Hating My Bodyguard

10. It's better hating her

ZURICH

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I marched into the only room empty of any furniture apart from the desk and a chair, it probably meant to be a study but as I didn’t have any need to have one and Kat also seemed uninterested in using it, I had thought about turning into a gym so I could workout. But right now my mind was occupied with the file that I had slipped in the drawer of the desk and locked it as I hadn’t wanted to read it. Whatever it was, Mr Barsetti didn’t want Gabriel to know and I had thought if I didn’t know then I won’t be keeping it a secret from my friend. But now I think I’d have to read the damn thing just to get a hold of the hellcat that was Katlyn Barsetti.

I marched to the desk, rounded it and say down on the chair before I slipped out the small key and opened the drawer to take that fûcking file out. I had already signed the contract, what else there could be. I opened the file on my desk and blinked for a second as I stared at the photograph of Barsetti family. In the picture she stood with her parents on either side of her, smiling a pretty smile at the camera. There was not a hint of defiance or the usual smugness in her expression. I flipped the page and another image came into view, this one was with her best friends.

But it was the third one that caught my attention. That held me in rapture as I looked at her sitting on a field of grass with a rabbit in her lap looking at the camera with a big grin and innocent wide eyes, appearing so soft and not like the ferocious cat that she was now. She appeared in awe as she held the small creature, like she couldn’t contain her giddiness that little animal chose her to come to.

I shook my head, pulling myself out of the trance. Telling myself that she wasn’t this teenage girl anymore and but a woman who thought everyone else was beneath her. When I turned to the next page, I paused. The blood in my veins chilled as I read the confidential police report of a missing person. I read the information written on the page: the missing person was no one else but her. She was missing for three days. Three fûcking days when she was just fourteen years old.

I glared at the words written on the paper, almost shook as I gripped the page that I refused to turn, to read forward, to find out what lay ahead. Because I didn’t want to. I couldn’t. Just the prospect of her missing for three whole days was making me sick to my stomach with all the thoughts running rampant in my mind afraid to find out what had happened to her in those three days. She obviously got back. Her father found her, but she was still at the mercy of her kidnappers for three days.

I rubbed a shaky hand down my face as instead of turning to the next page, I flipped back to her picture with the rabbit. As I looked at her innocent face and that smile that I had never seen on her face since I had met her, it made me question every fûcking thing I thought about her and made me wonder if this k********g was the reason for her attitude.

Muttering a curse, I closed the file with a snap like it was burning my flesh. No. It was better hating her. It would be less complicated if I didn’t know more about her, there was no need to make my job harder than it already was with her bratty behavior and stubborn attitude. And it would do me no good if I started to see her in any other light than the one I currently felt familiar with, especially after that contract I signed. If I stopped hating her then there’d be nothing to stop me from going after her and I couldn't forget that my daughter needed me more than Katlyn ever could.

And for my daughter’s sake, it was absolutely important to not feel anything for her except how it was going. Except the stubborn attraction that refused to go away no matter how much her behavior disgusts me.

I threw the file in the desk drawer and locked it. With a heavy sigh I decided to forget about it or trying to understand her better as I stood up and walked out of the room, only to pause in the corridor when I saw Theo knocking on her bedroom door.

A few second later, she opened the door and her expression eased as if she was expecting someone else: probably me. “I brought you the chamomile tea your mother prepared for you.”

She smiled at him like he personally hangs the stars for her. “Thankyou, Theo. What I’d do without you.”

Theo shook his head, a tender smile on his face as he kissed her forehead and bid her good night. She was about to turn around when her catlike gaze flickered to me and she paused. There must’ve been something on my face as she frowned and before I could school my features, with a scowl she turned around and went back inside her room, slamming the door.

Yeah, it was better this way. With that thought I went to my own bedroom to spent the night trying to fall asleep which won’t happen.

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The morning came too soon as opposed to other nights, or maybe it was due to the fact that I spent every minute thinking about that report and that beautiful picture of her. Even when I tried not to, I couldn’t push it out of my mind which was clinging to it like it was the only thing it needed to survive.

I had already done my exercise and was only completing a last set of pushups when I heard noises coming from the front side of the apartment where the living space and the kitchen was. When I came out to inspect, I found her in the kitchen rummaging through the cabinets. “What are you looking for?”

She didn’t answer me, and furthermore it looked like she didn’t even hear me. I noticed the way her fingers shook and how desperately she opened and closed the cabinet doors. In her haste, her hand nudged a glass from the counter and it shattered on making contáct with the floor. “Fûck.” With a muttered curse , she bent down to pick it up.

I walked around the counter to help her but when I reached the other side and looked down at her, I paused. I found her looking down at her sliced fingers as the blood welled up and dripped down from her to the broken glass on the floor. “Kat.”

She seemed to have not heard me as oblivious to everything she stared transfixed at her bloody fingers which she now smeared all over with her thumb. Looking like she was seeing something else. “Katlyn.”

She jerked upright, the broken piece of glass clenched in her hand as if she was ready to fight. I frowned as fresh blood dripped down her fist. She was hurting herself. I hurried toward her, despite the fact that we don’t see eye to eye most of the time concern grabbed hold of me. “What are you doing? You’re hurting yourself.”

She looked down at her hand, then back at me. She blinked a few times as if coming out of a trance and then she opened her fist, letting the bloodied piece of glass dropping from her hand to join the others. With a jerk she stood up and started to move past me. “I am sorry. I’ll clean it up.”

I grabbed her elbow. “Wait. Let me look at that. You are bleéding.”

Her dark swirling eyes fell on where I was holding on to her and she swallowed. “Don’t touch me.”

“I am not going to hurt you.”

She almost smiled. And scoffed, almost an amused chuckle before she used her uninjured hand to unfurl my fingers from her elbow and free herself, then without a word she walked away.

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A. Gupta