Page 13 of The Tracker

Stanley exhaled hard and rubbed his temple. “Let’s stick to the agenda.”

The damage was done. Power had tilted. It made her wonder if any of them was left standing on solid ground.

By noon, her nerves were frayed. She ducked into her office and dropped into the chair behind her desk, exhaling hard.

Dawson followed and shut the door.

“You held it together.”

“Barely.” She looked up at him. “You’re making this worse.”

“Maybe, but I’m the one keeping you breathing.”

She rose to her feet. “You’re also making me feel like I’m under a microscope.”

The kind she’d been under her entire life—but this was different. It wasn’t the clinical dissection of debutante committees or the hushed judgments at charity luncheons. It wasn’t the hollow smiles of executives pretending to respect her while taking bets on how fast she’d fold under pressure.

This felt sharper. Closer. Like Dawson wasn’t just observing—he was seeing. And she couldn’t decide if she wanted to shove him away because of it... or let him keep looking.

He stepped closer. “Good. That means anyone watching knows better than to try again.”

She’d lived under scrutiny her whole life—country clubs, charity galas, dinner parties where reputations rose or fell on a single glance. She was used to polite smiles hiding sharper intent, to whispered appraisals disguised as compliments, to the constant pressure to perform. But this was different. The tension now wasn’t about social standing or career advancement. This was raw, personal, and dangerously close to the bone. Sharper. Closer. Like he saw straight through her, past the armor she wore so well. And God help her, part of her didn’t hate it.

“Are you always this intense?”

“I don’t get paid to be charming.”

His voice was low, edged with something unyielding. She noticed the tight tick in his jaw, the way his fingers flexed once at his sides before stilling again. It wasn’t anger—it was discipline, the kind forged in silence and pressure. Controlled, precise. And underneath it all, the steady presence of a man who had already decided what he’d do if anyone tried to hurt her again.

“Clearly,” she said, dragging the word out with a teasing bite. “Good thing for you most people don’t require charm in a bodyguard—or you'd be flat broke.”

Neither of them moved. The space between them felt charged, like static waiting to ignite.

She should have stepped back. Instead, she asked, “Is that how you talk to all your clients?”

His gaze dropped to her mouth, lingered there for a moment before it drifted lower.

“No. Just the ones who don’t listen.”

Her pulse spiked.

She turned away before she did something reckless. Like kiss him. Or slap him. Or both. Her hands clenched at her sides, nails biting into her palms, a flush crawling up the back of her neck. Her breath came sharp, shallow. Every nerve felt flayed open under his gaze, caught between defiance and desire—and the terrifying urge to surrender to neither, but something far more dangerous: truth.

His voice followed her, low and quiet. “You’re not fragile. But that doesn’t mean you’re not vulnerable. Learn the difference.”

She remained behind her desk, heart pounding as Dawson held her gaze across the room. The soft click of the door locking behind him earlier still lingered in her mind, oddly intimate.

A vision flashed before her eyes—her bent over her desk, skirt rucked up and Dawson standing behind her, fly open as he pounded into her pussy. Evangeline shook her head to banish the image.

But the moment settled over her like a verdict. Unspoken, but irreversible. With every breath, she felt the fault lines inside her stretch—dangerously close to breaking open everything she’d buried.

She didn’t know what scared her more—that Dawson saw through her so easily, or that some part of her wanted him to.

Each look from him peeled back her defenses, layer by layer, revealing the parts she kept hidden under practiced smiles and curated strength. Vulnerability wasn’t new. But with him, it felt... perilous.

She tipped her head back against the high leather chair, fingers gripping the armrests, fighting the heat crawling over her skin.

The cool feel of it grounded her in the storm of everything she felt. It smelled faintly of clean leather and something subtly citrus, likely the conditioner her assistant used when the chairs were wiped down. The scent was crisp, professional—more about presentation than comfort. But even that couldn’t mask the deeper note of his cologne, warm and smoky, curling through the air like a dare she wasn’t ready to answer.

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