Page 15 of Escorting the Bodyguard (Hearts for Hire #4)
Ford
Gemma is absolutely glowing.
Pregnancy suits her in a way that knocks the breath out of me. She slides into the passenger seat of my Range Rover, and for a moment, I forget how to breathe. There’s a softness to her features I don’t remember, a calm strength that hits me harder than I’m ready for.
She’s stunning. She’s carrying my child.
And I abandoned both of them.
“Where to?” I ask, unlocking my phone with fingers that aren’t quite steady.
She gives me her address—a street on the Upper East Side—and I punch it into the maps app. Neither of us speaks, the tension settling in like an extra passenger. I start the engine and pull into traffic, desperate for something safer than the truth.
“How did it feel?” I ask, keeping my eyes on the road. “Seeing your work displayed like that?”
She’s quiet for a moment, choosing her words carefully. “Amazing, actually. Having buyers take my work seriously, asking about wholesale orders...” Her fingers trace the edge of her purse strap. “I never thought stores would actually want to carry my designs.”
I watch confidence settle into her shoulders differently now. Less apologetic, more sure of herself. It’s not the polished performance I remember—this is something deeper. Something real.
“That’s incredible, Gemma. Your work is stunning. You should be proud.”
“I am.” It’s soft, but there’s weight behind it. Like she’s not used to claiming her own success.
As she talks, her hand drifts to her stomach. The simple gesture sends a sharp ache through my chest. Protective, instinctive, everything I should have been there for.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, nodding to her stomach.
She turns to look at me, and I can see her processing the shift in conversation.
“Tired,” she admits. “The morning sickness stopped, but now I’m just... constantly exhausted.”
“When are you due?”
“February.” She’s quiet for a moment. “I have my anatomy scan next week. They’ll tell me if it’s a boy or girl.”
She’s almost through the first trimester. I’ve already missed so much. Weeks of her body changing, growing our child. Appointments and milestones and moments I’ll never get back.
“Any complications? Everything okay with...?”
“Everything’s fine,” she says, but her voice has gotten careful again. “Healthy so far.”
The conversation peters out, and we drive in silence through Manhattan traffic. I want to ask more—about her symptoms, her cravings, whether she’s scared or excited or both. But I gave up any right to those details when I left her on that street corner.
When we reach her building, I automatically get out to help with her showcase materials. This time she just nods, accepting the help without comment.
We climb the three flights to her apartment without talking, me carrying the heavier items while she unlocks doors. Her building is old, probably prewar, with narrow stairs and thin walls. Not what I’d choose for a pregnant woman, but I’m the last to have any input on her life.
Her apartment surprises me. It’s small but warm, full of natural light from windows that face west. Design materials are organized everywhere—sketches pinned to walls, fabric swatches arranged on a table, a professional sewing station set up in what might have once been a dining area.
A dress form draped with half-finished lace stands in one corner like a sculpture.
This is the life she’s built without me. Creative, purposeful, entirely hers.
I spot the subtle signs of baby prep: prenatal vitamins on the kitchen counter, a pregnancy book tucked between design magazines on a shelf, a small stuffed elephant sitting on the windowsill.
Each detail is a reminder of what I’ve missed, what she’s been doing alone. The elephant especially gets to me—such a small, hopeful gesture that I wasn’t here to witness.
“Do you want some tea?” she asks, lingering by the door with keys still in hand.
It’s a simple question, but we both know it’s more than that. Tea means staying. Tea means talking. Tea means crossing from polite small talk into whatever this is.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’d like that.”
She nods and moves to the kitchen while I find a place on her couch. It’s burgundy velvet, worn but comfortable, with throw pillows that look handmade. Everything about this place screams Gemma—warm, creative, unpretentious.
She brings two mugs and settles beside me, not too close but close enough that I catch her scent—something warm and floral with an edge of vanilla that I remember from our nights in the safehouse.
The familiarity of it hits me unexpectedly hard.
We sit in silence for a moment, both of us sipping tea and avoiding eye contact.
Finally, I take a breath. “I owe you an explanation. About why I left.”
