Page 43 of The Bodyguard

I tried to give him something. “There are elements of acting to my job. Sometimes I have to play a kind of role in a situation. But it’s mostly about blending into the background, or vaguely seeming like a personal assistant.”

Jack nodded, thinking.

“Never anything so… detailed, though.”

“Okay,” he said, still thinking. “I’m going to tell them that you’re my girlfriend, and that should do a lot of the heavy lifting. Once that’s established, I’ll do most of the work. I mean, who lies about having a girlfriend? All you really have to do is just be pleasant.”

“Be pleasant,” I said, like I was writing it down.

“Yeah, like, you don’t have to memorize lines, or deliver a soliloquy. This isn’t Shakespeare. Just be normal, and the context should do the rest.”

“So I don’t have to act like I’m madly in love with you?”

He gave a little sideways glance. “Not unless you want to.”

“What if they don’t believe you? That I’m your girlfriend?” I hadn’t realized how vulnerable it would feel to ask this question until I was doing it.

But Jack gave a confident nod. “They’ll believe me.”

“Why?”

“You’re totally my type.”

I couldn’t resist. “Cleaning ladies are your type?”

He pointed at me. “That was an honest mistake.”

I actually had no idea how I was going to pass for Jack Stapleton’s girlfriend. I did not buy for a second that I was his type. I’d done a thorough Google search on him and I’d seen enough Barbie dolls to last me a lifetime. One of them had clearly had so much cosmetic surgery, I couldn’t help but wonder if her mother missed her face.

Not to mention Kennedy Monroe.

“Hey—” I said then. “What about your real girlfriend?”

“What do you mean—‘real girlfriend’?”

I gave a sharp sigh. “I think your parents might notice that I am not Kennedy Monroe.”

Jack puffed out a laugh. Then he said, “My parents don’t pay attention to that stuff.”

“Are you saying your parents don’t know you’re dating Kennedy Monroe? You were on the cover of People! In matching sweaters!”

“It’s possible.”

“It’s really not. Nobody doesn’t know that.”

Jack thought about it. Then he shrugged. “If they ask, I’ll just tell them we broke up. But they won’t ask. They know nothing in Hollywood is real.”

Was Kennedy Monroe not real? Suddenly, I felt too shy to ask.

I tried to imagine anyone believing that Jack would downshift from Kennedy Monroe to me. Just how gullible were these parents? Were they in comas?

The sound of Robby saying there was no way I could pass echoed through my mind, and I so hated that I agreed with him.

But here we were.

Jack was still noodling on it. “I think our best option is just for you to smile a lot.”

That didn’t sound too hard.