Bodyguard Boyfriend

He tensed. The way she kept looking him up and down was beginning to affect him—not that she seemed to like much of what she was seeing. But for some reason, she kept looking...

Maybe she was just like all those other girls he’d known with their bad boy fantasies. Except that he wasn’t really a bad guy. He’d just spent so much time undercover—even as a teenage informant—that the cover was too hard to shake even though he’d left vice nearly a year ago to work for Parker. Sometimes he didn’t even know who he was.

He chuckled. “I’d love to see you on the back of my bike, Princess.” He reached out and touched the artfully arranged pile of golden-blond hair on top of her head. “This wouldn’t last long, though.”

She jerked back as if she was afraid he might mess up her hairdo. Or maybe she just didn’t want his hands on her because she considered him too far beneath her. “Stop calling me ‘Princess,’” she protested.

He chuckled again. “But you are such a princess. Don’t worry about your hair getting messed up,” he assured her. “I didn’t ride my bike here. I have a company SUV.”

“Company?”

“The Payne Protection Agency,” he reminded her. Man, she must have been the airhead he’d heard she was.

“So you’re a professional bodyguard?” she asked, shaking her head as if she didn’t believe it even before he answered her.

“Yes,” he said. “Your professional bodyguard. That’s why you’re leaving with me.” He wrapped his arm around her waist and began steering her toward the ballroom entrance.

She dragged her heels, though. “Can’t you...can’t you just get the car and meet me outside?” she asked. “I really need to say goodbye to some important people.”

“And you don’t want those important people to see you leaving with me,” he deduced.

Her face flushed a bright crimson, confirming that he was right. “Nobody needs to know I have a bodyguard,” she said.

“Nobody should know,” he agreed.

“Then how do I explain who you are when people inquire?” she asked.

“You tell them it’s none of their damn business,” he replied.

Her green eyes widened with shock, as if the thought had never occurred to her. And maybe it hadn’t. “I—I can’t do that,” she said.

“Why the hell not?” he asked.

She sniffed, but she didn’t have a runny nose—just a stuck-up one. “It would be rude.”

“So is keeping me, your father and the chief of police waiting,” he said.

“But I can’t just leave,” she protested. “This is my event.”

He sighed. “I’m sure they’re all your events.” She was known as the party girl of River City. “But for once, you won’t be the one shutting down the place.”

“You don’t understand—”

“No, you don’t understand,” he interrupted her. “And that’s why you need to get to this damn meeting.” So the chief and her father could explain the danger of the situation to her.

Tyce already knew. A former vice cop, he’d spent years undercover within Luther Mills’s organization. He knew very well just how dangerous and ruthless the drug dealer was. Being behind bars hadn’t made him less so, either. If anything, it had only made Luther more dangerous because now he was desperate, and he’d already been capable of anything.

Despite his leather jacket, a sudden chill passed through Tyce, and he glanced around the ballroom. Everybody was still staring at them—just as they had been. But Tyce had a feeling that not everybody was staring in curiosity. Somebody out there was more than curious. He could almost feel the hatred in the stare and that chill chased down his spine, making him shiver with dread.

Nobody there knew him, so that look had to be directed at Bella. He was done arguing with her. He needed to get her the hell out.

“You have a choice,” he told her. “You can either walk out of here with me on your own two feet. Or I can swing you over my shoulder and carry you out.”

He wasn’t playing.

Bella instinctively knew that, so she agreed to leave with him—on her own two feet. Of course, those feet were clad in stilettos that made it difficult for her to keep up with his fast pace, so that he wound up nearly carrying her out of the ballroom.

Fortunately, he moved so quickly that only one person was able to intercept them as they left. Her good friend and assistant, Camille, ran up to them in the lobby.

“Where are you going?” the dark-haired girl asked. “You can’t leave yet!”

The bodyguard opened his mouth but before he could say anything, Bella squeezed his arm to stop him from speaking. “He’s taking me to see my father,” she replied.

“Is everything all right?” Camille asked with concern. “Is the judge okay?”

