Charming Like Us (Like Us Series: Billionaires & Bodyguards Book 7)

by Krista Ritchie

  He holds my gaze. “I’ve only slept with women. Until now…” We both begin to smile. “And back then,” he continues, “I spent a lot of time ensuring they reached an O.”

  “To satisfy them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I’m satisfied and satiated, Highland,” I assure. “You’re not a selfish partner. What we have is just a different dynamic than what you’re used to. The better question is, did you like it?”

  His smile explodes. “Like water in a desert.”

  I grin back and use my best pick-up line. “Keep quenching your thirst with me.”

  He squeezes my ass under the water. We laugh against each other’s lips, about to kiss, and then I hear the crunch of a sole on land right in front of our deck.

  My head whips forward.

  “Good morning.” Charlie sips an espresso shot, fully dressed in a thick peacoat like he’s about to hightail his ass to town. And I’m in a mother-effing hot tub with Jack. Naked.

  We’re naked.

  Shit.

  Fuck.

  Shit.

  We both hurry out of the tub. Wrapping towels around our waists so my client doesn’t see our packages—but he knows I just had sex.

  He’s a genius, and it doesn’t take his extreme IQ to put the pieces together.

  “Are you leaving? Why didn’t you call first?” I ask seriously.

  “Yes, and I thought I’d surprise you.” He flashes a wry smile. “I know how much you love surprises.”

  I’m never surprised, I want to sling back, but Charlie and Jack are the only two who consistently keep me on my toes. “Call first,” I emphasize.

  Jack already jogs into the blue house. It’ll take him ten times longer to pack a camera bag than for me to just put on clothes. No radio needed when I’m the sole bodyguard in Greenland.

  “You usually like the surprise,” Charlie says in a sip of espresso. “What’s changed?” His lip rises like a little wiseass. And his eyes ping to the condom wrapper and bottle of lube on the high-table.

  I’m a professional bodyguard.

  I’d even dare to say I’m among the most professional in Omega. Jokes and fun times aside, I keep it well-mannered and appropriate with my client.

  He wants to talk about uncouth—this is uncouth.

  This morning has dinged my reputation. I’m just glad Omega isn’t here to see it. Unless I open my big mouth to my friends in a haze of vodka and bourbon, I’ll bury this.

  “Nothing’s changed,” I force out. “Stay there.” I head to the door.

  He calls back, “If I wait for you, then something has changed!”

  I know, Charlie. I don’t acknowledge him as I enter the house. I start getting dressed. Jack is already shrugging on a winter jacket and trying to gather his camera equipment.

  “I’ll meet you there,” he says. “Just text me.”

  I have to catch up to Charlie. Leaving Jack behind isn’t easy. My muscles almost shriek and try to rip me back towards him. At least we’re not in Philly or New York where he’d be pelted with caustic words and projectiles. It makes Jack doing his job and me doing mine easier.

  With a quick kiss on his lips and squeeze of his hand, I run out.

  Charlie didn’t wait for me.

  My mouth curves higher as I race after him.

  27

  OSCAR OLIVEIRA

  Back in the States, back to a grimmer reality.

  “Hey, hey, hey.” I get as close to Jack as I can as his face shatters a thousand different ways, his reddened eyes on his phone. “Don’t look at it. Disable your notifications.”

  “You don’t understand.” His voice lowers, stress puncturing his features. “This isn’t the usual fuck you condemnation, Oscar.” He grips his camera at his side.

  Our feet sink unevenly in hot sand. We’re on a beach in California. Seal Beach, to be exact. No cloud in the sky, the salty ocean laps against the shore.

  And I shift my gaze off Jack for half-a-second. Even a fucking millisecond feels like a betrayal to him right now. He’s upset about some type of Oslie shit online, and look at me, glancing over at Charlie.

  Fucking Charlie.

  My duty, my job at every waking second of every waking minute of every fucking day. I’m fifteen feet away from him. He lounges under a blue umbrella, eyes shaded with green-tinted sunglasses.

