Protect Me Not ((Un)Professionally Yours 2)

Atwell glowered at him, but before he could formulate a comeback, Ty breezed past the security desk—with a brief nod to the uniform on duty—and slid his security keycard into the elevator’s reader. Tricky, with a limp woman sagging in his arms and her bag and strappy shoes dangling from one of his hands. For such a little thing, she was suddenly all arms and legs, and it was a relief when he got a green light on his first attempt, and the doors glided open with a melodic chime.

Once the doors had shut behind them, he wearily sank back against the mirrored back wall of the large, swanky elevator and inhaled deeply. He didn’t always enjoy his job, it could be tedious as fuck, especially the babysitting details like this one.

He had been Victoria Hollingsworth’s primary close protection officer—CPO—for more than a year now, and he was on the verge of asking for a reassignment. He hadn’t yet because he knew that Miles Hollingsworth and his boss, Sam Brand, were good friends and, as such, Brand considered this an important assignment. The convenience of Ty’s living arrangement aside, Brand wouldn’t have assigned this detail to anyone but one of his most trusted CPOs. And Brand’s trust meant a lot to Ty. But Vicki found his presence intrusive and unnecessary and, as a result, she was often recalcitrant and resentful of him.

He heaved another sigh and pushed himself away from the wall when the elevator dinged to a stop. The doors opened to reveal an elegantly decorated lobby leading to the tall, frosted glass door of the penthouse.

The large penthouse apartment took up half of the fourth floor, along with the entire fifth floor of the building. The other half of the fourth floor housed a state-of-the-art, completely soundproof gym. It was available to all residents of Worth Manor and accessible from a different elevator. The gym was entirely separate from the penthouse, allowing Vicki and Hugh complete privacy from other residents.

Everything in this building reeked of wealth and good taste. But even more so up here. Expensive textures, neutral creams and beiges, with pops of pale greens. Not to Ty’s preference, but then again, he couldn’t claim to be either wealthy or in possession of particularly discerning taste. So, what the fuck did he know?

He rang the doorbell, not caring that it was late, and that he’d probably be waking Hugh Hollingsworth from a sound sleep. He just wanted to hand over his charge and go home to a hot chocolate and bed.

No response.

Shit.

He tried a few more times before acknowledging that Hugh might not be home.

Fucking fantastic.

He dropped Vicki into the uncomfortable looking chair in a corner of the lobby and dug around in her useless purse for her keycard. Ty felt clumsy as his large hands rooted around in the dainty, glittery bag. It was so small, it had room for only a tube of lipstick, a packet of tissues, a credit card, and a perfume atomizer. The keycard was tucked into the only interior pocket, along with her credit card.

He quickly opened the door and dropped her shoes, bag, and her glasses—which he’d placed in his breast pocket for safekeeping—on the coffee table before going back for Vicki.

The huge apartment was silent as a tomb. The lights automatically came on and, after an instinctive scan of the place, Ty determined that it was indeed empty.

He unceremoniously dumped Vicki on the closest sofa, grateful to be divested of his charge, before rolling his shoulders, and turning to leave.

Her pathetic groan stopped him in his tracks, and he made the mistake of looking at her.

She was blinking at him, her pretty eyes clouded with confusion.

“I don’t feel well,” she complained, and Ty grimaced.

He could leave. She was home. She was safe. He would inform Atwell and the security desk to let him know if she attempted to leave the building again. But he doubted she would. Not in this state.

“You drank too much,” he told her, his voice curt, and she frowned, as if his words didn’t make sense.

“I did?”

He couldn’t quite hold back his impatient huff, pissed off with himself for not simply leaving, he turned toward the open plan chef’s kitchen, where he retrieved a bottle of cold water from the fridge.

He unscrewed the top off the glass bottle and crouched in front of the sofa seconds later. “Here, take a few sips of this.”

She trustingly obeyed. But that was all it took to activate her gag reflex.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” he commanded her, and then reprimanded himself for allowing the curse word to escape. He was always excruciatingly polite when he addressed her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, in a small voice. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

“Okay, hold on…” He had her up and kneeling in the guest restroom in seconds. He crouched behind her, holding back her shoulder-length tumble of silky curls while she heaved.