My Fiancé’s Bodyguard by Ivy Wild

I was runningout of random places to drag Max to. His comments at the coffee shop had stung and I honestly just didn't have the energy for any of this anymore. For some reason, I thought he'd understand what I was going through, but I guess I expected too much of him. It seemed that I kept being let down.

As soon as we'd left the coffee shop, we passed a little beach store and I'd gone in and bought two-dollar flip flops and a bigger purse to stash the highly impractical Gianvito Rossi stilettos I'd been forced to wear.

The wardrobe, along with the wristlet, had appeared in my suite in the morning and inside the wristlet was one black credit card. I didn't need to ask to know who got the bill. But, I didn't really care. If I was going to be forced to marry this man, I was at least going to have a bit of fun on his dime.

I still wasn't set on the whole marrying him thing, though. That whole issue was still a work in progress.

Max waited patiently for me to tell him where we were headed next. He hadn't shown any indication the entire day that he was upset about being out. I'd even taken us to the nearby World Erotic Art Museum. The place had over four thousand pieces of erotic art, allegedly dating all the way back to 300 B.C. The museum had everything imaginable in it. Sculptures of every position conceivable, well endowed wooden carvings, and a bed with extremely phallic-shaped posts.

And it didn't even faze him. His face remained in its neutral, detached, cold, irritating, gorgeous scowl.

Not gorgeous.

Sigh.

I squinted my eyes and shielded them from the sun. Golden hour was just starting to set in and I was tired from a full day of walking. I wanted a cold drink and a soft bed.

"I'm ready to go back to the hotel," I said.

Max still looked forward and cracked his neck. "You're not holding up your end of the bargain, princess."

I scrunched my face up. "What are you talking about?"

"You said if I traipsed you around the city, I'd get to pick one place I wanted to visit. Each day."

Oh, right. I had totally forgotten about that little detail. I was too busy trying to make life miserable for Max the entire time. I didn't think about how it could backfire on me.

"Fine," I said, shifting my stance this way and that to try and relieve some of the aches in my feet. "Where do you want to go?"

Max started walking back towards the direction of our hotel, and I begrudgingly followed him.

"Okay, so are you not going to tell me?" I asked.

"This is my time now, princess. Silence is appreciated."

My mouth dropped open and he smirked, and I wanted to punch him. So, I did. Lightly though. In the arm. I'm not even sure he felt it, because he just kept walking.

We made it almost to our hotel before he turned up one of the side streets. Another block and we were at his destination.

"Really?" I said, looking up at the blinking neon sign that read "Liquor Shop."

Max just shrugged and walked inside. I followed him through the aisles before he finally stopped in front of the Bourbon. He grabbed a bottle of Jim Beam Kentucky Straight off the shelf and made his way to the counter.

"Pay up, princess," he said and I pursed my lips.

I looked between him and the man behind the register.

"We're all waiting," he said and I huffed but pulled the black card out of my purse. He smirked as I paid and grabbed the brown paper bag with his prize from the register and was out the door before I'd even been able to put my wallet away.

"Hey!" I said, running a bit to catch up with him. The back of our hotel was in view now and despite how tired I was, I suddenly didn't want the day to end.

"Hey, what?" he asked, still walking.

"That's all you wanted?"

He chuckled and stopped in front of the back door to the hotel. He knocked twice and waited for it to open before looking at me. "Trust me, princess. What I really want, you can't give to me."

Shivers wracked my body as I met his gray gaze. "I don't, you couldn't, I'm not." I tripped over my words worse than Jennifer Lawrence at the Oscars. Why was he able to affect me this way?

"Cat got your tongue?" he smirked as the door opened.

I slipped beneath his arm and into the hotel, sticking my tongue out at him as I did so to make a point. He just laughed as I made my way down the hallway that passed the kitchen. I slowed down and basically sniffed the air. It smelled good, and I was hungry.

A push on my shoulders had me nearly tripping over myself, and I looked back in irritation. "Hey!" I said.

"You can order food from your room," he said, encouraging me to walk forward.

The thought of getting room service and eating a grilled cheese in bed did sound amazing. "Fine," I huffed as I made my way towards the staircase that led to my suite. Max followed me and I didn't understand why. We made it all the way up to the door of my suite and he was still right behind me.

I stopped at the threshold.

"Well?" he said.

"Well, what?" I asked.

"Aren't you going to open the door?"

"Um, aren't you going to go back down to whatever cot they set up for you in a broom closet?"

He chuckled. "Real nice, princess. Maybe you're not as sweet as I thought, after all."

I scowled at him. "You know nothing about me."

