by Anna Bloom
“Fine,” I muttered.
“Is she going to the after party?” Mick flicked his stub out into the street.
“Yep.” I focused my eyes on the view and the lights switching on illuminating the growing twilight.
“Ha, can’t wait to see you trying to fit in on the dance floor.”
“My moves are sound.” I told him, with a grin that made him explode with laughter. “Who are you here with anyway?”
“Cyrus.”
“Bollocks, you are not.”
“Sure am.” He looked like the cat that ate the canary and was prancing around with yellow feathers stuffed out of his mouth. There were some steadfast rules that protectors couldn’t break—not shagging your clients being one of them. Still, I knew Jameson liked to dream.
“I’m not the only one needing dance moves then.”
He grabbed at his crotch. “All the moves I need are right here.”
I flicked my own butt end away. “You’re sick, Jameson, you know that?”
“Chicks dig it.”
I chuckled. “Sure they do.”
Mick levelled me with a stare. “I’m just going to put this out there. You know that little girl you’ve been so desperately guarding is going to grow up at some point, right?”
“Sure,” I shrugged, “What of it?”
“Well, how you going to cope when you have to sit outside the room and hear her screams of delight when some guy is screwing her one?”
I blanched at his words. “All part of the job.” My lips stretched into a tight smile. It felt uncomfortable and I briefly wondered if that’s what Erica Jennings felt like daily.
“I bet that wet blanket of a co-star has tried to knob her. He’d have been an idiot not to.” Jameson’s eyes glazed over and I knew he was participating in a little too much visual imagination.
I held my hands out, flexing my fingers so they wouldn’t clamp into fists ready to beat his dirty mouth with. “She’s seventeen. No one is trying to knob her as you put it.”
Mick offered a wry laugh. “Seventeen in LA is as old as the hills, Blake.”
I turned, ready to make my way back inside. I’d grab a coffee or something while I waited the rest of the ceremony out. Just then the bleeper in my pocket vibrated against my chest and I shouldered my way through the crowd of black-suited men, rushing for the door. “Screams, I tell you, screams.” Mick shouted after me but I ignored him and paced my way to the only person that mattered.
Her.
CHAPTER TWO
Sophia had been twelve and a half when I’d been hired.
Why they’d told her about the letters I’d never understood. Erica had been practically gloating at the fact her daughter had a stalker already and wasn’t even a teenager yet. That was until I’d taken the letters to one of my old buddies at Scotland Yard. I may have never made it to the police but my mates at Hendon had.
When I’d announced the letters were covered in semen they were taken more seriously, but it was too late—the damage had already been done. Sophia began to flinch whenever a strange man came near, which caused problem on sets, that were hard to explain away. It took me six months to win her around to having me like a permanent shadow in her life. She’d been adorable then, the little girl trying to be brave and grown up like everyone expected of her. Everyone apart from me. I used to do homework with her as well as play computer games and eat chocolate biscuits.
The alarm on her bracelet had been rung more times than I could count in those early days.
I pulled the GPS from my jacket pocket and studied the flashing symbol that designated her location. She was down a side corridor off the main auditorium and I worked my way through the hovering silver service waiting staff as I found my way to her. She had ducked into a recessed doorway and I found myself crowding into her space once I saw she was alone. I may have moved closer to her then strictly necessary.
“What is it?” My fingers grazed her chin, lifting her face so I could see her clearer. I don’t know if she noticed the slide of my fingers as they ducked under her earlobe and softly skimmed the smooth flesh there. She sighed and leaned into my chest groaning.
“This is so dull, Blake, I can’t sit there any longer.”
My heart thudded in my chest as it slowed to a regular rhythm. “That’s not what you pressed the alarm for is it?” I moved myself away. It was a painful procedure, made all the worse by her blocking me and grabbing the lapel of my jacket. She tugged me close enough that I could feel her breath on my face and her body pressed up against mine.
She flashed me a wicked smile which did something painful to my insides and implored me by fluttering her long lashes. “You can’t make me go back in there. Save me, Blake, save me ...” she trailed off with a giggle but I was frozen to the spot. My body aching with a need to hold her even though I knew it was every level of wrong.
“I’ll always save you, Sophia.” I leant in towards her and caught the faintest catch of her breath. “But I can’t save you from your fate.” I shifted away and my fingers slid around her arm, which was as close as I would allow myself to get. “You need to go and win that award.”
“Then we can go home?”
Home. It echoed in my head. She didn’t realise that this was far from my home and that I was only there for her. She was the only thing tying me to this godforsaken town. I grinned down at her, my fingers burning into the bare flesh of her elbow. “Then you are going to a party I believe.” I tried not to sigh.
Her eyes pooled into a warm liquid as she gazed up at me. “I thought you didn’t want to go?”
My hold on her became a little tighter. “It’s never been about me, and nor should it be.”
A frown creased between her blue eyes. “No, it’s about what I’m told to do.”
“Well yeah, if Marty and Davies think it’s the right thing to do, then you should probably do it.” I stepped closer, it was impossible not to. “Anyway, it would do you good to go and hang out with people your own age.”
