11. Ryder

11

"Were the photos just for show, or are you planning to blow up social media?" Ryder asked as he drove Luna home. She was in the back seat again, and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Flirting with her was like walking over hot coals. Dangerous, but a real fucking buzz when he made it to the other side unscathed.

"Honestly? I'm not sure. Everyone expects me to take pictures, but the thought of brainstorming viral posts makes me feel so depressed. Is that crazy? I mean, I used to obsess over the numbers on my socials, but now I literally don't care anymore. No, more than that—I'm tempted to delete all of my accounts. Should I?"

"I can't make that decision for you, moon."

If he did, he'd be no better than the many other people who'd taken away her agency over the years. He'd support Luna and act as a sounding board, but she needed to make her own choices.

"I suck at decisions."

"Then let's talk through the pros and cons." An asshole in a truck cut into the line of traffic, and Ryder braked more sharply than he would have liked. "What were the good things about posting a lot on social media?"

"It kept Mom happy."

"Is that relevant anymore?"

"Not really. It made me money too, but then I lost that, so what did it matter anyway?"

"You didn't lose it, moon. Someone stole it."

"Same difference."

"No, to lose something implies a degree of carelessness. You did nothing wrong."

In the latest update, Ana and Khatia still hadn't found Irina, and Ana would have to leave Georgia soon because she had a young daughter to look after. Khatia, by all accounts, was keeping Hill on a short leash. She'd fitted him with a tracking device, and he was doing the housework in return for her not dropping him off the nearest bridge. The cyber team had done slightly better. They'd found pictures of Irina cached on various high-end dating sites, and it seemed Hill hadn't been her first target.

"I still feel sick about it," Luna said.

"Any more pros?"

"Honestly, I can't think of any. Chasing those little hearts is like scaling a mountain and never getting to the top. The journey can be addictive, but now that I look back, I realise it achieved nothing in the real world. It was totally unfulfilling. And now everyone knows what my boobs look like."

It had achieved nothing because, deep down, all Luna had wanted was for someone to love her, and Amethyst was incapable of that. She'd been trying to use social media as a substitute for affection.

And Ryder hated that the whole world had seen her boobs.

"You didn't post that video, moon."

"No, but if I hadn't been Instafamous, it would have sunk without a trace."

"I'm not sure about that—you're still a well-known singer. Would you be where you are without the power of social media?"

"I got my record deal when I had, like, five thousand followers. And lost it because I had forty million."

"Okay, let's consider the pros and cons of not posting at all."

"Pros? I would save sooooo much time. Honestly, people think being an influencer is easy, but it takes over your whole freaking life. Plus I'm fed up with people knowing everything about me. I've barely had any privacy since I was four years old. Do you know what Mom's next plan was? She wanted me to get a reality show. Cameras in my face twenty-four-seven. Jubilee didn't want to be involved, though, and the networks said just me and Mom wouldn't be enough of a storyline."

At least Jubilee had done one thing right.

"Cons?"

"My earnings potential would drop. And after I finish at the Palace, I'll need to line up more work since I don't have savings anymore."

"I'll throw in another thought. If you disappear completely, that might have the opposite effect to the one you're looking for. When something's scarce, people only want it more."

In the rear-view mirror, Ryder saw Luna slump in her seat. Fuck. He thought there was a happy medium to be reached, that she could post a few impersonal photos each month to keep the rabid hordes happy, and gradually build walls around her private life. But the decision had to be hers.

"So I have to give them something?"

"In all aspects of life, there's a balance."

"Maybe I'll post the picture of me sitting on the piano, but with a real short caption and, like, two hashtags." She tapped away at her phone screen. "You think that'll be enough?"

"Social media is way outside my area of expertise, but I think it's worth a shot."

"Hmm, I don't know… If you ever decided to hang up your gun, I'd definitely offer you a job as a background model."

"And I'd have to regretfully decline."

Luna snorted. "Regretfully?"

"Looking at your ass all day wouldn't be much of a hardship."

"Mmm."

Mmm? What did "mmm" mean? One thing was clear: Luna could make fuck-me eyes for the camera, but she had no clue about flirting. Or relationships, or even having friends. Amethyst Puckett had steered her daughter into a life of servitude. Cut her off from outside help. Moulded her into a money-making machine. Luna was starting to see the truth now, but she'd entered adulthood without even the most basic of survival skills. What kind of parent did that? Set their kid up to fail? Hell, Ana was already teaching her little girl to drive, and Tabby was only five years old.

