Page 58 of South Beach Bodyguards

“I could be really nice to you,” I said, giving her a smile my mother had said would charm the devil.

“Thanks, Wester.” She started to back up but she blew me a kiss. “I think I’d like that.” Then she spun on her heel and started to head for the house, walking quickly.

“I’m an idiot,” I murmured to Mariposa the bulldog. “I just offered to bone my boss’s wife and I think she just said yes.”

Mariposa squatted on my shoe and pissed on me. Gritting my teeth I shook my foot and told her, “Show a little respect for the man guarding your life.”

She yawned.

I couldn’t help it. I grinned down at her. She was pretty fucking cute. Like Ricardo’s wife.

I stared at my identical twin sister and fought off the urge to shake her by the shoulders repeatedly. But I couldn’t do that. I could never do that because Eva was the sweetest, most genuine person I had ever known and she didn’t understand my frustration. “Just leave the asshole, seriously.”

“You know I can’t do that, Olivia. I love Ricardo.”

Ricardo was currently on his boat with two brunette beauties and I had no doubt he was not giving them lessons on nautical knots. I rubbed my temples and curled my feet under my legs on Eva’s massive king bed. I hated this. I hated that I had to share my time with my sister with Ricardo and all his minions. I could tolerate all the extra bodies though if she were happy and he treated her like she deserved. But the reality was he took her for granted and she was miserable, despite claiming that she was fine.

“How can you love someone who treats you like shit?” That wasn’t me. It had never been me. But then again, I was fondly referred to as Bad Twin growing up. A heart like a steel box, my grandfather had always said. Why was it that when you refused to be a doormat people thought you were icy?

If I had spent half of my childhood scowling it was because I was worried about people taking advantage of Eva’s kindness. She had always been generous, caring, and gullible, which made her a target for users and lazy people. For every friend she’d made in grade school who had borrowed crayons and never given them back. The high school boyfriend who conned her into waiting on him like a servant. Every time I had stepped in to set them straight, it made me the bitch. Whatever. I was okay with that label if it kept my sister from being mistreated.

Yet, she wasn’t listening to me this time around. Usually I could persuade her. But not now. I couldn’t fight her feelings for Ricardo. She really did seem to love the little creep.

“He doesn’t treat me like shit. He’s very generous.” Eva was sitting at her dressing table, idly fingering her perfume bottles.

Fresh out of the shower, I had damp hair and was wearing a fluffy robe. There was no shortage of fluffy robes in Ricardo’s mansion. I sighed, feeling guilty. I had just gotten there, having been picked up in a car by Ricardo’s driver from my apartment in the Gables after my last class. I was spending my spring break from classes at the University of Miami at the Love Shack, as Ricardo liked to call his private compound. I didn’t want to ruin my time with my sister by telling her what I had already told her a hundred times. So I relented.

“He is generous, that’s no doubt about that.” Being free with money had even extended to me. He frequently invited me along on their vacations, had co-signed for my apartment, and had given me a Prada purse for Christmas, which I was too afraid of getting dirty to ever use. But part of me felt like it wasn’t his money anyway, it was his father’s.

Eva turned to me. “This was the plan, remember? We always said you were the one who would get an education and I was the one who would marry a rich man, and together, we would rule the world.”

That twisted my heart. Things had been rough growing up in Jacksonville, our mom a drug addict who had taken off and left us with very loving, but very poor, grandparents. “We were fifteen, Ev. It’s okay. You don’t have to stay with him for the money if you’re not happy. I’m almost done with grad school. It’s all good. It will be fine.” Though I would advocate for a settlement for her if divorce were really on the horizon.

She just waved her hand and laughed. “I’m not leaving him.” She stood up and came over to me and sat on the bed. “Did you see the new bodyguard? He seems nice. You should flirt with him.”

My eyes rolled before I could stop myself. “Ew. I don’t want to date one of your husband’s bodyguards. What is his name, like Big Louis or something like that?” I pictured a massive guy with arms the size of marlins and a cranky look on his face. If I had time to date, which I didn’t, it wouldn’t be some silent giant.

“His name is Wester and he has blue eyes.” Eva winked at me. “So cute.”

Wester. A nerd bodyguard? “Is he Ricardo’s bodyguard or yours?”

“He’s Mariposa’s.”

For a second I couldn’t even process what she was saying then I burst out laughing. “He’s guarding the dog? Oh, my God, now that is some funny shit.” I’m sure the mysterious Wester was thrilled to no end.

Eva gave me a grin. “I know, right?” Her phone buzzed on her vanity table and she glanced down at it. “Ricardo is back. He wants to see me.”

She was going to jump up and run to him. I knew she was. It made me seriously frustrated, but I just bit my tongue. When she brushed my cheek with a kiss and said, “I’ll talk to you later,” I nodded and gave her a smile.

My guest suite was down the hall so I pulled opened her bedroom door and checked both directions to make sure no random people were hanging around. There was a serious lack of privacy in Ricardo-ville. I did see a figure slip into a bedroom but I couldn’t tell who it was. It was too early to go to bed and I felt bored, restless. I’d been feeling that a lot lately. My life was routine. Classes, study, waitressing at a bar that specialized in Spanish karaoke. Classes were challenging, since I had bitten off more than I could chew frankly with a chemical engineering degree, but I had ambitions that involved never having to be dependent on a man like my sister. The waitressing was actually fun and the source of my only social life these days, but even that was the same scene, different faces every night.

With my phone in the pocket of my robe, I decided to go outside and enjoy the fall weather. We had finally crossed that magic moment in South Florida when at night the temperatures dipped down into the seventies and you actually felt like you could breathe without needing a dehumidifying mask over your mouth.

As soon as I slid open the glass doors to the pool that collapsed in on themselves, I could smell the water from the bay. I thought I actually heard some dolphins splashing around, too, but that might have been my imagination because the water features in Ricardo’s garden were loud as hell. Being at school I was landlocked most of the time. Twenty minutes from the beach and the water, but never any time to get there. Not to mention traffic blew in Miami. That was just a fact. So I did enjoy the connection to the water when I got to visit my sister. Padding over the travertine, I dropped down into a chaise lounge and sighed as I leaned back.

“A girl could get used to this,” I murmured to the glowing glass ball sculpture thing perched a foot away from me. Eva had married Ricardo nine months earlier in an insanely over-the-top wedding. I had said then I could never imagine getting used to this life. But I could certainly see the appeal. Working for a living was monotonous. I’d been going hard for six years and I was tired, I had to admit.

A man appeared in the doorway, scanning the property, probably wondering who had opened the doors. He had a gun in his hand, I suddenly realized. Yikes. I sat up straight and pulled the robe tighter around me. “It’s just me,” I said loudly, not wanting to get shot for needing a moment of privacy.

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