Chapter 4
The receptionist's face flushed red with anger. She grabbed the intercom phone and glared at Michael. "If you don't leave right now, I'm calling security to throw you out!"
Michael shrugged, about to fire back another smart remark.
Just then, the sound of crisp heels clicked through the revolving door at the lobby entrance.
Two bodyguards pushed the doors open, and Lucia walked in, looking exhausted and cold-faced, surrounded by a group of executives. She moved quickly, head down, eyes fixed on a document in her hands, brows tightly knitted, radiating the kind of CEO energy that said don't come near me.
The air in the lobby seemed to drop a few degrees the moment she walked in.
Michael heard the commotion and turned around.
When his eyes landed on Lucia's flawless, strikingly beautiful face — one he found oddly familiar — he froze on the spot.
Lucia must have sensed something going on near the front desk. She glanced up instinctively.
Their eyes locked.
Dead silence.
The receptionist was about to call security when she noticed something strange — her ice-queen CEO had stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the "jerk" like she'd just been hit by a spell. Her eyes were wide with shock, disbelief, and something she clearly couldn't hide: panic.
"You..." Lucia's lips trembled slightly. Of all the people she expected to see in her company lobby, the last one was the mysterious man who had spent a billion dollars on her in bed last night.
Michael's eye twitched hard. The woman his grandfather had sent him to protect... was the same hot-tempered beauty he'd spent all night with and handed a billion dollars to?
They both pointed at each other at the exact same moment, shattering the silence:
"What are YOU doing here?!"
The outburst left every executive and bodyguard in the lobby frozen in place.
The receptionist still had the intercom in her hand, eyes darting between Michael and Lucia.
The two of them — their expressions, their tone, even the timing — were almost identical.
She thought back to how Michael had claimed to be "Miss Lucia's husband." Her heart sank a little. Was it possible that the city's most famous ice-queen CEO was secretly keeping a man on the side?
Lucia's mind was spinning. Jessica's words on the phone kept echoing: "Do you think he targeted you or Starship on purpose?"
The man had taken a billion dollars from her. And now here he was, showing up at her company.
"What do you want?" Lucia forced down the panic rising in her chest. Her beautiful face was ice-cold. She took a slow, deep breath, not even bothering to explain anything to the executives around her, and said sharply: "You. Come upstairs with me."
Then she turned and walked straight to the CEO's private elevator. Michael ran a hand through his hair, mildly annoyed, and followed.
The elevator doors slid shut.
In the narrow space, the lingering smell of alcohol from his hangover mixed with the faint trace of Lucia's perfume.
Michael still couldn't wrap his head around it. New York City was huge. He had randomly picked up a woman at a bar, and somehow she turned out to be his target?
The receptionist's words were still rattling around in his head. She'd called her "Miss Lucia," and said she was getting engaged to the Miller family next month...
"Your name is Lucia?" Michael asked, testing the waters.
Lucia crossed her arms and stared straight at the rising floor numbers, not even bothering to answer.
Michael smacked his forehead. His heart sank. The name on the note — it wasn't a coincidence after all.
The woman his grandfather had sent him to protect was the very same ice-cold CEO he'd slept with last night and dropped a billion dollars on this morning.
What a mess.
Ding —
The heavy double wooden doors of the CEO's office swung open. Lucia walked briskly to her desk in her heels, turned around, and fixed Michael with a sharp, unwavering stare from behind the desk.
"Okay, no one else is here. Let's cut to it." She pressed both hands on the desk, her eyes cold and guarded. "Who sent you? You tracked my schedule, staked me out at the bar last night, and now you show up at my company pulling some kind of act. What exactly do you want?"
Michael dropped onto a couch nearby. "What would I want? If I was actually after you, why would I have wired you a billion dollars this morning? What kind of spy brings a billion dollars of their own money to a job?"
Lucia had no answer for that. It genuinely didn't make sense.
"If you feel like you overpaid last night and want it back, I can transfer it right now," Lucia said through gritted teeth. "Starship needs money, but I don't take handouts from strangers with unknown motives. And I don't need someone with hidden intentions hanging around me."
"Come on. Money I've given out doesn't come back." Michael waved her off, looking slightly exasperated. "Look, I didn't want to come here either. If I had known last night that it was you, nothing could've dragged me through those doors today. Who knew a CEO like you could be so... intense in private?"
"Who are you calling intense?"
Lucia's temper flared. Last night had been her first time. She was still sore. This jerk had taken advantage of her, and now he had the nerve to complain about her?
She pointed one slender finger at the door. "Take your things and get out of my company. Now. Immediately."
Michael obediently got up, brushed himself off, and headed for the door. But when his hand touched the handle, his grandfather's voice cut through his mind: "If she loses so much as a hair, I'll skin you alive."
The world's top mercenary could slaughter his way through a battlefield without blinking — but the old man who had raised him was the one person he feared down to his bones.
Michael sighed, pulled his hand back, and leaned against the door with a shameless grin. "No can do. I can't leave. I have to stick with you."
"Are you insane?"
Lucia was so frustrated she almost laughed. Her voice went up a notch. "What — a billion wasn't enough to buy your way out? Now you want to be in my life every day? Michael, don't push your luck."
"Can you keep your mind out of the gutter?" Michael rolled his eyes, walked back to her desk, and knocked on the surface with his knuckles. "I'll be straight with you. I'm here for a job. Starting today, I'm your personal bodyguard."
"My bodyguard?" Lucia looked at him like he'd just told the worst joke she'd ever heard.
"That's right. Pay me whatever you want — a dollar is fine, a hundred is fine. Money's the last thing I'm worried about." Michael patted his chest proudly.
Lucia looked him up and down, then let out a cold laugh, the corner of her mouth curling into a sharp, mocking smile.
"You? My bodyguard?" she said. "Sorry, but my bodyguards are on call 24/7 at full intensity. Based on what I saw last night, you could barely stand on your own two feet. I'd be worried you'd collapse before you ever got a chance to take a bullet for me. Take my advice — lay off the drinking, eat better, get yourself healthy first. Then come back and look for a job."
Michael's expression went dark.