Bella nodded, and the pins in her hair pulled at her scalp. “Yes.”

Camille’s dark-eyed gaze slid from Bella to the big man with his arm around her waist. “So he’s a friend of your father’s?” the woman doubtfully asked.

Before Bella could answer, the bodyguard tugged her toward the door. “We have to go.”

“I’ll explain later,” Bella assured her friend. “Please, make sure everything continues to go smoothly.” She ached at the thought of leaving everything in her assistant’s hands. While Camille was quite capable, this was Bella’s event. She’d spent months planning every detail and to not be able to see it through...

“What about Michael?” Camille asked.

Michael? Bella had completely forgotten about her date. Not that they were serious or anything...just old friends who served as each other’s plus one for social obligations.

She was still being rude, though. And she hated being rude. “I’ll text him when I get a chance, but if you see him, tell him I’m sorry I had to leave,” Bella said, nearly shouting the words to Camille as the bodyguard led her through the lobby.

A black SUV was parked just outside the lobby doors. She knew it was his even before he opened the passenger door for her. A valet stood nervously beside it. But he didn’t have the keys. The bodyguard pulled those from the pocket of his black leather jacket as he slammed the door shut on her.

The vehicle smelled like him—like leather and...man. He pulled open the driver’s door and slid in behind the wheel. He was so big that he filled the front seat, his shoulder nearly touching hers over the console between their seats.

She shivered.

“Are you cold?” he asked. After turning the key in the ignition, he reached for the heater controls.

“I’d like my jacket,” she said.

“We don’t have time to retrieve it from coat check.” He started to move against the seat as he pulled at his sleeve. “I can give you mine.”

She shook her head.

He chuckled as he moved both his hands to the steering wheel. He peeled away from the hotel.

Why did he find her so damn amusing?

But she didn’t ask him. Maybe because she didn’t want to know the answer. “What is your name?” she asked. That she did want to know.

“Tyce,” he said.

“What?” He was driving so fast that the tires were squealing against the asphalt and she could barely hear him. “Is that your last name or your first?”

Or did he have only one name?

“Jackson,” he said.

Her head began to pound. “Which is your first and which is your last?”

“Why?” he asked. “Are we on a first-name basis, Princess?”

“Bella,” she replied. “That’s my name.” Through gritted teeth, she added, “Not Princess.”

His beard moved, so she assumed he was grinning. Then he chuckled again. “Tyce is my first name,” he told her.

“Tyce Jackson,” she murmured.

“You’ve never heard it before,” he said, as if he thought she was trying to place him. “Your path and mine have never crossed, Princess. And they wouldn’t have crossed now if not for Luther Mills.”

Her heart slammed against her ribs with fear. “He’s the man threatening my father about—”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Daddy’s not in danger. You are. Luther is using you to threaten your father.”

She knew that. Her father didn’t care about himself. Threatening his life wouldn’t affect him at all. But threatening hers...

“But he’s in jail awaiting trial,” she said. “Surely he can’t hurt anyone from there. He’s just some low-level drug dealer—”

“He’s the biggest drug dealer in River City,” Tyce interjected. “So not ‘low level,’ just lowlife. He might be the biggest drug dealer in the state, as well.”

“You sound almost impressed.”

He laughed but there was no amusement in his deep voice this time. “Nothing Luther Mills does impresses me,” he assured her. “It doesn’t even surprise me anymore.”

Bella wished she could say the same, but everything about this situation had surprised her, though nothing and no one more than Tyce Jackson.

He looked across the console at her. “Luther Mills is capable of anything.”

His topaz eyes were so filled with warning that she shivered.

He shifted against his seat belt and tried shrugging off his jacket again. “You’re cold. Take my coat. You won’t get my cooties from it.”

“I’m not cold,” she said. “I’m scared.”

“If you’re scared of Mills’s crew hurting you, you don’t need to be,” Tyce continued. “It’s my job to protect you from them.”

