The Assassin’s Billionaire Bodyguard
Chapter 10

Isabella grabbed her phone from where she had thrown it onto the sofa earlier and then groaned. She muttered an expletive forcing Cam to lift his eyebrows and she looked at him. "Evgeni or Portia?"

"Both but worse, there are six missed calls from my mother." She sighed as if it bothered her more than the calls from the others. "I need to call her back." She grimaced as he sat down near her on the sofa, and she held her fingers to her lips. She called her mother's line and the woman answered on the first ring, "Isabella?"

"Mama," she answered.

Immediately her mother went off in a string of Spanish making Cam sit up straight and take notice. He grinned broadly, letting Isabella know he not only heard, but he also clearly understood every single word coming from her mouth. Her mother was not happy to have learned from Elian, his baby sister was on a date with a much older white man.

"Mama," she tried to cut in, but the woman was on a rant.

Cam listened unashamedly as the woman in front of him was torn a strip by her mother. His parents were Latin American, and he knew exactly what Isabella was going through. He grinned broadly when her mother questioned whether she was dating was some rich old white guy just to give her a heart attack.

She looked at Cam, her eyes blazing and then screeched into the phone. "Mama, I don't know why Elian told you I'm dating an old white man. He is obviously trying to redirect your attention on me. I went to dinner with a man whose last name is Torres and he's younger than Elian."

Her mother took a breath. "His name is Torres?"

"Yes, his name is Torres. His family is from," she looked at him and he mouthed the answer to her, and she gave him a thumbs up, "Brazil and Mexico."

"What does he do?"

"He runs a security company in Manhattan." "He is rich?"

"I guess so, we didn't compare bank accounts yet. Usually that's a second date question." Isabella closed her eyes and tried to ignore Cam's silent laughter. His smile was making her think bad thoughts while she talked to her mother. It was weird. "He is older than you. Does he have kids? Was he married before? Is he divorced?"

"Mama! Elian and Clara are talking about going to the Cayman Islands for Christmas this year." She saw Cam stop laughing and stare at her in confusion. At her mother's immediate change in direction, she spoke quickly. "I'm not sure why they would do such a thing Mama, it is indeed cruel and horrible to do to you. You should call him and ask him about it." She didn't even get to say goodbye before her mother hung up.

She put her hands to her flaming cheeks and cringed, "Oh my god, she's incredible."

"My mother is equally bad. I was on the receiving end of an hour-long rant on Sunday because I chose to eat with Mikhail and his family instead of my own." He leaned back against the cushions. "Why did you throw your brother under the bus?"

"Whenever Mama is sniffing out something on one of us, we throw her a tidbit of information to distract her. Sometimes someone has something particularly juicy. I know it was Elian who put her onto me, whether on purpose or by mistake. He deserves to pay." He chuckled as he watched her grin as a text message popped up on her phone. "Elian?"

"Yes," she smirked, "he just uninvited me to the Caymans. I wasn't going anyway," she shrugged.

"You wouldn't go?"

"Not for Christmas. My mother is a pain in my backside, but I couldn't do it to my parents. I couldn't imagine not having Christmas dinner with them."

"What if they went along?"

She laughed, "my mother is terrified of flying. Hates it. If she can't take a car, bus, or train, it isn't happening." She grinned, "my dad took her to Spain a few years ago and they had to medicate her for the flight there and back."

She dialled out on her phone again and ordered the pizza and then stood up. "If you don't mind listening for the pizza, I want to go get out of these sweaty clothes. Can I trust you to behave down here while I change?"

He held up his phone, "Can you install the app, so Gideon isn't stressing out?"

She took his phone, found the app, and installed it on his phone. "It should take a minute or so to completely download. Just enter in the info it asks for," she laughed over her shoulder as she walked away, "the WIFI password is daddylovesmemost, all one word." He laughed, "no competition there."

"Nope, I'm his favorite. I'm the son he always wanted."

You have two brothers," he called after her as she walked up the stairs.

"One is gay, and the other is Elian," she called back enjoying the sound of his roar of laughter at the bottom of the stairs.

She quickly showered and changed into a pair of track pants and a t-shirt and made her way back down the stairs. She found him standing in her living room, staring out her living room window with his hands behind his back. "Penny for your thoughts?"

He spun around suddenly, "God, I didn't even hear you come down the stairs. You're stealthy."

She chuckled but then groaned as she noted her phone sitting on her table with a bunch of unread messages. She flopped onto the sofa and pulled the phone to her. She patted the seat and smiled as Casper who had followed her into the room jumped up beside her.

"They've been coming in fast and furious," he motioned to the phone, noting how Casper set his head on her lap. The dog was very in tune to his mistress.

She sighed and looked at him, "I thought this," she waved between them, "was supposed to make it stop."

"It will, trust me."

She opened her phone and rolled her eyes when another unwanted photograph of Evgeni appeared on her screen. "Why does he think this is sexy? It's gross." She deleted it and then looked at Cam, "he wants to know how you compare." Cam shook his head in disgust, "he's an i***t. I imagine Mikhail will reign in him shortly." He motioned to the phone, "you didn't answer him."

"I have no need to. I don't owe him a response."

"You're right, you don't." He sat next to her on the sofa and looked on, "any from Portia?"

She held up her phone to the only message, "apparently I'm a gold-digging w***e who couldn't land a small fish like Evgeni so I shouldn't even try the big fish."

He grimaced, "I'll deal with her in the morning. We are supposed to have breakfast together."

"I know she's your daughter but she's an a*****e," Isabella said seriously.

