Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“It’s not optional. It’s going to happen. You need security, and that’s a fact. I’m honestly surprised this is the first attempt. Your cat is world-famous. She’s an internet sensation. Her videos are everywhere, and she’s worth a lot of money.”
“I’m not rich,” she throws back testily.
“I didn’t say you were,” I tell her. She glares at me, but it’s going to take a lot more than dirty looks to deter me. A lot more, meaning nothing or anything. “You need a bodyguard. A catguard. And you need one now. Before this gets out there and someone tries again. Unless you have a tracking device implanted in your cat, then I suggest you take my help. I’m offering it free of charge for the remainder of the show season.”
That’s three months. The cost of a private job like that would be astronomical. Even though I own the company and I’m running it, I still work harder than anyone. In the office, on the ground, in the field. Paperwork or action: I want to be everywhere, doing everything.
Alright, so there’s a slight chance I have some control issues.
“No.” She shakes her head. “I can’t take your services free of charge or otherwise.”
“Then you’re being very foolish. Imagine your heartache if you lost your cat today.”
She’s already pale, with beautiful creamy skin and cinnamon flake freckles, but now she goes so white that I’m worried she’s going to pass out. My worry abates when color comes back to her cheeks in a storm of righteous indignation pink. I swear, someone should name their paint swatch after her. It wouldn’t be the most absurd name I’d ever read.
“That’s not fair!” She looks like she’s being tortured. Slowly. And wrecked.
Something foreign and confusing inside me twinges. I’m just trying to make her get real. I’m not here to hurt her. It’s the sense of it that matters. The worst-case scenario was almost her reality. She needs a dose of sense, even if it’s a lethal one.
It might not be fair, but the world seldom is. “There are a lot of people out there, bad or otherwise. A lot. You need to be more careful,” I advise.
“This is our life,” she bristles, indicating the incredibly strange cat cave/cage thing that resembles a grade-five science fair project. “I’m not going to let this scare me away. I’m not going to bow out of doing shows or anything else.”
“The celebrity needs her fans.”
“That’s not how this is. I don’t market my cat out like that. She’s not here as some kind of celebrity or internet sensation. She’s here because she’s real, and she’s touched so many hearts and lives. It’s not a fame thing. It’s a love thing.”
“How very sweet. I’m shedding a tear here.”
“Yeah, you look like a real bleeding heart.”
I thought she was nothing but a wilted rose with a bleeding heart herself, but she’s proving that bleeding heart flowers are toxic. Which, I think, they truly are.
“You wouldn’t shed a tear over anything,” she adds.
“I would.”
“Really? Name it.”
“No, you’re right, there’s nothing.”
She doesn’t appreciate my dry humor. “You’re so cold, you know that? Cold and more than slightly creepy.”
“Unemotional and intimidating are two great things in a bodyguard. I have one thing you don’t.”
“What’s that?”
A good working brain? Christ, no. That’s too mean by far. Ability to reason and look at a situation as a whole instead of just in bits and pieces? I’m taking too long trying to force that to come out not completely offensive.
“Wow,” she snaps. “Good talk. Thank you so much for the compliments. Does Amanda work for you?”
“Yes.” I saw them talking together, and Amanda escorted Ephemeral back to her booth.
“I want her then.”
Big surprise. I didn’t see that coming. “The offer is me or no one.” I’m not trusting my company name and my whole future to anyone else. Today might have been a team mistake, but when you’re the one at the top, all successes and failures are on you.
“No thanks.”
“You’re being obtuse and ridiculous. You live in a fantasy world.” That’s my nice talk for I fucked up here today, and I need to make this right. Why are you being so difficult about letting me?
“Believe me, if you knew me, you’d hardly call my life a fantasy,” she retorts sharply.
“I spent the past ten minutes looking you up. I know Peach Lips is all you have.”
A shudder rolls through her, and I get that strange stabbing in my stomach region again. “You truly have no heart.”
It might appear that way sometimes, but it’s not true. I just can’t relate to people. They don’t appreciate me unless I’m doing what I do best, which is taking care of their shit or their lives by putting mine on the line instead.
Heart isn’t what one needs to do this job. A will of steel and iron is far more apt. “Heart is a metaphor for skill and intuition and the ability to go to extreme lengths to succeed. In that case, I have plenty of it. In spades.”