Even though he was her bodyguard, Bella didn’t feel particularly safe with him. Not that she doubted he could protect her but because nobody had ever unsettled her like he did.

She hated that he called her “Princess.” And that he was so big and formidable, which was probably good for scaring off the drug dealer’s minions.

But what about her?

Who would protect her from Tyce Jackson?

Bradford Holmes had never regretted all the years he’d spent on the bench presiding over criminal trials—until now. His hand shook as he dropped the photograph onto the table in the conference room of the Payne Protection Agency.

Chief Lynch looked down at the picture and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Your Honor.”

The judge didn’t feel very damn honorable right now—not after having put his daughter in danger. While he knew it wasn’t his fault she was being threatened—that was all Luther Mills—he wasn’t proud of the way he’d handled it. Despite his efforts, he obviously hadn’t made it clear to her how much danger she was in. When she’d called him moments ago, from Tyce Jackson’s cell phone, she hadn’t understood why she’d had to leave the fund-raising event she’d spent months planning.

Isabella was so much like her late mother—in appearance with her blond hair and green eyes and in personality with her sweetness and generosity—that his heart ached whenever he saw her. And it positively broke whenever he had to upset her. She’d already been through too much when she’d lost her mother five years ago.

He’d lost his wife then, too. But Elizabeth had been more than his wife. She’d been his best friend. His soulmate. If not for Bella, he might not have been able to go on without Elizabeth.

And if he lost Bella...

He wasn’t sure that he could live in a world without her. But that was what the candid photograph of her appeared to be threatening.

“How did you get this?” the chief asked. “Did someone deliver it to you? To your house or to your office? Was there an envelope?”

The judge snorted. “You think I got it postmarked from jail? No such luck.”

Luther Mills was smarter than that. But as the judge for his upcoming trial, Bradford had to remain impartial. He couldn’t say that it was Mills behind the threat. He had no proof.

Even the chief had no proof—just suspicions that Luther Mills was behind the threats against everyone involved in his upcoming trial. The chief had also confided that he suspected someone within his department was helping Mills. And someone within the district attorney’s office, too.

Maybe that was how Bradford had received the photograph. Maybe someone had slipped it onto his desk during a meeting in chambers. Or mixed it in with correspondence regarding another trial.

“It showed up at my office,” Bradford told the chief. He couldn’t look at it anymore.

Bella had probably looked beautiful—as she always did—even though she’d obviously been unaware that the picture was being taken. It was through the window of her apartment, so whoever was watching her knew where she lived. That was especially horrifying because of what had been done to the photo—of the slashes that cut across Bella’s face and her throat and her body...

Nothing had been written on the picture. But Bradford had received the message loud and clear anyway. His daughter was in danger.

Chapter 3

Maybe the ballroom music had been louder than she’d realized—because Bella had this buzzing noise in her ears, making it impossible for her to hear what anyone was saying. She looked from face to face of the people gathered around the table. She could see their lips moving as they spoke, but she couldn’t pick up any words. Not even when her father had rushed up to her when she and Tyce Jackson had first entered the conference room.

She’d seen the concern on his face, had returned his hug, but she hadn’t heard his explanation, his apology. She’d just seen it in his eyes. “It’s not your fault, Daddy,” she’d whispered in his ear.

It was Luther Mills’s fault. Tyce had told her that he might be the biggest drug dealer in Michigan. How powerful did that make him? Could he get to anyone?

Maybe that buzzing had started because of the photograph she’d seen when she and Tyce had taken their seats. The picture had been of her, but she’d had trouble even recognizing herself with the slashes across her face, across her body.

Somebody had sent that to her father. Somebody was threatening to hurt her. She really was in danger.

And so was everyone in the conference room. Nobody was happy about it. Arguments broke out around the table. While she couldn’t hear the words, she saw the flushed faces. People jumped up from the table, left the room.

