The Ballerinas Billionaire Bodyguard

CHAPTER 9

When we stepped out of the theater, I stop and face Frankie, my stomach growling from hunger.

"Hey Frankie, what do you say about a late lunch after this?" He looked down the barrel of his nose at me, seeming to be slightly upset with me.

"We're supposed to go straight home, Violet." I glare at him, not wanting to hear about his 'rules' again.

"It's not even four o'clock, Frankie. I can't sit in my house for the rest of the day, I'll go mad!" He ignores me and keeps walking towards to parked car. I don't move as fast as him purposefully forcing him to walk slower. I didn't want to just get in the car, go home and spend the rest of the day holed up in my room, not being able to do anything. Just thinking about it made the anxiety start to crawl back into my lungs, forcing my breathing to become shallow.

"Well, if you don't want to join me, I am going by myself. There's this amazing Italian place on fifth. I'm really craving pasta...with bacon...and parmesan, ooh and a nice glass of white wi-" Frankie groans from next to me, and I laugh as I look at his scrunched up face. This guy clearly loves food just as much as I do, because he caved real quick at the mention of it.

"Alright fine, we can go, but you need to wear the baseball cap that's in the trunk of the car. And we can't stay for too long, so that means no dessert." I clap my hands, giddiness rising at me since this is the first time I have won an argument and I rush to the car.

Three hours, a bottle of sauvignon blanc that I drank all by myself, and two servings of the best tiramisu ever, I watched Frankie give his first full smile in front of me. I gasped, nearly falling off of my chair at the sight.

"You do know how to smile!" His brow furrows slightly at me and he shakes his head.

"Just because I don't do it often doesn't mean I don't like it." I lean forward in my chair and whisper.

"You should smile way more then. You look less scary when you do." He smiles even brighter at this statement.

"My job kind of requires me to look scary, you know. I can't exactly be chasing off terrorist or attackers when I smile at them." I scoff and throw my hands out to gesture at his physique.

"Even if you came running at me smiling, I'd still be scared. In fact I would actually be more terrified." Frankie's shoulders vibrate as he laughs, and this brings my own smile to my face.

"This is nice, thank you Frankie." His head tilts slightly, almost as if he doesn't know why I'm thanking him.

"For what?"

"Just for trying to make this less awkward, for sitting here with me, for keeping me safe. I know I act oblivious, like there isn't currently someone out there watching me, but I know there is and that's what terrifies me." I release a shaky breath. "It makes me anxious thinking of it the whole time, so I appreciate all the distractions I can get. Thank you for providing me some of those distractions." His eyes soften at my words, and he gives a curt nod.

"It's my pleasure, Violet." We spend a little while longer, just sitting with each other all the while ordering more tiramisu for Frankie to take home with him. Apparently he has a sweet tooth and gets hungry late at night. The drive home was quiet and I soaked up the silence, enjoying the serenity it gave me. My mind drifted to the show I was going to do, starting to plan the theme, the choreography and outfits. There was so much to do, but the fact that it kept me busy was what I was most happy for. When we finally reached my house, there was another shiny black car waiting in the driveway. I frown, not expecting any company this late, and try and figure out who's standing in front of my house.

"That's Mr. Salvatore's car." What was Grayson doing here? Was something wrong with the Italy mission, my bother? Frankie barely stops the car as I fling open the door, jump out and run towards Grayson who's leaning on my porch railing.

"Hi, Vi-"

"What is it? What's wrong? Is my brother alright?" His gaze catches mine and my breath catches in my throat. Even during my panic, this man had an effect on me.

"He's fine, nothing's wrong. I am just checking in on you, wanting to see how you are faring with Frankie. I know having a shadow can be strange." His gaze shifts to something behind me, and as ai follow his gaze I see Frankie closing the car door that I had left wide open.

"Hello Mr. Salvatore." He salutes Grayson, standing tall as he does so, and my eyes travel back to Grayson who dips his head toward Frankie.

"Frankie, report." Frankie doesn't hesitate and gives him a break down of everything we've do today.

"Miss. Monroe has quite the appetite on her, so we stayed a bit later than we should have, my apologies sir." I can feel my ears turn bright red at the mention of how much I ate tonight and turn around to hiss at Frankie as he scurries into the house to do his routine check.

"Why would you say that!" I hastily turn back to Grayson. "That's not true, I really didn't eat that much!" His usual smirk moves into a slightly fuller smile than usual, and the action has my heart thundering in my ears, my cheeks going red along with my ears. If half a smile has me reacting like this, imagine what he could do to me when he smiled with no restrictions.

"Hey, it's fine. Honestly, you could stand to eat a bit more. I know you have to look after your physique for your career but I don't like it when you don't eat properly." Right after he says it, he shakes his head as if the words weren't supposed to come out and he could take them back.

"Anyways, just wanted to make sure you were alright so that I could tell Will if he asked." I nod, trying to find words to say to him to make him stay a little longer, even though I know I should rather be chasing him away as soon as possible.

"Thank you for taking such good care of my brother, and now me." I was stuttering over my words, his gaze intense on my own. Grayson always looked me straight in the eyes when he spoke to me, and it felt like I was a deer being hunted. But in a good way...

"No need to thank me. Will means a lot to me, and there isn't much I wouldn’t do for him." For some reason some part of me was waiting for him to say that I meant a lot to him as well. Stupid...I smile at him, my heart a little bruised that he didn’t say the words, and I decide it's best for me to head inside before I blurt out something stupid. Neither of us move though, and I was almost certain I wasn't imagining him leaning in closer.

"Uh, sir...you might want to come look at this!" Frankie's voice sounded very serious making me and Grayson rush into the house. Grayson walked in front of me, his hand on his hip, where I was assuming he carried a gun.

"Where you at Frankie?" Grayson asked him.

"In the bedroom, sir." We slowly make our way toward my bedroom, and when Grayson steps out of my sight, my stomach sinks and I retch out all the tiramisu I had at dinner.