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“You can fire me. Fine. I don’t care,” I said patting my feet and crossing my arms. “I don’t give a flying fuck. I’m not going to do it.” She never said she would fire me, I just beat her to it hoping she wouldn’t hold me to the contract.
“You’ve been with this firm for too long to let your emotions get in the way of you doing your job. You’re a professional, or so I thought.” Lilly raised a perfect eyebrow and glanced at me from behind her newspaper as she placed her empty extra-large cup with Starbucks written on it, on her desk.
With that much coffee in her and her eye twitching she might just fire me, or throw that paperweight setting on her desk at me. In either case I was willing to accept anything not to be assigned to Brett Harlan.
She was pretending to read the papers but she and I knew it was to give the impression that she had some interest in what was going on in the world. Lilly couldn’t fool me. If it wasn’t the latest romance novel or maybe the sports section, she had little interest in politics even though she provided security to maybe half of all the congressmen and senators on the hill.
When I marched into her office and handed her my badge, and dropped my gun on her desk that’s when she knew I was serious.
“I’m a professional,” I said trying to convince myself, “but I’m not made of stone. You want me to protect a man who thinks everyone loves him and he can say and do anything he wants without consequences. I tried guarding him once and it didn’t work out. He was married then and had three children, but he lost them in a car accident and he’s been fucking his way into bad relationships ever since.”
She stared at me because she knew how personal that assignment had been.
“It’s not your job to judge him, and I don’t want you to marry him, I just want you to protect him when he goes to Nevada. Think about it this way, it’s a vacation and there’s plenty of sun, and you can get a tan.”
“I’ve got a tan and I don’t like the sun. Why is he going to Nevada?”
“He has to meet with a fund raiser. He has a campaign coming up and with the political climate the way it is, he could lose his seat in the senate.”
“And I’m supposed to give a fuck about his seat or his reputation. I’m a Democrat and that handsome fuck is a Republican.”
“Watch your mouth, Annalise Marie, you know I’m the only one that’s supposed to cuss in my office.”
Lilly placed her newspaper on the desk and took a look at me over her half-moon glasses.
“Are you going to do it or not? I don’t have time for your bullshit. I’ve been wasting enough on you. The only reason I offered you the job is because you’re my best friend’s daughter, you have a child to take care of, and the best at what you do, and you guarded his wife and children before. You know him.” That was the problem. I knew him too well.
“Let’s not get carried away. I was a glorified and highly paid babysitter for his children, that’s all.”
“I got you this job, didn’t I? You owe me. After you didn’t take your bar exam and decided you wanted to go into law enforcement instead, I recommended you for security at the nation’s capital. ”
“That’s beside the point. I was sick that morning I had to take my bar exam. You know that. I would have been a lawyer by now.”
“You want me to believe that you had your heart set in becoming a lawyer. Every time the exam came up you were sick.” She put her fist under her chin and stared at me. “Come on Annalise Marie who’s going to believe that? I don’t and I like you.”
“If you like me then why are you holding me to my contract?”
“It’s because I like you,” she said leaning forward. And I like your baby. I hope you know that so-called boyfriend of yours who has a wife and children will never come to your rescue if you’re looking for that.” She sat back in her chair. Well that seems to be your lot in life. To fall for men who are already married. But this time the one you fell for is now a widower.”
“That’s not fair. He didn’t know I was in love with him. I told only you. I asked to get off that detail as a babysitter. I couldn’t stop his wife from drinking and getting into that car. She sent me to the store and then she took off to get fast food after drinking too much.”
“I know that was tough on everyone but you can’t blame yourself and you need the money, and that paid for your college. And now you’re trying to piss all that away. You want to be a bodyguard. Now is your chance to be one and for the most powerful man in the senate. ”
“Second most powerful. And if he continues to sleep with any woman that smiles at him he won’t be that way for long,” I said.
“That’s where you come in, Annalise Marie Jones.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“It is your name.”
“You know how I feel when you pronounce my whole name.”
“Yes I do.”
“It makes me feel like a little girl and I have a baby now I have to take care of.”
“Well you are acting like one. If you want to be a woman put on your big girl panties and get out there and fight for the man you love. No better way to keep the women away from him than for you to be near him. You can’t win him over if you aren’t there to let him see what he’s missing. Now pick up your badge and gun and get the fuck out of my office. I don’t want to see you again unless you have a ring on your finger and not from that useless boyfriend of yours. You know what he’s after. And if you’re waiting for him it will never happen.”
“At least I know what a black man thinks. It’s the white ones I’m not too sure about,” I said to Lilly.
“Trust me girl, men are all alike and you never know what men are thinking. They want something someone else has and they want to fuck it. They want something hard to get. So don’t be so eager to show him how much you want him and don’t be yourself. You know what that means.”
“I don’t understand what you mean by don’t be yourself. Who else am I going to be?”
“I mean don’t act like you’re a woman who don’t need a man. You know the type.”
End of excerpt from My Bodyguard
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