  Nearby, Jesse Highland uses Jack’s short pause from filming to shake out his arms. Jesse has been holding a heavy boom mic. Since we’re at the beach, the waves were apparently causing noise interference, so they popped out a boom kit.

  Charlie is safe.

  He’s fine.

  But not too far away on his right side, four sun-bathing college girls keep ogling him from their pink Zeta Beta Zeta towels.

  Please don’t be a problem.

  Not right now, not when I want to be here for Jack. Attention back on him, his face is more torn up. “No, no…”

  “What is it?” I ask.

  He looks sick as he scrolls.

  It’s tearing me up.

  “Jack,” I say forcefully.

  He shoves his phone in my chest. “They’re all over my Instagram comments.”

  “They’ve already been all over your comments.” And he’s largely pushed past the vitriol

  “Not like this.” His jaw tics. “They’re also on We Are Calloway’s Facebook Page, the docuseries’ Instagram account.”

  I look at the comment section.

  Stop filming the Cobalts! Quit NOW!

  You should be fired!

  Youre disgusting. Put ur camera down.

  Homewrecker! Quit filming Charlie!

  We wont watch We Are Calloway until ur gone!!!

  #FireJackHighland

  #FireJackHighland

  #FireJackHighland

  They’re trying to get him fired.

  It’s a hard kick to my gut, and this has to be a hundred times more painful for Jack. This is his career. The dream he’s been chasing, the ladder he’s been climbing, his life. It’s starting to crumble around him.

  Around us.

  I glare at the hashtag. “I’ll post on my Instagram account again,” I tell him. I already re-downloaded the app I deleted, and I’ve been sharing cute couple photos of us. But week-old pics. I use the account tactically, and I don’t want anyone to know our location in real-time.

  Jack rubs his pained eyes. He’s better versed in public perception than me, and he must know it’s a weak attempt. His hand drops with a tight breath. “They’re calling for my termination. They could be emailing the other producers, Oscar.”

  “Would they really fire you over some hostile stans with hurt feelings?”

  Jack shrugs tensely, then grabs his phone out of my hand. “It’s terrible publicity, and firing me could be an easy way to wipe their hands clean of the mess.” He blinks back this tortured look.

  I can’t even wrap an arm around him right now. “The Hales, the Meadows, the fucking Cobalt Empire won’t let that happen to you, Highland.”

  He shakes his head, his chest taut like weight is bearing on him. “You don’t know that for certain, Os.”

  I’m about to offer greater reassurance—all that I have—when movement catches my eye.

  Fuck my job.

  I don’t know how to live with it. Definitely don’t know how to live without it. I slip Jack an apologetic look before I run towards a sorority girl in a striped bikini.

  She’s left her friend group to approach Charlie.

  I glance back at Jack.

  He’s lifted up his camera to film my client—returning to work too—but so much tension lines his muscles. He keeps shifting his weight like he can’t get comfortable.

  Rip out your earpiece, Oliveira.

  Go off-duty, go comfort him.

  I can’t.

  Like everyone on SFO, I made an oath the day I signed up to be a bodyguard. To put someone else above Charlie’s safety breaks that soul-bound promise.

>   So I keep my pace and roll to a stop in front of the sorority girl. “Sorry,” I say cordially. “You can’t approach him.”

  Her face falls. “He knows me.”

  I’ve heard that one a thousand times, but she’s right. Charlie does sort of know this sorority girl. Her face is familiar from one night in the past, but her name isn’t hitting me. “You still can’t approach.”

  She lifts her sunglasses up to her blonde hair. “What if I wanted to give him something?” She plucks an envelope out of her straw beach bag.

  Charlie Keating Cobalt is written neatly in black ink.

  “He needs to read this.” She waves the envelope in my face. I follow her gaze that darts to another bodyguard.

  More security in California is why I have a radio.

  Gabe Montgomery, the short stocky blond-haired temp I trained, loiters around Jack Highland. Arms crossed, permanent scowl, his intimidation is on point, so the sorority girl isn’t considering negotiating with him over me.

