BODYGUARD'S UNDENIABLE PULL
the glittering underbelly of Hollywood and high-stakes business, Elena rises as a promising actress whose life unravels the moment she falls for Jax, the enigmatic bodyguard-turned-lover with a past he refuses to share. What begins as stolen glances and whispered promises spirals into a nightmare when a vengeful producer, Victoria, unleashes a campaign of blackmail, surveillance, and public humiliation...exposing private moments, framing betrayals, and threatening Elena's family legacy.
As alliances fracture and secrets surface, Elena discovers Eclipse: a shadowy contingency fund designed to bury scandals and control powerful lives. Jax's involvement in the scheme...born of desperation and old debts forces Elena to question every touch, every vow. With her father's company on the brink of collapse, forged transfers traced to her name, and relentless threats closing in, Elena must decide whether to trust the man who once protected her or expose the truth that could destroy them both.
From whispered betrayals on set to midnight chases through pine-shadowed backroads, Elena and Jax race to uncover the ledger that holds Eclipse's final secrets. In a world where truth is weaponized and love is leveraged, one final confrontation at a remote cabin forces them to burn the past to ashes...literally and figuratively.
In the end, dawn breaks on a choice: walk away scarred but free, or rebuild together on the fragile foundation of hard-won honesty. A gripping tale of love tested by deception, power corrupted by greed, and redemption forged in fire.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Elena stared at the photo in the stranger's hand until the tinted window sealed it away like a secret slammed shut.
The SUV pulled off smoothly, melting into the evening traffic as if it had never been there. But the image burned behind her eyelids...Jax's bare back, the woman's arms possessive and familiar, her mouth pressed to his skin in a way that screamed intimacy.
She didn't scream nor did she cry. She just tightened her grip on Jax's hand until her knuckles ached white.
He still hadn't looked at the photo. He hadn't needed to.
"Jax," she said, voice low enough that only he could hear it over the distant hum of the city. "Who was she?"
He exhaled slowly, like the air itself hurt. "Elena"
"Don't." She released his hand. The absence felt louder than any argument. "Don't lie to me now. Not after everything."
They were standing just outside the wrought-iron gates of her parents' estate, the same gates that had once felt like protection.
Now they looked like bars. The streetlights cast long, jagged shadows across the pavement, turning every parked car into a potential watcher.
Jax finally met her eyes. His were stormy, guarded in a way she hadn't seen since the early days...before trust, before the mess of Victoria, before he'd chosen her openly. "It wasn't what it looked like."
She almost laughed. The sound came out brittle. "That's what they all say."
"It's not..."
"Then explain." Her voice cracked on the last word. "Because right now, the only explanation I have is that the man who just stood in front of my father and promised to earn me was wrapped around someone else forty-eight hours ago."
He dragged a hand through his hair, the motion raw and exhausted. "It was after the statement. After I... distanced myself publicly...Victoria's people were circling.
They had leverage...old debts, contracts I signed when I was younger and stupider. They threatened to bury my career completely if I didn't play along for one more night. One staged photo op to make it look like I was moving on.
The woman was an actress they hired. Nothing happened. I left before anything could."
Elena searched his face for the lie. She found only pain...and something darker, something like guilt that went beyond this single moment.
"You didn't tell me."
"I was trying to protect you." His voice dropped. "If they knew we were still together, they'd come for your father's company again or worse.
I thought one more performance, one more photo, and they'd back off. Victoria was already in cuffs. I thought the worst was over."
She stepped back. "You thought wrong."
Silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating. A car passed slowly, headlights sweeping over them like a spotlight.
Elena felt exposed all over again, but this time it wasn't cameras or whispers...it was him.
"I need to see the photo," she said finally.
Jax hesitated, then pulled out his phone. He opened a message thread she hadn't seen before. There it was... the same image, sent to him anonymously hours before the dinner. Below it, a single line of text...
One night was all it took to remind her you're replaceable. Walk away clean, or we make sure the next photo leaves no doubt.
