by Kat Mizera
“But?” I knew there was a but coming.
“But that’s separate from…us. From what we had.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. Everything happened so fast… Logan was dead and it hit me right in the gut. When they said it was because of something you’d done, I didn’t know how to process that.”
“Maybe the way Xander did?” she shot back, her eyes finally meeting mine. “Telling me he believed in me and would do whatever he could to help me?”
I swallowed.
Fuck, she was right.
I was such an asshole.
“You’re right,” I said, staring into her blazing blue eyes. Damn, she was gorgeous when she was mad. Too bad she was mad at me.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Your job is important.”
“You’re important.”
“Apparently, not important enough.”
“That’s not true. I screwed up, Solange, but that doesn’t change how I feel or what we had together.”
“What we had wasn’t real,” she said. “I was in a tough place emotionally when we met, and of course the romance of you being my first lover. But it was burning itself out anyway, so while the drama of Logan’s death and me being accused of treason was a little over-the-top, this was inevitable. You’d already said you weren’t the type to settle down and eventually I’ll want a home and babies. You don’t have to feel guilty. It was a lovely adventure for me, dating a Royal Protector, meeting the royal family and living in the palace for a while. It’s simply time for me to return to my real life.” She got to her feet and put a soft hand on my bicep. “And you should go back to yours.”
“Without you, my life will never be the same.”
“Of course it will. You’ll see. I need to dry my hair. Can you let yourself out?”
“Solange, I don’t think—”
“Please? This is difficult for me. You’re the only man I’ve ever been with, the only man I’ve ever dated. I’m trying to be mature, so meet me halfway, won’t you?” She turned and walked into her bathroom, shutting the door behind her, and I didn’t know what to do.
Was she right? Had I meant it when I’d told her I wasn’t the type to settle down? Hadn’t that been before I’d fallen in love with her? She’d asked me to go, though, and I had a feeling there would be no changing her mind tonight. She obviously needed time and maybe I did too.
I walked downstairs and found her father sitting in a chair by the window, reading. He looked up, arching a brow.
I shook my head. “She asked me to leave, said there was nothing left to say.”
He sighed. “She is stubborn, my Solange.”
“Maybe she’s right. Maybe she’s better off without me.”
“You believe this?” He met my gaze directly.
“No, but she seemed sure and I screwed up pretty bad.”
“You can fix this, but you must be patient. She needs time. Much has happened. She was frightened, and you left her.”
“I know. I fucking know.” I said that last part under my breath but he heard it and smiled.
“Do you think this is forever?” he asked. “Do you love Solange? With all your heart? And want to marry her and take care of her? Think carefully before you answer.”
I didn’t need to think carefully; I already knew the answer. “I do.”
“Then you cannot give up. Try, again and again, until she listens.”
“Do I have your blessing to ask her to marry me?” I’d never dreamed I’d be proposing, and I’d definitely never imagined asking a woman’s father for her hand or whatever the fuck this was called, but here I was. What the fuck was happening?
He smiled. “When she changes her mind, yes, I will give blessing.”
“Thank you.” I turned to go but he called out to me.
“Axel?”
“Yes?”
“You take care of Kostya also, yes? He will be your brother one day—you must help him.”
I grunted. “I will.”
The next few weeks at the palace were quiet. Too quiet. Logan had been the mischief-maker, the guy always dragging us outside for an impromptu archery competition or snowmobile racing or setting booby traps during meetings. Without him, we were all kind of floundering. On top of that, Natalia left the day before yesterday, sent off to Iraq to be embedded with a Marines Force Recon unit in exchange for one of their men. Except that man’s father died and he’d been granted emergency leave for a week, to be with his family, and now we were down two Protectors.
Lennox was still struggling with horrible morning sickness so it was almost like being down three, though she’d taken over duty as Casey’s bodyguard, which didn’t require much physical effort. Joe was no longer in a supervisory role and was on the active duty roster as a Royal Protector, and even Daniil, who was technically the Minister of Defense in Parliament, would have to be put on the duty roster until we figured this out.
Jonas was frustrated as well, because though he longed to be on the duty roster, and he was to an extent, he was busier than ever trying to make sure what had happened at the school never happened again. Though Solange had shut down the system before anyone actually got in, and the system itself was fairly secure, now that the Brat knew it existed, the system—and physical security as well—had to be tighter than ever.
“I have the financial means to hire the best hackers in the world,” Erik said at our briefing a few weeks after I’d last seen Solange. “The issue, as always, is trust. Those kinds of people often sell out to the highest bidder, and that’s not something I can afford to risk. I’d rather have people that we train from the ground up, like Natalia, but we trust implicitly. Which brings us back to the main topic—bringing more people on to the team and where to find them.”
“Very few people we trust implicitly have the training and qualifications to be a Royal Protector,” Joe said.
