What’s your biggest regret? Inaction.
I’d joined the military to gain a purpose and family I’d never had. I became a bodyguard to absolve myself of sins I could never cleanse.
Lives saved in exchange for lives taken, directly or indirectly.
What’s your biggest fear? Failure.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Bridget said. “You were a kid too. There was nothing you could’ve done against an armed attacker. If you’d tried, you might have died too.”
There it was. Another hitch on the word died.
Bridget looked away, but not before I caught the suspicious sheen in her eyes.
I clenched and unclenched my fists.
Don’t do it. But I’d already fucked up multiple times tonight. What was one more?
“Come here, princess.” I opened one arm. She stepped into it and buried her face in my non-injured shoulder. It was the most vulnerable we’d been in front of the other since we met, and it chipped away at something inside me.
“It’s all right.” I patted her awkwardly on the arm. I was shit at comforting people. “It’s over. Everyone’s fine except for the shithead with the gun. Though I guess tonight was a bad night to leave the bulletproof vest at home.”
Her choked laugh vibrated through my body. “Is that a joke, Mr. Larsen?”
“An observation. I don’t—”
“Joke,” she finished. “I know.”
We sat in the back of the ambulance for a while longer, watching the police seal off the crime scene while I tried to tamp down the fierce protectiveness welling in my chest. I was protective of all my clients, but this was different. More visceral.
Part of me wanted to push her far away from me, and another part wanted to drag her into my arms and keep her as mine.
Except I couldn’t.
Bridget was too young, too innocent, and too off-limits, and I’d damn well better not forget that.