You Cheated on Me, So Why Are You Angry I Wore My Bodyguard's Shirt?

Morning light cut through the slit in the heavy drapes, waking me instantly.

I sat up on the king-sized bed, my muscles stiff from sleeping in my clothes. The suite was deathly silent until I stepped into the adjoining living room.

Cole sat at the glass desk near the terrace door, illuminated by the blue glare of two open laptops. Spread across the table were blueprints of the St. Jude Hotel, a diagnostic monitor hooked up to my phone, and a satellite view of the parking garage where my car was parked.

"You went through my phone," I said, walking across the room.

Cole didn't flinch. He hit a key on his keyboard, detaching the cable from my device before handing it across the desk screen-down. "I ran a diagnostics scrub. Julian’s team didn't install spyware, but your cloud sync was still actively pinging your home network. I severed it."

"You could have asked for my permission."

"You were asleep," he said smoothly, leaning back in his chair. His suit jacket was draped over the back of the seat, the sleeves of his dark dress shirt rolled up to his forearms, revealing thick veins and a faded jagged scar above his left wrist. "And your permission isn't required when I'm assessing immediate threats. Your car’s GPS was pinged four times between midnight and three in the morning."

My throat tightened. "Julian?"

"Or someone working for him," Cole replied. He stood up, closing both laptops. "More importantly, your penthouse security system registered a forced keypad override at two forty-five. Someone used a master bypass code on your front door."

I stared at him, the cold realization sinking in. "They didn't just want to threaten me. They went back to look for me."

"Or to make sure you didn't leave anything behind," Cole said. "Which means we don't wait around."

He picked up a small silver object from the edge of the desk. It looked like a sleek designer barrette, inlaid with tiny brushed-steel studs.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Sub-dermal locator sync," he said, stepping around the desk toward me. "It clips inside the waistband of your slacks or under the seam of your bra. In case we get separated, it transmits a scrambled frequency directly to my wrist monitor."

"I can put it on myself."

"The internal sensor requires pressure calibration against skin," Cole said, stopping right in front of me. He was broad enough to block out the morning sun, his dark eyes steady and unreadable. "Lift your jacket."

I hesitated, then pulled the hem of my tailored wool jacket aside, exposing the silk waistband of my trousers.

Cole stepped closer, his shadow falling over me. He knelt slightly to align the device with the inner seam. As his fingers worked the tiny mechanical clasp, the rough pads of his knuckles brushed against the bare curve of my waist.

The contact sent a sudden, electric shock straight down my spine.

My mind snapped back twelve years in an instant. A humid summer night, the backseat of his truck parked by the dark water of the lake, his hands stopping at that exact same spot on my waist right before he pulled back, his jaw tight with restraint because he knew he was shipping out at dawn.

I took an immediate step back, breaking his touch.

"Don't," I said, my voice sharp in the quiet suite.

Cole remained still, his hand hovering in the empty space between us for a fraction of a second before he stood up to his full height. His expression didn't give away a single thought.

"It's calibrated," he said evenly.

"Good," I said, smoothing my jacket down with rigid fingers. "Let's be clear about something, Cole. Twelve years ago was a mistake between two college kids who didn't know any better. Nothing happened then, and nothing is happening now. You're working for my father."

Cole looked down at me, his gaze dark and unblinking. "I'm working to keep you alive, Sloane. Anything that happened before I left this city doesn't exist on my payroll."

"Keep it that way."

The rest of the day passed under a suffocating quiet. Cole stayed glued to the monitors, reviewing encrypted feeds from the building’s perimeter, while I worked from my encrypted laptop to organize the ledger files I had taken from Julian's computer. The numbers were damning. Julian hadn't just moved marital assets; he had funneled millions into offshore shell companies linked to state procurement contracts.

By ten that night, the city outside was drenched in heavy rain.

I was sitting on the sofa, rubbing my temples to ward off a throbbing headache, when a faint electronic chime broke the silence.

It was the front door lock.

The green indicator light on the suite door flashed once, followed by the soft, mechanical click of a keycard turning the deadbolt.

In less than a second, Cole moved.

He lunged across the space between us, his arm catching me around the waist. He dragged me off the couch and shoved me hard into the narrow alcove beside the structural pillar, shielding my entire body with his back.

"Stay down," he whispered, the order barely a vibration against my ear.

His right hand was already drawn, a suppressed black pistol leveled at the entryway.

The suite door clicked open three inches.

Cole didn't fire. He waited, his muscles coiled like steel cables against mine, his breathing completely silent.

From the hallway, a gloved hand pushed the door wider. But whoever was on the other side didn't enter. A slim metal rod slipped through the crack, tossing a small flash canister onto the entryway rug before the door swung shut.

The device didn't explode. It emitted a high-frequency jamming hum that killed the suite lights instantly, plunging the room into darkness.

Footsteps receded rapidly down the emergency stairwell.

Cole stayed over me for five agonizing seconds, scanning every corner through the gloom. When the hallway outside remained quiet, he stepped back, keeping his gun raised.

"Stay behind me," he said.

He moved to the door, checking the corridor with quick, lethal precision before locking the secondary mechanical bolt. He didn't chase the intruder. Instead, his flashlight clicked on, the narrow white beam cutting across the wrecked living area straight toward the bedroom closet.

I followed him into the master bedroom.

The heavy steel safe built into the wall of the walk-in closet had been pried open with industrial hydraulic tools. The interior was completely torn apart, velvet trays tossed onto the carpet.

"They bypassed the floor sensor on the balcony and hit the safe while we were in the living room," Cole said, examining the fresh tool marks on the steel frame. "They used the keycard at the front door just to trigger a distraction and buy time for an exit."

I looked at the empty safe, my pulse pounding in my ears. "Nothing was in there except the hotel’s emergency binder."

"They weren't looking for jewelry," Cole said, turning his flashlight toward my leather tote bag sitting safely near the doorway. "They're hunting the drive you pulled from Julian's laptop. And they know you're staying under your father's corporate account."

He holstered his weapon and grabbed my coat from the bed, tossing it to me.

"We're leaving," he said.

"Where?"

"The hotel is burned," Cole said, his voice flat and authoritative. "Your father's name is compromised. You're coming to my place."

Twenty minutes later, we were in an unmarked black SUV cutting through the torrential rain toward the industrial waterfront on the city's east side. Cole drove with one hand on the wheel, constantly checking his mirrors for tails, while the radio scanner hummed with static on an encrypted channel.

We pulled into a secured, subterranean garage beneath a converted red-brick warehouse. Cole led me up a private freight elevator that required a biometric thumbprint and an alpha-numeric code.

The elevator opened directly into a vast, minimalist loft. Exposed brick walls, concrete floors, and blackout curtains covering floor-to-ceiling windows. Heavy tactical cases lined the hallway, and the kitchen counter was bare except for a secure comms console.

Exhaustion finally hit me all at once. My shoulders dropped as I pushed past the living area, looking for somewhere to collapse.

I pushed open the only interior door at the end of the hall.

Inside was a single master bedroom with a king-sized mattress on a low steel platform, a private bath, and nothing else. No guest rooms. No pull-out couches in the hallway.

I turned around in the doorway, staring at Cole as he set my bag down on the wooden floor.

"There's only one bed," I said.

Cole unclipped his holster, laying the weapon flat on the dresser beside the door, and looked right back at me.

"Then you'd better get used to sharing it," he said.