“Most of them aren’t trained to be in the field,” Sandor corrected him quietly. “I think where we’re going with this is creating a division of Protectors that aren’t in the field. Like CIA analysts who never leave the office. They ride a desk but the information they find and analyze is invaluable. Having someone like Solange here overseeing the computers and cybersecurity means Jonas can be in the field more.”
“Good luck making that happen,” Xander muttered. “She wants nothing to do with any of us.”
Erik sighed. “I feel like shit about that. Do you think it would help if I reached out?”
He shrugged. “It might, but I don’t know. She’s gone cold, icy, frigid like Siberia in January during a blizzard.”
I grimaced, though I kept my mouth shut. Unfortunately, everyone turned to look at me.
“Don’t,” I warned. “It was her choice, not mine.”
Xander rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you fucking went over there and tried to talk to her. When she told you to leave, you left.”
“What was I supposed to do?” I demanded, scowling at him.
“If you don’t know, I can’t tell you.” Xander looked pissed too, which pissed me off even more.
Sandor interrupted our little pissing contest. “I don’t know for sure if what happened to Logan would have happened if we’d had more people on the team, but the way things are now, everyone is stretched too thin. Lennox is pregnant, and while she can continue to guard Casey and the baby right now, by early next year she’s going to be physically unable to continue. Which means moving her into a supervisory position, taking over Joe’s job until she gives birth, and again, that’s a temporary fix because she can and will take maternity leave—” He held up a hand when Lennox started to protest. “Don’t even try, Lennox. I’ll fire your ass if you don’t take time with the new baby.”
She laughed. “I was just going to say that even on maternity leave, I can be counted on in an emergency, but yes, of course I’m taking leave when the baby comes.”
“We need Solange or someone like her,” Joe said. “Someone that can handle stuff l
ike cybersecurity so Jonas is free to do other things.”
“This is a pointless conversation,” Erik interjected, “unless and until we have options. Any actual suggestions of specific people we can either hire, train and/or approach about those things?”
“I have a friend,” Lennox said thoughtfully. “Many of you met her at our wedding. She was kind of quiet and kept to herself. Courtney? We were supposed to chat at some point, but never got the chance and then she jumped on the jet when the first group left to go back to the U.S. She’s younger than me, she was getting in as I was getting out, but I think she’d be a great fit around here depending on how much longer she has in the military. I can reach out.”
“If you get me her info, I can do a preliminary background check,” Joe said, “so we don’t waste our time in case there are any red flags, but yeah, reach out.”
“She’s a helicopter pilot,” she said, “which is a skill none of the other Protectors have.”
“You think she’s someone willing to drop everything to come here?” Erik asked. “Aside from the trust issue, that’s the biggest issue we’ve run into. Once you take the oath, you’ve committed yourself to me, my family and my country. Days off are rare, vacations are rarer, and it’s pretty much all you do. Make sure you spell all that out before you even mention bringing her on board.”
Lennox nodded. “Absolutely. She might be a good fit because she’s alone. Parents dead, raised by a grandmother who’s also gone now. She joined the military because that was the only way she’d be able to afford college, but she’s done well with herself, moved up quickly. I’ll be sure to mention the sacrifice…”
Sacrifice.
They went on about potential candidates but that word reverberated in my head.
Sacrifice.
How much would I sacrifice for this job? It hadn’t felt like a sacrifice before because I loved it. Great people, incredible salary, travel, and on top of all that, it had meaning. What we did as Royal Protectors was important. Not because we were bodyguards, but because we were protecting a man I loved and respected as a human being, as well as his family. What we did kept an entire country of people safer than they’d been before and helped mold their futures.
But when had that become my responsibility? Was the job worth sacrificing Solange? Because at the end of the day, that’s what it boiled down to. I’d chosen the job over her and she knew it. I didn’t buy any of her bullshit about our romance burning itself out or whatever shit she’d said. I also knew she loved me. And I loved her too. Proving it to her would be something else entirely and I suddenly realized what I had to do.
Fuck.
I looked around at these men and women I worked with, and while I would miss them, I missed Solange more. She was a hell of a lot more than some virginal conquest and if I had to give all this up to get her back, I would.
41
Solange
Voda was still busy even though it was almost October and the weather had begun to change. It wasn’t cold yet, not this far south, but the summer heat had left us so the days were mild and the evenings cool. I’d been working in a jewelry store during the day and a café at night, figuring I’d make as much money as I could while it was warm enough, because once winter came, the outdoor cafés along the beach would close.
I’d rented a small room in a home not far from the beach and while it was cramped, it was all I needed. I walked the beach at night after work to clear my head and it helped soothe my battered soul. I hurt in ways I’d never thought possible. Most of it centered around my shattered heart, but it was more than that. It hadn’t been just Axel who’d betrayed and abandoned me. It was all of them. People I’d come to call friends in a very short time. Not Xander, of course, he still reached out to me regularly to check in, but almost everyone else had been quiet. My intelligent mind understood the danger to the royal family that had led to the events that had brought us to this place, but my soul didn’t give a fuck.