Elena's stomach lurched. "They sent this to you before tonight?"
He nodded. "I thought ignoring it would make them stop. Clearly not."
She handed the phone back. "You should've told me. We could've handled it together."
"I know." His voice was rough. "I fucked up again."
She wanted to believe him. God, she wanted to. But the photo felt like a splinter under her skin...small, sharp, impossible to ignore.
They walked in silence back toward her car. The night air had turned colder, carrying the faint scent of rain that hadn't fallen yet. When they reached the driver's side, Elena stopped.
"I'm not breaking up with you," she said quietly. "Not tonight. But I need space to think. And I need you to stop deciding what's best for me without asking."
Jax nodded once, jaw tight. "Whatever you want."
She got in the car. He stood there as she started the engine, watching her like he was memorizing every line of her face in case this was the last time.
As she pulled away, her phone buzzed on the passenger seat... Unknown number.
She shouldn't have looked. But she did.
A new photo loaded slowly.
This one wasn't Jax.
It was her.
Taken from inside her own trailer on set, weeks ago. She was laughing, head thrown back, Jax's hand on her waist in a moment so private it made her cheeks burn even now.
But the angle was wrong,impossible...No one had been in the room with them.
Under the image, three words:
We see everything.
Elena's foot slammed on the brake at a red light. Her heart hammered so hard it drowned out the engine.
The light turned green.
She didn't move.
Because in the rearview mirror, the same black SUV idled two cars back, headlights off.
Keep Reading
The story is getting intense! Switch to App to
Unlock All Chapters
You may also like
9.5
My boyfriend, Jefferson, convinced me to give up my Yale scholarship for him. He was my secret, my escape from the shame of my mother's past, and I threw away my future for our love.
Then, at a gala, he publicly announced his engagement to Aubrey Carroll-the girl who made my high school years a living hell.
He trapped me in his mansion, forcing me to become her personal servant. She tortured me daily, culminating in her brutally killing our dog, Charlie, with a garden trowel.
When her friends arrived, they joined in, stripping me half-naked and live-streaming my panic attack for the world to see.
The man who once promised to protect me watched as they destroyed me.
But as I lay bleeding out on the floor, it wasn't an ambulance that arrived. It was the private security of Alexzander Stevens-my estranged, billionaire grandfather.
He revealed I was his sole heiress, and now, we were going to make them pay for every last tear.
9.1
For three years, I flew across the Atlantic for my fiancé, Dale. He was a brilliant tech CEO who swore he'd travel to the ends of the earth for me, saving a thousand airline tickets as "proof of his love."
But when I arrived a day early to surprise him, I overheard him confessing to our friends.
"Our relationship is exhausting me, and my love for her is draining away."
His words were just the beginning. I soon discovered his affair with a young intern, Jetta. When she drugged me, sending me into anaphylactic shock, Dale' s only punishment for her was docking half a day's pay.
He then took Jetta on a lavish vacation while I recovered alone in a hospital bed, his excuse being that I had "provoked" her.
The man who once showered me with diamonds and promises now defended my attacker. His love, once my bedrock, had become a poison.
As I stood at the airport gate, I sent him one last email with proof of everything. Then, I snapped my SIM card in half and boarded a flight to Iceland, disappearing from his life for good.
9.0
To save her dying mother, Adaline walked into the Waldorf Astoria to deliver a shirt to her fiancé.
She didn't know her stepsister, June, had swapped her keycard. Adaline stumbled into a pitch-black suite and was brutally assaulted by a stranger in the dark.
The nightmare didn't end there. June paid off the only bone marrow donor for Adaline's mother to flee the city, and stole Adaline's fiancé. Bankrupt and desperate, Adaline was forced to sell herself into a loveless marriage with the ruthless billionaire Ferris Finch just to secure a medical team.
But when Ferris saw the dark, violent bruises covering her body, his eyes filled with absolute disgust.
"You make me sick. Pack up your cheap tricks."
He mocked her, calling her a filthy woman who couldn't even wash her lover's marks off before crawling into his house.