"You mind if we swing by the office?" Ryder asked. "I need to drop off the notes."

"What would you do if I said no?"

"I'd take you back to your apartment, give you advice on staying safe while I was gone, and then head to the office alone. And while I was there, I'd probably grab a bucket of curly fries from Potato Potato because we're heading toward lunchtime."

"Potato Potato?"

"It's supposed to be better than Arby's. Forty potato dishes, thirty kinds of sauce to put on them."

"Do they also have tater tots? And waffle fries?"

"Probably."

"If I order them all, will you share? Because I still need to be able to fit into my costumes tomorrow night."

"So you're coming to the office?"

"Duh, yes."

The way to Luna's heart was through her stomach. Four months ago, watching her prance around on Kory's yacht, Ryder never would have guessed that.

"You can wait at Blackwood while I go hunt carbs."

"On my own?"

"No, there'll be other people there."

"But I don't know any of them."

"I'll introduce you."

He glanced in the mirror in time to see Luna bite one side of her bottom lip. That was one of her tells—she did it whenever she was nervous or didn't want to do something.

"You don't like that idea?"

"What if they don't like me?"

"Does that matter?"

A long pause, then a softer, "Maybe? These are your people."

"Just be yourself."

"Oh, sure, because people love me."

"I mean the real you, not the girl who bitches about her manicure on BuzzHub."

"You saw that post?"

Shit. Learn to keep your fuckin' mouth shut, Metcalfe. "I wasn't in a good place these past couple of months. On the worst nights, yeah… I looked for you."

"I googled you once."

"You did?"

"I saw an ad for a T-shirt, and it said ‘My dad told me I could grow up to be anything, so I became an asshole.' I was going to send you a screenshot and ask what size you took."

Ryder laughed out loud. "I take a forty-four-inch chest."

"Well, I don't want to buy it for you anymore, obviously."

"You should. The only thing that's changed is that now I'm your asshole."

"That's…that's…" Her perfect little nose crinkled. "Kinda gross."

"What, assholes? Everybody has one. And now you have two."

Her turn to laugh. "I heard that some men like to…you know…stick it in there? Is that true? Jubilee told me," she added, presumably in case Ryder thought she had sexual thoughts of her own.

"Some men. I'm not one of them. Not when there's a wet pussy available."

"Yeuch. Pussy. Why do men call it that?"

"Because ‘vagina' sounds like it came out of a high school biology lesson? What would you call it?"

She shuddered. "I don't know. I try not to think about it."

"You really only had sex that one time?" he blurted, then cursed inwardly. What happened to being Mr. Sensitive?

"It felt as if I was being ripped in two," Luna snapped. "Why would I ever want to repeat the experience?"

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

They needed to talk, talk properly, but Ryder couldn't pull over because there was a jackass with a camera on a moped three cars back. Plus his instinct was to give Luna a hug—Neve had always asked for hugs—but his head told him that was the wrong thing to do. Even his therapist worried that he'd fallen for Luna as a substitute for Neve, but the two women were different. Very different; he was learning that with every passing day. Neve had craved closeness, comfort, but Luna pushed everyone away.

"Moon, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked that."

"Maybe I will buy you that shirt after all."

"I'd deserve it." Ryder sucked in a breath. "But it isn't always like that. Painful, I mean."

"And you know that because you're a woman?"

"No, but I've been with enough women to work it out."

"Oh." She was biting that fucking lip again. Any harder, and she'd draw blood. "Did you…with Neve? I know you don't like to talk about her, but…did you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, we did."

Ryder hadn't wanted to. Neve was only seventeen, and he'd said they should wait, but Neve had looked up Florida's Romeo and Juliet law and made her case. Erase the memory of him, she'd begged. Show me it isn't always terrible. Give me something good to think about. Eventually, she'd worn him down, and he'd slowly, carefully made love to her, held her through the fear and the relief. And now he was glad they'd done it. That they'd shared that small pleasure before life got too much for her to bear.

"And…and she was okay?" Luna asked.

More than okay. Neve had turned insatiable.

"The first time was…" Traumatic. She'd broken down in tears when dark thoughts took over, then demanded he "fuck me, you coward" when he tried to back off. "She was a little anxious."

"But after that? It got better?"

"After that, she damn near wore my dick out."

