Rescued by my Bodyguard

Chapter One

“Bethany Anne De Lourie! Listen to me!” My uncle Xavier barked at me. 

“No, uncle Xavier. I do not want a bodyguard.” I said calmy trying to qualm my temper. 

I completely ignored Xavier as I fixed my mascara in the mirror of my dressing table. My golden blond waves of hair were bouncing down my shoulders. I never really had to touch my wild locks. It just did its own gorgeous thing, and I was not about to try to control one of my best features. Instead, I put on eyeliner to accent my light blue eyes still waking up from my afternoon nap at the demand that I see my uncle with his news that he wants to hire a bodyguard for me. I was still tired from my frantic five mile jog this morning and my legs were sure going to punish me even more tomorrow. That’s fine. I was planning another one tomorrow to run through the pain. 

Bodyguard? Hilarious. I will not have some man following me around watching over me and everything I do. I have enough of the paparazzi that have followed me around my entire life and servants who despise me for my wealth and prestige to have another servant paid to join them. 

I have always had death threats and letters from admirers I have never met. However, the stalker that started two years ago is another obsessed psycho altogether. Recently, I know that the maniac following me has increased his creepy phone calls and sending me photographs of myself when out to taunt me. What was once monthly two years ago, has become weekly. The pricey beige envelop with a red wax seal arrives with exactly three photographs every Thursday afternoon without fail. I dread every following Friday when the phone rings at precisely five o’clock, the time I am usually set to pour a refreshing glass of my ritualistic Chardonnay to relax in the afternoon. The phone ringing at the instant the second hand hits a clock at that hour has become a momentary onslaught of anxiety for me.

The day before yesterday was Thursday in New York and yet another three photographs arrived at my penthouse. They were of my best friend, Danny Louis, and I at my favorite café in SoHo, New York. I could not stand it anymore. I left New York that afternoon on the company jet to get away from it. I have come to my old family manor in North Carolina. The phone call last night to my parent’s country home when I only just arrived a few hours earlier, has startled my nerves. The stalker not only knew that I came here, I think he had the audacity to follow me. 

“The envelops are coming weekly with photos of you now Bethany, not just every other month like they used to. Face it you have a serious stalker who is becoming more dangerously more obsessed with you.” Xavier spoke in a lighter caring tone. “You are not taking this seriously. You are the heiress of your parent’s entire portfolio, but the board can handle things in New York just fine without you. I am still the CEO and in complete control of them. Your safety is more important right now. I know that you are stubborn, but please, I cannot let anything happen to you niece.”

Damn my uncle Xavier for getting that sad voice towards me perfected by my love for him. He really knew how to play on my heart strings. I could have fought him over this if he was angry with my own anger. But the mention of his love for me was not something I could ever argue over. My uncle was one of very few that I truly cared for in this world, and the only family that I had left. 

“Arg!” I stomped over to the window of De Lourie Manor and looked at the impeccable sight of the resting water in the colossal water fountain my great grandfather was insane enough to have built. 

That fountain was gorgeous yes, but it was also a symbol of wealth for anyone who drove up to the manor. It was as big as the pool at the back of the manor and, with its seven sculpted angels, it belonged in Rome, not North Carolina. No male member of my family did something that was not in excess. That fountain was a perfect example of that family trait.

“Xavier.” I said in a cooler way. “I don’t want some stiff guy following me around all the time. I know that you have your own security detail. But I have always managed to avoid getting one myself.”

“That can no longer be avoided. I have never liked your refusal to have a security detail. It is going to start with one man now.”

I turned from the window view to look at him. Xavier had worked hard throughout his life to be fit with both exercise and a good diet. He looked so much like my father. His hair was completely grey. A strictly cut beard showed his discipline in maintaining his daily grooming without a second of it missed. To contrast that grey, his bushy black eyebrows gave way to light blue eyes, just like my own, and a marked color shown many times in my long family history line. His handsome features were just as balanced as his clear power in the room as the lead figure not to be questioned. As a business mogul, what may have been forced for some, was easy for him. 

