Protector #5 (A Navy SEAL Military Romance) Read online

  I quickly located a treadmill and hung my towel over the bar before stretching out. Brian positioned himself at the free weights and I watched him in my peripheral vision as he stretched and began pumping iron. It was hard for me not to be distracted by the sight of his bulging muscles, but I fought the urge to turn and watch and began my own workout. I set the treadmill to mimic a slow but steady hill climb and began jogging to warm up. I soon lost myself in the rhythm of my feet pounding on the treadmill and let my mind wander to the places where I hadn’t wanted to go.

  I thought about how far I’d come in the past year since leaving Dominic, and I tried to puzzle out what would have caused him to want to start stalking me after having left me alone for so long. Why was he so obsessed with me? What triggered the obsession? Why did he want me back after all this time? None of it made any sense to me, but I knew there had to be a reason. People didn’t just start stalking for no reason. Did they?

  As I ran, I noticed someone climbing onto the treadmill next to me, and I quickly looked over and nodded, and then did a double take. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. I quickly looked over to where Brian was working out and saw that he was furiously tapping the screen of his phone as he shook his head. He hadn’t seemed to notice the guy next to me, and if he had, he wasn’t worried, so I relaxed and told myself that I was imagining things.

  I picked up my pace for the last few miles and tried to run a fast time rather than slack off and get lost in my mind. It worked for a bit, but soon I got the nagging feeling that I was being watched and when I looked over at the neighbor treadmill, I saw that the guy who’d been there was gone. That’s weird. He wasn’t there long enough to work up a sweat. I shrugged and figured he must be a businessman who got called away by his boss or something.

  As I began my cool down, I noticed that Brian was now lifting some seriously heavy weights and the veins in his neck were popping out. I made a note to tease him about “hulking out” and then slowed to a brisk walk as my workout came to an end. I took a big swig from my water bottle and then wiped my face with the towel before hopping down off the treadmill and heading over to Brian.

  “You about done?” I asked casually. “I need a shower.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he sighed as he put the weights back in the rack and grabbed his towel. I could tell he was irritated, but I’d be damned if I was going to dig into his psyche again. All I wanted now was a hot shower and a nap.

  As we exited the gym, I felt someone staring at me from across the lobby, but when I turned to see who it was there was no one there. I stood staring at the space where I swear someone had been, then shook my head and turned back toward the elevator. I stole a glance a Brian who was quickly tapping out a message on his phone before tucking it back in his pocket.

  “Do you ever put that thing down?” I asked.

  “Do you ever stop asking ridiculous questions?” he shot back.

  “Wow, did someone mess up your workout or did you just not get enough to eat at breakfast?” I snapped.

  “Ava, let’s don’t do this…” he trailed off as he watched a man getting off the elevator. Brian turned and followed the man with his eyes, then quickly pulled out his phone and snapped a photo.

  “What? Do you recognize him?” I asked.

  “Him? Oh, no, just something…” he mumbled as he tapped out another message and then slipped his phone in his pocket as he followed me onto the elevator.

  “You’re being so secretive,” I observed. “Is there a reason you aren’t sharing information with me?”

  “No, there’s no reason,” he parroted.

  “You are so maddening!” I cried as I stomped my foot on the floor of the elevator. “You drag me away from my life and then tell me nothing about what’s going on! I’m sick of this! I want to go back to the dorm!”

  “Ava, you can’t go back to the dorm right now,” Brian said in a calm voice. “It’s just not safe.”

  “Oh God, not this crap again! I’m so tired of being treated like some delicate hot house flower!” I yelled.

  “Could you keep your voice down?” he asked with no more emotion than if he was asking me to do something as simple as press the elevator button.

  “That’s it, I’m done with your condescending attitude and your overly protective body guard service,” I said calmly. “I’m going home.”

  “You can’t,” he said definitively.

  “I can do anything I want to do,” I said in a snotty tone. “And you can’t stop me.”

  “No, but I can ask you,” he said as he put a hand on my shoulder and turned me toward him. “Ava, please? Just give me a few days to have someone set up enough security in your dorm room so that I can properly monitor what’s going on?”

  I stood staring up at him with defiant look on my face. He waited. His eyes softened as he looked into mine, and my defiant stance wilted a bit as I thought about all the ways in which he’d tried to protect me, and all of the ways in which I’d tried to slip out of his protection. Then I thought about how angry my father would be if he found out that Brian had failed to do his job properly, and I realized that I couldn’t let him take the blame for my frustration and anger. I sighed and nodded.

  “Two days,” I said. “That’s it. Two more days and I’m going home.”

  “That’s not reasonable,” he replied. “I need at least a week!”

  “A week?” I yelled. “Oh hell no!”

  “Ava, a week is the best I can offer you,” he said as he reached up and ran his fingers through my hair making me shiver a bit. “It’s a small amount of time to ensure your safety. Give me seven days and you can go home.”

  “Fine, as long as we agree,” I said gruffly to try and cover up the effect he was having on me. “Seven days, and not a day more!”