Her lips were so close I could have leaned forward and swept my mouth against hers. “You aren’t old and I hang with you all the time,” she said.
I studied her expression looking for any trace of humour. “Too old for you.” I flashed her a grin to relieve some of the suffocating atmosphere. “You need to hang out with kids your own age, not this old Pops.”
“Pops.” She laughed before the smile slipped and a steely look of determination hardened her features. “Said who? Why would I want to hang out with ‘kids’?” She edged closer still until her chest was brushing mine. My breath caught in my throat.
“Me. Now get in there and get that award.” She couldn’t know what she was doing to me. Sophia would never use me at flirting practice, but that’s what it felt like.
She groaned and I stepped away, the spell binding between us snapping clean in two. “Fine, but if I don’t win, I’m blaming you.”
“You always do.”
She was walking away, my eyes following every step she took, every swing of her hips, every movement of her shoulders and curved, sleek spine. “Hey, Blake?” She called my focus away from her body.
“Yeah?”
“Be prepared to party.” She gave me that smile worth millions of dollars, the smile she flashed for the cameras. Not the smile she normally shared with me.
I groaned. I couldn’t breathe.
Staying away from her was becoming impossible and from the depths of my soul I wondered what freedom would taste like. I just didn’t know how I was going to find that freedom and what path I would have to walk to experience it.
She won. Of course, she won. Then there were photo calls, interviews and meet and greets. The whole way through I watched her. That slender arch of her neck as she nodded in greeting and shook hands. The smile that she beamed onto every individual face that she met like they were the only person in existence.
I watched too much. I knew that but I couldn’t help myself. I was an addict
. Just one more look would be enough, but it never was.
When she slumped into the blacked-out car she put her head into her hands. It was a just a moment of fatigue, but I saw it. Then Erica got in and the atmosphere changed. “Now, darling,” she started, oblivious to her daughter with her eyes closed. “You really need to keep close to Jonathan tonight, the press are loving you two together.”
Sophia’s eyes opened slowly and met mine. “But we aren’t together, are we Mum? Remember, it was all just Davies’ idea to maintain the publicity hype.”
Erica clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Well, he isn’t a bad boy for you to have a public relationship with.”
Sophia raised an eyebrow and her glance darted towards me, but she didn’t speak and I held her gaze from the other side of the limousine. My lips twitched but I kept silent. Sophia and I both knew that Jonathan Fairweather, British pin up, was very far from being a good boy. I didn’t like him being near Sophia, the twat oozed fucked-up overconfidence, and I knew he had a coke habit that would make Mexican drug lords rub their hands with glee, but Sophia had always been sensible around him, I’d made sure of it. By never leaving the fucker alone with her.
“You aren’t coming to the after party too, are you?” Sophia snapped at Erica and I wanted to give a hearty round of applause.
Erica shook her head. “No, no, darling. Actually, I’ve arranged with Jonathan’s team for you to arrive and leave together.” She turned her eyes on me. “Blake, you can have the rest of the night off.”
I stared at her open mouthed.
I didn’t have nights off.
Not ever.
“Mum, Blake needs to come.” There was a panicked undertone to Sophia’s voice.
Erica shook her head, the set of her expression saying that it wasn’t up for discussion. “No, it’s okay. I’ve got security covered.”
A slither of unease worked its way into my chest. “I’m paid to protect her,” I said.
“Protect her from who, exactly?” she snapped, “A potential boyfriend?”
A vein began to pulse in my forehead, and I opened my mouth ready to say my piece, but from the corner of my eye I could see Sophia shake her head. Erica rapped on the driver’s partition. “Drop us as arranged,” she barked.
We all sat in silence until the car pulled in through the gates of Sophia’s palatial complex. I say Sophia’s, because there wasn’t a thing her mother had done to earn living there, apart from be a pushy bitch. “Come on, Blake.” Erica gestured for ne to leave the car with her, but I gripped onto the seat, my knuckles straining through the skin of my hand.
I shook my head. “No.” The word was difficult to form. “I’ll make sure she gets there and then have my night off.”
Erica smiled sweetly and it was like looking into the stare of a venomous snake. “Make sure you do.”
We didn’t watch her walk in and turn for her side of the building. The car cruised back down the hallway. “What was all that about?” Sophia asked as she stretched and turned in her seat. “Here, can you help me out of this dress?”
“What? I thought you had to wear the Wang. That was the arrangement.”
Sophia pulled a leather tote bag from behind the backseat. I hadn’t even known it was there. What sort of bodyguard was I? I was losing my edge, and all because I was blinded by her.
She shifted onto the seat next to me and turned her back so I could unzip the fastening hidden in the folds of the material.
Sophia had no qualms about ditching her dress and wiggling herself into some skinny jeans and a ripped tee, within the confines of the back seat. I kept my eyes focused on my fingernails and counted to one hundred. She giggled when she’d finished adjusting her outfit. “Why do you look so uncomfortable, Blake? It’s only me for God’s sake.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve seen me in a bikini and underwear hundreds of times.”
