The Guardian and the Escort, page 1
The Guardian and the Escort
Fiona Cole
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Voyeur
About Fiona
Also by Fiona Cole
Chapter One
CORBIN
Just as I pulled into my garage, my phone lit up with an incoming message.
Victoria: Want to come by?
Closing my eyes, I rested my head back, imagining her blonde waves cascading down her back. My hand twitched with the need to bury it in her hair—to control the depth she took me. I could hold her however I wanted her. Victoria never complained and was always up to play.
The idea almost tempted me enough to put the car in reverse and head over.
Almost.
As much as I wanted to bury the frustrations of the day away in a hard fuck, I also didn’t. Luscious curves faded away to a quiet night—the first warm one of the season—and a cold beer by the pool. With a deep exhale, I opened my eyes to find them staring back in the rear-view mirror.
“Fuck, you’re old,” I muttered to my reflection.
With a sound of disgust, I looked away, grabbed my briefcase, and trudged toward my empty house, wondering when the hell staying home alone became more enticing than losing myself in a willing body. Probably around my thirty-fifth birthday. At least, that was when my ex-wife would claim I became a “boring, excuse of a man.”
But I’d say it was more around thirty-four when my mentor and friend, Alec, passed away, leaving me guardian of his teenage daughter. Death had a way of putting life into perspective, especially when it came with the responsibility of caring for someone else.
Not that I’d done much caring. She’d stayed with me for all of a month before Juliette shipped her off to boarding school. But that was six years ago, and through our occasional emails, I knew she was moving back. While I hadn’t had much of a presence in her life, I made sure she knew she should stay here until she got settled.
I chuckled, thinking of her one-word reply: Okay.
The uninformative answer left me guessing when she’d arrive—if she’d arrive. Not that I could blame her. I’d only met her a handful of times throughout the years before I became her guardian, and in the month after her father’s death, she’d mostly stayed in her room. Somehow, over the last six years, we managed to keep our relationship to sparse emails and not a single visit. I wasn’t even sure I’d recognize her if she showed up.
The only thing I remembered were her large eyes. A startling icy gray that somehow also burned with fire.
“Fuck,” I muttered again, knowing I’d have to go beyond an email and pick up the phone to get more details. “Next week,” I promised. “Next week, I’ll call and get more out of her than a simple okay. I swear, no one knows how to fucking email anymore. What happened to hello and sincerely?”
Without turning on any lights, I kicked off my shoes and socks before making my way through the dark to the fridge to grab a beer. The moon and stars greeted me as soon as I stepped out to the open back patio. They shined bright, and I sucked in a deep breath of warm, humid air. Perfect.
The splash of cold beer on my tongue was so refreshing I could hear it.
It wasn’t until I swallowed that I heard the splash again. And again.
My muscles pulled tight, ready to chase some kids from fucking around in my backyard. However, when I scanned the pool, it wasn’t until I searched the far side that I caught sight of a single form moving around the darkened shallow end.
“What the fuck?”
A lithe body rose from the water, one step at a time, moving with the confidence of someone who belonged. Squinting, I tried to make out the face, reminding myself to install the motion-sensing lights.
The person swayed with every step closer—obviously feminine.
“Victoria?” I asked. Maybe I read her message wrong, and she asked to come over? My mind scrambled over itself to make sense of the situation.
“I don’t know who Victoria is, but it sure as shit isn’t me,” an oddly familiar voice responded. “Sorry to disappoint.”
The possible stranger closed in, and I realized two things when she neared the only light creeping along the backyard, coming from above the kitchen sink.
One: This was no stranger. Gray eyes—both cold and hot, flashed in the darkness above a pert nose and full, smirking lips.
And two: She was damn near naked.
Too many of my senses worked overtime, leaving all of them barely functioning. My brain lagged behind while my eyes absorbed everything. The soaking strands of dark hair sent rivulets of water dripping down the gentle curve of her breasts. Some got caught on the tips of her hard, rosy nipples before dropping further across her flat stomach to vanish into the dark edge of her lacy underwear she thankfully kept on.
While I stood there, struggling to untangle everything, she strutted past me to grab a towel that draped over a patio chair. Once she left my periphery, my brain came back online. I took another—longer—swig of my beer, buying myself time before I had to turn and address her.
“Rose,” I finally greeted, barely choking her name out. Clearing my throat, I reminded myself that she was just a kid, and it was my place to take control of the situation. AKA: shove the image of her perky tits far enough down to not react. Although, she made it hard when I turned, and she still stood there uncovered, drying her hair.
“Corbin,” she responded, smooth and not at all struggling like me.
Her hard nipples—the perfect size for clamps—and my name on her lips almost had me dismissing all thoughts and letting my inner caveman take over. But thankfully, loud sirens blared. This is Rose—Alec’s daughter. Your ward. The girl you are in charge of taking care of.