A bittersweet memory, those nights with Neve. She'd turned sneaking out into an art form. Through her window, across the roof of the porte cochère, down the wisteria tree that wound its way around one of the thick stone columns, and through the trees at the side of the driveway. She'd call Ryder before she left the bedroom, and he'd meet her at the end of the driveway. The Metcalfe family lived in a sprawling ranch-style home, and his bedroom was on the first floor. Piece of cake to get inside. All they had to do was keep the noise down. After she passed, his mom confessed that she'd known the whole time that Neve was staying overnight, but she wasn't fond of the Fontaine family, so Neve got a free pass.

"How many other girlfriends have you had?"

"One."

"But earlier, you said you'd been with women, plural. It sounded like a lot."

"Apart from Shylah, I never dated any of them. No dinner and a movie, no long walks on the beach, no taking them home to meet the family. I was lucky if I remembered their names in the mornings."

Or even the evening before. One time, Ryder had taken a girl for coffee at Starbucks on the way back to his place because he couldn't remember whether she was Bailey or Hailey. At least she'd believed his excuse about wanting to stay up all night.

Luna crinkled her nose. "Isn't that a bit…sleazy?"

"Near the base in Coronado, there's a group of women—a club, a movement, whatever you want to call it—and they compete to see who can fuck the most Navy SEALs. It's like a sport to them."

"Are you serious?"

"You've heard of notches on the bedpost? They had bracelets. Every time they fucked a SEAL, they added a charm."

Now there were two jackasses on mopeds weaving in and out of traffic. Bodyguard duty had been much more fun in the Caribbean, gun-toting smugglers excepted.

"Like some weird kind of trophy?" Luna asked.

"Exactly. And when we wouldn't tell them our codenames from the Teams, they gave us their own nicknames and the charms matched those. That was fuckin' weird. We could tell which of our buddies they'd fucked just from looking at their wrists."

"What name did they give you?"

"Fire."

"Because you're hot?"

"As in ‘set the sheets on.'"

Luna giggled. "That's so lame. What was your codename? Or aren't you allowed to tell me?"

"Baby."

"Baby?"

"I was the youngest out of my BUD/S class to make it."

"Bud-what?"

"Basic Underwater Demolition-slash-SEAL training. And now Knox is meandering around the house calling Caro ‘baby,' and I look up every damn time."

Which Slater always noticed and ribbed him about. Bunch of assholes.

Luna lowered her voice an octave, and the smokiness she put in it did inappropriate things to his dick. "What if I call you ‘baby'?" she asked, and then she started singing. "Baby, baby, baby, can't you see? You're the only one that's meant for me."

Ryder glanced at her in the mirror. "When it comes from your lips, I can live with it."

She continued, "Every time you walk into the room. I get this feeling, my heart goes?—"

Ryder caught the movement in his peripheral vision, a flash of royal blue a split second before Luna's eyes widened. He swerved to avoid the moped, but it was too late. The photographer clipped the bumper of the SUV, his camera flew onto the hood, and the passenger-side front wheel ran over his leg before the vehicle skidded to a halt. The crunch sent a chill through Ryder's bones, but it was Luna's scream he'd never forget.

"Stay there. Head down."

"Is he dead?"

"I don't think so."

Ryder's pulse raced as he assessed the scene. Ninety percent chance that the guy groaning on the pavement was a paparazzo with poor driving skills, ten percent chance he was a distraction for something bigger. They knew Mark A had to be close.

Other vehicles were already beginning to stop, although many ignored the injured man and drove on. Ryder's first call after he scanned the area was to the Blackwood control room.

"Ryder Metcalfe, Special Projects team. I just clipped an idiot paparazzo on a moped—can you coordinate an ambulance?"

"A paparazzo? You got a client with you?"

"Complicated situation, but yeah."

Emmy had sanctioned this…role, and she said she owed Luna. Ryder was certain she'd authorise the cavalry coming out to help.

"And you're in…Vegas?"

"Right."

Ryder had tracking software on his phone. He could turn it off if he needed privacy, but most of the time he left it on. You never knew when an emergency would arise. Which reminded him, he should broach that subject with Luna. She carried a phone the way kids carried a security blanket.

But he'd do it later. Right now, he had a wiry fucker writhing on the ground and calling him every name under the sun.

"Lie still. There's an ambulance on the way."

"Pendejo! You broke my leg!"

"Rules of the road apply to everyone."

"You swerved into me. I'm gonna sue you for every cent you have."

"The dashcam will say otherwise."