  “I just want to find him, and put him away so that you’ll be safe,” he said softly as he ran his fingers across my cheek before lightly brushing my lips with the tip of his index finger. That was too much, and I backed up against the elevator wall as I looked at him warily.

  “Don’t try and manage me,” I warned. “I might have had sex with you a couple of times and enjoyed it, but do not try and manage me because you think you have some kind of advantage over me.”

  “I’m not managing you,” Brian sighed as his shoulders slumped. “I’m simply trying to keep you safe.”

  At that moment, the elevator reached our floor and the doors opened. I quickly walked out and headed down the hallway failing to even notice the room service guy who was cleaning up the dishes left outside rooms until Brian said, “Hey, can you get us a few more glasses?”

  “That’s housekeeping, man,” the guy replied. “Call 611 and ask Jeannie for more glasses. She’ll bring them right up.”

  “Thanks,” Brian replied with a pensive look on his face as he walked through the door I held open. “I’ll do that."

  He walked into the room, turned around, closed the door, locked it, and went about putting all of the safety mechanisms back in place as I watched with wide eyes.

  “Just being safe,” he said as he stacked glasses near the door and then jammed a chair under the door handle. “Just being safe.”

  *****

  The next several days were uneventful as we hung out in the hotel fitness room, ordered room service more often than going down to the restaurant, and watched every movie offered on the pay-per-view channels. I spent time trying to get my assignments from Jessie and Lara who by this time were well aware of the situation and had agreed to run interference in class without letting on what was happening. God forbid that one of my instructors should decide to intervene and alert the police, so Lara had concocted a lie that involved me traveling to some exotic location for some campaign event that my father was hosting. The professors were wary, but once they received apologetic emails from both me and, after Jessie tapped into the ISP my father’s campaign was using and set up a fake email account for me to email people from, from my father
it seemed that everything would be okay.

  The irony of all of this was that my father did everything he could to keep me away from his campaign. He didn’t believe that I should have to suffer the consequences of his decisions, so he’d done his best to eliminate the need for me to attend any events or functions, and he rarely mentioned me in any of his stump speeches. He said it was an attempt to preserve my privacy, so out of a sense of loyalty, I tried to do the same. I rarely talked about my father or my family anywhere other than with my closest friends, and I never gave interviews. At times, I’d even denied that I was his daughter in order to avoid nosy reporters who were digging around looking for some angle. I knew eventually they’d catch me in the lie, but I didn’t care. It was none of their business.

  The upside of the isolation was that it had given me time to formulate a solid plan for how to approach the anti-war action, and I’d spent several hours every morning writing letters and sending emails to people I thought might be able to offer support to our burgeoning movement. I’d gotten a couple of responses, but they’d been far from what I’d hoped for in terms of support and organizing power. On the third morning, I typed out an email to the members of the group asking them to contact a list of people I’d gathered and told them that we needed the support of the community in order to make our plan work. I assigned two of the committee members the task of contacting veterans, and told them that we definitely needed their support if we were going to make this work. I hit send and crossed my fingers hoping that they’d be able to do what I’d asked.

  I looked up from my laptop and saw Brian sitting on the window ledge furiously tapping on the screen of his phone while he frowned.

  “Will you please tell me what it is you are doing on that phone all the time?” I asked in an exasperated voice. I was sick of him constantly communicating with people I couldn’t see.

  “It’s really none of your business,” he replied in a tone that caused me to shrink back.

  “Sorry, I was just trying to figure out why you’re allowed to constantly be in contact, but I’m only allowed to communicate from a secret location and address,” I said pointedly.

  “Because my phone has security features that your laptop doesn’t have,” he said matter-of-factly.

  I knew he was pissed at me because I’d told him two nights before that I didn’t want him sleeping in the bed with me anymore. He was either going to be my body guard or my lover, but not both. I had to draw the line somewhere. He grudgingly accepted his role as body guard and had slept on the pull out couch. I missed having him in bed next to me at night, but I wasn’t going to back down until he agreed to let me go home. It was the Lysistrata approach and I had faith that if it had worked for ancient the Athenian women who prevented a war, it would definitely work for my puny demands.

  “Well, then maybe I’m just interested in what’s going on with you these days?” I said in a sickly sweet voice.

  “Don’t manage me,” he said in a mocking tone.

  “I’m not managing you, I’m just asking a question,” I replied in a sassy tone. “I’m bored! I’m sick of being stuck in this room! I need some stimulation; something to do!”

  “What? You want me to take you to the zoo or an amusement park?” he said dryly.

  “Would you?” I replied excitedly.

  “Not likely,” he said in a flat tone.

  I dropped down on the couch and pouted as I hoped he’d notice, but he’d gone back to his phone and didn’t see my dramatic performance. Suddenly it occurred to me that his interest in his phone was a lot like someone who’d just begun dating someone new. Was he on a dating site? Was he talking with girls while he was with me? Had he met someone online and was texting her like crazy as a means of avoiding me? Maybe he’d fallen for her already and was planning on meeting her after he finished this job. Maybe I’d become nothing more than a job to him since I’d kicked him out of bed. The thought left me with a lump in my throat and a sick feeling in my stomach.

