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The dreaded dating app.

I’ve been chatting with a guy for the past two days. He looks cute, normal, a little nerdy. Says he likes running, so we chat about that for a bit. I’m rarely on the apps, but when I decide to practice dating, that’s where I go.

I like vetting them beforehand.

We decide on a place to meet for dinner that night, and I spend the rest of the day with a knot in my stomach. This is why Ihatedating. The anticipation and the nerves. I never feel like I can truly be myself.

Be present. Let them see the real you. You don’t have to perform for them.

Great advice from Zeina.

And really, really hard to do.

When it’s time to leave, there are two new guards outside my door. A short woman with curly blonde hair and a no-nonsense stare who introduces herself as Madison, and a tall man with a wide smile and tight braids named Amos.

“Going out?” he asks me.

“Yes,” I say with a smile back. “And don’t worry; no running involved.”

But as it turns out, that won’t make the night any easier.

CHAPTER4

WEST

I get the text between the main course and dessert.

Michael

She’s on a date. We don’t know who the guy is. Currently running an emergency background check on him.

I excuse myself from the conversation I’m in and type back.

West

Do you have eyes on her?

My head of security answers immediately.

Michael

Yes. She’s safe.

Maybe, but she’s also reckless, and that’s a problem. I give my regards to the host of the private dinner and leave the Fifth Avenue apartment with quick steps. She’s out with a man? She’s on adate?

That guy could be anyone. It could be the stalker, presenting himself as someone new here in New York. Rafe warned me that they’d had more than a little trouble pinning down the guy, and that’s not a good sign.

An obsessed, crazed fan doesn’t fit the profile of someone meticulous and smart enough to outwit a team of trained professionals.

Watching over Nora is going to take all my time, and I have too little of it to start with.

My car is already waiting by the curb. I get in and find Arthur already typing her last-known location into the GPS. We’re a smoothly run operation, and I’ve never been more grateful for it than now.

“We’ll be there in ten minutes,” Arthur says.

“Thanks.” First I had to pull her out of a club. Now I have to interrupt what must be a date. She’s going to be so angry at me.

The idea shouldn’t make my blood run hotter.