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“Hey.”
Sam hopped onto the bar stool next to me. I couldn’t help but smile, despite my awful mood. The whole place seemed to brighten exponentially the second she walked in, no longer as gloomy.
“Hey yourself,” I muttered as I polished off my drink. I withheld a shudder, the bitterness coating my tongue. How Adam managed to drink crap like this without so much as a flinch was beyond me.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Never better.”
She gave me the side-eye. “You don’t need to pretend with me, Charlie.”
The bartender walked over and gave Sam a good once-over. There was something slimy about the guy that rubbed me the wrong way immediately. “What can I get for you, sugar?” he asked her.
“I’ll have an old fashioned,” she replied coolly before placing a hand high on my thigh. “And only my boyfriend gets to call me sugar.”
The guy slunk away with his tail between his legs and got started on making Sam her drink.
I smirked. “I wish I’d recorded that.”
She bumped her knee against mine. “Don’t change the subject, Charlie. You stormed out of there quickly. The guys are worried about you. Is it the duchess?”
“Ofcourse,it’s the duchess. She needs to reconsider.”
“I doubt she will.”
“I’ll talk to Kris later. Maybe he can convince her.”
“Charlie…” She peered up at me with her pretty hazel eyes. The bartender set her drink down, but she paid him no mind.
I swallowed. “I should have been more prepared.”
“You can’t seriously blame yourself for what happened.”
“I should have listened to the chatter. I should have looked into Kris’ sources, what they were saying. I should have brought a backup pistol and made sure you were wearing a vest and—”
“Charlie, there was no way to know that we were going to be attacked. You did everything you could.”
“Not enough,” I grumbled. “This is the second time you’ve been put in harm’s way.”
“Yes, but that’s the job.”
I shook my head, unable to think clearly. “If the duchess goes through with her gala, there’s no telling what might happen. I need to work overtime to make sure the venue is secure. There’s so much that has to be done. I need to vet every single member of the catering staff, and her guests. I need to secure three different exit strategies. We don’t know if whoever’s after her wants the duchess dead or alive.” I rubbed at my temples, my headache coming back in full force. “God, now I’m worried they’re going to poison the food. I’m going to have to vet the cooks, too.”
Sam grasped onto my hand and leaned in a bit closer, her brow pinched together with concern. “Calm down, Charlie. I need you to breathe.” She kissed the back of my fingers, her warm breath tinkling my skin. “You work so hard to keep us safe.”
“Yet it still wasn’t enough, Sam. You could have—”You could have been killed.I couldn’t get rid of the lump in my throat, the fury in my veins.
“I’m alright,” she whispered. “We’re all alright.”
I exhaled through my mouth. “Did you know I didn’t even want to get into the security business after we left the SEALs?”
“Really?”
“It was Kris’ idea to start a firm. Adam’s his number two, so he was always going to say yes. Liam likes this kind of work. I don’t think he feels comfortable doing anything else.”
“And you?”
I shook my head. “When we left, I had every intention of buying a house somewhere. Settling down. Starting a family of my own.”
