The Bodyguard Affair

ChapterTwenty-Six

Sam stared at the papers spread across the coffee table in the guest apartment. Her work laptop sat on the couch beside her, but it kept going to sleep. Despite her attempts to distract herself with work, her mind was preoccupied with Bianca.

It was evening. Not only had Vivianne likely spoken to her youngest daughter by now, but Bianca still hadn’t extended an olive branch to Sam. Her girlfriend. Her bodyguard. Whatever the hell Sam was to her right now.

Sam was in a precarious position. She wanted to approach the situation with due professionalism. But she also wanted to work through it with the woman she saw as not just a lover, but a partner. Because Sam only worked at two speeds. Casual, with no feelings involved. Or deep in love.

And despite the mess surrounding them, she was rapidly spiraling toward the latter with Bianca. No longer did she see the young woman as a spoiled brat, a damsel in perpetual distress. She was a complex person with strengths and flaws, quirks and charms. And while Sam hadn’t realized it at first, Bianca was everything she desired in a woman.

And Bianca could be hers forever if they could simply make amends.

She didn’t blame Bianca for lashing out the way she had. Sam knew what it looked like from her perspective. But she hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell Bianca her mother’s secret, to out her to her daughter. Sam knew firsthand what that was like. No one deserved to be forced out of the closet, not even Vivianne Black.

Surely Bianca would understand that.

In the meantime, Sam had another problem to solve. Someone snuck that letter into Vivianne’s bedroom. And someone dropped that other letter at Bianca’s door.

Sam had requested the security footage from the hall outside Bianca’s door yesterday morning, but it would take another hour or two for the system to download the files and push them to her email inbox. She’d already spoken to Brent and Trevor, who had sworn that they hadn’t seen anything suspicious at the time. So it had to be someone close to the family.

Sam had written off Parker, Scarlett, and their girlfriends as suspects. That left a close friend or employee. But ever since Rainier had taken over the building’s security, the residential floors had been off-limits to friends and guests.

That left the employees. But which one? At least a dozen had access to the penthouse and the floors below it every week.

“This is pointless.” Sam reloaded her work email. Still no security footage. No new leads.

Maybe it was time to put on her big girl pants and reach out to Bianca herself.

She grabbed her phone. No messages. The only notifications were from apps. She skipped texting Bianca, opting to call her instead.

But as soon as the call connected, it went straight to voicemail.

Strange. Knowing Bianca, that was only possible if the phone was off or she was already on another call. Sam waited a few more minutes before calling again.

Again, it went straight to voicemail.

“All right. That’s it.”

Sam left her guest suite and headed upstairs. As she mulled over what she would say to Bianca, her phone buzzed. The security footage had been dumped into her email box, but she had other things to worry about now. She’d waited long enough to find out who was dropping letters like relationship-destroying bombs. She could wait a little longer.

The hallway was empty. Sam knocked on Bianca’s door. Nothing. She buzzed the doorbell. Nothing. She knocked again and called out Bianca’s name.

Nothing.

Perhaps she was elsewhere in the building. Visiting one of her sisters. Having ‘the talk’ with Vivianne.

But something just didn’t feel right.

Sam got out her lock-picking kit and had the door open in record time. She was intimately familiar with this model now. She’d recommended the locks be replaced, but the building’s maintenance hadn’t gotten around to it yet, which she was grateful for right now.

“Bianca?”

Sam looked around the living room and kitchen. It was empty, save for Spike, who was perched on the arm of the couch. And as soon as she walked past him, he began assailing her with desperate meows. It was the most attention she’d ever gotten from the mean-tempered cat.

“Not now, Spike. I need to find Bianca.”

But her gut was already telling her she wasn’t going to find Bianca anywhere. And the panic in Sam’s heart wasn’t only because she had lost sight of her client. It was because the woman she’d finally realized she’d fallen for was nowhere to be found.

“Bianca!” Sam checked the bedroom. It was empty. She popped into the bathroom, then the guest room, and all the others. Empty.