Page 19 of Billionaire Bodyguard Summer

I’ve had to fight that voice all day, every day.

“I wasn’t sure,” she says. “That you would want to see me anyway.”

Even so, I can’t help but check out this new stranger shaped exactly like Mia. She flits slightly ahead of me, her footfalls light when we reach the sand.

I’ve got a bit of a hobble going in comparison. I watch her purposefully slow her steps to lag behind, to be with me.

“Are you kidding?” I fight the urge to grab her hand. I catch her eye, and she averts her gaze, casts it out on the ocean.

“No,” she says. “I mean it. I wasn’t sure if you’d want to see me or not. Now that I’m not…”

She doesn’t finish her thought out loud.

She’s quit with the sundresses, all the outfits I thought were hers. Nothing more than a disguise. She looks amazing in these linen pants and her collared shirt. She could drop my jaw wearing anything. I briefly visualize her FBI uniform from my fugue state, try to see her face in my mind when she shoutedFBI; freeze!

And saved my life.

A gull cries at us from its vantage point on the sand. Mad we don’t have any french fries for him to steal.

“You saved my life,” I blurt out, ashamed of my own silence, my pouting, the internal tantrum I’d been having offand on throughout my hospital stint. Yes, the whole situation is shocking, and I miss Mia like all hell. But that’s not this woman’s fault. “Thank you.”

“Oh, no need to thank me. I was just—”

“Stop it.” I can’t bear to hear that she wasjustdoing her job, can’t be reminded again. When we were fucking, was she just doing her job?

That was real. Despite everything, I know our love is real.

She stops in her tracks and studies me.

I walk it back a notch in my mind: the anger that’s covering my fear, fear that she’s done with me. She doesn’t need me the way I thought she did. But maybe she wants me. Maybe she’ll let me be a part of her life. “Let me thank you, I mean.”

“Oh,” she says. “Well, you’re welcome.” She turns to continue on down the beach, but I hold back where I stand.

“What’s your name, stranger?”

“Didn’t Agent Rossi tell you?”

“Sure she did. But I want to hear it from you.”

She smiles faintly. “Daphne. Daphne Munro.” She sticks out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

I shake it. “Nice to meet you, Daphne.”

“Likewise,” she says. I hold her hand for too long, and her smile widens. It’s a good sign.

“I know you’re a busy FBI agent, and, ah…”

“Uh, not necessarily.”

“What?”

“I resigned.”

“Because of me?”

She shrugs. “I did what I came to do. Against all odds. And now I think if I stayed on, I would only hurt the case. I hope they put him away for a long, long time.”

“Me too,” I say, because I feel the same way about Daphne as I did about Mia. I only want her to be safe, protected. Happy. And by my side. “Well…hey, are you married?”