Page 27 of Protecting Hailey

Picking up my phone, I checked the time. Eleven o’clock. Holy shit. I had slept for thirteen hours.

I showered, blow-dried my hair on low to maintain my curls, and dressed in a pair of black sweatpants and a gray hoodie.

I hadn’t planned to eat breakfast until the smell of bacon and eggs reached me in the hallways and my mouth watered.

Maybe I’ll have one bite.

“Good morning!” I said, walking into the kitchen.

“Morning,” Christian greeted me back.

He wore a finely tailored blue suit and a light blue tie, which was tossed over his shoulder while he cooked.

As I walked closer to him, I smelled a soft hint of cologne. The fragrance was fresh and clean. It distracted me momentarily, but then he moved past me to grab the salt.

“You know, you don’t have to do this. We could just pick up breakfast on the way to the studio.”

He shook his head. “Nah, no way. You are not stepping foot inside one of those crime dens until this feud between you and Kendra is squashed. And I refuse to order takeout since my last assignment didn’t end well with the delivery guy. So, you’re stuck with me and my cooking.”

I shrugged. “Or I could hire a cook. I’ve been thinking about it lately.”

He stopped scrambling the eggs and turned to look at me with a red silicone spatula still in his hand. “You know, that’s not a bad idea. I’ll get on that.”

He took everything so seriously, and I don’t know why that made me smile. Perhaps it was comforting to know someone else held my worries, so that I didn’t have to, well, worry about them.

He plated two dishes, and we ate our breakfast together at the kitchen table. “This is really good,” I said between mouthfuls of scrambled eggs.”

“Thank you,” he said between half-chewed bites.

I chuckled and covered my mouth. He grinned and shook his head. “My father would kill me if he saw my table manners right now.”

“I won’t tell him if you won’t.”

He winked. “Deal.”

While he drove me to the studio, I wondered about his comment at breakfast. “Was your father very strict?”

He laughed without humor and tilted his head. “There are strict dads, and there are military dads. And then there’s my dad, who decided neither was tough enough for his boy.”

“Were you a difficult child?”

“Not at all. Quite the opposite. I followed every rule, as though it were the law. I kept my room immaculately clean and never slacked off on my chores.”

“So, when did you rebel?”

“I never did.”

I scoffed. “You mean you never skipped a class, snuck out of the house, or even kissed a girl when you weren’t supposed to?”

“Never.”

I narrowed my eyes. “How did you never do these things in college?”

He shook his head. “I never went to college. I went straight into the military after high school.”

“Oh.” That surprised me because most of the people I knew had gone to college. Except for me. “I’ve never been to college either.”

“You haven’t?”

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