Her preference seems to be scrawny, self-important, worthless little twats. Ellie Hammond is a delicate prize, with so much to offer, and she’s selling herself too bloody short.
My mood is black whenever a new one arrives on the scene, and blacker during the few weeks they tend to hang around. Tommy always asks me if it’s my time of the month—and I tell him to piss off.
He enjoys playing the jokester, but he’s sharp; he notices things.
Then, one night, Ellie she comes home from an evening with her current tool, and I go from irked to furious in a red-hot minute.
“Motherfucker!”
And I’m not alone.
Nicholas, Tommy and I rush into the living room, where Olivia is calling for the butler, her voice electrified with rage.
“Where’s my bat?” she yells before yanking open the closet door, and yelling into it, “Where is my goddamn baseball bat?”
“Olivia?” Nicholas steps towards her. “What in the—”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Tommy hisses.
Because he’s looking at Ellie’s face. At the burgeoning bruise just starting to form on the smooth apple of her right cheek. I’ve been in enough fights to know what I’m looking at.
Someone fucking slapped her.
Ellie.
Someone put his hands on her, and now he’s going to fucking lose them. I swear immediately and silently—to every saint I know.
“Olivia, please calm down,” Ellie implores.
“David,” Nicholas tells the butler, “bring a cold compress, please.”
My eyes swing to Liam, standing just behind Ellie—he was her security for the night. “What happened?”
“I was in the hall, outside the flat—she came running out,” Liam explains. “The guy was following her and I shoved him back, got her to the car and brought her here. I didn’t see the mark until we were on the road.”
Nicholas moves to Ellie, raising his hands slowly. “May I?”
Ellie nods and Nicholas gently inspects her injury, pressing with his thumbs along her cheek, feeling for broken bones.
“I’m okay,” Ellie declares calmly. “Mitchell had a few beers, we were watching the game—he had money on the Mets. And I hate the Mets. When the Cardinals hit a grand slam, I laughed—I was just joking. And he . . . pshhh . . .” She swings her arm into a backhand, and my gut tightens.
“He slapped me.”
Tears leak into her throat, choking her voice. “I was just . . . stunned, you know? But I only waited a second, then I grabbed my phone and got the hell out of there. I’m done with him. I think I’m done with all of them.”
And then Olivia is there—pulling her baby sister into her arms, holding her close, smoothing down the back of her rainbow-tipped hair.
“Nothing seems broken,” Nicholas says, anger making his tone like the sound of a tight guitar string. “But you should still see a doctor, Ellie.”
She shakes her head in Olivia’s arms. “No, I’m fine.”
“I’ll have a doctor come here,” Nicholas offers.
“No. I just . . . I want to take a bath and forget this happened.” She sniffles. “I’m fine, really.”
“What about the police?” Olivia asks, hard and harsh. “This is assault, and that asshole should be in jail.”
Ellie holds up her hands. “Please, Liv. If we file a police report, it’ll be in the papers. All over the internet . . .”
“Screw the internet!” Olivia hisses.
But Ellie looks her in the eyes. “I want to let it go. And I’m asking you to let it go too. Please.”
Olivia deflates a bit. She shakes her head, unhappy but resigned. “If that’s what you want . . .”
“It is.” She sighs deeply, pushing back her hair. “And now I’m going to bed, okay?”
Her sister’s eyes crease with concern. “Okay. Do you want me to bring you a cup of tea?”
Ellie smiles ruefully. Because Olivia sounds more like her husband every day. “No. I don’t want tea. I just want to sleep.”
And then she walks out of the room and down the hall.
While Liam talks with Tommy, and Nicholas and Olivia speak with bent heads in soft tones, I slip down the hall behind Ellie. I catch up to her just outside her door.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
And there’s a tortured note in my voice—anguished and sorry.
Her spine straightens and her hand stays on the knob while she turns around. Her blue eyes shine with unshed tears.
“You must think I’m so stupid,” she whispers, making my chest squeeze painfully.
“I don’t think that. I never would.”
She blinks, and a tear slides over the mark on her face. “I make bad choices. I need to grow up. Because this is what happens . . .”
I’m already shaking my head again. “Listen to me, Ellie. Bastards like the one who hurt you tonight—they’re like poisonous snakes that hide behind the colors of harmless ones. That’s how they survive. It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”
“You would’ve known.”
I tilt my chin. “I generally make it a rule to dislike everyone, so you can’t go by me.”
She laughs even while she’s sniffling. And it tears at my fucking heart.
Because she’s not just the kind of girl who’ll leap off a cliff without bothering to look—she’ll take a running start and launch herself off it. Arms spread, head back. Free and alive.
No one is going to take that away from her—I won’t let them.
“You see the good in people, Ellie. You trust. That’s a good way to be, a brave way. I’ll watch more closely from now on; I’ll make sure this never happens again. You just be who you are. Leave the rest to me.”
She wipes her eyes dry. “So it’s like a . . . you jump, I jump, Jack and Rose kind of thing?”
“No.” I take her hand in mine, brushing my thumb against her knuckles. “You jump . . . and I’ll be there to catch you.”
Slowly, I lean forward and press a gentle kiss to her forehead, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. My lips linger on her petal-soft skin, inhaling the scent of orange blossom and a touch of jasmine.
Then I turn around, and walk back down the hall.
The next security shift arrives at eleven p.m., like always, to relieve Tommy and me. We take the lift down, but rather than head out as usual, we circle around and wait in the alley by the back exit of the building. Tommy lights a cigarette and leans against the wall.
I check my watch and count, four, three, two . . .
The door opens—and Nicholas Pembrook appears. I cross my arms disapprovingly while Tommy plucks the smoke from his lips.
“No.”
“Not happening, Your Highness.”
His features go smooth and still. “I don’t know what you two are talking about. I was just going for a walk.”
“Yeah.” Tommy laughs. “A walk all over the cunt’s face who put his hands on Ellie.”
The Prince clenches his jaw and I gesture between Tommy and me. “That’s why you keep us around.”
“To keep you out of trouble,” Tommy adds. “No one’s gonna sue us—we don’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.”
I shrug. “We all look the same in these clothes anyway—no one can tell us apart.”
Nicholas tries to argue, but I go on, “And besides, you’ve got bigger tasks to handle.”
“What sort of tasks?”
The door opens at the top of the steps and a few seconds later, Lady Olivia steps outside.