"And I consider that a blessing. But, no. I'm not going back downstairs. I'm making you hold up your end of the bargain."

"You already got your prize," I said, nudging the bag in his hand.

Max shook his head. "The deal was, I got to choose one thing I wanted to do for each day I took you around the city. Well, what I want to do for today is drink this bottle," he said, holding it up slightly, "in your room."

"Um, why?"

"That's for me to know and you to stop asking about. So, go ahead, princess. Open the door."

"This is extortion," I huffed as I opened the door.

He laughed darkly. "No, it's not. But, if you want a crash course, do let me know."

He brushed past me and into the room and collapsed onto one of the living room sofas. I walked by him and over to the phone to order room service.

"Yes, hello," I said. "That's right, the Venus Suite," I said as I tried to ignore his snort from the other side of the room. "Can I get a grilled cheese with fries?" The woman on the other end of the line tried to tell me that that wasn't something on the menu. "Please tell your chef to call it whatever he wants, but that's what I want, ma'am," I replied, feeling a little bit emboldened by my status at the hotel.

"Order me a steak," Max shouted at me.

"No way," I replied and he was up off the couch in a minute, twisting the phone out of my hand expertly so that even as I tried to hold on, I couldn't.

"Add a steak and baked potato to that order. Medium rare," he said, handing me back the phone.

"Do you want anything to drink with that?" the woman asked me.

"Um," I said as I looked at Max, already back on the couch and twisting the cap off his bottle. "Yeah, a bottle of house red," I said.

"Okay. We'll have it to you shortly," the woman said. I thanked her as I hung up the phone and Max started to pour the amber liquid into a tumbler I hadn't seen him grab.

"Flexing your status already, hm? You'll make a great mafia princess."

"What do you mean, 'flexing my status?'" I sighed as I trudged over to the sofa opposite him and sat down. I kicked the dusty flip-flops off my feet and crossed one leg over the other to rub the bottom of my foot.

"How did it go? 'I don't care if it's on the menu or not, I want what I want and you'll get it to me,'" Max mocked in a weirdly high-pitched voice.

"Don't do that again, please," I said. "Like, ever."

He sat back with the glass in his hand. "Truth hurts, princess."

"You should know. You're the expert on pain," I scoffed.

He chuckled darkly. "I'm the expert on delivering it. There's a difference."

I rolled my eyes. "So, where's Johnny anyways?"

"You know as much as I do, princess. And even if I knew more, it's not like I'd tell you."

I decided a little goading couldn't hurt. Actually, I knew it could, but I decided I didn't care. "I guess you weren't important enough to know what was going on."

He scoffed. "Don't kid yourself, princess. His sons are all back in Boston, and I'm here. I'm higher up than you think."

That was news to me. I didn't know that Johnny had sons. "I guess that makes you in line to inherit over them, then," I mocked. "Just how many will be out for your head when you become the next Don of Boston?"

"First off, is all of your knowledge based on shitty 1990s mob movies? Second, nice try, fishing for information about the family."

"Fine, how many sons does Johnny have?"

"Four."

"Gross," I said.

Max shrugged. "All with different women. A few more decades and things really will get interesting in Boston's underground."

"How so?"

Max leaned back on the sofa and took another swig of his drink. "Just think about it. Four sons. Four different mothers. One head of the family. How do you think it's going to end?"

"Doesn't the oldest just like automatically get it?" I asked, feeling weirdly intrigued by this whole situation.

"Oh sure, that's what the oldest will tell you if you ask him. But, if you were the second or third or fourth born, would you be okay with that?"

"Aren't there rules or something?"

He raised his eyebrow at me. "Oh yes, and we all pay our taxes on time and in full, too," he scoffed.

"Oh," I said, realizing that I was walking into a very different world than I knew. Yet another reason I needed to find my way out of all of this.

"So, what are their names?"

Max wrinkled his nose and sighed. "Can we not? I really don't want to get into it."

I snapped my fingers at him. "Names!"

He leaned forward and looked at me from over his tumbler. His gray eyes met mine and I dropped my hand as a bit of fear and anticipation moved through my body.

"You're the only person I know that dares to speak to me this way," he remarked.

"I told you before," I gulped, trying to maintain an impassive mask. "You don't scare me."

"I should," he said before taking another sip of his drink, draining the glass. He put it down on the counter and leaned back, breaking the intense moment. "Constantino, Teodoro, Primo and Giovanni."

"That's a mouthful."

He raised his eyebrows up and down and nodded, but didn't say anything.

"How old are they?"

Max barked out a laugh. "Around your age, maybe a little older."

"What the fuck," I muttered under my breath.