Ryder definitely hadn't swerved into the prick, but if he hadn't been distracted by Luna singing, he might have been able to swerve out of the way in time. This was why bodyguards shouldn't get emotionally involved with their principals. He couldn't properly protect Luna or anyone else if he wasn't one hundred percent committed to the job.

The photographer went back to groaning, and the other paparazzi were recording the scene so they could make a quick buck. Ryder could see the headlines now… Luna Maara involved in horror smash. Victim claims driver's actions were deliberate.

And then she was beside him.

"Jorge, what have I told you a hundred times? That if you kept driving like that, you'd cause an accident, and now… Your leg looks gross."

Vintage fuckin' Luna.

"I thought I told you to stay in the car?" Ryder said to her.

"Yes, well, you're not waving your gun around, so I figured it was safe." She put her hands on her hips. "And nobody tells me what to do."

Twenty people had their phones out now, recording. It took Ryder a moment to realise what Luna was doing, but when she gave him the briefest smile, he understood. That crazy, beautiful, wonderful woman. She was causing a distraction. For him. She knew he wanted to stay out of the public eye, so she was making herself the focal point.

"Guys, I mean seriously… Is a picture of me sitting in a car really worth losing your house to medical debt? If you'd asked me nicely, I'd have sent you a selfie."

"My damn leg," Jorge moaned.

"Is there an ambulance coming? Now I'm late for my appointment, and there are cars stopped everywhere."

One of the other paparazzi peered down at Jorge's leg and paled a shade. "You think we should hold up a blanket? Give him privacy?"

"You mean afford him the dignity you don't allow me?" A sigh. "Sure, why not?" She flicked a hand in Ryder's direction. "Rylan, find a blanket or something. Not my cashmere throw. That cost three thousand bucks."

"I have a blanket," a female bystander called, phone in one hand as she filmed the scene. "You want it?"

"I'd be grateful, ma'am."

"Hey, Miss Luna, can I get a selfie?" she asked. "I mean, like, after he's gone to the hospital or whatever."

Luna beamed her perfect, fake smile. "Sure you can."

Ryder focused on scanning for threats while they waited for the emergency services to arrive. Blackwood got there first, two uniformed colleagues, one male, one female, both scanning the crowd as they exited an SUV. Ryder had spoken with the guy once or twice—Randall—but he hadn't met the brunette before.

"Anything we can do?" she asked.

"It's a crush injury. The only blood is from a graze on his cheek. Figured we'd wait for the EMTs to bring painkillers."

Every Blackwood vehicle was kitted out with a first-aid kit, and the SUV Ryder had been driving was no exception. But firstly, EMTs tended to get annoyed when civilians overstepped and started dosing patients with analgesics, and secondly, Ryder figured a little agony might make Jorge think twice about driving like an asshole next time.

Randall peered around the blanket. "Oh, it's that guy. Yeah, no painkillers."

"You know him?"

"When I was on Selina May's security detail, we caught him hiding in her yard. Man's a cockroach."

"Can you get Ms. Maara out of here?"

"Sure thing."

Luna took more convincing. Before she left the scene, she insisted on taking photos with all who wanted them, and then she told the police in no uncertain terms just how reckless Jorge was on the roads. Finally, Randall managed to herd her into the second SUV, and Ryder was left to deal with the cops alongside the brunette, who'd introduced herself as Gina. She seemed to know the officers in attendance, and she did most of the talking.

Once Jorge had been loaded into an ambulance, Gina politely but firmly insisted the cops watch the dashcam footage, and although Ryder was still kicking himself for not braking faster, it was clear the injuries had been self-inflicted. Jorge had been intent on taking pictures, his camera held up, when the moped appeared to hit a bump in the road. With only one hand on the handlebars, he hadn't been able to correct his path in time to avoid the SUV.

"We won't take any further action, but you could still face a civil suit," the officer who seemed to be in charge said.

Gina gave him a genuine smile. "Thanks for getting to the bottom of this so quickly, Mike."

"Damn paparazzi. This is the third incident this week, and between you and me, nobody's gonna be upset if that guy's laid up for a few months. Those fools get everywhere."

His words sparked a thought. Yeah, the paparazzi did get everywhere, and Luna was so used to seeing them that she wouldn't think twice if a guy with a camera was lurking in the background. Could Mark A be a reporter? Or was he pretending to be one?

Food for thought.

But right now, Ryder's priority was getting to his girl, and the moment the cops climbed back into their car, he headed for Blackwood with Gina.