I was babysitting donors in tuxedos when a red dot landed on Emily Calder’s green dress.
My gala turned into a war zone.
I don’t panic.
I don’t improvise.
And I don’t touch women who look like trouble wrapped in heels and bad decisions.
I definitely don’t want the mouthy journalist with killer legs, zero survival instinct, and a talent for asking the one question I can’t answer.
Emily Calder doesn’t flirt—she dares.
She doesn’t listen—she provokes.
And the second someone decides she’s expendable, something violent wakes up in me.
Now I’m guarding her in tight spaces, counting her breaths, memorizing her skin, and fighting urges that would absolutely wreck my eight years of hard-won sobriety.
I can protect her from bullets.
From men who want her dead.
From everything but myself.
Because the truth I’m hiding?
It’s the one thing that will destroy her.
And when she learns what I did to her brother…
God help us both.