Her Bodyguard, My Empire

"Dad, Evan may only be a bodyguard right now, but give him a little time and he'll be worth more than Adrian ever was.

"Adrian does nothing but work, work, work. I'm not marrying him. I'm marrying Evan."

Serena Sutton hung off her father's arm in the middle of the Sutton house, wheedling in the sweet, coaxing voice that had gotten her everything she'd ever wanted, and threw me a look of pure distaste over her shoulder.

Normally the whole household indulged that voice.

Today, when she stopped talking, not one person there dared answer her.

Because I was standing right in front of her. Adrian Shaw. Her fiance, in name and in fact.

Gerald Sutton did things the way they'd always been done, and his company had been sliding for years. As of this year, the resources he'd taken off my hands had earned him tens of millions in profit.

Whatever the Sutton family still had, it had because I'd propped it up.

All they needed to do was keep hold of me and they'd never worry about money again, not for a generation.

And here was Serena, slapping me in the face in front of all of them, over a bodyguard.

She didn't want to marry old money. She wanted to marry a man with nothing.

Gerald glanced at me and tried to smooth it over.

"Adrian, Serena's still young. She doesn't mean it.

"You've been working so much lately. She feels neglected, that's all. Why don't the two of you take a trip somewhere together?"

When he'd finished, Diane Sutton poured me a glass of iced tea with her own hands.

"Serena, you and Adrian were promised to each other before either of you could walk. That isn't a thing you get to break.

"Two years ago, when you were ill, Adrian didn't leave that hospital for three months.

"The year before that, you wanted a pink diamond, and he spent three million dollars at auction without so much as blinking. What is it about a man like that you're unhappy with?"

Afraid I'd take offense, the two of them were falling over themselves.

Walter Reid, who'd been the Suttons' butler his whole working life, hurried to open the gift I'd brought that afternoon right there in front of everyone.

"Look at this dress, Miss Serena. You said you wanted it, and Mr. Shaw sent it.

"That Evan you're so fond of could work his whole life and never afford a single stone on it."

Even the people standing at the edges of that room could see plainly how I'd loved her.

Serena only ever saw a man who'd grovel. A man who couldn't get by without her.

Most days she either ordered me around or looked straight through me.

Those soft, curved eyes of hers warmed for one person only, and that was Evan Brooks. For him they filled all the way up.

When she saw that nobody was taking her side, her mouth flattened. She grabbed a throw pillow and hurled it at me.

"So what if we were promised to each other? Just because he looked after me when we were kids, I'm supposed to pay for it with the rest of my life? What century do you people think this is?

"He likes buying me things. That's his problem, not mine.

"I love Evan. If loving him means living poor, then I'll live poor."

Those words went into me like a blade.