I Just Need You - J. Nathan Page 0,63

around me. I didn’t know what to do with my hands so I kept them at my sides as the scent of expensive perfume wrapped itself around me. I caught sight of Kresley stifling a smile. “Thank you for keeping her safe.”

“Always,” I said as she finally released me.

As the Hastings turned and walked toward the front door, I looked to Kresley for a sign of what I should do. Did I wait outside or accompany her inside?

She held up her finger, asking me for some time before she turned and followed her parents inside.

Only then could I finally breathe.

That went better than I expected.

Kresley

I followed my parents down the long hallway lined with family portraits toward the kitchen. I’d told Tristan to hang back so I could talk to my parents in private. I wasn’t exactly sure how they were going to take the news that I wasn’t staying home—or that I was in a relationship with my bodyguard.

Someone was in the sitting room as we passed by.

“Andre!”

He was standing by the doorway with a big smile on his face.

I rushed over and threw my arms around him. “How are you?”

“Welcome home, Miss Kresley,” he said, hugging me back. “I’m fine.”

I stepped back and looked at him, taking in the many creases around his eyes and his full head of gray hair. He’d aged in the months since I’d seen him last. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m helping watch over the surveillance monitors,” he said with a smile.

“You’re working here?”

He nodded, looking pleased that he wasn’t fired after France.

“I’m so happy to hear that. I miss you.”

“I miss you too.” He looked at me with sadness in his eyes. “How are you?”

“You know me, Andre. I’m tougher than I look.”

He forced a smile, and that twinkle I’d seen in his eyes so many times before returned.

“I gotta catch up with my parents. But I’ll see you before I leave,” I promised him, before moving to the kitchen and slipping onto a stool at the center island. A sense of security swept over me being back home.

My mom stood with the refrigerator door open, gathering an armful of food—a nervous habit when she didn’t know what to do or say. My father leaned against the counter with his arms crossed, staring at me like he was seeing a ghost.

“Dad, I’m fine. Stop staring at me like that.” I looked to my mom. “And, Mom, stop doing whatever you’re doing over there. I’m not hungry. I just want to talk to you guys.”

She placed the cheeses and fruit she’d gathered onto the counter and turned to look at me. “Why didn’t Stone unpack the car and bring in your belongings?”

“His name is Tristan, and I’m not coming home,” I said.

Fear gripped hold of her features. “What?”

My father sighed. “Returning to school is an unnecessary risk.”

“We can keep you safe here,” my mother promised. “Security is tighter than it’s ever been.”

“I can’t stay locked up forever.” I hated that I was hurting them by not agreeing to do what I knew they both wanted me to do.

“Of course you can,” my mother said. “You’re my baby and I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

I drew in a deep breath. “I need to finish school and get my degree. I can’t let them strip me of that too.”

“It’s not safe,” my father said. “Look what happened yesterday. Who knows what’s next.”

“But I was safe. Tristan protected me,” I assured them.

“He won’t always be there,” my father argued.

I glanced to my mother before looking back to him. “He might be.”

My father’s eyes jumped from me to my mother then back to me. “What does that mean?”

“I like him, Dad,” I explained.

“Well, that’s good. Having security you despise wouldn’t work at all,” he said.

I shook my head. “No, Dad. I like him. I want to be with him, and he wants to be with me.”

“That can’t happen,” my father said, shaking his head and not wanting to hear it.

“Why?”

“Your safety needs to be his top priority.”

“It is sir,” Tristan said.

Everyone turned to Tristan who now stood in the kitchen doorway, filling it as if he belonged in our home. Like he belonged by my side.

“Kresley’s my top priority,” Tristan assured them as he walked over and stood beside me at the island. “I hope my attentiveness and actions yesterday proved that to you.”

My father closed his eyes, pained by the new information we were dropping on him. When he opened them, his accusatory glare