The Assassin’s Billionaire Bodyguard
Chapter 7

Isabella walked the two blocks from the subway station to the restaurant and ignored the way a crew of guys catcalled her. Normally she'd have flipped them off or shouted something in Spanish back at them, but her nerves were getting the better of her. Amelia and Sabine had met her at her house and helped her replace something to wear. Sabine's comment about making sure it was something which could slide off as fast as she put it on had her spine tingling.

Her sister and best friend had looked Camden Torres up on the internet while she had tossed through her closet. There had been one photo of him taken by a paparazzi long lens, climbing up the ladder of his yacht wearing only black shorts. It depicted a scene right from a James Bond movie, and it was front and center in her brain. The man's muscles had muscles and the way his shorts hung low on his hips, dripping water, made the discerning eye follow the deep curves over his hips into the top of the shorts. She quickened her pace as she told herself she just needed to get there, get dinner done and over with and then be on her way. Hopefully, this guy had a way to rid of her two stalkers because if he didn't, her next option was changing her phone number and just the notion of the headaches associated with it was making her nauseated.

"Keep your skirt on Ruiz," she mumbled to herself as the marquis for the restaurant caught her eye several feet ahead. She caught a glimpse of herself in a glass window and paused. She knew she looked good. She wasn't the calibre of a model by any stretch, her nose a tad too big for her face and her eyes just a bit too far apart. Yet, she was tall, lithe and her body was toned proving she worked out hours every day. Her eyes were dark and often liquid. Sabine often teased her they reminded her of a baby seal's eyes, big and round meant to make a grown man cry. Her lashes were thick and dark, like her hair. Her eyebrows Sabine and Amelia had plucked and tweezed into perfectly symmetrical lines. She knew she had good cheekbones and a strong jawline. It was her hair though people commented on most. It was thick, rich, and dark and she often kept it tied in a braid or plaited but tonight she had straightened it, parted in the middle and it hung like silk down to the middle of her back.

She forced her feet to move, and she stepped into the small entrance of the restaurant. The hostess looked at her. "I'm meeting someone. I'm not sure if he's here yet." "Name?"

"His or mine?" Isabella asked the woman to clarify, not liking the way the woman was sneering at her.

"Either will do," she almost rolled her eyes, "if your date is here, he's probably left your name for me. Either will work."

"Isabella Ruiz, I'm here to meet Camden Torres," she saw the woman's eyebrows raise, "and it's not a date. It's a meeting."

"Tsk, tsk," Cam's voice encircled her in the small entrance, "it most assuredly is a date." He grinned as she turned to look over her shoulder. He gave a low whistle. "Wow."

She fought the blush she knew was staining her cheeks. "Thanks, not a date." She wasn't sure who she was telling as she let her gaze travel up the frame of the man in front of her. "You clean up well Torres." He shook his head, "it's Cam and you're itching for a fight."

"Every waking minute of my life," she admitted with a shrug. She reached into her bag, pulled out her phone and passed it to him. "Make it stop before I ask my sister-in-law to manage it and she erases your daughter's digital footprint, and she ceases to exist on any plane, virtual or otherwise."

He looked to the woman waiting and waved for her to lead them to the table he'd reserved. Once they were seated, he held her phone up. "Not every woman in the world would pass me her opened cell phone."

"Well, I can promise the text from my sixty-something-year-old mother begging me to go to church with her on Sunday isn't nearly as inspiring as the image of Evgeni's wiener." Her mouth turned with disgust, "third one he's sent this week by the way, and none are impressive. There is a message from my brother Elian reminding me if I go looking for s*x this weekend to use a condom but I'm quite sure it was Clara using his phone trying to embarrass us both. Your daughter however takes the cake."

She watched as he scrolled through the messages from his daughter, his face growing tighter and tighter as he got to the bottom.

He said nothing as he slid the phone across the table toward her and then created a steeple with his fingers, closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips to the bridge of his nose.

She sat patiently for a solid minute before she spoke, "uh, Torres, are you still alive? I've never broken someone so quick before."

He opened his eyes and looked at her with concern. "I am so deeply sorry."