I swallowed. I would never tell her that it was getting harder and harder, literally, and she’d have to stop before I lost my sanity.
The car cruised to the hook up with Jonathan’s Fairweather’s ride. Sophia chewed on her nails until I gently edged her fingers away from her mouth. “It’s okay, it’s just a party,” I said.
It wasn’t okay, not at all, but I couldn’t show my concern. Maybe there was nothing to be concerned about. Maybe I really did overreact all the time to the detriment of both of us.
Sophia fluffed her hair. “What you going to do with your night off?” She nudged my shoulder. She hadn’t moved to the other seat and was still sat with her side pressed against mine.
“Might go for a drink, but I’ll be back when you get home.”
She looked up at me through long lashes. “You should have some downtime, Blake, you work all day every day. You must want to get laid or something?”
“Sophia.” Her hand had come to rest on my knee, an innocent gesture, but I jolted away with my rebuke of her name.
“What? For goodness sake, Blake, I’m going to be eighteen in a week. I think I’m allowed to talk about sex now.”
I don’t know if the driver had lowered the air con but the limo got uncomfortably hot. “Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to talk about it with you.”
She pushed her hair away from her face. “Well, have you even had sex the whole time you’ve been working for me?”
“What I do in my spare time is nothing to do with you, Sophia Jennings.” I yanked at the collar of my shirt, dragging it away from my sticky skin.
“Why are you getting so cross, I’m just asking a question?” She looked genuinely perplexed like she couldn’t fathom a reason why I might find this uncomfortable. She really didn’t know how I felt about her. To her I really was just the twenty-four-hour bodyguard. A nasty weight settled in the pit of my stomach.
“Because you are seventeen, and I’m twenty-five and your employee, and there are conversations that aren’t appropriate.” I sounded like her father again.
She slammed her hands onto her jean clad legs. My eyes wanted to stare but I refused to let them. “That’s twice you’ve mentioned our ages today, what’s with that? What’s the problem all of a sudden, you’ve never mentioned it before. Have you suddenly woken up and realised you are old or something?”
I snorted a loud brash sound that made her flinch. “I’m not old, Sophia, you are too young.”
I didn’t mean to say that. The moment the word escaped into the confines of the limo I wanted to chew them back into my mouth, to digest them and pretend they’d never been uttered.
Her eyes narrowed. “Too young for what exactly?”
I stared at her long and hard, my face folded into the scowl she created. She looked like she was going to say more, question more, so I pulled myself together and gave a flippant shrug.
It was ridiculous why were we even arguing about it.
A knock on the window made us both jump but she refused to shift her eyes away from my face and her lips were held in a solemn pout. “Listen, Sophia, just go and enjoy the party, okay?” My voice softened and I grabbed her hand and gave her fingers a squeeze. I so badly wanted to tangle my fingers in hers it hurt.
“Fine.” She scrambled for the door.
I tried to grab her back but she was stepping out, the wide arm of Fairweather’s bodyguard shielding her passage. I began to climb out of the car, stretching my legs after having her cramped up against my side but she held her hand to me in a stop motion and I froze into place. She’d never held her hand up at me before. “Stay in the car, Henderson.” The harsh sound of my surname from her mouth punched me in the gut.
“Sophia, don’t be like that,” I called, my voice rising but it was too late, she was gone.
The driver slid the partition. “Where to, Blake?”
‘Don’t care.” I grumbled. This was going to be the most torturous evening of my existence. Not only was she out of my sight but we’d had our first real row, a grown-up row that she’d walked
away from.
I didn’t even know why we were rowing.
Teenage film stars shouldn’t be arguing with their bodyguard; of that fact I was sure.
––––––––
CHAPTER THREE
In the end, I didn’t go anywhere. Samuels drove the limo to a bar and managed to reverse the damn bus into a tight spot in a shady carpark but it had only taken ten minutes of us sitting inside silently nursing straight OJ to realise that I wasn’t capable of having a night off. We’d gone back to the car and then driven to the party venue where we’d sat around the back down a tight side road and played cards. Just in case. Just in case she needed me.
She didn’t and nor did she come home.
By eight the next morning I was beside myself. I mean, she’d never been one to rise before eight unless she was on set, and Marty, her PA or I were nudging her to keep her awake and providing endless cups of straight up black coffee. But she’d never not come home. I hadn’t slept. I’d sat by the door all night unsure of what to do. Five times I’d walked to her mother’s suite, but five times I’d stopped myself from knocking. Security had been taken care of. Just not by me. I had to keep reminding myself that just because I wasn’t on shift didn’t mean that nobody was.
I don’t know why I thought that guarding a teenage girl would be easy. This was going to put grey hairs on my head faster than anything else.
Eventually, when I could take no more moments of watching time slowly tick past, I paced my way to Erica’s wing of the mansion and banged on her door. “Where is she?” I barked, barging in without waiting for a response.
Erica watched me with a cool, composed face. “She stayed out. The Fairweather driver took her to the hotel.”
My hands curled into fists and my body spasmed into a rigid mould. “Which hotel?”