He reached forward and poured himself another drink. "Just think," he said, pulling the glass up to his smirking lips. "You could be their new step-mom."

I glared at him and was about to open my mouth to say something totally justified when there was a knock at the door. "Room service."

I stood quickly, thankful for an excuse to get off the topic and made my way to the door. I opened it and a well-dressed waiter rolled a cart into the room. "Please let us know if you need anything else," he said with a smile.

"Thank you," I replied, closing the door behind him.

By the time I'd turned around, Max was already rifling through the trays on the cart with one of my french fries sticking out of his mouth.

"Hey!" I exclaimed, running over to where he was standing and all but pushing him out of the way. I picked up my plate of fried cheese, bread and potatoes possessively and made my way over to the other side of the sitting area. "Hands off!"

He laughed as he grabbed his steak off the cart and sat back down. "If your plan is to get fat so that Johnny doesn't find you attractive anymore, I'd advise against it."

I made my way back to the cart to grab the bottle of red and a glass and made a face at him. "It wasn't my plan, but it's not a bad idea."

"Told you I wouldn't," he said.

"And why's that?" I said, trying to maneuver the uncorking device into the bottle.

He rolled his eyes at me and walked over, grabbing the bottle from my hands, easily uncorking it. He pushed it back at me and I took it.

"Because, given how skinny you are now, it's gonna take you more than a month or so to gain the type of weight that would make you unattractive to him. So, you'll still end up getting married, but he'll lose interest later. And, he's not particularly nice to his wives before the divorce goes through. Better to do the whole Arabian Nights thing. Keep him entertained."

I grimaced as I poured myself a large glass of the red. "What do you mean, 'he's not nice to the wives before the divorce goes through?'"

Max sighed. "Don't make me say it, princess."

I shoved a large bite of the grilled cheese into my mouth and chewed before taking a large swig from my glass.

"Glad you're listening to my advice," he muttered, cutting into his steak.

We ate our meals mostly in awkward silence after that. I wasn't sure if it was for my benefit or at my expense, but I didn't feel like talking and Max was the type of man who only ever responded, never initiated.

When we both finally finished our meals, I sat there sipping my wine curled up on one of the lounge chairs, and Max seemed content to nurse his third tumbler of bourbon a bit slower.

I reached forward to pour myself another glass, only to realize that the bottle was pretty much empty. And, I somehow found that hilarious.

Which was a clear sign I was drunk.

"Okay," Max said as I started to break out in a fit of laughter. "I think it's past someone's bedtime."

He put his glass down and made his way over to me, and I tried to take my phone out of my pocket to snap more pictures of him, but he was way too fast.

Or, I was way too drunk. Because my phone landed on the floor and I wasn't sure how.

"Whatchya think's gonna happen to me, Maxy?" I asked him as he tried to lift me up off the couch.

"I think what's going to happen is that I'm going to put you to bed."

"No!" I shouted and then giggled when his eyes widened. "Let's go out. It's my last days of freedom. Basically, this is my bachelorette party. And you're all mah bridesmaids." He wasn't laughing, which was dumb, because the whole situation was hilarious.

"Come on," he said as he tried to encourage me to stand again.

I kicked him with my feet and got him good in the stomach. He keeled over a bit and I pulled back when he gave me a murderous look. But, he'd tricked me, because in an instant, he'd wrapped his arms around me and was hoisting me into the air.

"Put me down!" I yelled at him.

"No," he replied, walking me over to the bed. He deposited me onto the soft mattress. The bed felt really nice and I closed my eyes briefly. I hadn't realized how tired I was.

"Go to sleep, princess," he said.

My eyes opened back up at his words and I rolled over. "Princess this, princess that, why why why?" I asked him.

He sighed. "If you go to sleep, I'll tell you."

I twisted my lips at him. "As soon as you leave, I'm gonna go swimming," I said with a giggle. I flipped over on my back and looked at the cage painted on the ceiling.

"No, you're not," he said.

"Yes, I am. Everyone tryin' ta keep me caged. I break cages with my teeth," I said, making chomping noises. I think somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I knew I was making a fool of myself. But, I also just didn't care anymore.

I could hear a chair being dragged across the floor. I looked backwards and saw an upside-down Max closing the interior bedroom doors and placing one of the lounge chairs in front of it.

He sat down and crossed his arms. "Go to sleep," he told me.

I turned around and closed my eyes. "Don't want to," I said, letting the softness of the bed take hold.

"We all have to do things we don't want to do," Max said.

"You don't want to spend time with me, Max Holt?" I asked through a yawn.

"Go to sleep, princess," he said, again.

"Why doesn't anyone want to spend time with me?" I wondered as the world faded around me.