Page 91 of South Beach Bodyguards

That word was wrong. All wrong.

“I need to go,” I said sharply to my sister. “Call me later.” I felt like telling her not to call me until she got back to Miami, but we talked every day. I couldn’t imagine going days without calling or texting Eva.

“OMG, fine.”

After the call ended, I stood in my living room and looked around. I wasn’t supposed to be back for another four days. My apartment was dark and quiet. I had turned the air conditioning down so I wouldn’t waste money cooling an empty apartment, so it was hot and stuffy inside. I cranked the a/c back up and chewed my lip. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I needed to get out, go somewhere, do something. I didn’t want to think about how it had felt to have a gun pulled on me. To be locked up.

Or how it felt to have Wester acting as my savior.

So I decided to call my best friend from college, Clara. “Hey, do you want to hang out today?”

“I thought you were at Chez Rich as Shit.”

“Yeah, well, that didn’t work out the way I’d hoped. Ricardo was being a dick.” That was probably the easiest way to explain what had happened.

“Well, there’s a shocker.” Clara gave a snort. She’d met Eva’s husband twice and hadn’t liked him at all. It was a reaction a lot of people had, apparently.

Except my sister.

“Can we go to the mall or something? I haven’t been to Merrick Park in forever.”

“Sure. Then let’s go out after.”

“To a bar?” The idea of a dark room with a hard stool and a bartender was appealing.

“Let’s go clubbing in SOBE.”

“Are you serious? We never go to South Beach.” Ugh. I had no desire. It was like heading right back to the scene I had just left—the epicenter of fake boobs and gelled hair. And cheetah heels.

“I want to wear hooker heels. I’m feeling fat and heels always fix that.”

I wasn’t sure hooker heels were going to fix what I was feeling. “I don’t know.”

The trauma of the night before had me feeling like someone was staring at me. I kept turning around and around in my apartment, expecting to find someone behind me. It was unnerving as hell. Then I had a thought. I glanced out the window and saw Wester’s car still parked there. He was watching me. What the hell?

I yanked open my front door and glared at him, waving my arms like a crazy person. He waved. A friendly wave. Like it wasn’t at all weird that he was just sitting in the parking lot outside my building.

“Clara, let me call you back.”

But when I tried to call Wester he didn’t answer. I texted him.

What are you doing?

He didn’t respond.

I went back inside. My phone buzzed.

Lock your door.

I did, but then I dragged a chair from the kitchen into the living room and propped it under the knob. I wasn’t sure who I was trying to keep out. I only knew I no longer felt safe in my own home, and I hated that.

I also no longer felt right in my own skin. I was thinking about Wester, about his body holding mine against the wall. My nipples tightened.

I called Clara back. “I’m in. Let’s hit the clubs.”

Anything to distract me from a certain sexy bodyguard.

ten

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