Page 5

One month later…

M ax sat across from William at a local lounge that served food and drinks.

With a whiskey, neat, in front of him, Max picked at the order of fries before taking a bite of a hamburger.

“I heard…” William said around a bite of his own food. “For the past month, Blake Stevenson has been searching for a bodyguard for Lily.”

“Oh?” Max tried to keep his voice casual.

Why the fuck would Lily need a bodyguard? Sure, she was wealthy, but most of the money was with her grandfather.

“How’d you hear about it?” Max asked.

“Sara told Michelle.” William sighed with a grimace and took a swallow from his glass.

Michelle, Lily, and Sara had gone to high school together and then to the local college. Max knew the three were inseparable. Or they used to be, prior to Lily getting married.

The moment Max had heard the news of Lily getting hitched, he had researched Blake Stevenson. It turned out that the guy had been a salesman who had lost his job last November. Stevenson had no record of any wrongdoing, no military background, and his family consisted of a cousin.

The guy seemed ordinary, and certainly not someone qualified to date Lily Snow.

Lily… God, Lily.

If there was one thing he regretted in life it was losing Lily.

They’d met six years ago when Max had come home on leave from the Army. For something to do, Max had attended a dinner with William and his wife.

That night, it had been Michelle who had introduced him to Lily.

Beautiful, sexy Lily. Max had been a goner the moment his eyes landed on her. He knew in his heart that if he took the plunge, there would be no coming back from her.

So, he told himself to keep it casual, but that didn’t work, and he found himself unable to stay away. He spent the remaining time of his military leave with Lily.

The next couple of weeks of that particular leave had flown by and before he knew it, he had to leave. He sent text messages and they video chatted when he could.

Every time he came home on leave, Lily was waiting for him like a beacon of sunlight.

When he was stationed in Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Lily flew out and rented a small house nearby and Max spent every moment he could with her.

They dated hard for almost a year and a half. Max watched as the love in her eyes grew, but he refused to acknowledge it— he had four more years he wanted to serve, unlike William who planned to be out in another two.

Then Max got transferred to the USAG Daegu Army base in South Korea.

“Max?”

He found William frowning at him. Totally absorbed in the past, Max had checked out—he didn’t know for how long.

“What?” he said, lifting his voice over the noise in the lounge and took a bite of his cold food.

“Are you going to take the job?” William wanted to know.

“Yeah, I’ll contact Stevenson,” Max told William after a moment.

“What were you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

Max changed the subject and they talked about the extensive military training they’d gone through, sharing war stories as only buddies could.

“So, about my job offer?” Max asked.

“I will definitely give it some thought,” William promised.

Roughly an hour later, they left the lounge since William had to get home to the wife and all.

Max slipped into his jeep and started the engine, blasting the heater to knock off the chill that had settled in.

As he turned down the road that would lead back to Deckman Defense and Security, Max’s thoughts remained on Lily.

She needed a bodyguard.

But then the question now was could he really handle guarding her?

And he wasn’t talking about keeping her safe. He could do that without even thinking. But he also knew it would be torture.

Being close to Lily and unable to have her would be like acid in an open wound.

The only problem he could foresee was that Lily might flat-out refuse to hire him.

And getting her to agree could be his biggest hurdle.

The longer he sat churning over different scenarios, the more Max regretted telling William he would look into Stevenson’s request.

Taking the job would put him back in Lily’s world and her immediate vicinity.

Closer to her.

His dick jumped.

“Fucking knock it off,” Max muttered at his crotch.

Lily was off limits.

The least he could do was contact Blake Stevenson. If the guy turned him down, then so be it.

What if Stevenson said yes?

Then Lily couldn’t say no.

Right…that was a grand idea, Max silently scoffed and turned the jeep into the Deckman Defense parking lot.

He should be running the other way.

But he wouldn’t.

He needed to make sure Lily was safe.