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ESTELLA

For the last three years, he’s been watching me everywhere I go.

From the time I get up in the morning and come downstairs until the time I go back up at night to go to bed, he’s almost always with me. Sometimes, a silent presence; other times, a talkative one. He’s my protector. My shield.

My friend.

I always loved reading stories as a child—and even now, if I’m being honest—about princesses and their sworn knights. Champions who served them, protected them, and guarded them with their lives. Who loved them—sometimes fraternally, and sometimes in other, more forbidden ways. Ways that they could never act on, without terrible punishment. Somehow, that made it all the more romantic, in the stories—that they couldn’t act on it. That feeling of longing, of yearning.

In this story, I’m the princess, and Sebastian is my knight. My bodyguard.

And right now, I have no fucking idea where he is.

“Sebastian?” I call out his name as I wind through the halls of the house, my high, dark ponytail swinging against the back of my neck. “Sebastian!”

Sometimes, at home, he goes off for a little while to do something on his own. Touch base with my father’s head of security, Bruce—affectionately called Brick by Sebastian and me in private, because of his bulk—or work out in the mansion’s gym. The Gallo estate is well-protected, and here in the mansion especially, he knows that I’m safe. I don’t need to be watched every second while I’m at home, inside.

But since the day I turned eighteen, I was told that I’m never to leave the house without Sebastian at my side. Which is why I’m looking for him right now.

“Sebastian? I want to go for a run!” I call out, pushing open the frosted glass door that leads to the mansion’s gym. There’s no sign of him in the large room, but I hear a faint splash from the other side of the door on the far wall—the door that leads to the indoor pool. One of them, anyway. The one for swimming laps, not for recreation.

I stride through the gym, shoving open the door and stepping into the humid, chlorine-scented air of the natatorium. The splashing is louder, and when I glance over toward the Olympic-sized pool, I see Sebastian’s firm, muscled body slicing through the water with the strength and grace of a shark.

Something predatory. Dangerous. Something?—

A shiver runs down my spine, and chills prickle over my skin at the same time that I feel warmth bloom through me as I watch him glide toward the far end of the pool. I’ve never actually seen Sebastian shirtless. I’ve seen him in his usual bodyguard’s uniform, and I’ve seen him in gym clothes. I’ve tried not to notice how he looks inthose—his muscled thighs and arms visible, his shirt clinging to his hard chest and abs after a workout, the way the sweat drips down the back of his neck. ButI’ve never seen him in less. He’s careful about things like that—about not pushing the boundaries of what’s appropriate.

I bite my lip, my stomach knotting with a not-unfamiliar feeling as I see Sebastian push off from the far end of the pool and switch direction, swimming back toward me. It’s impossible to be around a man like this as often as I am, every day for three years, and not notice what he looks like. How temptingly desirable he is, in every possible way that a man can be.

Especially when those stories of princesses and knights that I still like to read aren’t as innocent as they once were.

I swallow hard as he reaches the end of the pool where I’m standing and surfaces, running one hand over the dark hair that’s slicked against his skull. He’s submerged from the neck down, but I can see the tantalizing glimpse of his tanned skin beneath the gently lapping blue water, the lines of black ink marking it in swirls and patterns from the sides of his neck down.

“Estella.” He greets me with a grin, his gaze swiftly sweeping over me appraisingly. He takes in my attire for a moment—the black bike shorts I’m wearing, the crossback red tank top, my hair up in a ponytail, and sneakers on my feet. “Headed for a workout?”

“I want to go for a run. But I can’t leave without you. You know that. So I was looking for you.”

“Sure,” Sebastian says affably, still treading water. “Sorry about that, princess. You slept in, so I thought I’d get a few laps in.”

The familiar, teasing nickname warms something in my chest, distracting me from the fact that underneath the water, there’s more of Sebastian bare than I’ve ever seen before. He runs his hand over his hair again, and I frown at him.

“C’mon. Unless you need to do more laps?” I pout at him a little, and he laughs, though I could swear his gaze lingers on mymouth for a second too long. That I see him tense, just a little, his shoulder muscles tightening.

But I’m imagining things, surely. He’s just paying attention, like he always does. And he’s still swimming—of course his muscles are flexing.

All of them. Every hard, tight?—

“Estella?” Sebastian raises an eyebrow. “How about I meet you outside the gym? I just need to?—”

“Why do I need to wait?” I raise an eyebrow right back, and I realize a moment too late that my tone is more flirtatious than I meant for it to be. I think Sebastian realizes it too, because his smooth strokes in the water slow for a moment, and I scramble to fix my slip.

I’ve tried to avoid him ever catching me checking him out—any sense of attraction or impropriety. Sebastian has always been professional, even if we have become closer friends than I think my father would have liked, and more familiar with each other than a bodyguard and his charge probably should be. But the things I think about sometimes would cause him to lose his job if he ever acted on them, even the slightest bit. They might even make him leave of his own accord, just to protect me and myinnocence.

I wrinkle my nose at that thought. It’s a word I’ve heard far too many times from my father—how important it is to maintain, how valuable it is, how special it makes me. And I’ve stayedinnocent… mostly. My thoughts are my own.

Sebastian frowns, and I make an impatient gesture. “Just come on, okay? I’m hungry, and the longer I wait to go run, the longer it’ll be until breakfast.”