It was only when the chief returned, after leaving the room for a while with a few other people who hadn’t returned, and the door closed behind him, that the buzzing stopped. He must have known about the arguments, even during his brief absence, because his voice was sharp and his words were obviously an order he was issuing when he said, “Everyone is going to have a bodyguard. No matter who they are, until this trial is over and Luther Mills is sentenced to life behind bars.”

Beneath the table, her father squeezed her hand before he shook his head and said, “I can’t be party to this conversation.”

“You didn’t need to be here,” the chief told him. “Your daughter is the one being threatened.”

Bella shivered as she glanced at the table. But the photograph was gone. The chief had slid it into an envelope earlier. For evidence?

“She wouldn’t leave her damn party until her father told her she had to,” Tyce grumbled through his bushy beard.

Heat rushed to Bella’s face over how he made her sound like an idiot. She hadn’t realized how dangerous this man was—this man her father was prosecuting. She could not lose her father, too.

“We are not going to stop living our lives just because of these threats,” a red-haired woman told the chief.

Bella didn’t know who she was. With that buzzing in her head, she’d missed all the introductions—if any had been made. Maybe everyone else knew everyone else. She was the outsider here—the one who had nothing directly to do with this trial or this case.

“So how do we explain having bodyguards?” the redhead asked. “How is the rest of the department going to feel that you didn’t trust our fellow officers to protect me or Detective Dubridge or even Ms. Gerber?”

Bella shivered again. The chief of police didn’t even trust the officers within his department. Luther Mills had gotten to some of them. She cast a sideways glance at Tyce Jackson. If Luther Mills could get to someone in the police department, couldn’t he get to a bodyguard, as well?

“You told your father that I’m your boyfriend,” the man next to the redhead shared. “Maybe we just tell everyone else the same damn thing.”

Another man, farther down the table, chuckled. “That’ll work for her. Everybody in the department knows she had a crush on Hart Fisher even back when he was married. But that won’t work for everyone else.”

Bella nodded in agreement and murmured, “I should say not...” Nobody would believe that she was dating a man like Tyce Jackson, especially when most people thought she and Michael were all but engaged because they’d known each other so long. She would be better off marrying someone like Michael, someone who cared about more than her money. Guys like Tyce Jackson only came after her for her inheritance—at least the ones she’d met in high school and college had.

“You’re not my type, either,” Tyce assured her, his voice so deep it was just a rumble.

“And chauvinist pig is certainly not mine,” another blond woman remarked.

The chief groaned. Then, his voice rising with frustration, he yelled, “You’re all supposed to be professionals here. Figure it out!”

“Professional partyer maybe,” Tyce remarked with a disparaging glance at Bella.

She glared at him before jumping up from the table. She’d had enough. This was ridiculous. She obviously wasn’t the only one who thought so as other people filed out of the conference room, too.

Her father caught her arm and stopped her just inside the door. “Bella—”

“I don’t need a bodyguard,” she told him. She especially did not need Tyce Jackson. “That man—that drug dealer—is just trying to scare you.”

“That man doesn’t make idle threats,” her father said. “You saw that photograph...” Regret flashed in his blue eyes. He obviously hadn’t wanted her to see it. “You know you’re in danger. You have to have a bodyguard.”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t.”

“So you’re willing to go away, then?” he asked. “Into a safe house somewhere far from River City?”

She gasped. Her father was trying to send her away? She’d dropped out of college five years ago because it had been too hard to be away from him—especially after losing her mother. She’d worried that something would happen to him without Mom and her looking over him. While she had her own apartment, she saw him every day—stopping by his house or his office.

“I can’t,” she said. “You know I can’t.” She’d also assumed her mother’s responsibilities as chairperson for several committees and charities. She could not shirk those responsibilities.

“Then you’ll have a bodyguard.”

She opened her mouth but her father must have known what she was going to say because he continued. “You’ll have Tyce Jackson. He’s good.”

He was big. She wasn’t sure he was good. She glanced across the reception area to where he’d pulled aside the chief for a private and seemingly heated conversation. “I’m not going to pretend he’s anything other than my bodyguard.”

