The Billion-Dollar Bodyguard I Found in the Rain

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My fianc, Evan Carter, was sleeping with my half-sister, Sophia Lynn.

At our engagement party, in front of every notable name in the city, I put their intimate video up on the big screen.

Overnight, I became the laughingstock of Bay City and the Lynn family threw me headfirst into Polaris Tech, a company teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

In the middle of a downpour, I picked up a dangerous stranger and paid him half a million dollars to be my security consultant.

He was quiet. He was ruthless. He noticed everything. When people came for me, he stepped up. When I was set up, he had my back. When I was accused of stealing someone else's work, he took every bit of the blame himself.

I told him to leave. All he said was, "I'll make sure you win."

It wasn't until every truth came to light that I finally understood the rough stranger I'd pulled off the street was the real power behind Deep Bay Capital.

Chapter 1

The night of the engagement party, I blew the whole thing up myself.

I put the video on the ballroom screen footage of my fianc tangled up with my half-sister, right in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of their hotel room.

Hundreds of people in that room. Every face that mattered in Bay City.

I was wearing a custom gown worth seven figures and four-inch heels. I walked up to that stage in dead silence.

Evan Carter rushed at me to grab the remote. I stepped aside and cracked him across the face with the back of my hand.

The sound rang through the whole room over the premium sound system.

The screen was supposed to play our love story highlight reel. Instead, it was playing high-definition security footage the night before, the eve of our engagement party, him and my sister Sophia Lynn kissing by the window.

Sophia hiked up her skirt and ran onto the stage, eyes red, reaching out to grab me.

I stepped back. "Don't touch me," I said coldly. "You disgust me."

Evan stood there with his hand over his cheek, staring at me like he couldn't believe what was happening.

He thought I'd swallow it. That I'd keep my mouth shut to protect the Lynn family's stake in the business.

I picked up the microphone and looked out over the crowd my father's face had gone gray, and the guests were already whispering.

"In front of everyone here tonight, I'm making this official the engagement is over. I don't want any part of this anymore."

I ripped the diamond necklace off my neck and threw it at Evan's face. Then I turned and walked out of the ballroom.

I pushed through the hotel doors and the rain hit me like a wall.

No umbrella. No driver.

For twenty-four years ever since my mother died and that woman moved in with Sophia I had been playing dumb. Keeping my head down. Pretending not to see.

I was done pretending.

I stood in the rain, shaking from the cold, my stomach cramping so badly I could barely breathe. I'd starved myself for three days to fit into that dress.

A beat-up black SUV pulled up in front of me.

The window rolled down. The smell of cheap tobacco drifted out.

The man in the driver's seat was wearing a faded black tank top. There was a jagged scar running down his arm. He wasn't looking at me he had a cigarette between his lips and his eyes fixed somewhere out in the rain.

His profile was sharp enough to cut glass.

"You getting in?" His voice was low and rough.

I hesitated for a second, then pulled open the door and dropped into the passenger seat.

"Drive."

He turned and looked at me. His eyes were black and flat, and the only thing in them was contempt.

"My car. I don't give rides to crazy women in wedding dresses."

I almost laughed. I reached into my clutch, pulled out a black card, and slapped it on the dashboard.

"PIN is six zeros. There's a million dollars on it. Get me out of here. Right now."

He looked at the card. His brow creased slightly, like he was looking at something unpleasant.

Half a minute passed. He stubbed out his cigarette.

"Buckle up."

The SUV roared out into the storm.

Chapter 2

The inside of the car smelled like motor oil and tobacco rough, but not unpleasant.

I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes. The pain in my stomach was getting worse.

I curled in on myself and pressed hard against my abdomen, trying to hold it together.

"Where to?" he asked, out of nowhere.

"Doesn't matter." I said it through clenched teeth.

The car jerked to a hard stop at the side of the road.

He got out. A few minutes later he came back, damp from the rain, and tossed a plastic bag into my lap.

"Eat."

I opened it. Inside was a container of hot noodle soup, still steaming, and a box of antacids.

I just stared at it.

How did he know my stomach was hurting?

"You've been holding your stomach the whole time. You're white as a ghost." His tone hadn't warmed at all. "I don't want a body in my car. Bad enough already."

I looked down at the soup in my hands, and my eyes started to sting.

Three years together, and my fianc never once knew I had a serious stomach condition. A complete stranger figured it out in ten minutes.

I didn't say anything. I just ate fast, barely stopping to breathe.

Cheap noodles and hot broth. Better than anything on the table at that party tonight.

By the time I finished and took the antacids, I finally felt like a human being again.

I turned and looked at him properly.

He was young twenty-two, twenty-three at most but his eyes were deep and still, like the bottom of a dry well. No light in them at all.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Luca Hale." He kept his eyes on the road ahead.

"Luca Hale." I turned the name over in my mouth. "Good name. Has an edge to it."

I pulled out a napkin and wiped my lips.

"One million. Three months of your time. You in?"

He finally turned to look at me, eyes sharp with suspicion.

"For what?"