The girl who was sixteen when you last saw her.
She wasn’t sixteen anymore, and she sure as shit wasn’t a girl.
Following her lead, I ignored her nudity and stood tall, infusing the full force of my dominance. Her eyes flared, but it was too dark to clarify what they ignited with. Alarm? Fear? Heat? Passion? Not that it mattered. This wasn’t a partner I needed to read. This was the girl I needed to care for, because even if she looked like a woman, she was no more than twenty-two—eighteen years my junior. I was the adult here.
“I didn’t know you were coming.” I winced inwardly at the harsh tone.
“You invited me,” she answered without any inflection to hint at how she took my words. “And I said, okay.”
I considered lecturing her on sending a proper email with a more specific response when someone invited you to their home but decided not to waste my time. She, thankfully, wrapped the towel around her body and lifted her chin. The same way her father used to when he dominated in business meetings.
“Fair enough.”
We stood there a moment, in a stare-off of sorts, despite it being so dark. With a grunt, I drained the last of my beer and turned to head inside, grabbing her suitcase beside the door. Hopefully, she’d follow and put some clothes on, and we could start again.
“Do you need me to show you to your room?” I asked without looking back.
“Do I have one?” she asked, the soft pads of her feet on the tile letting me know she wasn’t far behind.
“You always had one.”
The footsteps stopped for a second before continuing. “Oh. Well, thank you.”
“Of course.”
I flicked on the kitchen light and glanced over my shoulder, not even having to look directly at her to take in her wide gaze.
“Why don’t you go change, and I’ll order us some food? Is Italian okay?”
“Sure.”
By the time I picked up the phone, she was gone. I’d only been face to face with her for all of ten minutes, yet she hit me like a tsunami. Her and everything she represented. Over the last six years, I’d managed to compartmentalize Alec’s death. I knew it was there, taking up space, waiting, but I always ignored it. Maybe that added to why I let Rose dictate our communication. Why I let her turn down invitations home for the holidays.
Without her around, I could continue to ignore the fact that one of my best friends had passed away, leaving me with a gaping loss I hadn’t been able to patch. My family had been sparse and not close. I’d married Juliette, but even that sat superficially on the surface. Yet, somehow, Alec wormed his way in and burrowed comfortably under the surface. I hadn’t known what to do when that space became vacant.
Juliette hadn’t been sympathetic, and with no one to share it with, it became easier to shove aside.
Until now.
Until Rose came roaring back into my life.
Chapter Two
ROSE
I waited until the doorbell rang to come back down because the thought of making small talk while we waited sounded horrible. Even now, I hung back just beyond the door, watching him move around the kitchen to gather plates.
Leaning against the door jamb, I took my time studying the man my father left in charge of my care—a man I knew nothing about other than the few things Dad mentioned about him in passing.
A friend.
A shark.
A savage in business.
A rake.
A man fathers warned their daughters away from.
I smiled, remembering the brush of his gaze across my skin.
I hadn’t planned on strutting past him, naked as a j-bird, but when I saw his large body in the shadows, something sparked to life inside me—something I hadn’t ever felt before. Hell, I’d barely experienced a flicker with anyone since my father passed away. So, ignoring the blaring signs that screamed I was too close to the fire; I danced by the flames and basked in the warmth flooding my veins.
Why not?
It wasn’t like he was my actual guardian.
Just another man, and I’d met plenty of those over the years. Although, this one came with an aura of mystery. Why him? What had my father seen in him that made him seem like a good choice?
Whatever it was, I sure as shit never spotted it in the few times we were together.
Other than a cold, sporadic email here and there, he barely existed to me—just some shadow looming beyond my world that gave the occasional signature proving I wasn’t as alone as I appeared. Teachers would see the scribbled name and smile, sighing in relief that I hadn’t been abandoned at their boarding school like an orphan dropped off in the middle of the night at a shelter.
Little did they know that that was exactly what happened. Except, I’d been an orphan dropped off at Corbin’s house, like a stopping point to be sent away from, just to be dropped off at another doorstep.
What would they call me? A double orphan?
I must have laughed at my own joke because just then, Corbin’s attention snapped my way. For a moment, I held his stare. Maybe if I looked him right in the eyes, I could find the thing Dad saw in him. Despite the resentment over the years, I knew there had to be something. I trusted my father. He was a good man, and he loved me more than anything. He wouldn’t toss me to a pack of wolves if he didn’t believe they wouldn’t eat me.
The problem was that my father’s heart attack had been sudden and unexpected. Maybe he hadn’t updated his will after Corbin married, because while something urged me to not dismiss Corbin just yet, I hadn’t had any doubts about his wife. Juliette had bitch written all over her.
“Do you plan on standing there all night or coming to eat?” he asked, finally breaking the silence.
