Page 8 of Bodied

He shook his head and her hand, too, pleased they had at least come to some kind of agreement. Lauren Bartlett kept surprising him. No matter how irritating this job may seem to him, at least it wouldn’t be boring. He could be assured of that. “I can agree to that,” he said, taking his hand back.

“Good.” She scooped his trash off the table and threw it away. “So, you want to stay for dessert? I have a frozen pie I’ve been meaning to bake, but it’s way too big for one person. I just couldn’t resist it, you know? Blueberry-rhubarb isn’t a combo I’ve seen around much.”

“No thank you.” He stood, put on his coat, and slid his phone back into his pocket. “But I will see you tomorrow.”

“Your loss.” She walked him to the door and let him out. “See you tomorrow, I guess.”

“You will, at eight a.m. sharp.”

He walked back to his car thinking hard about how the evening had gone. It would be idiotic not to at least admit to himself that he had massively misjudged Anne Bartlett’s daughter. He’d assumed she was a spoiled little princess, and while that may have been partly true, there was definitely more to her.

As angry as he wanted to be about his current assignment, Wesley found a silver lining in getting to figure out what made this girl tick. The curiosity was starting to get to him, and at least this assignment would give him the time he needed to figure her out. Whether he had a good time doing it was another story.

CHAPTER4

LAUREN

As far as Lauren was concerned, her evening with Wesley had given her one thing — the ability to work around his schedule. She needed some time to herself, time to think things through and work out a plan of how she was going to deal with her new shadow. He’d told her what time he was going to be there, so she got up an hour earlier, threw on her sweats, and snuck out the back fire exit to go for her morning jog without being tailed.

She had no doubt that she was not the target of her mom’s enemies. Her mom was just being paranoid and overcautious as usual. And the fact that Wesley had to invent a story just to scare her only made Lauren more sure that she was not in any kind of danger. In any case, what she had to worry about now was how she was going to manage auditions with a bodyguard without looking like some kind of nepo baby.

She needed this time alone to think, and she regretted nothing as she turned into the park and started on the trail loop she took every morning. The routine warmed her up to every day. She needed this. So it bothered her even more than it would most people when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a man following her. It wasn’t so much the shadow itself but how that shadow made her feel.

For the first time in ages, Lauren found herself apprehensive about being alone in the park. She was… a little bit scared, actually. Apparently, Wesley’s stupid campfire story really had wormed its way under her skin. Damn him anyway. She ran faster, hoping whoever it was would just fall back a bit as a courtesy, but he didn’t. He matched her pace, and her adrenaline rose right along with her irritation.

As she turned a corner, Lauren took the chance to glance back at the person who was following her. As soon as she saw him, she lost all her fear and tripled her irritation. It was Wesley. But she’d left early! Had he lied about what time he was going to show up? Had he been waiting at the back door for her to make her escape? And the thing that irritated her more than all the rest — how had he predicted her so easily? She had to up her game somehow.

She decided to lose him and picked up her pace yet again. But he matched her too easily. She took an unusual turn, just in case he knew her usual route. Maybe that would throw him off. Unfortunately, the person it threw off was her.

The new route was not a paved one, and the dirt path was pitted and uneven. As soon as she’d gotten out of his line of sight, her ankle twisted into a large divot, and she was down. She hated herself for being so stupid. She hated herself even more for screaming from the pain.

Wesley was standing over her seconds later with a gun in his hands, turning one way and then the other, looking for the threat. “Who did this?” he said with what Lauren could only describe as a snarl.

She fell back and shouted two or three choice words. Then she answered, “The ground did it,” with an embarrassed groan. Her pants were torn where her thigh had hit a jagged rock, and there was a little blood as well. Her palms were scraped from trying to catch herself. She tried to push herself to her feet, but as soon as she put weight on the ankle she’d twisted, she fell down again.

She looked up at Wesley just in time to see his palm hit his forehead. He holstered his gun and knelt down next to her. “Looks like you don’t need protection from other people as much as you need protection from?—”

“Don’t say it,” she cut in.

He gave her a half smile, and defied her with one word. “Yourself.” He wrapped one arm around her back and slipped the other under her knees. “Come on.”

“Don’t you dare carry me,” Lauren snapped as he was lifting her.

“You’re not walking.” He settled her against his chest like some kind of cliché, action-movie hero. “Walking will make it worse. You need to stay off it.”

She crossed her arms and pouted, but it didn’t seem to matter. He didn’t need her help to carry her. This was the first time she’d ever been lifted by a guy she didn’t have to actively cling to. His arms against her back and under her legs were rock hard. She tried not to think about how fit he probably was under all that jogging gear. She tried to counter her attraction with snark. “I’d thank you, but you’re the reason I tripped in the first place.”

He broke into a slow jog while carrying her, which was even more impressive, unfortunately. “I was nowhere near you,” he said in an even and unemotional voice. He wasn’t even panting.

Lauren pouted harder. “I had to take an unpaved route to get away from the guy who was following me, which was terrifying.”

“I thought you weren’t worried about your safety.”

“Maybe not from my mom’s enemies, but New York randos? I’d be an idiot not to worry.”

His mouth broke into a smug smile. “So you were glad I was there.”

“I’m glad the New York rando turned out to be you. But I wouldn’t have had anyone following me without you there.”

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