THE HEIRESS AND THE BODYGUARD

DAYLIGHT RULES

Keeping a secret in a house full of staff, cameras, and a father who read people for a living turned out to be an exercise in discipline that Sienna had never expected to enjoy. By day, Marcus was exactly what he'd been hired to be: a quiet presence at the edge of every room, eyes on the exits, voice clipped and professional whenever anyone else was close enough to hear. By night, in the hour or two after the penthouse went still, he was someone else entirely: someone who laughed at her terrible attempts at cooking, who told stories about army barracks pranks he swore were exaggerated, who held her hand on the sofa like it was the most ordinary thing in the world.

"You're smiling at your phone," Sienna's assistant, Dana, observed on Monday morning, setting a stack of contracts on the desk. "That's new."

"I'm smiling at a very good email about the foundation's spring auction." Sienna turned the screen face down with what she hoped was casual ease. "Don't read into it."

"I would never." Dana's expression said she was reading into it considerably. "Mr. Calloway wants to see you at ten, by the way. He said it wasn't urgent, which in Harrison Calloway language means it absolutely is."

Across the room, Marcus didn't look up from the tablet he was pretending to read, though Sienna caught the faintest tightening along his jaw. He'd heard, of course. He heard everything.

Harrison Calloway's office occupied the corner of the executive floor, all dark wood and glass, a room designed to remind visitors exactly how much weight his name carried. He gestured for Sienna to sit, then turned to Marcus, who had taken up his usual position beside the door.

"Mr. Reyes. A moment of privacy, please."

"Of course, sir." Marcus stepped into the corridor without a flicker of hesitation, the door closing softly behind him, and Sienna felt her pulse kick unpleasantly against her ribs.

"Relax," Harrison said, noting her posture. "I'm not about to lecture you. I wanted to tell you in person that the investigation into the letters has turned up something."

"What?"

"The paper." He slid a folder across the desk. "Forensics traced the stationery. It's a custom stock, ordered through a private printer, and the order trail leads to an account associated with Calloway Hospitality's corporate offices. Not an outside stranger, Sienna. Someone inside this company is sending those letters, or ordering supplies on behalf of someone who is."

The room seemed to tilt slightly. She'd suspected, after what Marcus had said, but hearing it from her father made it concrete in a way she wasn't prepared for. "Who has access to that account?"

"Forty-three people, at last count. We're narrowing it down." Harrison's voice softened, the CEO giving way for a moment to something older and more tired. "I should have taken this seriously months ago. I treated it like a PR problem instead of a danger to my daughter, and I'm sorry for that."

It was the closest thing to an apology she'd ever heard him offer, and it caught her completely off guard. "Dad..."

"Reyes is good. Better than I expected, frankly." He leaned back, studying her with a perceptiveness that made her stomach flutter with alarm. "He's been straight with me every step of the way, never inflated a threat to look useful, never downplayed one to keep you comfortable. That's rare. I trust him with your life, which is not something I say lightly."

"He's earned it," Sienna said, and was careful to keep her voice even.

"I think so too." Harrison's gaze lingered a beat longer than necessary, as though weighing something, and then it passed. "That's all. Send him back in on your way out. I want to go over the new access protocols with him."

She stood, smoothing her skirt, and made it all the way to the door before her father spoke again.

"Sienna."

"Yes?"

"Whoever's doing this knows our family well. Well enough to know your schedule, your habits, who you trust." His eyes held hers, unreadable. "Be careful about who you let close. That includes people you think you know."

The words followed her into the corridor, sitting cold and heavy in her chest.

Marcus found her twenty minutes later in the penthouse library, standing at the window with her arms wrapped around herself, the city blurred by a fine gray drizzle that had started sometime during the morning.

"Your father briefed me on the paper trail," he said quietly, closing the door behind him. "I'm sorry. I know that's not the kind of news you wanted."

"Forty-three people, Marcus. Someone in my own family's company." She turned, and the vulnerability in her face made him cross the room before he'd consciously decided to. "He told me to be careful who I let close. That includes people I think I know. Did he say that to you too?"

"He told me the investigation is narrowing and asked me to review the corporate access logs personally." Marcus stopped in front of her, close enough that she could see the exhaustion shadowing his eyes. He'd clearly been up most of the night running lists. "He didn't say anything about us. If he suspected, he would have said so. Harrison Calloway isn't subtle when he's angry."

"Then what was that?"

"A father worried about his daughter. Possibly a warning to the wrong person, if he's still deciding who he can trust." Marcus brushed a strand of damp hair behind her ear, the gesture tender in a way that belied the hardness in his voice. "Sienna, I need you to hear this. Whoever is behind the letters is close enough to the family that this has stopped being a question of strangers. Which means everything we're doing, every careful secret, has to be even more careful."

"You think they'll find out about us."

"I think anyone watching you as closely as this person is watching you will eventually notice the way I look at you when I forget to hide it." A rueful, humorless smile touched his mouth. "I'm not nearly as good at hiding it as I'd like to be."

She laughed despite herself, the sound shaky, and stepped into his arms, resting her cheek against his chest. His heartbeat was steady under her ear, an anchor in the middle of a storm she could no longer fully see the edges of.

"What if it's someone I love?" she asked into the quiet. "What if it's someone I've known my whole life?"

Marcus held her a little tighter. "Then we'll deal with it, together. I won't let you face that alone."

Outside, the rain thickened against the glass, gray and relentless. And somewhere in the building below them, in a corporate office or a quiet corridor or a conference room where nobody was suspicious of anyone, someone sat with a pen and a stack of custom stationery, waiting for the next move in a game Sienna hadn't known she was playing.