My Fiancé’s Bodyguard by Ivy Wild

After two nightsof horrendously painful family dinners with my father, sister and her husband, I finally worked up the nerve to go and claim the folder and return it to my father's office. During both meals I'd tried to probe why Scarlett and Mark were really home, but not a single thing was given away. They continued to insist that their house was being renovated, and I risked looking suspicious by bringing the subject up again.

Mark and my father seemed closer than ever, which was not necessarily odd, but also not to be expected. As far as I knew, when Mark married Scarlett, he barely knew my father. He had just risen to becoming District Attorney for Suffolk County and it was a natural fit for him to marry the daughter of one of the oldest and wealthiest families in the city.

And in all the times I'd been home, which was every damn day, since my sister left to live her grand married life, Mark had never once come over to our house. Neither had I heard my father on the phone with him any of the times I'd been able to listen in to his conversations. So, both of them suddenly showing up unannounced like this, right around the time when Johnny was coming to the house much more frequently, certainly raised alarm bells in my head.

I shivered as I made my way outside. It may have been summer, but the nights were still chilly in Massachusetts. I weaved my way quietly through the hedges and reclaimed the folder and the little device that Max had given me. I turned it over in my hands a few times. It looked like nothing more than some weird plug extender made of black plastic, but I had a feeling there was some sort of computer chip inside that made the whole thing work.

I shoved it into my pocket, hugged the folder close to my chest and started making my way back towards the house. The grounds were dead silent and they gave me time to think. Doris and I had met outside the night before. I didn't dare grab the folder walking back with her. The last thing I wanted was her implicated in all of this.

I passed the willow tree where Max and I had been a few days before and my heart clenched slightly. I couldn't make sense of the man. One moment he was cold, detached and entirely unreadable. The next, he was asking me if I was okay and kissing me softly. Nothing about him was soft, but that kiss had been gentle and full of emotion.

At least, that's what I'd felt. But, I'd pulled back from him because I didn't know how to process any of this. Five-minute phone calls on a burner phone that I had to erase each time we hung up wasn't exactly the sort of thing relationships were built on. Neither was trying to investigate a mob boss that would easily kill us if he knew what was really going on, I reminded myself.

I didn't regret asking Max what I'd asked of him that day in the hotel. But, a part of me wondered if he did. A part of me wondered if he would have preferred to keep things professional between us. But then, he'd been so passionately jealous the night Johnny had returned when he'd come to my room. I let out a sigh. I just couldn't figure him out.

Doris once told me that if there wasn't a solution, there might not be a problem. But, I'm not sure she would have said that after meeting Max Holt.

I waited at the threshold to the house and listened to make sure no one was around before opening the rear sliding door. I'd learned early in my teenage years how to disarm and re-alarm the security system silently so that I could slip in and out. My father's office was a little ways down the hall, and I made my way there as quickly and as quietly as possible.

I just wanted all of this sneaking around to be over. Maybe Max wasn't scared anymore, but I was. I didn't fully appreciate just how nervous I'd be when I'd agreed to this arrangement. I knew I still would and that I was doing the right thing, but that didn't make the fear any less present.

I slipped inside my father's office and made my way quickly to his desk. I couldn't remember exactly where I'd pulled the folder from, so I put it on the desk to deal with after I plugged in the device. I sort of figured getting this thing installed would be the most important. I moved to the back of the phone and found the wire just like Max said. Pulling it out, I plugged the little device into one end and then fitting it back into the slot. The black plastic of the device blended with the dark plastic of the phone so that it was almost impossible to see that there was something there. At least, I hoped that was the case.

I rounded the desk again and opened the drawer that I thought I'd pulled the folder from. I leafed through the other files inside of it but I couldn't figure out exactly where this file was supposed to go.

I crouched down to try and see the file names in the dark. Max's warning rang clear in my head. The folder needed to go back exactly where I found it otherwise my father was going to get suspicious and that's the last thing we needed.

Light blinded me as my father's office lit up and my heart pounded heavily in my chest. I stuffed the folder into the drawer in a random spot, praying that it was right and stood up slowly, not sure what I would find.

Scarlett was standing opposite of me. "Madelyn, why are you in father's office in the middle of the night?" she asked. Even in the wee hours of the morning, she still looked beautiful. I hated her for it. She'd always been flaunted as the more beautiful younger sister by my father when we were growing up. I didn't have to even think about where her alliances lied.

I kicked the drawer closed slowly with my foot and tried to think of what to say. I really didn't have a good explanation for why I was in our father's office. I looked down at his top drawer and remembered how he'd come in that night for a cigarette. I looked back up at my sister and gave her pleading eyes.

"Father's been smoking, Scarlett. I could smell it on one of his suits when I went to hug him. You caught me. I was trying to take them away. I worry about his health. Please don't tell him it was me," I said with fake begging to my voice.

She gave me a look full of disdain and disbelief. "Father would never smoke. How low class," she huffed.

I pulled the top drawer out and pulled the pack out and waved it in the air. "I completely agree. Which is why we must do our part as dutiful daughters to make sure his habit doesn't escalate."

"This is all your fault," my sister said to me and I gave her an incredulous look.

I knew I shouldn't be engaging with my sister at this very moment. I was in a very compromising position, but her saying that was bullshit. "Oh? Do tell me how," I mocked.

"If you would just get married like a good daughter, he wouldn't be so stressed out. He's been combing Boston for someone suitable for you for years and you've rejected every single suitor."

"None of them were suitors," I bit back. "Father was trying to marry me off to a fifty-year-old when I was seventeen. That's something else entirely," I said with venom in my voice.

