“Not forever, no. But you know that I have some money from when your mother died. It will be a hit, but since you’re being stubborn and won’t move in here, I’ll have to use it.”
Matthieu cameto an abrupt stop as those words reached him.
Wow.
He recognized the police chief’s voice. He’d met with him earlier this morning. The guy didn’t immediately scream corrupt. But Matthieu knew that the evillest minds could be charming.
You should never judge a book by its cover.
And listening to him speak to his daughter now, Matthieu knew that he’d been right not to judge too quickly.
Had he really just told her that? What an asshole thing to say.
“My husband is quite stressed right now.” Kathryn Monsoon, the chief’s wife, pressed closer to him. She gave him a small, polite smile but there was something in her gaze that put him on edge.
She was assessing, analyzing. He felt like a bug under a microscope.
“Of course,” he said. “Understandable.”
“It will cost us quite a lot to employ you. We will need to find this person who is sending these threats quickly.”
“Right. So you don’t lose too much money protecting your daughter,” he said dryly.
“Actually, she’s my stepdaughter and, of course, money isn’t as important as her safety.”
But she’d felt the need to point out that they weren’t related.
Right.
“It’s just that she’s being very stubborn. If she would move in here it would save us a lot of money.”
He barely managed to hold his tongue.
“Please, come and meet my sons.”
“And Maya.”
“Yes, of course,” she said. “I thought that was a given.”
This woman was interesting. On the surface, she appeared to be perfect. Someone who gave her time to charity. A pillar of the community. But there seemed to be another side to her.
However, he hid his suspicions as he followed her into the room. And came to a stop as he saw the woman sitting on the sofa.
It was her.
The lavender-haired girl from yesterday. The girl who had barely been able to speak. Who’d run off from him.
For some reason he’d thought about her several times since, wondering if she was in some sort of trouble.
And here she was.
And she was definitely in trouble.
Had she been going to Callahan Security for help? Had something happened?
“I don’t need a bodyguard, Dad,” she said to her father. “I will be fine.”
“If Maya doesn’t want you to hire a bodyguard for her, I’ll take some time off and look after her,” one of the men in the room said.
