Page 14 of The Bodyguard's Bookworm
Emi turns to face me. My shirt falls low on her thighs, and she folds her arms across her middle as if she’s trying to keep herself steady. “Then you should take it.”
“I need to think about it.”
“Connor.”
“I don’t want to go.”
She swallows. “I don’t want you to go either.”
“Then that’s the answer.”
“No,” she says, stepping closer. “It’s only part of the answer. You had a life before you walked into my bookstore, and I don’t want you turning down something important because we got swept up in all this.”
“We didn’t get swept up.”
She gives me a look. “We absolutely got swept up.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Maybe. But I also know you’ve spent three days deciding you need to protect me from everything, including my own doorknobs.” Her smile is faint, but her eyes are serious. “Give it real thought. I’ll miss you if you go. A lot. But I’m not going anywhere, Connor. I’ll still be yours when you get back.”
Mine.
I pull her into me and hold her tight, pressing my face against her hair while the coffee drips behind her. She thinks she’s giving me room. She doesn’t understand that every bit of room between us feels wrong now.
A couple of hours later, I’m back in my corner of the bookstore.
Emi moves through the morning with her usual rhythm, greeting customers, checking orders, straightening displays. I watch her, but my head keeps turning over the job. The money is good. The work is clean. Turning it down means changing the shape of my career, and maybe that should feel reckless.
It doesn’t.
The only real argument for taking it is the man I was last week. That man made decisions around work, risk, discipline, and profit. That man slept alone and didn’t care. That man could cross an ocean with one bag and a passport because there was nothing behind him worth aching over.
That man is gone.
A flash of red catches my eye through the front window.
The sedan is parked down the block. It’s not moving this time. Someone sits behind the wheel, angled toward the store. I can’t see much through the windshield, but I don’t need to. My body already knows.
I move for the door.
Emi looks up from the counter. “Connor?”
“Stay inside.”
Her eyes sharpen. “What is it?”
“I’ll handle it.”
I step onto the sidewalk and head straight for the car. The driver sees me coming. He freezes. Then the engine starts, but I’m already at the driver’s window, one hand planted on the roof, my body close enough to make backing out impossible without hitting me.
The window lowers a few inches.
The man inside is pale, narrow-faced, and sweating through an attempt at anger. David. I know it without asking.
“You need to move,” he says.
“No.”
