Page 24 of Guarding the Billionaire

“He’s involved in something shady, I can sense it,” she said. “Just give me some time, I’ll figure it out.”

The rest of the day passed quickly. I was in meetings most of the day, and other than when Flora forced me to eat the Cobb salad that Amy brought me, I didn’t take a break all day. My last meeting of the day was with our attorneys, who agreed that the lawsuit seemed frivolous.

“We should be able to get it thrown out pretty quickly,” my chief legal counsel Abraham Jacobson assured me. “Honestly I’m surprised that their counsel even agreed to this. They have zero evidence of espionage.”

“Let’s make sure,” I said.

I looked over at Teresa who was pretending to take notes. “Can we run some searches to see if any of our employees have any connection to Pure Nature?”

Abraham sent me a surprised look, but didn’t comment.

“On it, boss,” Teresa reassured me.

It was funny, she’d only been with me for three days now and I’d already come to rely on her. I wondered if she’d be interested in leaving Sapphic Security when this was all over, then immediately dismissed the idea. A woman like Teresa would never be content to be some woman’s assistant sitting in an office all day. She was coiled energy and had an adventurous streak that I could never hope to satisfy with some boring office job.

The truth was I liked her. I was attracted to her for sure, much more than I’d ever been to any other woman, but I also liked her as a person. I trusted her implicitly, although I couldn’t say why. It was like I knew her somehow, not as an employee or someone I thought was hot, but like we’d been friends for a long time. It was totally weird, but the more time I spent with her, the more connected I felt.

I’d loved waking up next to her this morning, and that kiss… I didn’t even have words to describe it. If Teresa hadn’t reminded me that we needed to get to work, I would have been tempted to see how far we could go.

My phone beeped with a text from my friend Julia mid-afternoon, reminding me that we had dinner plans. I looked over at Teresa.

“I’m having dinner with my friend Julia tonight,” I said.

Her brows lowered and she glared at me. “Who’s Julia?”

For a second I wondered if she was jealous, as ridiculous as that was.

“She’s my best friend.”

“I haven’t run a background check on her. What’s her last name?” Teresa demanded.

“You’re not running a background check on my best friend,” I said. “We’ve known each other since the first grade. She’s very wealthy in her own right and engaged to the CEO of Tech Express. Trust me, she has no reason to murder me.”

“She’s engaged?” Teresa confirmed.

Her fixation on that one detail made me wonder if what I’d seen before really had been jealousy. I felt a rush of pleasure.

“Yeah, and straight. I told her you were coming with us.”

“Good girl.”

God help me I should not like it when she said that, yet I did like it. I liked it a lot. Teresa raised an eyebrow and gave me a tiny smirk, telling me that she’d cued into that fact as well. I ignored her and returned to my computer.

We left the office around six and headed over to Pedro’s. It was a hole in the wall Mexican restaurant that we’d discovered years ago when Julia lived in this neighborhood. I was often recognized when I went out in Seattle, so it was nice to be some place where no one knew who I was. Pedro’s was a place where I could just enjoy a meal without someone trying to convince me to invest in their company or let them handle my portfolio.

Julia was already seated in our favorite booth in the back when we arrived. Teresa looked around, then pulled out her phone, tapping out a quick message.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as we crossed the bar.

“I want another set of eyes here,” she said. “There are too many variables.”

I wasn’t going to argue. She knew this stuff better than I did.

“Flora-Bora!” Julia jumped out of the booth, pulling me into a tight hug that made all the tension of the day immediately drain out of my body. “I’ve missed you babe.”

“I’ve missed you too,” I said, giving her a squeeze. “This is my… this is Teresa.”

Julia shook Teresa’s hand and gave her a smile. “Wow, you look way different than any bodyguards I’ve worked with.”

---