Page 13 of Billionaire Bodyguard Summer

And anyway, most of the problem is solved if Harvey’s out of the way.

I imagine a life with Mia, without all this mess.

Maybe without all this, Mia isn’t mineat all. Maybe I’m not enough for her. A cold chill overtakes my body despite the heat outside, the shoddy air conditioning.

The doorknob to the front door jiggles, and she breezes in. Flings her bag on the sofa and stalks into the kitchen to find me in the middle of my impromptu foot surgery.

“Jesus,” she says. “What the hell happened?”

“I dropped the bottle,” I say. “Be careful. Shoes on for a few days.”

“Christ, Armin. Are you digging around in there with a pair of toenail clippers?”

I shrug. “It’s all I could find.”

“Shit,” she says. “Hold on.”

What’s that old saying?I hate it when you leave me. But I love to watch you go.

I watch Mia go, that beautiful ass swaying in the fabric of her gauzy blue sundress, and it’s enough to make me forget my wounded feet.

She returns with a little sewing kit and pulls the needle from it.

“I’m gonna throw up,” I offer.

“You were a sheriff,” she says, incredulous.

“There were noDie Hardmoments. I never had to walk on broken glass.”

“You didn’t have to today, either,” she says, but her voice is soft and it melts me. She kneels down in front of me and gets to work digging out the shards, focused, her hands quick at work.

I feel lucky to have met her, a swell inside my chest, and I want to say so, but she gets so touchy about compliments.

“Oh, good news.” I cup my hand over hers where it rests on my thigh.

“What’s that?” She eyes me briefly, then returns to her emergency medicine. It only hurts a little. It’s nice to have her hands on me, her attention. I’m starved for her. She surfaces a sliver of glass, plucks it out, and drops it on the table.

“They got Harvey.”

“What?” She drops the needle. “Whogot Harvey?”

I thought she might be happy, even. But her reaction is the opposite. Shock, horror.

And it’s infectious, the shock and the horror, but for different reasons.

“Sunbreak PD brought him down for questioning.”

“Why?” She gets to her feet and looks around, wild-eyed. “Did you do this?”

“Goddamnit, Mia. I thought you’d be—”

She doesn’t care what I thought. And it was all wrong, anyway. I was wrong about her, wrong to assume she was trapped in this life, that she wanted out.

That she felt anything for me.

And then she’s gone again. Slams the door shut behind her.

I get up to run after her. I’ll chase her down anyway, whether she feels anything for me or not. But I’ve still got a few pieces of glass in the other foot. And it slows me way down before I even get to the door.