"I can't disagree," he groaned. "I wish I could get through to her but fourteen years of being completely under the influence of her mother has tainted her common sense." He met her eyes, "I didn't even know Portia existed until five years ago." "Wow," she said with a twist of her lips, unsure of what else to say. She already had this info from Clara.

"I met her mother when I was on my first trip overseas with the army. We were on leave, and me and the fellas went on a bender in Ibiza. I met her in a club. We hooked up off and on for about a month. She went back to London, and I went back to the Middle East. I was eighteen. I can't even lie about it. I never gave her another thought." He shrugged, "five years ago I was," he rubbed his face, "with a woman I was dating in a lingerie shop buying her whatever she wanted and came across Portia and her mother. I saw her mother and recognized her, but I saw Portia. Damned if Portia isn't the spitting image of my sister at her age. I have one sister. Nothing like running into an ex-lover you haven't seen in fifteen years in a lingerie shop while with a new lover and realizing the kid she has with her is yours."

"Jesus," she muttered. "I don't even know how you would process it." She wondered what his new lover had purchased in the lingerie shop.

"At first I was in a rage and then I was terrified. I petitioned the court for shared custody. I wish I could say we had an instant connection but she's frustratingly self-absorbed. Worse, her mother has decided she has washed her hands of her. When she turned sixteen, she dumped her on my doorstep and told me she was my nightmare to deal with."

"You're joking."

"I wish I were. So suddenly I had a sullen teenager who had never known a day of discipline in her life, feeling isolated from all her friends and family in Europe. I have tried to give her balance and I've relied heavily on my family for guidance but she's," he looked at her, "well, as you said, she's an a*****e."

Isabella was quiet, suddenly understanding why the girl was out of sorts. She knew what Evgeni was like. "Here's the thing Cam," she used his name and saw his grin, "Evgeni has a way of making a girl feel like she is the most important thing in the universe." She watched as his smile dissipated. "It took me a while to see Evgeni's treatment of me was simply his way of showing the world how impressive he is. He needs to be the best at everything. The best looking, the best dressed, the best partier, the best boyfriend," she sighed, "if he was heaping the kind of attention on her, he did to me, she probably lapped it up like a puppy."

He was quiet for a moment and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingertips. "How much attention are we talking?"

"He once bought out an entire commercial flight to Paris for a date night. He booked a stupid expensive hotel suite with an incredible view of the Eiffel Tower. He wined me, dined me, and made me feel I was the only person in the universe who mattered." "What was the occasion?"

"It was a Tuesday," she shrugged. "I won't lie, he was trying to smooth things over as we'd had a fight the prior weekend, but he always was pulling over the top stuff."

"You didn't like it?" he had to admit, it sounded like the guy knew how to pull out all the stops

"Not really," she made a face. "At first the grand gestures were fun but eventually I realized it was all for show. It was to flaunt how great he was or to make everyone think we were the perfect couple. I grew up in a middle-class family where you worked hard to get what you want. Don't get me wrong, I like money. I like having it and I like spending it. If I want something, I will get it. I mean, usually I hear Mama's voice in my head asking me if I really need it or not, but I'll still buy it," she smiled as he chuckled, "but at the end of the day, doing things just to have accolades seems pretentious and obnoxious."

"You think he was doing this with Portia?"

"It's his M.O," she shrugged, “buying all the flowers out of a flower shop, getting an airplane to write initials in a heart in the sky, booking out an entire resort for a weekend just so you can have a huge party with your closest hundred friends." She grimaced, "the last one by the way sucked because I can count my closest friends on one hand maybe two hands. Ninety-five of Evgeni's friends is a lot to contend with."

He swore violently, "no bloody wonder she's off her rocker."

"There is one thing in your favor, though as her dad you might not be keen either way," she made a face. "What?"

"I may have lied to you when you were here last." She pursed her lips tightly and exhaled slowly, "He's terrible in bed. I mean bad. He was my first and I didn't know any better. I don't know who it was who told him he was amazing," she looked at him with her nose turned up, "but they lied to him. Every picture he sends is a close-up for a reason."

Cam eyed her curiously, "why are you telling me this?"

"Because if Portia has any kind of experience," she saw his lips turn into a disgusted frown, "well unless she's a virgin she has experience and if she does, there is no way she's staying with him for the s*x." She shrugged, "a good romp with someone with more a minute of stamina could cure her of her Evgeni hang-ups."

"Okay!" he slapped his hands against his knees and stood up. "Way too much information for me to process about my daughter."

"I'm just saying," she lifted one-shoulder up in a shrug as she noted his discomfort.

"You know, I think I'm going to go."

She pulled her head back in surprise at his about face. "Uh, okay."

He ran his fingers through his hair. "The truth is, I wasn't paying attention to what was happening with Portia and Evgeni. In fact, I didn't even know they were dating until this week. If he was," he waved his arm as he tried to think of the right word "Love bombing," she offered, "the term is love bombing."

"If he was doing this, it's no wonder she's hurting. I need to go have a talk with her."

She walked him to the door and stood there while he shrugged into his coat. "Well as far as first dates go, this one was the weirdest I've ever been on."

He laughed and reached a hand up to her cheek. "Isabella, I'll call you."

A knock on the door interrupted them and she motioned to the door. "Pizza."

"Right," he stood back as she opened the door and passed a handful of bills to the delivery guy in exchange for the pie. "It smells really good."

"It will be," she grinned at him as he stepped past her out the door. "Have a good night, Torres."

"Cam," he corrected.

"Cam," she replied and then closed the door on his departing back. She looked to Casper who sat at the edge of the living room staring at her curiously. "I don't get it either buddy," she said as she realized she was feeling strangely sad at his sudden departure. Weirdest first date ever.