Page 1 of Auctioned to the Billionaire Bodyguard

Prologue

Jelly

Finally, it was just Paolo and me, standing on the beach and facing the ocean. He stood behind me with his arms around me. “This.”

“What?” I looked over my shoulder at him, and he kissed me.

“This. I want this right here for the rest of our lives.”

“Me too,” I whispered. I turned in his arms, ready to kiss him and have him take me to bed.

And that’s when we heard the honking.

I jumped, startled, and looked towards the road. “Is that Reynolds’ car?”

Paolo looked as shocked as I was. “I think it is.”

One of the doors opened and Nadine jumped out. She started running, full speed, at me. “What the hell?” I hoped this wasn’t one of those times she threw herself at me expecting me to catch her in a hug. She’d knocked me down every damn time she’d tried it. I started to turn and run from her, but then I saw that she was crying.

“Nadine?”

She stopped right as she got to me and threw her arms around me. “Oh, Jelly,” she cried, sobbing. “You’re not going to believe this.”

I gave Paolo a wide-eyed look over her shoulder. He just shrugged, mystified.

I saw that both Byron and Reynolds had gotten out of the car and were walking slowly towards us, grim-faced.

Nadine pulled back and stared at me. “I have a sister.”

My eyebrows shot way up. “What now?”

“I have a sister,” she practically yelled at me.

I gaped at her, having completely lost the power of speech.

“I know, right?” My beautiful best friend tossed her long brown hair over her shoulder and wiped her eyes. “And we’re going on a re-con mission.”

“What?” There were so many questions I could ask right now, but that seemed like the most important one. It kind of covered everything.

“I don’t have time to explain. Just go get changed and then meet us back out here.”

I turned and ran towards the cottage, but Paolo had maintained his senses. “Um… what do we wear?”

“All black. Like spies.” I turned to look at her, and that’s when I realized Nadine was wearing a black body suit and black tennis shoes with those wedge-type heels that were supposed to work out your calves or something.

“Carmen made me get rid of all my black clothing that wasn’t formal. Should I wear an evening dress?”

Nadine gave me a look, her hands on her hips. “Jelly Pinkoe. All you wore from the time we was in seventh grade until about a year and a half ago was black. You can’t tell me you don’t got any of that shit leftover.”

Nadine’s grammar suffered in times of stress. It had never been her strong suit, but Madeline and Lonnie Maitland pretty much beat it out of her before she married Reynolds.

“I think I probably hid a few things from her. I’ll be back.” I ran through the house, remembering a few things I’d actuallybought recently since Carmen could no longer veto my clothing choices. Good thing I had stocked the beach house well with things I might want to wear while here.

Paolo and I almost fell over each other we were working so hard to get changed quickly. We hurried back out to where they were waiting for us.

“This okay?” I gestured to my cold weather black workout gear and Paolo’s hoodie and joggers combo.

“Perfect. Let’s go. I’ll tell you everything on the way over there.”