The Assassin’s Billionaire Bodyguard
Chapter 16

Isabella rolled out from under Cam's heavy arm and made her way to the bathroom, scooping her pantsuit and purse along the way. She realized her coat she'd left in his car, but she'd have to deal with it another time. She admitted she was tender in places she was unaccustomed to feeling pain and all from his thorough diligence. The man absolutely knew what he was doing in bed. Bar none, the last several hours were the most incredible s****l experience of her entire life.

A quick glance at her watch told her it was one in the morning. She needed to get back to Casper, even though she knew Sabine had stayed with him until midnight. A light snore erupted from the man in the bed as she turned the light on in the bathroom and closed the door. She used her app on her phone to arrange for a ride share and then quickly got dressed. Making sure not to wake Cam, she made her way through the dimly lit apartment towards the elevator.

She hit the button and then stepped inside and pushed the button for the lobby, shaking her head at the extravagance of having an elevator as your front door. When she found her drive waiting for her outside, she got in wordlessly and closed her eyes. The woman driving looked in the rear-view mirror, "one of those nights?"

She opened one eye, "it was a good night but a long one. I just need my own bed."

When she reached her house, she tipped the driver well for not speaking another word during the drive and went into the house. Casper lifted his head from his cozy dog bed accusingly and she sighed, "little man, if you knew, you would not judge me." He stretched his little body, kicking his legs out behind him before following her up the stairs. Her phone started ringing in her purse and she saw it was Cam and ignored it. She was too tired.

She stripped off her clothes, crawled into her bed and grinned as Casper climbed his ramp, licked her nose once, did a few circles on the pillow beside hers and then curled up to sleep. She stroked his little ears wordlessly as sleep enveloped her. The next morning, she overslept and called Calvin to tell him she was going to work from home for the day. It wasn't something she did often, but her body was aching from the activity of the night before and the desire to sit in sweats with her hair in a messy bun was overwhelming.

She delayed responding to the four missed calls from Cam and all the texts from Evgeni and pulled her laptop towards her on the sofa. Casper sat with his head on her arm while she replied to emails. An internal company chat message popped up from Lisa asking if she was okay. She replied she was fine and just had a late night.

Then one from Clara asking the same thing and she replied with the same answer. Clara's answer was a thumbs up and eggplant emoji and she chuckled. She sent her back a peach and went back to her work.

A pounding on her door made her grimace and she pushed the laptop on the coffee table and made her way to the front door. Peeking through the hole she saw the reason for her disheveled state on the other side and she groaned.

She pulled the door open and looked him up and down. "How do you look so f*****g good at seven thirty in the morning when we were up until one?" He was showered, dressed in a perfectly fitted suit and he was grimacing at her. "What the f**k Isabella? I woke up and you had run off?"

She pulled her head back in surprise at his tone unprepared for his anger. "No, I did not run off. I have a dog who has never spent a night alone in his life and I'm not starting now. Had I realized I was going to be out so late, I would have sent him home with Sabine, but I told her I'd be home by midnight, and I didn't message her back when she asked me when I'd be home. She assumed my plans had been unchanged, she went home, Casper was alone." She left him standing on her doorstep annoyed she had given him more explanation than she felt he deserved and returned to her living room.

"You could have woken me up and I would have driven you home."

"Why? You were snoring and sleeping peacefully. No need for both of us to be out especially since you would have been out even longer by the time you drove back. Your logic is flawed," she grimaced and plunked down on her sofa and grabbed her cup of coffee. Casper lifted his head lazily at Cam and then dropped it down again. She eyed him over the rim of the oversized mug.

"Why didn't you answer my calls?" he folded his arms over his chest.

"I was sleeping for three of them and the last one, I was talking to my mother when you called. Elian told her we went out again and she wants me to go to church and go to confession. I can't even begin to unpack her mind." She shook her head and looked at her laptop as an email pinged. She immediately moved to answer it and cursed as Calvin asked her to review another colleague's report. He felt it was flawed and wanted a second opinion. She called him on the computer phone system and glowered at his face. "Calvin, it's literally your job to veto his report."

"Yes, but Clara thinks the damn thing is a sound proposition."

"It's not."

"I know it, you know it. I read the full report. You read an excerpt. I want you to read the full report and give me a full response so I can give it to Clara."

"No, you want me to be the one to tell Clara it's a shitty idea and then she gets mad at me for vetoing her. No."

"I literally pay you to review this stuff."

"You s**k."

"Not as much as sitting in Clara's office being told I need to make the numbers make sense, sucks."

"Fine, when?"

"By noon. I meet with her at one."

"You're an a*****e."

"Says the girl who didn't show up to work this morning on her day to bring coffee."

She held his gaze on the camera and then groaned. "Fine, I'll get it over to you and you can deliver it to her, but I am an impartial voice."

"Isabella Ruiz, you've never been impartial a day in your life. It's why we don't let you come to board meetings anymore."

"My plan worked like a charm. I just had to say the wrong thing a couple of times and boom, out of boring ten-hour meetings with misogynistic assholes."

He laughed and she waved before closing the screen. She looked up to see Cam still standing in the exact same pose. Arms crossed on his chest, a scowl on his face and ready to fight. "Torres, why are you still here? Don't you have a world to save or something?"

"Why didn't you go to work?"

"I am working from home because I was up later than usual on a Sunday night and frankly my legs barely function. I had a hell of a workout." She met his gaze full on, her meaning clear.

He shook his head. "I don't like you walking out on me."

"I didn't walk out on you. We had s*x, you went to sleep, I went home to my own bed to rest with my dog."

"Your boss likes you," he waved to the computer.

