POV Owen
Ice cream is dripping on the leather seat of my car.
Thirty-hundred-dollar Italian leather, and the Morris princess is letting vanilla soft-serve melt all over it like she's five fucking years old. I should be annoyed.
Should make her clean it up, explain the concept of consequences, maybe throw in a lecture about respecting other people's property.
Instead, I'm trying not to think about how she asked for ice cream thirty seconds after almost getting cornered by her psychotic ex-boyfriend.
"Can we still get ice cream?"
Christ.
What a question after nearly getting mauled by Captain Date Rape in a bathroom that smells like industrial cleaner and broken dreams.
The girl's priorities are completely fucked, and somehow that makes perfect sense for someone who's never had to worry about anything more serious than which designer handbag matches her existential crisis.
"Are you going to tell my father about this too?" she asks around a mouthful of frozen yogurt, like we're discussing the weather instead of attempted assault.
"About what?"
"Warren. The bathroom thing." She waves her spoon dismissively, and I watch vanilla yogurt threaten to launch itself onto my dashboard. "Because I know he's the one who told the dean."
I nod. Of course Michael handled it. The man doesn't leave loose ends, especially ones that involve his daughter's safety.
"Anything that involves you gets reported back."
She gives me a look that could melt steel beams. The kind of look that says she knows exactly how fucked up her life is and she's tired of pretending otherwise.
"What about what happened last night in the kitchen?"
My jaw ticks so hard I'm surprised it doesn't audibly crack. "Nothing happened in the kitchen."
Lying through my teeth has never felt so much like choking on broken glass.
What happened was that I almost lost my goddamn mind.
What happened was that I backed her against the counter and got close enough to smell her perfume and count the flecks in her eyes.
What happened was that for about ten seconds, I forgot she was my job and remembered she was a woman.
A woman who's almost two decades younger than me.
A woman who's Michael Morris's daughter.
I hate that she makes me feel this way. Hate that someone who should be nothing more than a paycheck can make my pulse spike and my professional composure crack like cheap paint.
How the hell does someone barely old enough to legally drink ignite feelings that could get me buried in a shallow grave?
It's like being sucker-punched by your own biology.
"Yeah, whatever," she says, licking her spoon with the kind of casual dismissal that makes me want to either laugh or lose my mind. Possibly both. "But could you teach me self-defense though? I mean, yeah, so far you've been able to save my ass, but there might be a day you won't be fast enough."
"I hope that day never comes."
"I know, right?" She grins, and there's something almost manic about it. "If one hair on my head gets hurt, you'll be ten feet underground with concrete boots and a very disappointed father figure."
The casual way she talks about my potential murder is both disturbing and oddly endearing.
"I suppose a little self-defense training won't hurt."
"Perfect!" she exclaims, practically bouncing in her seat like a kid who just got handed the keys to a candy store and a flamethrower.
That's when I see it.
The dimple on her left cheek that only appears when she's genuinely happy instead of plotting my professional downfall.
I've seen it maybe three times since I started this job—once when she was gossiping with her friend Jamie like they were two old aunties discussing neighborhood scandals, once when she successfully made scrambled eggs without burning down the kitchen, and now.
It's a small thing, but it makes her look younger. More innocent.
More like the girl her father is desperately trying to protect instead of the woman who's slowly driving me insane with her long legs and complete inability to understand that the world wants to eat her alive.
"When can we start?" she asks, still grinning like Christmas morning.
"We'll figure it out."
"That's not an answer, Owen. That's corporate speak for 'never gonna happen but I don't want to deal with your whining right now.'"
"It's the only answer you're getting."
She rolls her eyes hard enough to see her own brain. "You're really bad at this whole conversation thing, you know that?"
"I'm not paid to make conversation."
"You're not paid to be a robot either."
"Debatable."
She laughs—actually laughs—and the sound does something weird to my chest. Like a fist unclenching that I didn't know was there, releasing pressure I didn't realize I was carrying.
"You know what I think?" she says, settling back in her seat like she's about to deliver the gospel according to spoiled rich girls.
"I'm sure you're going to tell me whether I want to hear it or not."
"I think you're more human than you want people to know."
"I think you watch too many soap drama movies."
"I think you deflect when people get too close to the truth."
"I think you talk too much."
"I think you don't talk enough."
"I think we're about to be trapped in an endless loop of 'I think' statements until one of us dies of old age."
She snorts, and it's such an undignified sound, from someone who usually moves like she's on a red carpet, that it catches me off guard.
We're stopped at a red light, and she's looking at me with that expression that makes me feel like she's seeing through every wall I've built.
It's unsettling as hell. Like being psychoanalyzed by someone who should be worried about midterms and hangovers, not reading people like emotional X-rays.
"Why do you do this job?" she asks quietly, and the shift in her tone catches me off guard.
"Money."
"That's not the only reason, clearly."
"That's reason enough."
"Is it?"
The light turns green, and I focus on driving instead of answering.
Because the truth is complicated, messy, and involves medical bills that could fund a small country's healthcare system.
The truth is that I do this job because my mother is dying in a hospital bed and good treatment costs more than most people make in a lifetime.
The truth is that Michael Morris offered me a deal I couldn't refuse—clear my father's debt and save my mother's life in one neat package.
The truth is that I'm stuck babysitting his daughter while fighting feelings that could get me killed.
And every day it gets harder to remember which one of those things is supposed to be the job.
My phone buzzes against my chest, and I check the caller ID. St. Mary's Hospital.
My blood turns to ice water so fast I'm surprised it doesn't freeze solid.
"We need to make a detour," I tell her, already changing lanes with the kind of precision that comes from years of high-stress driving. "To the hospital."