His grandson’s boss studied him through narrowed blue eyes. The guy was shrewd. Xavier understood why he was friends with Cole.
“He’s good,” Cooper acknowledged. “All my guys—and my sister—are very good. They will do everything within their power to keep Shawna and her daughter safe.”
“Good,” Xavier said as he released a breath of relief. “That’s what I hired you to do.”
Cooper snorted. “We both know that’s not the only reason you hired us. You’re playing matchmaker. And that’s a dangerous game.”
“More dangerous than bombs?”
“When emotions are involved, things get messy,” Cooper warned. “People get distracted. Cole can’t afford to be distracted right now. You hiring him has put him in even more danger than she is—in even more danger than he was on our missions for the Marine Corps.”
Xavier tensed as fear replaced his earlier satisfaction. “How’s that?”
“Because Cole will give up his life for hers,” Cooper said.
“But you’re all here,” Xavier said. “You’ll all work together to keep her safe.”
“Her,” Cooper said. “But Cole’s going to be more worried about protecting her and that child than himself. He’s now in more danger than she is.”
Xavier hadn’t considered that. He’d known his grandson had defied odds before—in the Marines, even in his new role as bodyguard. But he hadn’t considered that the job he had hired him to do could be the one that would get him killed.
What the hell had he done?
His heart beating frantically, Cole hadn’t been this afraid...since the last time he’d held Shawna Rolfe in his arms. But she wasn’t Shawna Rolfe anymore. She was Shawna Little. She was another man’s wife.
But having her in his arms again felt so right, felt so natural. She fit just as perfectly as she always had even though she was so petite and he was tall. She was delicate, and he was tough. Actually they had never really fit at all.
He should have never proposed to her in the first place, not when he’d been leaving for the Marines. He’d been young and arrogant then and so convinced that he was invincible. After his father’s death, he should have known no one was, if his incredibly strong, independent father was not.
But it had taken a few deployments for him to understand how tentative his life was. And he hadn’t wanted to put her through yet another loss. Her parents’ deaths had nearly destroyed her.
But losing him hadn’t affected her at all. She’d moved on quickly. And really, he had tried to be happy that she’d had. That she had a husband with a good, safe job. Emery Little shouldn’t have died.
So Cole offered his condolences again with all sincerity. “I’m sorry.”
Shawna pulled back, tugging free of his arms. “Why?” she asked.
“Your husband died.”
Her usually pale skin flushed. “I know. But why are you sorry about that?”
“I didn’t want him dead,” Cole said. “Hell, that was the last thing I wanted.”
She flinched.
“Because I wanted you to be happy,” he explained.
“Why?” she asked the question again, her brow furrowing with confusion. “When you broke up with me...”
He’d had to say terrible things to get her to accept that they were over, that she had no reason to wait for him. Obviously he’d gotten through to her far too well.
“We were not meant to be together,” he said. Then or now. His life as a bodyguard was no less dangerous than his life had been as a Marine. “But that didn’t mean I didn’t want you to be happy.”
He would have preferred that she had waited a little longer though before she’d married someone else and started a family with him. But then he was a hypocrite because the whole reason he’d broken up with her was so she wouldn’t mourn him. Mission accomplished.
She shook her head in denial. Obviously she didn’t believe him. He wasn’t going to argue with her-not while she was in mourning.
“Why are you here, Cole?” she asked.
“My grandfather hired the Payne Protection Agency to protect you.”
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“My boss assigned me to this job.”
She chuckled bitterly. “And what—he would fire you if you refused the assignment?”
“Maybe.” But he doubted it. Cooper probably would have understood if Cole had told the truth, that he was not over her, that he would never be completely over her. But Cole had lied, had claimed that he had no reason to be jealous of her and her dead husband. Why the hell had he lied?
“And what if he had fired you?” she challenged him. “You could start your own damn security firm. Or you could never work another day in your life like the rest of your family.”
While they were all employed at his grandfather’s billion-dollar business, it was a joke. None of them actually did any real work.
And that was why Cole worked. He didn’t want to be like the rest of his family. She knew that because she’d once known him better than anyone else ever had. Or so he’d thought.
Maybe she’d married another man because she had known how much it would hurt him. And she’d wanted to hurt him like he had hurt her.
“My family is the Payne Protection Agency,” he said. “I served with them.” On the battlefield and on the bodyguard frontlines. He wasn’t talking just about his former unit but about Nikki and the rest of the Payne family who’d embraced him and his friends like their own.
“So that’s why you didn’t say no?” she asked. “Because you couldn’t let them down?”
He heard the bitterness and resentment in her voice. Did she still hate him for breaking up with her? Even after all these years, even after she’d found happiness with another man? Of course that happiness was over now.
Emery Little was dead.
And Cole needed to find out why. Had the killer really intended Shawna as the target? If so, she was in serious danger. “You need a bodyguard,” he pointed out. “Even your daughter is worried about you.”
“I’m okay with having a bodyguard,” she said. “To make Maisy feel more secure. But I don’t want that bodyguard to be you.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“You
