The Bodyguard Affair

ChapterOne

Sometimes, the most luxurious apartment in the city felt more like a prison.

Or so Bianca’s dramatic imagination told her as she lay strewn across her couch, scrolling idly through her phone.

Sure, she had an apartment at the top of Seattle’s Black Diamond Building, with a view of Mt. Rainier and more than a few amenities at her doorstep. And, sure, she had heated floors, a Jacuzzi tub in her bathroom, and two more bedrooms than she would ever know what to do with.

Most girls her age would kill to be where she was. But that didn’t change the fact that every time she stepped out of her apartment, she was sorely reminded that, despite being 22 years old, everyone still thought of her as a child who couldn’t take care of herself.

She rolled over on her couch, phone dangling from her hand as she motioned to the brown tabby cat on the other side of her living room. “At least I have you to keep me company.”

Spike, the furry little terror who Bianca now called her own after a failed attempt at fostering, cried out for food he knew he wasn’t due yet. When Bianca showed no sign of giving in, he simply sat down and began grooming himself.

She sighed and stared at her ceiling. She could almost feel her nosy mother’s eyes on her through it. That was what really made her apartment feel like a prison. Bianca had her own place, which she could decorate as she liked and have anyone over that she wanted. But she was still under the metaphorical—and literal—ass of her mother, who occupied the building’s penthouse, the Black family home.

Only a few years ago, Bianca had lived up there too. Out of the three sisters who had grown up in the penthouse, hers was the only childhood bedroom that had remained untouched after moving out. Oldest sister Scarlett’s room was now their mother’s office and reception space. Middle child Parker’s old room had been transformed into a swanky guest suite that often housed American business royalty and foreign dignitaries.

Bianca’s room? No matter how many times her mother talked about making it into the ‘fitness’ room, complete with gym equipment and yoga nook, Bianca knew it would never happen. Her mom kept that room pristine, a shrine to her youngest daughter’s babyhood, awaiting the day Bianca would travel back in time and become a preteen again.

“Mrow.” Spike hopped up onto Bianca’s chest, staring straight into her face and heaving hot cat breath against her skin. “Mroooow.”

“It’s not your dinner time.” But to Spike, it never mattered how far away dinner was. It should happen now. Bianca kept his claws trimmed, but he still found ways to dig them through her sweatshirts and get straight to her sensitive flesh. “Somebody save me,” she murmured. “My cat’s going to kill and eat me.”

Given how wild and bad-tempered Spike had been before Bianca adopted him, it probably wouldn’t have surprised anyone if he did just that. Instead, he settled against her chest, purring furiously.

Bianca gave the top of his head a scratch. I’ve got myself. I’ve got my cat. I have everything a girl could ever want. But there was something sorely missing from Bianca’s world.

No, not something. Someone.

Someone who gave her a reason to wake up in the morning and face the day. Someone who would hold her when she was happy, or sad, or for no reason at all. Someone who saw her for the grown, educated woman she was—not the spoiled, sheltered youngest daughter of the richest family in Seattle.

That was all that mattered to her. She didn’t care about anything else. Not looks. Not class. Not money. And not gender.

Her mother might have something to say about that. She could probably come around to the idea of her baby falling in love, as long as it was with the ‘right’ person. Well-bred. Polite. Educated. Attractive.

Male.

So far, the Black sisters were two-for-three on the sapphic scoreboard. Parker had been an out and proud lesbian for as long as Bianca could remember. Her oldest and most responsible sister had recently dumped her trophy fiancé and hooked up with an employee from one of the family’s companies. A girl, no less. Only a year or two older than Bianca.

That left the Black family matriarch placing all her hopes on Bianca. At least she would end up with a man. She would have the picture-perfect heterosexual marriage that her mother had always wanted for all her daughters.

There was one problem with that. While Bianca had never explicitly mentioned it to anyone in her family, she had always liked girls. No, not girls. Women. Strong women who didn’t take prisoners.

But unlike her older sisters, Bianca never once questioned what that meant for her. Was she gay? Bi? Pansexual? Some other flavor of ‘definitely not straight’? It didn’t matter to her. She liked who she liked, and that was it.

But right now? With her mother hovering over her every time she so much as coughed, having a relationship of any kind was impossible.

It was one of the many reasons behind Bianca’s plan to move to California. It was about as different from Seattle as America could get while staying in the same time zone. In California, the weather was always perfect.Not like Seattle, which boasted rain and gloom for most of the year. In California, my mom can’t breathe down my neck. The open skies and vast sea called to Bianca. And so did her independence.

Grad school was the easiest way to convince her family to let her move. Her father probably wouldn’t care. Not as much as her mother, who had pitched a fit back when Bianca was in high school and looking at universities out of state. In the end, she’d stayed in Seattle because she was only eighteen and not confident enough to stand up to her mother.

Now that Bianca was in her twenties? She could take her mother on. But she needed a solid plan.

Her phone buzzed beside her. While Spike stretched out and yawned on her chest, Bianca eased him off her body and picked up her phone to read the text message she’d received. Speak of the devil.

“Come up to the house as soon as you can. There’s something important I need to talk to you about.”

Bianca pressed the heels of her hands against her eyelids. Only her mother referred to the family penthouse as ‘the house.’ And ‘as soon as you can’ meant ‘right now.’ But Bianca would wait a few more minutes.