Page 40 of Selling Innocence

I laughed, the feeling nice. After yesterday, laughing had felt impossible. Wasn’t it funny how quickly life could turn around? How no matter how horrible things felt, it only took one small push to find joy again?

I stared up and into Hayden’s dark eyes, taken in by how kind they seemed. He was one of the few people in the house who didn’t make me feel as though I had to hide myself, like he was trying to get one over on me.

Was that because he was a bodyguard? Because he was used to dealing with clients?

Was he just handling me?

Does it matter?

Accepting kindness, no matter who gave it or why, was sometimes the only way to survive.

I parted my lips to ask him why he was being so nice to me when he froze, the shift in his expression a sure sign of trouble. A crackle in the air signaled danger, a tension I’d recognized from a life of knowing someone might target me.

Before I could say anything, before I could move, Hayden spun away from me, keeping me behind him, allowing me only the briefest glimpse of a knife sailing toward him.

I froze, far from the first time I’d witnessed someone facing off against someone else for my good.

How many times had a bodyguard stood between me and harm? How many had suffered wounds that had been meant for me? How often had someone been harmed because of me?

As quickly as the world stopped, it sped again. Hayden lifted his arm to block the knife, using the momentum to knock the attacker’s hand to the side.

The blade slipped from his grasp and hit the ground. Not that the attacker was finished.

I backed a few steps away, knowing I couldn’t do much to help. Rune had hammered that fact into my brain young, that me getting involved would only increase the risk. A bodyguard couldn’t properly focus on a fight if he had to keep protecting me because I wouldn’t stay back.

So no matter how much I wanted to jump in, I held myself from doing so, giving Hayden the room to maneuver he needed.

And maneuver he did. He seemed so nice when he spoke to me, had made me feel safe around him. At times, I’d almost doubted he was actually a bodyguard, that he was capable of the violence that job took.

Hayden cleared up any confusion on that point with the way he moved. He easily dodged the attacker, despite the man being very large. I’d spent most of my life around large and dangerous men, and even I would have given this guy room.

If I’d just spotted the two outside, I would have bet my money on the attacker, yet Hayden easily kept up with him.

“Out of my way!” the attacker shouted and darted his gaze past Hayden to land on me.

The hatred in those eyes made me take another step backward. It always threw me when I saw that, when I came face-to-face with anger great enough to want to hurt me.

How could someone want to do harm? How could they so easily be okay with it?

Even with all I’d been through, I wasn’t sure I’d ever truly wanted to hurt another person, to damage them.

The man lunged past Hayden, headed straight for me. I didn’t get the chance to even move back again before Hayden grasped the man’s arm and twisted, using the momentum to throw the man to the ground.

A gun slid from the man’s pocket and hit the sidewalk. He reached for it, but Hayden moved faster. He placed a booted foot on the man’s hand, trapping him, before grabbing the weapon. He released the clip so it hit the ground.

“Who sent you?” Hayden leaned forward, placing more weight on the man’s hand.

“I suggest you stay where you are.” The new voice struck fear into me, the way it sounded so sure. There, to the other side of Hayden, stood a man with a gun pointed at me.

Hayden’s expression tightened, but he didn’t release the man whose hand he still kept in place.

“Drop the gun,” the new man said.

Hayden tossed the gun back, and it landed in the grass near me. Not close enough to reach without jumping toward it, but close enough for a chance, especially because it hadn’t ended up too far from the clip.

“Now, let’s keep this civil. There’s no reason anyone needs to die, is there?”

“I’m not letting you take her,” Hayden answered, his voice strong.

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