been put out enough tonight. She deserved privacy now, space, and quiet.

I turned out most of the lights and made myself as comfortable as I could on the couch. Yeah, I’d seen all the guest rooms. But I wasn’t a guest. And Summer hadn’t offered me a room.

Luckily, she had a decent couch.

I sent my trainer a text to cancel our date at the gym in the morning.

Then I reported in to Naveen, via text, to give him the recap of what was happening. I’d call him tomorrow.

I could already hear him, fucking laughing at me.

---