Page 16 of Regally Binding

Liss glanced at Bear.

She’d always hidden a thing for bad boys, although the only two guys she’d slept with were men your mum would love and your dad would invite to play golf. Although she didn’t have her mum anymore and she’d never met her dad. Bad guys were her kryptonite, so she kept as far away from them as possible. But how did you control the distance between you and your bodyguard?

“Tell me something about you,” she said. If she knew more about Bear, maybe the attraction would die. The intensity was due to the mystery alone. It had to be. She shouldn’t be this attracted to someone she’d only just met.

He shrugged. “All you need to know is that I’m your bodyguard and will keep you safe.”

He wasn’t going to make this easy. “Where did you grow up?”

“Here and there.” His face was blank, although his jaw twitched.

Liss threw her hands in the air before grabbing the duvet in time to stop it from revealing her bra. “You’re impossible.” The less he told her, the more she wanted to know, and the mystery wasn’t helping the heat that was continuing to crawl through her aching body. Her tongue darted out, and she licked her lips. “What made you want to be a bodyguard?”

He shrugged again. “Something to do.” If Liss had more clothes on, she’d stride over and slap him to get a reaction.

“Fine,” Liss snapped, lying back down and tucking the duvet around her. “You might as well get some sleep, because the next two weeks ‘will be heavy,’” she said, repeating Strike’s comment.

Little dots on the ceiling made a shape like a cloud. It reminded Liss of when she and her mum used to laugh at the funny images clouds conjured up. She gritted her teeth. Her mum could have had a chance. And what if the royal family announced Liss as a princess? On top of that, someone wanted her dead. Her arms trembled. Her grandma should have said something sooner. Nana had disappeared to stop the questions, but in her typical way, she’d cared for number one with no thoughts for the situation she’d put her granddaughter in. Her grandma was always selfish. She hadn’t been around when Liss’s mum was dying, but she could have stayed for the aftermath of the bomb she’d dropped. Liss squeezed her eyes closed tightly, but the thoughts kept coming. And in two weeks everything would change again. Who would protect her then?

“Why did you have dog biscuits?” Bear’s voice, softer than before, made her pause.

“Huh?” Liss asked, opening her eyes.

“You gave that dog near the pub a biscuit from your pocket. It seemed weird for you to be carrying them. Did you have a dog when you were younger?”

Liss fought the temptation to stare at Bear. It was nice to just chat when so much of their interaction was confrontational. Shefound a little dark mark on the wall and focused on that instead. “No, I wasn’t allowed pets growing up because of the places we rented. I found a stray cat once and hid it in my bedroom, but the landlord heard it and kicked it out. Our neighbours took it in, so I’d sit with it occasionally, but then we moved.”

“I wouldn’t have put you down as a cat person,” Bear replied.

“Hey!” The noise carried in the semi-dark bedroom. “Are you judging female cat owners?”

Bear chuckled. “Calm down, Princess. I meant I thought you’d be more of a dog person. I have met many a sexy women with cats. No judgement here.”

Liss’s smile curved on the side of her face. She needed to stop seeing every comment he made as fighting talk. “I like dogs too. One day, I want a puppy and a kitten, and then I’m going to make videos showing their friendship because they’ll be besties.”

“I don’t doubt it with you as their mum. Everything about you is chill,” he teased, the smile threading through his words. “So, you carry a dog biscuit for your future pets?”

Liss giggled. “No, it’s for emergencies.”

“Dog emergencies?” His voice reached a higher pitch.

Liss curled under the duvet and shuffled into the foetal position. A strip of light from around the door highlighted how he gazed at her with his head tilting to one side.

“Kind of. More like pub emergencies.” She scrunched her nose up. “One afternoon at the pub, one of the local neighbourhood cats swaggered in and sidled up to Joyce with the confidence of an Alsatian. Then the cat, Bert, jumped at him like he was starting a fight.”

“Cheeky fucker. We all need the confidence of a badass cat,” Bear said. His grin made her body feel lighter than a feather.

“True. We keep dog treats in a jar on the side, and if I hadn’t grabbed one and got Joyce’s attention, I swear the animals and the pub wouldn’t have survived.”

“That’s some quick thinking, Princess. You’d make a great bodyguard,” he replied, leaning back in the chair and resting his foot on his thigh.

“As if. I’m only five foot tall. Although that night wasn’t the first or only time I’ve thrown someone or something out of the pub for bad behaviour, there’s been fur flying and wee on the floor. Pub life is not glamorous.”

Bear chuckled. His eyes never left her face. “Neither is being a bodyguard. I once fought with the paparazzi to get them away from my client. The client insisted on leaving the hotel for meet-and-greets. The thing about being a bodyguard is preparation and anticipation. You need plans to stop you from getting into difficult situations. You’re not doing your job properly if you keep getting into fights.”

“I thought it was all kicking ass. What did you do with the client?”

He cocked his head. “I told them if they kept causing trouble, then I’d let the paps know which cage fighter’s wife they were sleeping with and make them deal with it alone.”

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