I’d expected more from them, and whether that was a shortcoming of my own or something else, I didn’t know, but I couldn’t help the way it felt. I couldn’t pretend that it hadn’t broken something in me, even though I wasn’t sure why. They’d had a job to do and my brother had inadvertently set me up. He was in England now, going through a special training program that would help him continue to heal while simultaneously preparing him to enter the military in the spring. It would also keep him safe while King Erik dealt with the Bojovnik Brat. Xander didn’t say much about that when he called and as long as it was being handled, I didn’t ask.
“Solange, you can go!” the café’s owner, Leon, called to me. “It’s late and you’re coming back in the morning, so get some rest. Thank you for staying late.”
“You’re welcome.” I took off my apron and hung it on a hook with others. They were washed overnight and we wore fresh ones when we arrived for the next shift. I liked working here even though I hadn’t wanted to work in a café ever again. I was good at it, and it was busy here, so it was different than the one in Vinake. I met new people every day, who distracted me from my aching heart and left good tips.
The upscale jewelry store was another foray into a different world, allowing me to meet other types of people and learn about products I’d never known anything about. Not that I could afford anything there, but Elen had personally given me a recommendation, so they’d hired me on the spot. I only worked there three days a week, but it paid better than I’d expected and tips from the café allowed me to save for winter when I’d only work one job. The owner of the jewelry store had promised me unlimited hours around the holidays, so that would compensate financially and I honestly didn’t need anything beyond a roof over my head and food.
I pulled on my denim jacket and walked outside. It would soon be too cold to walk on the beach, so I did it as often as possible and I kicked off my shoes when I crossed the street. I stuck them in my bag and had just stepped onto the sand when a deep voice called out to me.
“Solange.”
My skin broke out in goosebumps because I’d know that voice anywhere.
What the hell was Axel doing here and why did he insist on tormenting me? It had been a month since our last conversation and I was finally at a place where I didn’t cry every day.
I turned slowly, reluctantly looking into his handsome face.
God, this was hard.
The urge to touch him was overwhelming but I quickly reminded myself how he’d abandoned me when I’d needed him most. How he’d actually believed I could betray not just the royal family, but him.
Nope. I didn’t miss that at all.
“What are you doing here?” I was proud of myself for my voice not cracking.
“Came to see you.”
“Xander told you where I was?”
He nodded.
“He shouldn’t have.”
“Where are you going this time of night?” he asked, catching me off guard with the question.
“None of your business?”
He didn’t move. “Maybe not, but it’s not safe. There’s a lot of crime here.”
“I walk on the beach every night. It helps to clear my head.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“That’s not your problem.”
“Anything to do with you will always be my problem, baby.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“I love you, Solange. I made a mistake but it had nothing to do with my feelings for you.”
I had to close my eyes, because I’d longed to hear those four words from him almost since the day I’d met him, but now they meant very little. Compared to his betrayal anyway.
“I’m sorry,” I said as stoically as I could. “But I don’t return your feelings. This was a wasted trip.”
“You’re lying.” He took a step closer, peering into my eyes. “You always bite your lip a little when you’re lying.”
“I’ve never lied to you,” I said smoothly, “so how would you
know what I look like when I do?”
“Okay, you bite your lip when you’re nervous. And you’re biting your lip.”
“Because it upsets me to see you. It reminds me of everything I’m trying to forget.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you like this.” He was close enough to touch me now and I took a step back in alarm when he reached out a hand. Not because he would hurt me physically—I knew he never would—but because his touch might push me right over the edge and into his arms.
He drew his hand back, a frown creasing his brow. “Are you afraid of me, Solange?”
“N-no. But you can’t just touch me. It’s not fair. I had feelings for you.”
“Had?”
“What do you want?” I cried in frustration. “Please, don’t do this to me. I’m finally starting to move on. Why are you here?”
“I gave my notice to the Protectors,” he said quietly.
“Gave your notice?” I wasn’t sure I understood that phrase. “Does that mean…?”
“It means I gave them my letter of resignation, with sixty days’ notice because I can’t just leave without warning.”
I couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d grown wings and flew off into the night, and I was fairly certain my mouth was hanging open. “Wh-why?”
“Because there’s nothing more important than you, Solange. I chose them over you because I took an oath and felt I had to, but I won’t put us in a position where I’ll ever have to do it again. If you’ll have me, I’ll leave the Protectors in two months and we can move to the U.S. I can get a job at a security firm I know in Las Vegas and we can get married and start a life there.”
“What makes you think I want to marry you?” I demanded, though my eyes had puddled with tears and I was rooted in place, my eyes locked on his.
“Because you love me.” He reached out a hand again, though it was tentative this time. “May I touch you, Solange?”
Tears slipped down my cheeks and somehow, I nodded, my body betraying me even though my brain was screaming no.
“I’m so sorry, baby.” One of his big, warm hands cupped the side of my face and I closed my eyes, reveling in his touch.