  Eliminates that potential headache.

  I explain, “I can give Charlie the envelope if nothing hazardous is in there, but you can’t approach him or talk to him.” Truth: Charlie doesn’t open his fan mail. He throws it away.

  Her friends start packing their towels, books, and beach bags.

  They better be leaving and not coming over here.

  “Can’t you just ask him?” she snaps.

  “I already have.”

  I did the second we reached the beach. I reestablished his wishes, and he said, no one talks to me.

  She bristles. “Really?”

  “Really.” I have no creative retort.

  The #FireJackHighland tidal wave that just pummeled Jack—it’s still crashing against me and ramping up my impatience, and I’m proud of myself for not raising my voice. For keeping my fucking cool.

  De-escalation is the name of the best bodyguard game.

  “Give this to him then.” She hands me the envelope. “Make sure he gets it. You probably don’t remember me, but I spent the night with Charlie once. So it’s that kind of important.”

  She’s implying that she’s pregnant.

  I don’t even bat an eyelash.

  For one, I know way too much about Charlie’s sex life. He’s told me countless times, “I cum on women. Not in them.” I never talk about my sex life with him—Greenland was the first jolt of that between us—but Charlie will tread into TMI territory about his own.

  I didn’t ask for more details, but he told me he helps clean them up afterwards, so if anyone claims he’s the father of their kid—it’s probably a trash bin declaration.

  For another, the one and only time he’s met up with this sorority girl was too long ago for her to be pregnant with his child.

  “Daniella!” her friend calls, trekking towards the parking lot with the other Zeta Beta Zeta girls. They’re leaving.

  Daniella jogs after them, teetering in the sand.

  I survey the area, lingering for a half-a-second on Jack—who should be my entire attention. He still films Charlie lounging on a chair sunken in the sand.

  The fact that we’re both working should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. My job impedes us more. Between security meetings, temp training, and actually protecting Charlie, it pulls me in a hundred directions.

  And in the past week, we haven’t found time together to have sex. Not since Greenland. And sure, sex isn’t everything in a relationship. But it’s something in ours.

  I just keep hearing my failed short-term flings that I thought would last longer.

  “You’re never around, Oscar.”

  “You dipped out of seven dates early.”

  “What’s the point in continuing this if you’re hardly available?!”

  I’m waiting for Highland to realize he deserves more time and emotional support than I can give. And then the axe will fall, and we’ll be done when we’ve just started.

  I trudge closer to Charlie and hawk-eye his surroundings again. Most people stay back from my client and snap photos of him on their cells, all at a distance. I already approached a crowd of college students in UCLA tees and told them to keep a twenty-foot perimeter. They were kind enough to comply with that, and they haven’t pushed it.

  Once the sorority girls disappear out of sight, I tear open the envelope.

  Protocol: check Charlie’s mail, even if he trashes it.

  Charlie, we met at that thing back in June and hooked up. I’m pregnant. I would love to have you in this baby’s life. I can’t imagine you not being by my side during this time. I don’t need money. I just need you. Please contact me any way you can.

  She left her full name, phone number, home address, Instagram and Twitter handle, and her TikTok account.

  I hope in time Charlie can find someone who won’t manipulate their way into his life. But today is not that day.

  Needing to give him the letter, I have to stay an aching distance from Jack. I realize Jesse is packing up the boom, and Jack is back on his phone.

  Put the phone down, Highland.

  I’m a foot from Charlie.

  “Gabe to Oscar,” the new temp says over comms. “I’ve got a group of male beach volleyball players approaching.”

  I click my mic, noticing the same thing. Two of the guys are also holding expensive professional-looking cameras, ones often used by paparazzi. I speak in comms. “Don’t let them near him.”

  When I say him, I mean Jack.

  Coming home from Greenland, I knew the best way to physically protect Jack, when I can’t, would be to hire a temp bodyguard.

