Page 3 of Bodied

“You’ll want a coat. It’s cold out.”

She bit her lip and gave him a sly look. “You mean you’re not going to offer me yours after you see me shivering? Boo. Not romantic.”

Wesley glared at her. “Choose a coat or I’ll choose one for you, and it definitely won’t go with your outfit. That’s one thing I know for sure. I do uniforms, not fashion.”

Lauren rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t kid yourself, uniformsarefashion.” But she went to her coat closet and selected a long coat to wear.

They left the apartment and took the elevator down to the lobby. Wesley refused to look at his client’s daughter for the entire ride down. On the way out the main entrance, he nodded once to the concierge, if only to get some acknowledgement that he was telling the truth about why he’d come. The concierge just shrugged.

When they got into his car, Wesley unlocked the doors and opened the back for Lauren, but she walked right past him to sit in the front passenger seat. He gave her a stern look, and she smiled back.

“I know, I know,” she said. “Highly unusual, but you’ll have to get used to it. I tend to be highly unusual as often as I can. Life under my mom’s thumb is such a bore. By the way, are we stopping for a snack on the way?”

Wesley took a deep breath before getting into the driver seat and starting the car. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that he may have gotten himself in way over his head this time.

CHAPTER2

LAUREN

On the way to her mom’s victory speech, Lauren couldn’t help but wonder why it was that the best-looking men always seemed to have the worst personalities. The ridiculous bodyguard her mom had sent to escort her to the event was a perfect example of the trend. There was no arguing he was a snack, despite the grumpy expression that seemed to be permanently glued to his face. He was fit, too. His haircut and the way he carried himself gave her some indication he had a history with the military.

There was so much to like about him physically that his personality would have to be the absolute worst in order to counteract it. Somehow, though, he managed it. She’d be impressed if she wasn’t so irritated right now. Why did she need a chaperone anyway? Hadn’t she proven to her mom that she could be well-behaved enough to attend events without a babysitter? You would think years of being a perfect angel would get her somewhere on the trust-o-meter, but nope.

“Doughnuts,” she said. “We’ll stop for doughnuts three blocks down. The rule goes like this — every time I have to do something I’d rather go to the dentist than do, I get a treat.”

Her chaperone rolled his eyes at her. “Does it ever occur to you that if you behaved less like a child, you might be treated more like an adult?”

Lauren’s mouth fell open. She was far from above provoking the chaperones her mom occasionally sent her — just for fun, of course — but none of them ever rose to the bait this quickly. What was the fun if there was no challenge? This Wesley character was way too easy to troll. “Will you take a bribe, then?” she said when she’d gotten over her shock.

“Absolutely not.”

“What if it came in the form of delicious cream filling?” She winked at him.

Wesley sighed. “If I stop at a doughnut place, will you promise to leave me alone for the rest of the trip?”

“Deal!” She said, and as they turned into the doughnut shop, she added, “Coffee?” And she could have sworn she saw him almost,almostcrack a smile. So he wasn’t completely one-dimensional in the end. Maybe she would just have to get to him from a different angle.

When they got to the gala, Lauren insisted on finishing her coffee while they were still in the car. It had heated seats after all, but Wesley was clearly not happy.

“We’re already extremely late,” he grumbled.

“Oh, Mom never starts her speeches on time,” Lauren said after swallowing her last bite of doughnut. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I have to worry about it.” Wesley turned to glare, and Lauren couldn’t help noticing how blue his eyes were in contrast to his darker colored hair. “It’s my job.”

“Oh, fine,” she said with a sigh. Then she threw back the rest of her coffee like it was in a red plastic cup and she was at someone else’s college party.

The gala was held at the swankiest hotel in Manhattan. It was all wine-colored carpets and marble and gold. The ceilings were about a mile high, and the chandeliers were so big that they looked like they would kill someone if they ever fell. The place was a palace, which Lauren always felt was over the top. She tossed her cup and glanced over at her chaperone.

His posture had gotten significantly more rigid, which she would have sworn was impossible after seeing him in her apartment. Apparently, he was even less comfortable in this environment than she was. Point in his favor.

As soon as they entered the ballroom, Lauren’s real smile faded, and she quickly put on her fake one to replace it. This was the mask she wore at all her mom’s events. She’d perfected the disguise over the years, and by now, it was foolproof. No one knew who she really was, not anymore.

When she was a child, Lauren had quickly learned that she was some kind of asset to her mom’s career. It was never acknowledged aloud, but she felt it in every public interaction she had. As a teenager, she’d risen up and fought it the only way she knew how — by doing the opposite of everything her mom wanted her to do. She went to every party she was invited to and several more she wasn’t invited to. She’d tried everything and partied like there was no tomorrow.

It was a typical rebellious phase, but her mom had paid the price for it and Lauren had to watch the fallout. The guilt she felt had been no small thing. One thing Lauren had always respected about her mom was the woman’s ambition. Despite Lauren’s father not being in their lives, Anne Bartlett had fought for her dreams and been a mom on top of it all. She wasn’t perfect, but she tried. Watching her heart break when the tabloids and her constituents blamed her for Lauren’s behavior had taught Lauren a vital lesson. There was a price to pay for every mistake Lauren made, and she couldn’t ever really guarantee that she would be the one to pay it.

The idea of someone else paying for her mistakes made Lauren fall in line and never fall out of it again.

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