Chapter 2: Stay Behind Me

By the time our flight landed, someone had leaked Adrian’s arrival.

Ben Foster, his assistant, showed me a photograph of the terminal exit. Fans were crowded behind the barriers, phones raised, several people leaning so far over the rail that airport staff were trying to push them back.

“That’s the regular route,” he said. “The private exit is available, but we’ll need to wait for clearance.”

“We’ll wait.”

Adrian sat beside the window, looking at the photograph over Ben’s shoulder.

“How long?”

“Twenty minutes, maybe more.”

“Then we’ll use the regular exit.”

I turned toward him. “No.”

Ben suddenly became interested in his tablet.

Adrian glanced up at me. “You haven’t seen the route in person yet.”

“I’ve seen enough.”

“Airport security will be there.”

“And your fans appear to have mistaken the barrier for a suggestion.”

His mouth twitched.

I didn’t appreciate it.

I understood wanting to greet people who supported his career. I also understood that a crowd could turn ugly without anyone intending it. One person stumbled, another pushed, and suddenly everyone was moving with nowhere to go.

Adrian studied my expression, then set his phone aside.

“Tell me what you need.”

That was better.

We waited until airport security confirmed a clear path to the service elevators. I placed Ben ahead with our bags, kept Adrian on my inside, and told him that if I put a hand on him, he needed to follow the movement instead of stopping to ask questions.

“You can argue with me afterward.”

“I’m allowed to argue afterward?”

“You look like you were going to anyway.”

He laughed under his breath.

At the terminal doors, he moved closer and caught my sleeve.

“You’ll stay with me?”

There was something almost uncertain in the question.

My irritation softened before I could help it.

“I’m not leaving you in the middle of that.”

His fingers slipped away.

“Then I’m ready.”

The barriers lasted about twelve seconds.

A woman shouted his name. Someone else lifted a poster over the security officer’s head. Three people stepped into the route at once, and the neat corridor we’d been promised narrowed to a gap barely wide enough for Adrian’s suitcase.

I moved ahead and used my forearm to keep a phone out of his face.

“Please stay behind the barrier.”

Most people listened.

The ones who didn’t made enough noise for everyone else.

Adrian kept pace beside me, smiling briefly when someone called that they loved his new film. A hand reached toward his hair. I caught the wrist before it made contact and released it once the owner stepped back.

“Don’t touch him.”

Behind me, Adrian’s shoulder brushed my back.

The service elevator was fifteen feet away.

We covered five of them before the crowd shifted again.

A security officer was pulled aside by a shouting man. Someone swung a selfie stick over the people in front, and the end clipped me between the shoulder blades.

Pain flashed through my back.

I didn’t have time to look.

The elevator opened. Ben was already inside, holding the door, but a woman stepped into the gap with her phone and blocked Adrian’s path.

I asked her to move.

She kept filming.

I put one hand on Adrian’s waist, drew him behind my shoulder, and guided him through the space as airport security cleared it. He moved easily with me.

Once we were inside, I turned to face the doors, putting my body between him and the last reaching hands.

The elevator closed.

For a moment, all I heard was the ventilation fan.

Then Adrian breathed against my hair.

I realized my hand was still on his waist.

I also realized he was standing in the corner with both hands in his pockets, watching me with an expression that wasn’t especially frightened.

I stepped back.

“Sorry about that.”

“About getting me out?”

“The way I moved you.”

“You warned me.”

His gaze dropped to my hand, which I had now shoved firmly at my side.

“Besides, you were very efficient.”

The words were harmless.

The way he said them wasn’t.

I checked the floor indicator because it seemed less likely to cause problems.

He was taller than me by a couple of inches. I’d known that already, but being this close made it harder to ignore. There was more substance beneath his coat than I’d first assumed, too.

Good for him.

An omega working in his industry needed every advantage he could get.

“You were hit,” Adrian said.

“It’s nothing.”

“You haven’t checked.”

“I’ll check later.”

“Let me see when we get to the car.”

I looked at him.

He glanced toward my chest, then back at my face, as if there were no possible reason that suggestion should make me hesitate.

“I can inspect my own back.”

“That sounds ambitious.”

“Mirrors exist.”

“I have those, too.”

Ben coughed.

Adrian’s expression stayed innocent.

I began to suspect innocence was something he did professionally.

In the parking garage, I checked around the vehicle before opening Adrian’s door.

He stopped beside me, close enough that I caught the ordinary scent of his shampoo. As a beta, I couldn’t detect whatever pheromones might be underneath it.

Honestly, I was grateful. There were enough distractions already.

“You don’t have to go straight home,” he said. “We could get something to eat.”

“My shift ends here.”

“I know.”

His eyes stayed on mine.

I wasn’t sure whether he was offering food or overtime, and asking would make me sound greedy.

“I’ve got meal prep in the fridge.”

“That sounds terrible.”

“It’s chicken.”

“Exactly.”

He got into the car before I could defend poultry.

I closed the door, then watched him lower the window.

“One thing before you go.”

“What?”

“My fans like inventing stories.”

“I noticed the poster where you were marrying a vampire.”

“Some of their ideas are closer to home.”

I waited.

He rested his forearms on the window frame, looking much too pleased with himself.

“If you see anything about us online, don’t let it upset you.”

“Why would there be anything about us?”

“Because you put your hand on my waist in front of forty cameras.”

“That was my job.”

“I know that, Cole.”

He said my name gently, as though I’d explained something important.

It made me feel even more suspicious.

The window rose before I could question him further.

At home, I checked my back.

There was a bruise forming below my shoulder blade. Nothing serious. I iced it, ate the apparently offensive chicken, and made the mistake of picking up my phone.

I didn’t follow celebrity accounts. My feed mostly contained gym videos, repair tutorials, and my mother sharing alarming stories about household appliances.

Searching Adrian’s name gave me interviews, photographs, and people praising things I hadn’t even noticed about him.

His hands, for example.

I had noticed those.

That wasn’t the point.

I added bodyguard to the search.

The first video showed the airport incident from the side. In slow motion, I watched myself take Adrian by the waist and pull him close.

The caption read: HE DIDN’T EVEN FLINCH. THAT MAN KNOWS WHERE HE BELONGS.

Underneath, someone wrote that Adrian had smiled the second my hand touched him.

I replayed it.

He had.

Probably relief.

Another comment described him as a pretty alpha with a big, loyal beta boyfriend.

I frowned at the screen.

They’d guessed my designation correctly and gotten everything else wrong.

Adrian needed protection. That was why he’d hired me. Looking confident on camera didn’t make him an alpha, and being pretty didn’t make us a couple.

I kept scrolling to see how widespread the misunderstanding was.

That was my second mistake.

A fan had posted a fictional scene about the elevator.

The writing was good enough that I recognized the location immediately. It was also inaccurate enough that I stopped breathing halfway through the second paragraph.

In their version, Adrian backed me into the corner.

In their version, I let him.

I shut the screen off and put the phone facedown on the table.

Then I picked it up again because apparently I had learned nothing.

What bothered me most wasn’t even the kissing.

It was how confidently everyone had decided who would start it.

I leaned back on the couch, looking at the bruise in my mirror and the frozen image on my phone.

Adrian had seen those cameras. He’d known exactly what people would say.

He’d still waited until we were alone in the parking garage to warn me.

Tomorrow, I decided, I was going to ask him why he’d looked so happy.