  Gabe has been assigned to his detail, and it’s been going well. Considering it’s only been seven days, I’m cautiously optimistic. Jack hasn’t had a head-on collision with paparazzi. Gabe’s even intercepted any and all projectiles. The Fizz Life soda can that was meant for Jack ended up bouncing off Gabe’s iron-man chest like the aluminum was air.

  “Copy,” Gabe answers.

  I focus on my client.

  “Trash it,” Charlie tells me before I even offer the envelope.

  “Read this one,” I advise. Just in case he somehow Houdini-ed into her pants without me realizing.

  Charlie sighs, then plucks the envelope from my fingers.

  My gaze veers back to Jack.

  He’s pocketed his phone, camera in his anxious grip, and he asks his brother, “Can you grab some B-roll of the coast before we leave?”

  Jesse looks longingly at the ocean. He must’ve thought he was finished working so he could go surf. But he nods to his brother. “For sure. You want aerial shots? I can go grab the drone?”

  Jack rubs his forehead, only partially present. My chest knots, my gaze cutting between Jack and Charlie.

  “Kuya?”

  He snaps into focus. “You know what, I’ll get it. You’ve done a lot already. Go surf.”

  “You sure?” He hesitates. “I don’t really mind—”

  “Yeah. I have this.” He lifts up his camera. It seems heavier in his hands somehow.

  “Thanks, Kuya.” Jesse bumps his brother’s fist and finishes packing up the boom kit. His eyes rest on his older brother for a beat longer. Like he can tell something’s up too.

  “This is so fucking annoying,” Charlie mutters with an agitated breath. Balling up the letter, he tells me, “It’s a lie. We slept together in October, almost a year ago. I haven’t seen her since, definitely not at ‘a thing’ in June.” He uses air-quotes.

  I nod, concluding as much.

  Charlie catches me checking on Jack, who fits on a new camera lens. I expect some sort of wiseass comment from my client, but he pushes the green-tinted sunglasses to his head and tells me, “You can put Gabe on my detail and go off-duty. Did Jack not want to teach you how to surf?”

  Yeah.

  That was before the bad news, and Jack said that as a generalization. We didn’t think we’d have leisure time to splash in the fucking ocean together today.

 
Hearing Charlie’s words, Jack looks up from his camera at me. He still seems nauseous, and my stomach roils. With a breath, Jack says, “As much as I’d love to teach Oscar how to surf today, I have to grab this B-roll.” He finishes attaching the new lens.

  I want to convince Jack to put the camera down. For one second. But who am I to talk? I can’t even utter the words, I’m going off-duty. Gabe, take my detail.

  I sweep the beach with a quick glance. “I thought you were retired from being cupid,” I tell Charlie. “And aren’t you here for a fashion show?” We flew to California this morning specifically for some pop-up show he wanted to attend.

  It’s grossly overpriced if anyone asks me.

  Nobody needs to pay a fucking grand for a ripped T-shirt. But it’s not my money. Charlie can do what he wants.

  “I am here for that.” Charlie shades his eyes with the sunglasses again. “But I can achieve multiple things at one time.”

  Like your docuseries, I almost shoot back. He has multiple reasons for wanting a show centered around his life, and I still have zero clue his main motive for being filmed.

  With angry Oslie stans demanding Jack be fired from We Are Calloway, I don’t love the fact that a hanging question mark is hovering over this other project. A project which means so much to him.

  Charlie’s reasoning could have the potential to ruin the show. A show that Jack is working his ass off to make happen.

  I’m just on an edge, and I’m afraid Jack is stepping even further off this cliff and I should be the one to catch his hand and pull him back.

  Me.

  Oscar motherfucking Oliveira.

  What happens if Jack falls because I’m too busy chasing Charlie?

  In that case, I should be single forever.

  My mind is reeling, and even though I’m still on-duty, I can find moments with Jack. And I manage to capture one while he’s at the shoreline filming surfers who wait for the perfect wave.

  Water laps over his bare feet, and I come up next to him, angled so I have a good view of Charlie too.