“A bodyguard is going to be there watching you in case this dirt bag tries to come after you, Bethany. That is all. When this bastard out there is caught, hopefully soon, he will leave and your life can go back to normal. I hope that you will still choose a small security detail though. Larson told me that there was another phone call last night.”

“Larson told you that?” I said with a hint of anger that my head butler told my uncle the stalker had called again, and here at the manor after I arrived yesterday on Friday. 

I trusted only four people other than my uncle in my world of manipulative power and money. I had brought only three of my servants with me because I didn’t need or want anyone else around me. Larson, my head butler. Maria my housekeeper. And Dane, my chauffer. They were not just trusted, they were each my friends, unlike my other employees. My only other friend was Danny back in New York and who was a king of the socialite world in his own right. 

“Larson is just as concerned for you right now as I am Bethany. If the bastard has called you here, then he has followed you here.” My uncle said what I already thought was probably the unfortunate case. 

“You have hired like ten soldiers to walk around the manor. The second I told you I was coming here they all of a sudden showed up. How are they different? What about my freedom? What about my independence? I don’t want more people here around me.” I said with a pout as a security guard in a suit walked by the window at the perfect timing to reinforce my point. 

“I hired four actually just to patrol the grounds. This man is not like the others. He is a professional. Please Bethany…” Xavier knew he was winning. “Do this for me. At least meet him. He is in the tea room.”

“What, you already hired someone!? I don’t even get a say in this?” I demanded as he opened my bedroom door to the manor’s massive hallway and I realized that I was defeated before he even mentioned the idea of assigning a private bodyguard to me this afternoon. 

“No, not this time Beth. The second that I was off the phone with Larson I made a few calls. This man is apparently one of the best in the world to hire. Thankfully, he resides in New York as well. I met with him this morning for an interview. He accepted the job. And I brought him here straight away.”

My uncle pushed the door fully open to my room for me to follow him. I began to march through it not at all that my uncle invited someone to my home without my permission. 

“One of the best, not like the best you could get for me?” I jabbed. 

“Shh Beth. You are doing this. Stop fighting it.”

“Whatever uncle.” I said following him down the corridor to my mother’s old tea room. 

Being back at this particular residence brought back so many fond childhood memories and I was finding it difficult to cope with them all. Countless spring and summer vacations had been spent in this place filled with the laughing of my parents, Frank and Anne De Lourie and my older brother Ash.

My parents, were both killed in a car crash when I was sixteen. It was winter in up-state New York and they were on their way to a fund raiser. Throughout their entire lives they gave half their wealth to the less privileged and were admired by all of society for it. I missed them dearly. Their death left my older brother Ash and I to be raised by Xavier and he did a great job. We not only had everything that any spoiled rich child could possibly want, we were loved beyond measure. Ash, three years older than myself, was everything a younger sister could want in an older protective brother. His sudden death last year on his superyacht is not something that I have been able to get over. I don’t know if I ever will. Since then, it has only been my uncle and I. 

Xavier opened the door to my mother’s favorite room; the tea room. Anne De Lourie had done an impeccable job at decorating it. A white wooden table adorned the center with gold and white upholstered chairs. Ornate sculpted framed windows had golden drapes tied back with white tassels. A fireplace was Calabrian marble and weighed a ton. And finally, a crystal chandelier over the table was a lit display of extravagance. It was ready to house a diplomatic meeting between two conflicting nations glamorously. 

Walking in, I expected to find some soldier figure like all the others now patrolling the manor that I was intent to tell to go to hell if he was going to order me around the second the door completely opened. 

Rather, a man in a black woolen jumper over a set of dark black denim jeans and brown leather belt was casually standing by the window without a care in the world. He turned in our direction when he heard my uncle and I enter.

I have met plenty of rich businessmen and even aristocrats of the British royalty given my wealth and lineage as the daughter of an oil tycoon who cemented his name in an array of ensuing businesses. This man is perfectly matched among them with the same air of power that he seems to carry. How is it that he can hold a room like he is affluent when he is only a bodyguard?

Then he smiled, a kind honest smile, and I have to shock myself back to reality.