"My driver. Security consultant. And someone to put down a few dogs that don't know their place."

The Lynn family and Carter family alliance had fallen apart. My father wasn't going to let that slide.

Sophia and Evan would be working against me from the shadows, too.

I needed someone outside that world someone who could protect me.

This Luca Hale had something about him. A recklessness. Like he had nothing left to lose.

He was quiet for a long moment.

"I don't need a million. Five hundred thousand. Half upfront, the rest when the three months are up."

That surprised me.

"Deal."

"So." He glanced over. "Where to?"

I gave him an address.

"East side. Polaris Tech."

It was a subsidiary under the Lynn family barely staying afloat, bleeding out. My father had arranged it in advance, his way of punishing me for blowing up the engagement party. His idea of exile.

He thought throwing me into that wreck of a company would break me. Make me crawl back.

He was wrong.

Polaris Tech was exactly where I was going to tear off the mask and start burning everything down.

The car pulled back onto the road.

The rain was easing up.

I watched the city blur past the window, a cold smile pulling at the corner of my mouth.

Evan Carter. Sophia Lynn.

Everything you took from me I'm coming to collect. With interest.

Chapter 3

The Polaris Tech office building looked like a relic from the last century.

Paint peeling off the walls. The elevator plastered with flyers and ads.

I walked ahead, heels clicking against the floor.

Luca followed silently behind me in a black tank top, like an immovable wall of darkness.

I pushed open the conference room door and walked into a haze of smoke.

A group of department managers were huddled around a table playing cards. The surface was buried under cigarette ash and takeout containers.

Not one of them looked up when I walked in.

"Well, well. If it isn't the precious Miss Lynn." It was Martin Beck, the head of the project department. "What's the occasion? Did you actually find time in your busy schedule to grace our little dump with a visit?"

He was a distant relative on Sophia's mother's side planted here to skim off the top.

I ignored him and walked straight to the head of the table.

"Put your cards down."

Nobody moved.

Martin even blew a smug smoke ring in my direction.

I turned and looked at Luca.

Just one look.

That was enough.

Luca crossed the room to where Martin was sitting. Without a word, he reached out, grabbed Martin by the collar, and hauled him clean out of his chair like he weighed nothing.

"What the hell let go of me!" Martin shrieked.

Luca didn't waste words. He grabbed Martin by the head and slammed it into the conference table.

Bang.

Cards and ashtrays scattered across the floor.

Martin slumped over the table, bleeding, moaning into the surface.

The room went dead silent.

The other managers sat frozen, faces drained of color, not daring to breathe.

"Now." I leaned back in my chair and studied my fresh manicure. "Can we have a conversation?"

"Starting today, I run Polaris Tech. Martin Beck you're fired. Pack your things and get out. The rest of you: I want every financial report and project status update from the past three years on my desk within thirty minutes. Anyone who can't make that happen can follow him out the door."

I stood, walked out of the conference room, and didn't look back.

Luca released his grip and dropped Martin on the floor like a bag of trash, then fell into step behind me without rushing.

Back in the executive office, thick with dust.

I looked at Luca standing in the doorway like a dark sentinel.

"Nice work."

"I get paid to work." His tone was flat, like he'd just stepped on an ant.

Over the next week, I tore through Polaris Tech like a storm.

Every dead-weight freeloader was cut. Performance reviews were rewritten from the ground up.

The people who'd been waiting to watch me fail went quiet.

They finally understood the so-called spoiled little rich girl who only knew how to shop was actually a viper. And she ate people alive.

Throughout all of it, Luca never left my side.

He barely spoke. Almost never initiated conversation.

But he always had a glass of warm water ready when I needed it, and whenever I stayed late into the night, a hot meal would appear on my desk without a word.

He functioned like a machine with no feelings executing every instruction with perfect precision.

But sometimes, in an unguarded moment, I'd catch him watching me. His gaze was deep and still, like he was looking through me at someone else or like he was holding something back. Something that could break through at any moment.

It unsettled me.

I was used to having control over everything. But Luca was a variable I couldn't calculate.

He was too quiet. The kind of quiet that made your skin crawl.

That afternoon, I was working through a proposal for a core AI algorithm.

This was Polaris Tech's only shot at survival. If we could win next month's city contract bid, the company could turn everything around.

But our current dev team couldn't write the low-level code the contract required. Not even close.

I pressed my fingers against my temples, frustration building to a breaking point.

Then the office door opened.

Luca stepped in.

"Miss Lynn. Evan Carter is here."

The moment I heard that name, my expression went cold.

"What does he want?"

"He says he has a gift for you."

Luca stepped aside.

Evan walked in wearing a tailored suit, looking every bit the part. Sophia was right behind him, their fingers laced together, the two of them practically glowing like they'd shown up specifically to rub it in my face.

I let out a short laugh and settled back into my chair.

"Mr. Carter and Sophia what a surprise. The engagement party never happened, so you two decided to honeymoon in my little dump instead?"

Chapter 4

Evan Carter's expression flickered for just a second before that sickening smile slid back into place.