  He was busy planning his life after me.

  The thought of Brian being interested in someone new sent my brain spinning down a path of destruction. I was mad and hurt, but most of all I was frustrated that we weren’t doing anything to find Dominic and put an end to his reign of terror. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to stop him because he was rich and he was incredibly manipulative, and right now he had everyone fooled. Dominic’s modus operandi was to be friendly and amiable in public, and then to take out his frustrations in extraordinarily cruel ways in private. He intimidated his victims in a way that kept us all silent and afraid. I knew I wasn’t the only one who’d suffered at the hands of the blond monster, but how to get to the others without him knowing was a whole other matter.

  When we returned from the gym on the third morning, I headed to the shower as I plotted my strategy for getting Dominic out into the open and exposing his nasty secrets. I turned on the water and began peeling off my workout clothes as I thought about the kinds of things that would attract him and how I could shape the encounter to trap him in his abuse. I didn’t want to let Brian know what I was doing because I didn’t think he’d agree with my approach, and I knew he would definitely not agree with my idea of using myself as bait to lure Dominic into the trap. The only thing that scared me was that if I did what I was planning, I’d have no backup. It would have to work seamlessly the first time or we’d be in real trouble. I stepped into the shower and began planning.

  As I emerged from the bathroom, I saw Brian on his phone and my blood began to boil despite the fact that I’d told myself over and over that it didn’t matter. He didn’t matter. None of this was real. I just had to endure it for a little while longer and then I could go back to the life I’d shaped on campus.

  “You’re really adept at texting,” I observed casually.

  “I’m working on something,” he replied absently.

  “Oh yes, I can see that,” I tossed back.

  “What does that mean?” he looked up as he caught the hint of sarcasm in my voice.

  “Nothing, just an observation,” I shrugged.

  “It sounds like a whole lot more than observing going on under the surface of that statement,” he replied.

  I looked at him and debated whether I wanted to get into the discussion, but when the phone buzzed yet again. I swallowed my feelings and just shook my head as I headed over and fired up my laptop.

  “I’m going to do some homework and see if I can’t stay caught up in my classes,” I said.

  “Alright, if you’re sure you don’t have anything to say to me,” he offered. “If you want to get something off your chest, just let me know.”

  “What on earth would I possibly want to get off my chest?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “You’re the one with the silent beef.”

  “I don’t care what you do!” I said a little too forcefully. “I just want to go home in four days. That was our deal.”

  “Indeed it was,” he replied and then said nothing else. I sat waiting for him to say more, but once I realized he’d lapsed back into silence, I turned toward my computer and began pulling up the assignments that Jessie and Lara had pulled together for me.

  I’d been able to download copies of the text books from the online store, so I spent the first hour reading the definitions of various psychiatric conditions and when I got to the section on Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I sat staring at the screen for a long time. It wasn’t that I was unaware of Dominic’s personality traits, it’s that I’d never seen them laid out so clearly before. The book defined NPD as “characterized by an over-inflated sense of self-importance, as well as dramatic, emotional behavior that is in the same category as antisocial and borderline personality disorders” nothing about that was surprising, but when I got to the definition of Sociopathy, I stopped reading and sat in front of the screen afraid to move as I tried to control my breathing. It defined a sociopath as “characterized by enduring antisocial be
havior, diminished empathy and remorse and disinhibited or bold behavior” and what struck me about it most was that Dominic exhibited all of these characteristics, and had since the beginning. And I hadn’t noticed.

  As I read further, I realized that I could use these personality traits to manipulate him into my trap and catch him, but it was going to require me to go back to playing the victim long enough to get him to believe that I wanted to come back to him, and I wasn’t sure that I could do that without damaging my psyche. I’d worked too hard to rebuild my self-esteem after I’d left Dominic and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to play with the foundation I’d built for fear that it would crack under the strain.

  The more I read, the more I wondered if it was wise to enact my plan. What if Dominic brought a weapon? What if he decided he wanted to hurt innocent bystanders? What if he decides he wants to kill me instead? The last question replayed over and over in my mind as I tried to decide what was the best way to proceed. I knew I should be telling Brian about this, but I didn’t want to hear him tear the idea down and I definitely didn’t want him to move into protective mode above and beyond what he was being paid to do.

  I looked over my shoulder and saw that Brian was sitting on the couch engrossed in a texting conversation, so I turned back to the computer and began composing an email that I hoped would bring Dominic out of hiding and give me the opportunity to expose him for the monster he was.

  Dear Dominic,

  I’ve been thinking a lot about what you’ve said and written and I keep remembering how we had so many good times together and I don’t want to throw that away. I’m hesitant to jump back into anything, but I do feel like you deserve a chance to make your case and that I deserve the opportunity to hear what you really have to say to me. We shared a great love, and maybe it’s possible to revive what we once had and shape it into something even better.