CHAPTER ONE
JACOB WOLFE WAS used to flying first class. What he wasn’t used to was sitting next to Charlotte Pemberton.
They were on a late-night flight from London to New York, and all around them people were sleeping, or at the very least had their eyes closed and earbuds in their ears. The cabin lighting was dimmed, and in first class, passengers wore eye masks and were covered with blankets to get some rest.
Not Charlotte. She had her laptop open, a glass of wine beside her and glasses perched on her nose as she worked away on...something. Jacob didn’t know what, and didn’t much care. His job was to keep her safe, not worry about whatever nonsense she was working on.
It was no surprise that the fashion world was far departed from his normal life. As a former SAS operative, the last thing on his mind was fashion shows and parties and...whatever else the Pembertons got up to in their fancy, extravagant life.
He was a plain guy with simple pleasures, despite running a top security business for VIPs and dignitaries. Over the next nine days, he expected he’d do a lot of internal eye rolling, but Aurora Inc. was a new and big client, and he was being paid extremely well to spend the week babysitting the Earl of Chatsworth’s sister. And he’d try not to be too resentful of the fact he’d had to cancel his first vacation in three years in order to make it happen. Just his luck that the man originally assigned to the job had picked up some sort of parasite on his last assignment. He’d be fine, but the treatment meant his staying in the Big Smoke while Jacob flew to the Big Apple.
He was no stranger to sacrifice, and Wolfe Security was his company, so here he was. On a plane to New York. In first class.
It still chafed, though. He’d started the company to protect people from real harm. Not babysit spoiled princesses.
Charlotte picked up her wine, took a sip and then looked over at him. “You’re not sleeping?” she whispered.
“Clearly not, miss,” he replied.
She frowned, her brows puckering above her clear frames. “If you call me miss again, we’re going to have a problem.”
“Noted, ma’am.”
She huffed. “Mr. Wolfe. Please just call me Charlotte.”
He said nothing and lifted an eyebrow.
She huffed again and turned back to her laptop. “You should order a beer and relax.”
“No drinking on the job, miss.”
This time she sat back and rested her head against the plush headrest, and then turned so she was looking at him. “This is going to be a very long week if we’re always so formal. Look, I don’t like this any more than you do. I don’t need personal protection. It’s ridiculous. But that was a condition of the trip, so here we are.”
He met her gaze. “It’s not my job to like or dislike anything. It’s just my job to do my job.”
Which was true, but didn’t take into account that Charlotte Pemberton was the most beautiful client he’d ever had. Her eyes were heavily lashed and a unique shade of hazel, leaning toward green but with a gold rim around the iris. Her hair was a smooth and lovely brown and fell just to her jaw, and right now she had the right side tucked behind her ear. Fine cheekbones and the hint of a dimple on one side of her luscious mouth made her seem both refined and with a sense of humor. He surely hoped so. It would be a very long assignment otherwise.
She sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m annoyed with my family for making me do this. I’m not annoyed with you personally.”
“Good to know.” He couldn’t help but smile the tiniest bit. She smiled back, and the awkwardness of the past four hours—from pickup to airport security to the flight—eased just a little bit.
“They’ve taken a few emails and letters too seriously.”
“Better to be safe than sorry.” He knew this to be true. He made his living at it.
“I’m not a child. I’m twenty-eight. I don’t need to have my life dictated.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Stop ma’aming me.”
He grinned. A flight attendant made her way silently through first class and he requested a glass of water. Charlotte waved off a second glass of wine.
Jacob drank his water; Charlotte finished her wine and went back to clicking the keys on her laptop. She wasn’t going to sleep, but he was. A few hours of shuteye on the plane meant he’d be alert when they landed. He put his head against the headrest and closed his eyes. Maybe New York wasn’t Tenerife, but it could be worse, he supposed. He’d been in some horrible hellholes in his day.
No, New York wasn’t a hardship at all. So why was he feeling so off balance?
* * *
Charlotte waited until Jacob Wolfe closed his eyes, then finally let out the sigh she’d been holding for hours. When her mother had announced that she was hiring a bodyguard for Charlotte for the Fashion Week trip, she’d rebelled. Hard. She was finally getting a chance to take the lead on something this big and her mother was making her have a babysitter. It was ridiculous.
Even more ridiculous was how freaking gorgeous Jacob Wolfe was. Gorgeous, not pretty, like so many of the men in her line of work. Not that pretty wasn’t great; it was. She’d enjoyed being on the arm of pretty men in the past, men with perfect hair and skin and who could step into a designer suit and look like a million dollars. Men who required no emotional attachment. She’d been burned by that before, though, and wasn’t in the market to take the leap again.
But Jacob Wolfe was not that kind of man. His suit was perfectly tailored, his tie precisely knotted, even during the long late-night flight. Still, she appreciated his other attributes: well-defined muscles, discernible even beneath the suit jacket; dirty-blond hair long enough on the top to sink her hands into, but clipped super short on the sides; glacial eyes with sandy lashes; and facial hair, the same dirty blond, not quite perfectly trimmed, giving him a rough-and-ready look. All in all, he looked like a man capable of class but ready to go bare knuckle if need be.
It was all quite exciting, really. Except he was probably ten years older than her, barely smiled and was all about the job. Pity.