"Summer, you're still upset with me. What happened that day it was all a misunderstanding."

"A misunderstanding?" I raised an eyebrow. "When you had Sophia pinned against that glass wall, were you giving her CPR?"

Sophia's eyes went red instantly.

"Summer, please don't talk about Evan like that. It's my fault I couldn't control my emotions"

"Shut up." I cut her off, my voice ice-cold. "Nobody asked you. Put away the whole poor-little-me act. It makes me sick."

She shrank at my words, shoulders pulling in, and slipped behind Evan with a soft whimper, tears starting to fall.

Evan pulled her close immediately, and the look he gave me was pure, undisguised contempt.

"Summer Lynn, you used to be spoiled, sure but at least you had some decency. When did you turn so cruel?"

I almost laughed.

"You two have a lot of nerve asking me that."

I wasn't going to waste any more breath on them.

"Say what you came to say and get out."

Evan drew a slow breath and pulled a document from his briefcase, slapping it onto my desk.

"The city contract bid next month it's already been decided. Carter Tech has it locked."

He looked down at me with this smug, almost pitying satisfaction in his eyes.

"I know you took over Polaris Tech to prove something to your father. But that company is a mess from the ground up. You have no shot."

"All you have to do is back down. Apologize to me. Sign over the development rights to the Lynn family property."

"Do that, and I'll consider throwing Polaris a few scraps from the project. Enough to save face with your dad."

I stared at the document on the desk. My fingertips went cold.

He wasn't even trying to hide it.

He didn't just want to ruin me he wanted to grind my dignity into nothing. Wanted me to crawl and beg.

"Get out."

Two words. That was all.

Evan's face darkened like a storm rolling in.

"Summer Lynn, don't push your luck! You really think you're still the spoiled little princess of the Lynn family? You're nothing. You got thrown out like garbage!"

He lunged forward, hand shooting out to grab my wrist.

But he never made contact.

A hand knuckles sharp, grip like iron clamped around his wrist and stopped him cold.

Luca Hale.

I hadn't even heard him move. He was already beside me, his body squarely between me and Evan.

"She told you to get out." Luca's voice was low. Dangerously quiet.

Evan yanked hard against his grip once, twice and went nowhere. His face flushed with humiliation and fury. He jabbed a finger at Luca's face. "Who the hell are you? You're a security consultant. You don't get to put your hands on me."

Luca didn't bother to respond. His eyes went flat, and in one sharp motion, he twisted his wrist.

A clean, brutal crack.

Evan screamed and hit the floor on his knees, his wrist wrenched out of the socket.

"Evan!" Sophia shrieked and threw herself toward him, face drained white.

Luca looked down at the two of them with the same expression you'd give a pair of insects on the pavement.

"Stay down. Next time it won't just be the wrist."

Evan was drenched in sweat, trembling, eyes burning with hatred as he glared up at me and Luca. "Summer Lynn you'll regret this. I will make sure you can't show your face in Bay City again."

He snarled the words through gritted teeth. Then, leaning on Sophia, he stumbled out of the executive office in a mess of pride and pain.

Silence settled back over the room.

I watched Luca. He stood there shaking out his wrist like he'd just tossed out a bag of trash.

"You went too far," I said, pressing my fingers to my temple. "The Carters aren't going to let this go."

Luca turned and looked at me really looked at me his eyes sharp and burning with something I couldn't quite name.

"He was going to touch you." Each word deliberate. "You're paying me. I don't let anyone touch you."

My heart skipped just once, just slightly and I turned away before he could see it.

"There's a dinner tonight," I said, forcing the subject somewhere else. "You're coming with me."

I had no choice. To get the funding that could save the company, I had to meet Harris one of the most notoriously difficult investors in the circuit.

Eight o'clock. A private room at the Bay Club. The lights were low, and the air was thick with the smell of alcohol.

Harris was a bald man somewhere in his fifties. From the moment I walked through the door, his eyes had been crawling over me and not stopping.

I kept my expression neutral and my glass in hand, playing the game through gritted teeth.

"Miss Lynn," he said, drawing it out, "I know Polaris Tech's situation. The risk is just too high." As he spoke, his hand drifted to my knee. "But then again... if you were to ask me yourself, personally, maybe we could work something out..."

He leaned in closer. His breath hit my face, stale and suffocating.

My stomach turned.

I was just about to grab the wine bottle off the table and smash it over his head when the door to the private room was kicked wide open.

The bang made everyone jump.

Luca Hale stood in the doorway. The light from the room caught himtight muscles, eyes cold as ice.

He crossed the room in long strides, grabbed Harris by the hair, and dragged him straight off the couch.

"What are you doing! Security! Security!" Harris shrieked at the top of his lungs.

Luca didn't bother responding. He grabbed a bottle of whiskey off the table and smashed it over Harris's head.

Glass shards, alcohol, and blood ran down Harris's face. The entire room went dead silent.

Luca tossed aside the broken glass and slowly, methodically wiped his hands with a napkin. Then he turned and looked at me. One word: "Let's go."

His tone left no room for argument.