“You have to,” he insisted. “The chief explained that it’s best to not tip off the moles in his department and the district attorney’s office. It’ll make it harder for him to catch them and whoever is making these threats—”

“Whoever?”

“We have no hard evidence, just circumstantial,” he said. “So, whoever is making these threats should not know that we’re onto them. You need to pretend that Tyce is your boyfriend.”

“But I have a boyfriend.”

Her father shook his head. “You and Michael aren’t serious, and you know why. Michael Leach will only ever be a boy. He will never grow up and become a man.”

Michael was a couple of years older than her—in age. In maturity, her father was probably right. At least Michael had his own money, though, so he wasn’t after hers. She and Michael had known each other so long that Bella owed him an explanation before she started parading around with a new man. She glanced at Tyce Jackson again.

Not that she wanted to parade him around. At the moment all she wanted to do was run.

“The chief is talking to Jackson now,” the judge said. “He will make sure he acts accordingly to his new role.”

“New role?” As a bodyguard? Or as her boyfriend? “What are you talking about?”

He shook his head and Bella noticed the paleness of his face. He was exhausted. So she didn’t press him for more information. She squeezed his arm and said, “Go home, Daddy. Get some rest.”

“You’ll go along with having a bodyguard?” he asked. “I won’t be able to rest unless I know you’re protected.”

She sighed and nodded. She would go along with it—once she settled a couple of things first. And she couldn’t do that in front of Tyce Jackson. She had to get away from him—away from the Payne Protection Agency.

“There’s my girl,” her father said as he kissed her forehead.

Bella held tightly to his arm before he pulled away. “Did a car and driver bring you here?”

He shook his head. “No. I drove myself.”

“Since I have to have a bodyguard,” she said, “I want you to have one, too.” She glanced at all the people in the reception area and just outside the doors of the building. “Have one of these extra bodyguards take you home.”

“Bella, it’s not necessary. I have a police car following me already.”

“That isn’t safe—if there truly is a leak in the River City PD. You need a bodyguard, too,” she implored. “It’s late. And you’re tired. Please...”

“All right,” he agreed with a sigh. “Parker Payne has bodyguards from his brothers’ teams outside. I’ll have one of them take me home and stay with me.” He hugged her.

She kissed his cheek before releasing him. When she pulled away from him, she closed her fingers over the keys she’d lifted from his coat pocket. She was about to find out just how good a bodyguard Tyce Jackson was.

As her father headed toward the door, the chief broke away from his conversation with Tyce to talk to him. And Tyce turned to her.

“Daddy get through to you?” he asked.

She forced a smile and nodded. Then she asked, “Where is the powder room?”

He chuckled and gestured toward a hall. “Don’t take long powdering your nose, Princess. We need to leave soon.”

She needed to leave now. Before he noticed she’d slipped away from him. After seeing that photo, she knew she was in danger, so she would be extra careful. From what she had heard of the meeting, though, it seemed as though Luther Mills was focused on getting rid of the eyewitness, Rosie Mendez, first. So Bella would be safe for a little while, and if Tyce was any good, he’d find her easily enough. Just hopefully not before she handled something that she needed to handle privately.

“Where is she going?” Chief Woodrow Lynch asked as he watched the judge’s daughter walk away from her bodyguard. “Why aren’t you with her?”

“I’m not going to hold her purse while she uses the bathroom,” Tyce Jackson replied.

Jackson had clearly never been in love, the chief realized, but then he didn’t have to love Bella Holmes. He just had to protect her. “What did I just tell you?”

“That I can’t get out of being her bodyguard and I need to treat her with respect,” he replied with a sigh of frustrated resignation. “Did you tell Spencer to do the same with Keeli?”

During the meeting Detective Spencer Dubridge had disparaged another former vice cop, Keeli Abbott, by calling her Bodyguard Barbie. That was no better than Princess.

“Yeah, I need to talk to him, too,” the chief admitted with a weary sigh. “Why the hell is everybody fighting having a bodyguard? Everyone associated with this trial has to know how damn dangerous Mills is.”