"Not your fault," she shrugged, "apart from the fact you helped create the psycho who is currently making my life a living hell. Also, just so you know, Draxton's head of security removed her from the premises around six tonight. She was absolutely of the opinion I was screwing her boyfriend in my office."

"f**k," he cursed and then looked to her apologetically, "sorry, rude."

"Ha!" she laughed, "I've said way worse for much less." She leaned back as the server approached the table. The woman asked what they wanted to drink, and she ordered a glass of red wine and smiled as Cam told her to just bring the bottle. Obviously, he was as unnerved as she.

She crossed her ankles under the table and adjusted her skirt as the server set up the bottle and then placed menus in front of them both. She wanted to roll her eyes when, in a sexist move which grated on her nerves, the server offered for Cam to taste the wine and ignored her. He played along though and when she walked away, leaving them to peruse the menus with their glasses of wine, Isabella kept her eyes averted.

"Are you okay?" he asked quietly.

She lifted her eyes to look at him curiously, "yes, why do you ask?"

"Because my daughter is behaving like a raging lunatic and making your life a living hell and you look like you wanted to punch the server."

"True on both counts." She couldn't argue with him. "Evgeni is making it worse and I'm sure of it. I'm confident the a*s is telling her we are either back together or getting back together. I've asked him to talk to her, but he's refused to intervene unless I go out with him and I'm not giving him an inch."

"Why not?" he leaned on his elbows on the table, taking in the way her lips, wide and full closed over the rim of her wine glass while she sipped the burgundy liquid.

"My history with him isn't great. Twice, I've agreed to dinner with him and twice, I've had too much to drink and wound up in his bed. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

"You're still in love with him." It was a comment not a question and he waited for her to deny it.

He didn't have to wait long. "God no," she made a face of disgust. "No, I'm saying sometimes when I've had too much to drink, I make really stupid decisions and when you're hanging with someone who knows what buttons to push, some of your weaknesses then some dumb decisions are easier made than others. When you party with Russians, there's always vodka in droves. Evgeni is fun and vibrant and has a way of making a girl feel special but he's shallow and superficial. The last time I was with him it took me months before I could get him to go away again. I was relieved when he started dating Portia. She had his undivided attention. I need her to take him back."

"No," Cam leaned back as if she'd offered him smelly fish across the table. "Not happening. He's too old. She's still a teenager."

"She's nineteen and old enough to vote."

"Not old enough to drink."

"Only in this country."

"He's only eight years younger than me. He's closer to my age than hers."

"You're twelve years older than me."

"You're twenty-six?"

"Yes."

"Good, not a teenager and definitely not a child."

"I'm not dating Evgeni."

"Date me instead."

His words made her pause their quick banter and she gripped the stem of her wineglass tightly. She took a sip and met his eyes over the rim of her glass, he was leaned forward again, like a panther ready to pounce and she felt very much like prey. Her spine tingled excitedly. "No."

"Why not."

"You're as old as my brothers and you have a daughter who makes Satan appealing." She grimaced, "I'm never having children, step or otherwise. Your kid is a perfect example as to why." "You don't like kids?"

"I love them," she grinned, "when they belong to someone else."

"So, we don't have kids," he grinned back and chuckled when her eyes rounded in surprise at his comment. "I'm teasing."

"I didn't think you were serious," she rolled her eyes and let him fill her wine glass. She looked back to her menu. "I'm going to need food before I make stupid decisions due to wine."

His low rumbling laugh had her belly clenching involuntarily. Lisa's words about pretending to have daddy issues were echoing in her head. The man was devastatingly handsome with his short sandy brown hair perfectly combed and his green eyes teasing and mocking. Damn.

When the waitress came back, she ordered the squid ink fettuccine with sea scallops. Cam ordered an antipasti platter for starters for them to share and then ordered himself the roasted whole branzino.

He was getting ready to say something when her phone rang. She grimaced and looked at it, aware it was still sitting on the table where he'd set it earlier. "It's Evgeni's number."

He took the phone before she could stop him and answered it. "Stop calling my girl."

He hit end call on the phone and grinned cockily.

"Great," she grimaced, as she immediately turned her phone completely off. "I won't be able to turn this on again until Christmas."

