Page 14 of Escorting the Bodyguard (Hearts for Hire #4)
Gemma
The fabric samples slip from my fingers, scattering across the table like expensive confetti. The materials I’ve been wondering about for weeks, now forgotten as my world narrows to the impossible sight in front of me.
He doesn’t disappear.
Not when I blink. Not when I look away and back again.
Ford stands there—real, solid, impossibly familiar—and everything in me stumbles.
My lungs forget how to work. The careful composure I’ve spent weeks rebuilding threatens to shatter like glass.
Don’t you dare fall apart. Not here. Not in front of everyone.
But my hands are trembling as I reach for the scattered samples, and I’m pretty sure my face has gone as white as the silk clutched in my fist. I can’t look away.
He takes a small step closer, hands tucked deep in his pockets like he’s physically restraining himself from reaching for me. The movement is careful, controlled, like he’s approaching a skittish animal that might bolt.
“You sent the fabric,” I say, and it’s not a question.
“I wanted to help,” he says, and his voice is exactly the same—that low rumble that used to whisper my name in the dark—but also rougher somehow, strained.
My brain scrambles to catch up, to process what’s happening, what he’s saying, what it means. “How did you even—” I stop, shake my head. “You’ve been watching me?”
Something flickers across his face. “Your Instagram. I saw you were starting a business.” He trails off, runs a hand through his hair. “I thought you should have the best materials. You deserved?—”
His jaw tightens like he’s swallowing the rest of that sentence.
The realization settles over me slowly. I cross my arms, suddenly needing the barrier.
He’s been quietly supporting my dreams while staying away himself. It creates a confusing tangle of emotions I can’t sort through. Gratitude mixed with hurt, wonder tangled up with betrayal.
All this time I thought I was alone. But he was watching. Helping. Like some kind of guilty ghost.
“Why?” The word scrapes out of my throat.
“Because you deserved to have your dream. Even if I couldn’t be part of it.”
The tenderness in his voice nearly undoes me.
Around us, the showcase continues—people browsing the last few booths, vendors calling out end-of-day deals, the normal world moving forward while mine shifts off its axis.
Ford’s gray eyes never leave my face, and I can see something in them I’ve never seen before. Vulnerability. Hope mixed with fear.
We stand there with everything unsaid hanging between us like a bridge I’m terrified to cross. I open my mouth, but no words come.
What do you say to the man who broke your heart but never stopped believing in your dreams?
A month of building this life alone crashes over me—crying myself to sleep in my empty apartment, going to doctor’s appointments with no one to hold my hand, learning to be strong because I had no other choice. All because he chose to leave.
“Gemma,” he says quietly, and I can hear the uncertainty in his tone.
“I can’t...” My voice wavers somewhere between hurt and anger. “I can’t do this right now. I have to finish here.”
He immediately steps back, hands raised. “Of course. When does this end?”
“Five o’clock.”
“Can I come back then? Please?”
I stare at him for a long moment, my heart hammering against my ribs. Part of me wants to say no, to protect myself from whatever this is. To walk away before he can leave me again. But another part of me—the part that’s been missing him every single day despite everything—needs answers.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“I understand if you don’t want to see me. But I’d like to explain?—”
I should say no. I should protect myself from whatever this is going to cost me.
“Fine.” I hate that I’m saying yes. “Five o’clock.”
What am I doing?
He broke me once already. Letting him try again feels like volunteering for a second hit.
Ford’s shoulders relax, like he’d been bracing for rejection. He nods once, looking like he wants to say more but doesn’t. Instead, he just turns and walks away, disappearing into the crowd of vendors and buyers like he was never here at all.
I stand there for a moment after he leaves, hands trembling as I straighten price tags that don’t need straightening and adjust displays that are already perfect. My pulse is still racing, my chest tight with emotions I can’t name.
He’s been helping from a distance. But helping doesn’t erase leaving.
The jewelry designer reappears at my elbow, clearly having witnessed the whole exchange. “So... fabric mystery solved?”
“Yeah,” I manage, still processing everything. “It’s... a long story.”
“Ah. The best ones usually are.” She gives me a knowing look, studying my face with kind concern. “You going to be okay?”
“Eventually.” My voice wavers, betraying more than I want it to.
“Want some chocolate? I’ve got emergency stash in my purse.”
“God, yes,” I say, accepting the offered piece gratefully. The sweetness helps ground me, gives me something concrete to focus on besides the emotional bomb Ford just dropped in the middle of my triumph.
The rest of the afternoon passes in a blur of forced normalcy.
Two more wholesale inquiries, including one from a boutique chain in SoHo that’s interested in exclusive designs for their fall collection.
I sell almost all my individual pieces. I exchange contact information with three other designers, tentative plans forming for potential collaborations.
Through it all, Ford’s words echo in my head, leaving me unsettled and confused. You deserved to have your dream. Even if I couldn’t be part of it.
He bought me silk and abandoned our baby. How is that supposed to make sense?
I catch myself checking the time every few minutes, my stomach knotting tighter as five o’clock approaches.
Part of me hopes he won’t come back. Part of me is desperate to hear what he has to say.
And underneath it all, I’m hoping he’ll have answers that make sense of why he left me when I needed him most.
At exactly five o’clock, Ford appears beside my booth as I’m starting to pack up.
“I can handle this myself,” I say, but my voice lacks any real bite. I’m too tired for anger, too confused for hostility. First trimester fatigue is real, and emotional exhaustion on top of it is crushing.
“I know you can.” He starts carefully folding my sample pieces anyway, his hands gentle and reverent as he wraps each garment in tissue paper. “But you don’t have to.”
I watch him handle my work with a kind of awe that confuses me.
His fingers trace the seams I spent hours perfecting, smooth the lace I agonized over choosing.
There’s something almost worshipful in the way he touches the pieces, like he understands exactly how much of myself I’ve poured into each one.
He doesn’t get to appreciate my work. Not when he walked away from everything else about me.
We move in careful silence, tension threaded through every shift and gesture.
When he reaches across me for a box, his arm brushes mine, and I have to step back. The contact is brief, accidental, but it sends heat shooting through me that I absolutely cannot afford to feel.
He looks different. Older, maybe. Tired in a way that makes me ache and resent him at the same time.
It’s been over a month since I’ve been this close. Since I’ve smelled that familiar mix of cedarwood and clean skin and something darker that’s just him.
My body remembers what my heart is still trying to forget. And I hate that remembering still feels like wanting.
Everything gets packed efficiently: mannequins disassembled, display pieces wrapped and boxed, business cards gathered into neat stacks.
Ford loads it all onto the provided cart without being asked, his movements economical and sure.
When we’re finished, he pushes the cart toward the exit, and I follow, my emotions a tangled mess I can’t begin to sort through.
Outside, the late afternoon air is crisp with the promise of fall. I pull out my phone to call a cab, but his voice stops me.
“Can I drive you home?” His voice is careful, prepared for rejection.
He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, hands still buried in his pockets.
I stare at him, torn between the safety of saying no and the desperate need for answers.
He walked away from our child once. What happens if he does it again? What happens if I let him close enough to hurt both of us?
But I need to know why he’s here. Why now.
Even if it breaks me all over again.