My lips twitched as soon as he looked away. The deep tone initially sounded like irritation, but years of sitting back and listening honed my skills to read what was underneath. And underneath his words wasn’t annoyance. No, Corbin was unnerved, and I didn’t hate it one bit.
Stepping from the shadows, I padded barefoot across the kitchen, shoving my own discomfort aside, and pretended like I belonged there. The reality was that I’d lived in a dorm or a small loft alone for years, and I didn’t remember what being in a kitchen with others felt like. I imagined this was what Tarzan felt like when he left the jungle for civilization.
Not that Stanford was some wild wilderness, but it was its own jungle—one that I mostly kept to myself in. What could I say? When your only family passes away and your guardian ditches you as soon as he can, it leaves a mark and some abandonment issues.
“What can I get you to drink?”
“Do you have wine?” I scrunched my nose at the empty beer on the counter. “I’m not a beer drinker.”
He blinked a few times as if the words didn’t process.
“Or water?” I offered.
“Sorry,” he said with a shake of his head. “I guess you’re old enough to drink.”
I huffed a laugh, shoving down the pinch in my chest. “Yeah, I’m twenty-two now.”
“Of course, most people do graduate college around that age,” he muttered, pulling down a wine glass. “You can grab a red from over there.”
A bottle in hand, I met him at the table in the kitchen. Enough pasta to feed a small army sat piled on my plate. “Do I look like I’m starving?” I joked.
His eyes barely flicked up and down, but still, a chill raked down my spine. “You are petite.”
“So was my mother.”
“I never met her,” he explained, taking the wine. “I’d just met your father before she passed away.”
“Well, I’m sure you saw pictures, and it was a running joke among friends how small she was next to my dad.”
He laughed softly. “He was one of the few men who made me feel short at six-two.”
I smiled, remembering the giant man with a giant personality who’d doted on me for as long as I could remember. I always wanted to be as tall as him, but he warned me I’d be lucky to make it to five-five, let alone six-five, encouraging me to make up for my lacking height with strength and courage.
“What?” I asked, finding Corbin studying the bottle of wine with a small smile of his own. “Did I pick the wrong one? I have to admit, I’m no wine afficia—”
“It was Alec’s favorite.”
Alec…Dad.
It was the first time I’d heard his name out loud in years, and it hit like a blow to the solar plexus. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it.
“Anyway.” Corbin cleared his throat and opened the bottle like a pro, pouring two glasses. “I figured, at the very least, not to expect you until the end of May, after graduation.”
“My classes are done, and I tested out of all my final exams, so I decided to skip walking in the ceremony and head here.”
His brows furrowed. “Why would you skip it? It’s a big moment.”
“It’s all a big show for families to feel good about the mass amounts of money they just dumped into their kid. Since no one would be there for me, there’s no need to stick around for a performance.”
“I could have come.”
Unbidden by me, I snorted. “Yeah, okay. I’m sure you and your wife would have been on the first plane to California.”
“I’m divorced,” he explained evenly. “But I would have come.”
I stared, not bothering to hide my doubt. It was better to let that show than the shock that he wasn’t married anymore. Thinking about it, the house did seem bereft of a woman’s touch, but then again, their mansion had always seemed lacking something, so it hadn’t struck me as odd when I didn’t notice anything feminine gracing the tables and walls.
“You doubt me?”
Did I?
I scrolled my mind to find any indication that an invitation to my graduation would be wanted. Remembering the empty seats at my high school graduation was all the answer I needed, so I settled on a shrug.
“I’m a man of my word. If I said I would have been there, I would have.”
He sat taller in his chair, his jaw clenched tight as if preparing to defend his honor.
Money comes and goes, but your word stays forever. It holds more value than anything else. If someone knows you mean what you say and chooses to stand by your side through the hardest of times, then you’re richer than God himself.
Dad’s words echoed through my mind, allowing me the chance to see into the man I assumed my father had seen Corbin to be. It was that glimpse that had me letting it go. I wasn’t sure I believed him completely, but I believed him enough.
“Well, I’m here now.”
Holding my arms out to my sides, I leaned back in my seat and crossed my legs as if posing for a photo. The move caused my loose sleep shorts to ride up higher, almost to my ass cheeks. As if out of his control, his eyes flicked to the bared skin. Just as quickly, they jerked away, but still, something lingered that he couldn’t shove away fast enough.
Again, heat bloomed in my chest, sinking like lava down into my stomach. The warmth tempted me in a way I knew was morally wrong. This man was almost twice my age—my guardian. My father’s friend.
But my heart beat in a rhythm I didn’t know it knew how to play. My fingers tingled as if yearning to touch—to feel for the first time ever.
I wasn’t ready to dance away from the flame just yet, and morals could fuck off until I was.