"Right now, he's losing his mind wondering who it was taunting him," he smirked. "A*****e."

"He is an a*****e, but you just made things a hundred times worse."

"How? You can turn the phone back on, tell him you're at dinner with me and he will stop calling you. I promise."

"It will make him a hundred times worse. He wants what he cannot have."

"His father is a friend. Your brother is also a friend of his father. As much as an arrogant prick as Evgeni Andropov is, he's terrified of his father. All it would take is me to tell him we are dating, and Evgeni will immediately back off. He knows what I'm capable of." His eyes were dark as he spoke, his tone sinister.

"You make it sound like you're one of Mikhail's hit men." At his one c****d eyebrow, she pursed her lips. "Are you?"

"No," he denied it. "I have never killed anyone for Mikhail."

She wasn't unpacking the statement because if someone ever questioned her side activities she'd lie too, and Clara had already insinuated to her he killed people for money. She sat there quietly processing what he was offering her.

"How would this help with Portia?" She asked suddenly.

"If I'm dating you, you can't be dating Evgeni. She will realize Evgeni is a lying sack of shit."

"What if it backfires and he takes her back?"

"I know my daughter. She only wants him right now because he cut her off. If he takes her back, it will be short-lived. I've also taken her passport and her credit cards away from her. She's grounded to New York. Evgeni can't stay in one spot for a month without getting antsy. It drives Mikhail crazy. He'll be jetting off to Europe and she'll be here twiddling her thumbs, stalking him on social media while he parties it up in London, Dubai, and Moscow. I give it a month and she's moved on."

"You've thought this through. So, you think we should fake-date a month?"

"Sure, if that's what you want to call it." he shook his head. He waited for the server to put the appetizer on the table between them and then leave before speaking again. He watched with a smile as Isabella grabbed an olive and popped it in her mouth. "What do you want to call it?"

"Date," he shrugged like it made sense

"Date-date?"

"Yes, as in, dinners, walks in the park and hanging out," he eased out of his jacket and then rolled up his sleeves before taking a slice of focaccia bread off the plate and added a piece of prosciutto and a soft white cheese. He took a bite over his plate and set the other half of the morsel on his plate.

Isabella tried not to think of how his perfect white teeth had torn into the meat. The man was giving off predator vibes and it was simultaneously unsettling and titillating.

She blamed the contents of her belly contained an olive and a bunch of wine for the fact she was seriously contemplating his suggestion. "What happens when your daughter moves on to the next person and Evgeni finally leaves us both alone?" "We'll have had a lot of fun and we can go our separate ways, or we can continue to see each other. It will depend on how things go."

"Sounds like a bad idea," she shook her head. Every survival instinct she possessed was screeching like a car alarm in her head.

"I need my kid away from him. You need them both to piss off. You're gorgeous and smart. It's a win-win."

"Yankees or Mets?"

"Yankees," he didn't hesitate.

She pursed her lips. "Rangers or Islanders?"

"Rangers," he commented, "the loss this week was nothing."

"Pre-season jitters," she agreed nodding.

"Well?"

She shook her head. "You're too old."

"Not old, experienced," he winked blatantly in her direction. "I'm in the prime of my life."

"Humble too," she said sarcastically.

"You know this is the best way to get rid of them."

"No, it's not," she retorted, "it's the most legal way, but not the best way."

"For someone who is supposed to be dull and dry and a numbers girl, you have a dark mind."

"You have no idea," she thought of the two men she'd killed earlier in the week. Dark was an understatement.

"Isabella, I'm not asking you to sell your soul. We go out a handful of times, have some fun. Make sure my daughter knows so she can relay the info to Evgeni so he can show his true colors and crisis ended." "I can't believe I'm saying this," she paused curling her lips up in distaste.

"Is it so hard to say yes?"

"Yes."

"Excellent."

"No, I meant it's hard to say yes." She glared at him as his cocksure smile took her breath. "Fine, yes, I'll do it."

As she watched him plunge the other half of his piece of bread into his mouth and then lean back in his chair victorious, she considered she may have just made the most incredibly stupid decision of her life.