BODYGUARD'S UNDENIABLE PULL

CHAPTER ONE

       Elena Voss!!!

       Elena Voss!!!

  I am your biggest fan!!

   The noise hit her chest first like a chaotic symphony of shouted names, rapid camera shutters clicking like machine-gun fire, and the constant low buzz of a hundred smartphones recording every second of her arrival. She kept her chin high, lips curved in the practiced, camera-ready smile she had perfected in dressing-room mirrors since she was nineteen.

The deep emerald silk gown clung to her body, catching every stray beam of light and sliding sensuously against her legs with each step. It had cost more than most people's monthly rent but tonight it felt less like luxury and more like fragile armor she wasn't entirely sure would hold against the onslaught.

"Elena! Over here, darling!"

"Elena, is the rumor true about you and-"

She didn't bother answering. She knew exactly what the unfinished question was fishing for...the persistent whisper that she had a secret boyfriend, someone hidden from the public eye.

 The tabloids had been spinning variations of that story for months. Priya, her publicist and closest confidante, was already speaking urgently into her earpiece, voice calm but razor-sharp. "Side exit. The car is waiting. We are skipping the rest of the carpet."

Elena gave the smallest possible nod, barely perceptible beneath the flashing lights. The crowd felt closer tonight, more aggressive. An elbow jabbed into her arm hard enough to sting. Another hand...too bold, too low brushed the small of her back before she could sidestep. She kept moving forward, smile fixed, eyes scanning for the promised escape route.

Then, without warning, a strong arm wrapped around her waist from behind...firm, unhesitating, possessive. It yanked her back against a solid wall of heat and muscle. Her breath caught sharply in her throat. The arm didn't loosen. Instead, it steered her sideways through the dense press of bodies, carving a path with the inevitability of water parting around stone.

"Stay with me," a low, rough voice murmured directly against her ear. It wasn't a request.

In the stuttering strobe of flashes, she caught the edge of his profile...sharp jawline shadowed with dark stubble, eyes scanning the swarm with cold precision. Black suit, black tie, black shirt everything about him was dark except for the thin white scar that curved along the flat plane between his left eye and ear, like someone had once tried to carve a permanent underline there and then given up.

Jax Harlan.

She had met him only forty minutes earlier in the green room backstage. Priya had ushered him in with a brisk, "This is the guy," then vanished, leaving them alone in three beats of awkward silence. He had assessed her the way a professional evaluates a complicated puzzle he's been paid to solve...cool, detached, no trace of warmth. No handshake offered. Just a curt nod and a flat "Ms. Voss."

Now that same man had his forearm locked securely across her stomach, guiding her with a grip that suggested she might vanish into