She sets down her mug with deliberate care, like she’s afraid her hands might betray her. I watch her expression become carefully neutral, see the way her shoulders draw up slightly—defensive, protective. She’s bracing for impact.
“I was scared I’d fail you,” I continue, the words feeling inadequate even as I say them.
“That whole situation with Tim had me on edge, and when you left the safehouse without telling me, when I found you at that clinic and realized how close he’d gotten, I was already spiraling.
Then you told me about the baby, and I just.. .”
I stop, run a hand over my face. “I panicked. The thought of being responsible for keeping you both safe, of having to make the right calls—I couldn’t handle it. I told myself that walking away was protecting you, but really I was just protecting myself from screwing up again.”
Quiet stretches between us. I’m expecting her to soften, maybe nod with understanding. Hell, maybe even reach for my hand and tell me she gets it, that fear makes people do stupid things.
Instead, she just stares at me. Her green eyes are unreadable, almost clinical.
“Okay.” Her voice is flat. “Is that it?”
The bottom falls out of my world. “What do you mean?”
She stands up, movements sharp and final. “Well, thank you for the apology. I do appreciate it.” She moves toward the door, the gesture making her intentions clear without having to say the words.
No.
This isn’t how I pictured this going at all.
But she’s made her choice, and I have to respect that.
I follow her toward the door, every step heavier than the last. I reach for the door handle, accepting that this might be it.
Then I stop, my hand frozen on the metal.
I can’t leave like this again. Not without trying one more time to make her understand.
I turn back. “I’m really sorry, Gemma. I just didn’t think I could be trusted to protect you. That it might even get you killed.”
She stops moving, turns to stare at me like I’ve lost my mind. The silence stretches between us. After a long pause, she crosses her arms. “That doesn’t explain abandoning me when I told you I was pregnant.”
She’s right. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that I know what it’s like to fail someone when it matters most,” I say, the words scraping out of my throat. “I’ve made the wrong call before, and someone died because of it.”
“What happened?”
This is it. The moment where I either fight for us or lose her forever. I need to tell her everything, no matter how hard it is to talk about.
“I was a Ranger. Afghanistan. My unit was tasked with escorting a local informant to a secure location.” My throat tightens around the truth. “I had to choose which route to take. Two options—one looked clear on drone recon, the other had been swept for IEDs the day before but was longer.”
Her expression is guarded but she’s listening.
“I chose the route that looked clear. Wanted to get our guy to safety faster.” My voice gets rougher.
“We hit an explosive device halfway through the convoy. I pulled my teammate Mason from the wreckage, but he was bleeding out from shrapnel wounds. I pressed my hands to the worst of it, but I couldn’t stop the bleeding. No matter what I did.”
I have to stop for a moment, the memory of dust and heat and the metallic smell of blood overwhelming me. “He died in my arms. Because I made the call that put us on that road.”
I walked away with third-degree burns across half my torso. I remember the fire more than the pain. The heat, the smell of melting fabric, the way everything went orange and black and wrong. I survived, but I shouldn’t have. That’s what keeps me up at night. Not just that I lost him. That I lived.
I watch her face while I tell her the rest, how Mason had a daughter who would never remember her dad, how I spent months recovering in a military hospital, how I left the service not long after that, and how I’ve carried this guilt for two years.
“And when you told me about the baby, all I could think was—what if I make the wrong call again? What if something happens to you because of me?”
Her expression has softened slightly, but her arms are still crossed. “That’s awful, Ford. I’m sorry you went through that.”
She takes a small step closer, and for a moment I think she might reach for me. Instead, she curls her fingers into the hem of her shirt.
“You know that wasn’t your fault, right? What happened to Mason?”
My insides clench at the words. “I’m getting there,” I say quietly. “Slowly.”
I can see her wrestling with something, the way her jaw tightens. When she speaks again, her voice is quieter but firm.
“But trauma doesn’t excuse what you did to me.”
The words sting because they’re true. I feel like I’ve been punched in the chest, but I force myself to meet her eyes. “You’re right.”
Her hands are shaking, and I can see the hurt she’s been carrying for months break through the surface.