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He raised an eyebrow, and I noticed how dark his hair was. With a shaved head, I couldn’t really determine the color, but his eyebrows reminded me of the shade of his truck. “Fine, what?”
I straightened my arms by my side. Did it count if I said the words after we shook hands? Because then it meant we didn’t shake on it. Yes, that made sense to me. “I agree.”
“Great, I’ll meet you out front. I just have to get my car.”
I turned toward my mother. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Yes, make sure to check in with me each night. I want to know that you’re safe.”
Her words were exactly what I wanted to hear, yet my body reacted to the feeling of needing to check in with her instead of her concern for my safety.
I forced a smile to ease my discomfort and followed Jacob out the door.
When I closed my mother’s door behind me, he turned to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “Look, I want to apologize for the other night.”
I shrugged his hand off of me. “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve moved on. You are not the man from the other night. You are the man my mother hired. You work for her. I will try to ignore your presence as best I can for what I hope to be a very short period of time.”
He straightened and pushed his hands into his pockets. “I plan to make this as painless as possible for you.”
I smiled because I had no such plan for him.
Not for Jake.
To him, I planned to be the biggest pain in the ass.
5
Jake
After meeting Nikole this morning, I was sure fate was a crotchety old man looking for revenge. I thought I would never see her again, and there she was—my next assignment. Arguably the most important assignment I’d ever been given, because this case was the answer to my commissioner problem.
And it would all go to shit because I had stood her up.
I would have slapped my forehead if I thought the pain would make me feel better. But getting back to work was the only thing that ever did. Whether I was on a special operation or a new bodyguard assignment, I reveled in my work. I didn’t have to think about the past or the future—only what was happening now.
She said she wanted a few minutes to herself in the elevator to collect her thoughts. It had been a shock to her, too. When she saw me inside her mother’s apartment, her eyes rounded as large as two baseball mitts.
I knew she would be annoyed, but this angry?
Of course, she’d be angry. I stood her up and left her shivering in the cold.
I groaned and jumped over the railing on the last set of stairs. My heart pumped at the physical push.
Stepping into the foyer, I looked around. The elevator had just opened and a few people were walking in.
But no one had come out.
Or did she come out earlier?
I turned in a circle, my eyes scanning for her gray coat, but I couldn’t find her. I immediately asked the concierge.
“Did you see Ms. Adams leave?”
He stood from his seat to search the foyer. “The governor? No, I haven’t seen her in a while,” he said.
“Not the governor, her daughter.”
When his brow creased, I pointed to my chest with the side of my hand, “Cute girl, this high, wearing a gray coat.”