"I got married like he told me to," she said in a sing-song voice.

“Yeah, but Mark wasn’t old enough to be your grandfather,” I reminded her.

"Not my fault that I'm pretty enough to attract someone like Mark.”

I needed to end this conversation and get out of my father's office. The longer we stayed here chatting, the greater the chance my father showed up, and I didn't think he would believe my lame excuse. He wasn't as gullible as Scarlett.

I rounded the desk and made my way towards her. She backed up just a little and I switched off the light. "Go back to bed, Scar," I said, calling her by the nickname she absolutely hated. "Wouldn't want to ruin your beauty sleep and risk a divorce."

She huffed but turned on her heel and stormed away from me. I probably shouldn't have done that. I probably should have just played her game and quelled her ego, but it was almost impossible with her sometimes.

I made my way back to my rooms, locking myself inside and collapsed onto the bed. My heart was pounding wildly and I felt like I couldn't breathe. Why was Scarlett even awake at this hour? Had she been lying and seen me come back from the gardens? Had she seen me plug the listening device into the phone? I felt absolutely sick with worry and the tears started to prick the corners of my eyes.

I knew this wasn't going to be easy. I just didn't know it was going to be so hard.

Scarlett lookedlike she was itching to say something the next evening at dinner, and my heart couldn't take it anymore. My anxiety over the entire incident the night before was through the roof, and I was just waiting for everything to crash back down.

I'd avoided any family interaction the entire day, spending most of the time in my room, but I had been making an effort to appear at the family dinners and play nice since this entire arrangement with Max started. The less my father thought I needed to be babysat, the better.

Scarlett twisted her dark brown hair in her hands and looked between me and my father. I tried to shake my head discreetly. I knew she saw it, but she acted like she didn't.

"Father, is everything okay?" she asked in a sing-song voice.

My father raised his eyes from the newspaper he'd been reading and gave her a look sweeter than cotton candy and just as gross. "Yes, of course, my darling? Why would you ask something like that?"

Scarlett looked back at me and I tried to intensify my look of "don't you fucking dare," but it didn't seem to be getting through to her.

"Oh, I was just worried about you being stressed. Worried that maybe you had picked up a bad habit or something to deal with it?"

My father narrowed his eyes at Scarlett and then he looked at me. I just continued to look down into my soup bowl, acting as if it was the most interesting thing I'd seen all year.

"I'm not sure why you're asking me this," my father said slowly.

Scarlett huffed. "Can't a daughter be worried about her father?"

My father folded the newspaper and looked at Scarlett with kind eyes. "Yes, of course. And, I appreciate your concern. I'm just trying to understand where it's coming from."

Mark finally piped up from the other end of the table. He flipped the page over in his magazine before saying, "I wouldn't sweat it, Henry. Scarlett just gets in these moods sometimes."

Every feminist ever huffed alongside my sister at his words. "I am not in just one of these moods," she said. "I have a reason for my questions." Her voice was getting whiney and I knew where this was going.

"Scarlett, why don't you tell me about the renovations going on at the house?" I asked her, trying to move her off the subject.

"No!" she exclaimed. "Not until we find out why father is smoking!"

Oh, fuck.

My father's eyes widened as he looked Scarlett, then at me. "Who said I was smoking?" The volume of his voice was slightly elevated and I knew right away he was not happy that he'd been ousted.

With no loyalty whatsoever, Scarlett lifted her hand and pointed her finger straight at me. "Madelyn did. She was in your office last night. Trying to take your cigarettes."

My father turned to me and I just glared daggers at my sister.

"Madelyn?" he asked. "Is this true?" His voice was nowhere as sweet with me as it had been with my sister.

There was no getting out of this. I'd need to just play around it instead. I nodded my head slowly.

"You were in my office?"

Again, I nodded, figuring that saying less would be better for me in the long run.

"How did you even find out?"

I hesitated for a moment before finally thinking about that night. My father had opened up the window to his office and that was all I needed. "Sometimes when I can't sleep, I take walks through the gardens. I smelled the smoke coming from your office window one night and was concerned before I realized what it was from. We're all just concerned for you, father," I said, choking back my disgust.

"I've never known you to be concerned for my well-being, Madelyn." His eyes were sharp and his look just as piercing.

I could feel my heart pressing against my ribcage in rapid succession. "I know we've had our differences, father, but that doesn't mean that I don't love and care about you."

His eyes narrowed slightly before he turned back to Scarlett. He reached out for her hand and she gave it to him. He patted it softly a few times and I could feel the bile rising in my throat. "There, there, my darling daughter. If it makes you upset that I'm lighting up from time to time, I will stop. Just for you."

"Madelyn begged me not to say anything, but I just couldn't keep it inside," Scarlett said in a high-pitched voice full of dramatics that would have made the stars of All My Children jealous.

"You did the right thing," my father said, letting go of her hand.

"I think I'll head to bed early," I said, deciding that I couldn't stand being at the table any longer.

"Nonsense," my father said, picking back up his newspaper. "Doris!" he called out and my only friend in the world came running.

"Yessir," she replied, a bit out of breath.

"Go ahead and serve dessert for me and Madelyn to my office. She and I are going to have a chat and I think it could use some sweetener." He didn't look up as he said the words but he didn't have to. My stomach fell into my feet and I stayed frozen to my chair.

"Come along, dear," Mark said to Scarlett.

"But, dessert!" she insisted, but Mark shook his head.

"We can have some after."

The pair walked out of the dining hall, the sounds of Scarlett's arguing ricocheting off the walls. As soon as they were gone, my father folded his newspaper, stood and said, "Follow me," before making his way towards his office.