"What's not to like? I make him look good." She grinned cockily and tapped her temple. "My brain is a finely tuned steel trap, and he knows how to set the trigger."

"Do you sleep with him?"

"Go f**k yourself Torres," she bit out angrily. "If you purposefully came here to antagonize me then get out. I told you why I came home. I told you why I didn't answer you call. I owe you no explanation for either and yet I gave it to you. I have to work and you're being intrusive and insulting." He ran his fingers through his hair, "how the hell did we get here from where we were last night?"

She stared at him incredulously. "If you could stop dragging your hairy knuckles on the ground for two minutes maybe you'll figure it out." She considered he looked ready to throttle her and she cared less. "Torres, I did nothing wrong. Maybe you're used to simpering women who are clingy and need to be removed from your bed via the jaws of life but it's not me. You need to take your elevated levels of testosterone and machismo and piss off."

His phone ringing in his pocket made him swear, "I'm supposed to be at a meeting right now and then heading to the airport."

"Then why aren't you?" She waved at him to leave. "Nobody is forcing you to be here, in fact, nobody invited you here."

"I'll be away for the night on a business trip, I'll be back tomorrow. Can I see you for dinner?"

"No, my dad and I have plans and unless I am on my death bed, I will not break them."

"I'll call you and we can set up a time to see each other."

"Fine, whatever. Just get out so I can go back to work." She felt Casper nudging onto her lap, and she curled him in her arms against her chest. She realized she was so angry she was verging on tears and Casper was sensing her discomfort.

Cam saw the way she held the dog against her chest like a shield and closed his eyes. "Isabella," he stepped into the room and stood near the sofa, "I apologize. I'm acting like an a*s. I do have to go but I will call you and I will make this up to you."

She didn't answer and kept her face averted and her cheek rested against Casper's head. She sat frozen as he dropped a kiss to the top of her head before turning on his heel to leave.

He was almost to the door when she spoke. "This isn't going to work Torres. I can't play these kinds of games with you."

He turned back and looked at her, his green eyes serious, "it will work Isabella. We are not done, not by a long shot. I'll see you later this week."

She listened as the door closed softly behind him and then the sound of his car door being closed outside.

She wiped the stray tear off her cheek and took a deep breath. She hugged Casper to her chest. "What the hell is wrong with me? One night of incredible s*x and I'm a basket case over this guy." She nuzzled her dog and then groaned when her phone lit up. She grimaced at Evgeni's message.

She was so tired of the constant barrage of messages and finally she opened the phone and called him.

"What?"

"Isabella, we need to talk. You cannot date Camden Torres. He works for my father."

"No, your father hires him to do work. There is a difference," she rolled her eyes, "and you don't get to tell me who I can and cannot date. I like him. He likes me."

"You are doing this to get back at me."

"Evgeni I am doing this for me and only me. I told you, I like him."

"He's a dangerous man."

"Is he? Because for someone so dangerous, he's treating me a hell of a lot better than you ever did."

“།

I gave you everything!" he yelled into the phone.

Isabella's head snapped in surprise at his tone. "Evgeni, I am only going to say this one more time. Stay away from me. I tried to remain friends with you because of our history but it is obvious now, you don't know how to respect me or our past. I am done. I have moved on. You need to stop calling me, stop messaging me, stop sending me photos of your tiny d**k and stop harassing me. If you don't, my next stop is to the police precinct to file a restraining order. Am I clear?"

She didn't wait to hear back from him and hung up the call.

She called Clara immediately. "I have a problem."

"What's going on?"

"Evgeni Andropov is out of control. I may need to file a restraining order."

"Jesus Christ," Clara hissed angrily.

"I'd deal with it another way but he's the son of your close friend and having Mikhail replaceing his body floating in the Potomac would likely cause a rift for you."

"We'll start with the restraining order, and I'll have a word with Mikhail. Send me your text log too please."

"I will." She sighed, "why am I so bad with men?"

"Why? Thought last night was good?"

"So did I until Cam showed up here this morning pissed off, I left him asleep and came home. I wasn't going to wake him up to drive me all the way home when he was crashed out but apparently, I committed some sin of biblical proportions in leaving." "You did the nasty with Cam Torres?" Clara hooted with delight.

"I did but apparently I f****d that up too."

"Nah," Clara reassured her, "men like him like to feel needed. He'll recover."

"Also, your husband is on my s**t list," Isabella opened an email from Calvin with the report. "He told Mama I went on a second date last night."

"Uh, my fault. I didn't mean to tell him, but I was excited for you and spilled it. Your mother was haranguing him about not bringing the kids to church yesterday and he threw you under the bus."

"He's going to literally replace himself under a bus. She called me at six this morning to demand proof I was sleeping in my own bed and there was no man in it."

"Good thing you went home then huh," Clara teased her.

"Talk to him and tell him this is the second time in less than week. If he makes it a third time, he and I are going to have words."

"I will let him know." Clara laughed darkly. "Though, he's been on my last nerve the last few weeks over this new restaurant so I may let you wail on him."

"Just three minutes, it's all I need."

"Three minutes with you and he's dead and I need him alive," Clara commented dryly.

"Fine, one minute, no knives, just hands and nothing lethal."

"You know, he is your brother."

"And if he keeps getting me into trouble with Mama you will be my widowed sister."

"Okay, okay, I'll talk to him."

"I need to go review this damn report for Calvin. I'll talk to you later." She hung up the phone and then groaned as multiple messages from Evgeni popped up demanding she call him back and one insisting his d**k wasn't tiny. "A*****e," she mumbled as she tossed the phone to the far end of the sofa and pulled the laptop back on her lap, nestling Casper to her hip. All the men in her life were making her crazy and she found herself desperately wishing for her normal boring life back.