Page 16 of Single Mom's Bodyguards
Bailey’s in the pool with Maeve and Eli. She’s laughing—head back, hair slicked, water catching in the hollow of her throat like it was made for her. She’s thrown off the robe and sunglasses and celebrity armor, and for the first time since she walked into our office, she looks…free.
Maeve cannonballs near her and sends up a huge splash. Bailey gasps and shrieks in mock horror, then chases her through the shallow end. Eli climbs onto a foam float and pretends to be the “lifeguard overlord,” ordering them all to obey his aquatic rule.
I lean against one of the patio pillars and justwatch.My heart doesn’t beat the way it usually does when I’m on assignment. Itaches.
She’s a good mom. A really good mom. Even with a thousand things on her shoulders, even after everything she’s survived, she’s here, smiling, keeping her babies laughing, floating above the weight that should’ve sunk her.
She lookssogood.
The curves I remember are fuller now. Hips, thighs, the little softness at her belly. Her swimsuit is modest—dark blue one-piece, high-cut—but it hugs every inch like it was poured on. And when she throws her head back and laughs at something Maeve says, I can see the dimple in her cheek.
The one I used to dream about kissing.
She’s so damn sweet, I’ve got a toothache. MILFs have always been a weakness of mine, and seeing Bailey this way is killing me. Why did it have to be her? Why did she have to walk into our office, asking us for help? It feels like the worst temptation in the best way.
I shift my weight, suddenly uncomfortable in my own skin. Everything in me wants to walk into that pool, scoop her up, and whisper that she’s safe now. That nothing—nothing—will touch her or those kids again. That she doesn’t have to carry it alone anymore.
But I stay where I am. Because that’s what she needs right now—space. Presence without pressure.
Still, I think about that night on the roof when we were seventeen. How she fell asleep with her head on my chest, and I didn’t move for hours. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. How I stared at the stars, wishing for something I didn’t have words for yet.
Maybe we weren’t the stars in the sky. Maybe we were just the ones who held hers in place. And maybe that’s still all I want.
I don’t hear her coming.
One second I’m staring into the blue where she’s swimming with her kids, and the next she’s there barefoot on the stone patio, towel loose over her shoulders, drops of water tracing a path down her legs.
I don’t breathe.
She’s still damp from the pool, and her suit clings like a second skin—navy and sleek, molded to every curve I remember and a few I definitely didn’t deserve to forget. Her hair’s wet, curls dripping onto her collarbone, water sliding over the rise of her chest before disappearing into the deep V of the fabric.
I blink like an idiot.
“Hey,” she says, voice casual—but a little breathless. “You any good at pool volleyball?”
I open my mouth to answer, but she leans in to wrap the towel tighter around her waist—and a single drop of water slips off her elbow andlands on my forearm.
It sizzles. Not in reality. Not physically. But I feel it all the way down.
I raise an eyebrow. “You got me wet.”
She tilts her head, eyes dancing. “Isn’t that my line?”
And then her eyes go wide.
I see it happen in real time—her own words hitting her, her face flushing, her hand flying up to her mouth. She turnsbrightred, that kind of high, fast blush that hits her chest and cheeks all at once.
“Oh my God,” she mutters. “I didn’t mean—sorry, I just?—”
“I’m not complaining.”
She stares at me. Thenlaughs, nervous and flustered, clutching the towel like it might erase the last ten seconds of her life. “I—okay, I’m gonna go shower. Forget I said that.” She turns so fast her wet hair slaps her shoulder, and she nearly slips on the stone before catching herself and darting inside.
I watch her go, heart pounding like I just got dropped out of a helicopter without a parachute.
Game on.
5
