She made everyone feel welcome. He was the first one who told her to stop.
I've spent twenty-three years being the nice one. The warm one. The girl at the front desk who remembers your name, your dog's name, the coffee order you mentioned once in the elevator. Being welcoming isn't something I do—it's who I am. I built my whole self around it, and it never once occurred to me that the thing I'm best at is the thing that put me in danger.
Then someone I'd smiled at a hundred times left something in my bag behind the desk—behind the desk, where only I sit—and I realized the open door I'd been so proud of had let in someone who wasn't coming through it for coffee.
Beckett Welch made one phone call, and by Thursday morning there was a man in black standing against my lobby wall with his arms crossed and a scar across his nose and an expression that said he'd already decided I was the worst principal he'd ever been assigned.
Ezra Black doesn't smile. Doesn't small-talk. Doesn't sit. He stands behind me and scans every person who walks through those doors like he's sorting threats from civilians, and he told me within the first hour that my warmth was a security vulnerability and I needed to stop treating strangers like friends.
I hated him for it. Not because he was wrong. Because he named the thing I'd been afraid to look at—that nice without edges is just an open door with no lock, and I'd never once in my life learned how to close it.
He watched me work a full shift and didn't say a word. He made a plate appear next to my keyboard when I forgot to eat. He sat with me in the empty lobby at midnight when my hands wouldn't stop shaking, and he told me the last person he let himself care about on a detail ended up in a hospital bed because he got comfortable.
I touched his arm and he didn't pull away. He should have. We both knew he should have.
But Ezra's done being a man who only knows how to protect people he doesn't feel anything for. Three days is all it takes for the wall to come down—and on Saturday morning, when Blackguard calls to reassign him, he turns it down. Not because the threat isn't handled. Because the detail is over and the choice to stay is finally his.
The Blackguard Brotherhood has a reputation worldwide as the premier security firm. The men of Blackguard are ruthlessly protective and fierce when it matters. They’re broody, scarred, and intensely focused in their work. They face the world with shielded hearts and hardened exteriors. But when it comes to the women who manage to break through those walls, protective shifts to possessive, and these men will overcome any obstacle when it comes to the women they love.
Follow the men of the Brotherhood as they balance duty with passion in this high-heat, multi-author series featuring OTT, broody men and the women who hold their hearts. HEA guaranteed. Each book is a complete standalone and the series can be read in any order.
Blackguard Brotherhood series:
Trigger Point: Lockdown
Mission: Keep Her Safe
Code Name: Mine to Protect
Objective: Guard with My Life
Breach Protocol: Off Limits
Command: Don'''t Let Her Go
Operation:
Assignment: Christmas Rescue
Genre: Romantic Suspense
I've spent twenty-three years being the nice one. The warm one. The girl at the front desk who remembers your name, your dog's name, the coffee order you mentioned once in the elevator. Being welcoming isn't something I do—it's who I am. I built my whole self around it, and it never once occurred to me that the thing I'm best at is the thing that put me in danger.
Then someone I'd smiled at a hundred times left something in my bag behind the desk—behind the desk, where only I sit—and I realized the open door I'd been so proud of had let in someone who wasn't coming through it for coffee.
Beckett Welch made one phone call, and by Thursday morning there was a man in black standing against my lobby wall with his arms crossed and a scar across his nose and an expression that said he'd already decided I was the worst principal he'd ever been assigned.
Ezra Black doesn't smile. Doesn't small-talk. Doesn't sit. He stands behind me and scans every person who walks through those doors like he's sorting threats from civilians, and he told me within the first hour that my warmth was a security vulnerability and I needed to stop treating strangers like friends.
I hated him for it. Not because he was wrong. Because he named the thing I'd been afraid to look at—that nice without edges is just an open door with no lock, and I'd never once in my life learned how to close it.
He watched me work a full shift and didn't say a word. He made a plate appear next to my keyboard when I forgot to eat. He sat with me in the empty lobby at midnight when my hands wouldn't stop shaking, and he told me the last person he let himself care about on a detail ended up in a hospital bed because he got comfortable.
I touched his arm and he didn't pull away. He should have. We both knew he should have.
But Ezra's done being a man who only knows how to protect people he doesn't feel anything for. Three days is all it takes for the wall to come down—and on Saturday morning, when Blackguard calls to reassign him, he turns it down. Not because the threat isn't handled. Because the detail is over and the choice to stay is finally his.
The Blackguard Brotherhood has a reputation worldwide as the premier security firm. The men of Blackguard are ruthlessly protective and fierce when it matters. They’re broody, scarred, and intensely focused in their work. They face the world with shielded hearts and hardened exteriors. But when it comes to the women who manage to break through those walls, protective shifts to possessive, and these men will overcome any obstacle when it comes to the women they love.
Follow the men of the Brotherhood as they balance duty with passion in this high-heat, multi-author series featuring OTT, broody men and the women who hold their hearts. HEA guaranteed. Each book is a complete standalone and the series can be read in any order.
Blackguard Brotherhood series:
Trigger Point: Lockdown
Mission: Keep Her Safe
Code Name: Mine to Protect
Objective: Guard with My Life
Breach Protocol: Off Limits
Command: Don'''t Let Her Go
Operation:
Assignment: Christmas Rescue
Genre: Romantic Suspense
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