Adaline swallowed her pride and endured his cruel humiliation. When June publicly taunted her about the hotel assault, Adaline finally snapped, ending up handcuffed in a freezing police cell.
She thought she was completely out of moves, waiting to rot in prison while her new husband despised her.
But back at the estate, Ferris had just pulled the hotel's security footage.
Staring at the screen, the arrogant billionaire's face turned completely ashen.
He finally realized that the innocent woman he had destroyed in the dark that night, and the wife he was currently torturing, were the exact same person.
8.5
I was rushed to the emergency room with a bleeding head after a horrific car crash.
But while the doctor was stitching my forehead, I heard the nurses whispering.
"The CEO of the Finley Group is upstairs right now, playing nurse to that pregnant actress."
My heart stopped. I ripped out my IV and dragged my battered body to the VIP suite, only to watch my billionaire husband tenderly wipe away his mistress's tears.
I filed for divorce that night and left his penthouse with nothing but a basic suitcase.
Carter was furious. He tracked me down, completely ignoring my injuries, and mocked me relentlessly.
"You're nothing but a breeding tool. You won't survive a week without my money."
When I later collapsed from severe stomach cramps, he abandoned me on the floor because his mistress faked a panic attack over the phone. He even nearly ran me over in the freezing rain as he sped back to her side.
I had loved him in secret for ten agonizing years, pouring my bleeding heart into a novel about my unrequited love. I couldn't understand how a man could be so incredibly cold-blooded to his own wife.
But Carter didn't know I was the anonymous author of that global bestselling book.
So when he tried to use his massive wealth to buy the film rights and give his mistress the lead role, I walked straight into his boardroom, slammed my contractual veto on the table, and finally fought back.
8.2
The $50 million lawsuit notice on my phone screen was a violent, pulsing red. My father’s corporate espionage had finally caught up to us, and he was ready to throw me to the wolves to save his own skin.
To survive, I signed a contract marriage with the predator himself—Alaric Hunter, the very man currently dismantling my family’s legacy.
But the moment we left City Hall, my father turned into a monster. He called the hospital and canceled the private care for my dying mother, moving her to a miserable state ward just to break my spirit for "disobeying" him.
"I will find the money," I hissed, even as my throat threatened to close from the paralyzing stress.
"You’ll come crawling back when that monster dumps you!" my father roared, leaving me standing in the rain with nothing but a battered suitcase.
My ex-boyfriend, the man who actually falsified the documents that framed me, mocked me from his Ferrari, while Alaric’s own business rivals planted hidden cameras in our new penthouse to watch our every move. I was a legal shield, a corporate asset, and a target all at once.
I didn't understand why Alaric was suddenly paying my mother’s medical bills in secret or why he looked at me with such chilling intensity. Was I just a tool for his voting shares, or was he the only person in this city who actually wanted me safe?
I looked at the files Alaric left on the marble counter, filled with evidence against everyone who had ever hurt me. I was done being the victim of a hostile takeover; it was time to show them what happens when a Hunter’s wife decides to start hunting.
8.4
One woman. Three names. A thousand lies.
Corinne Sterling thought her secret was airtight. Teaching paid the bills but stripping paid the debts-that was the price of a corporate betrayal that ruined her name and stole her future. Her mask was supposed to keep her safe, until she caught the eye of the one man who has the power to ruin her.
Lucian Delacroix is a powerful widower, a devoted father to twin boys and a man who doesn't believe in coincidences. When he recognizes the eyes behind the glasses of his son's teacher as the masked dancer that nearly upturned his world, his curiosity turns into a dangerous obsession.
Instead of exposing her, he claims her.
Instead of destroying her, he offers a lifeline: his name, his protection and a wedding ring.
It was supposed to be a cold business arrangement, they were supposed to be skeptical allies. But as they dig into a conspiracy of fraud and murder that tied their lives together long before they met, the lines of their fake marriage begin to blur.
And in this dangerous game of desire and deception, the price of love might be more than either is prepared to pay.