* * *
“That guy is hella hot,” Starr says once Levi is out the door. “He’s got that whole broody bad boy thing down.”
I grin and wiggle my brows. “He’s definitely the best part of my day.”
She mirrors my grin. “You like him.”
I turn away from her and smile as I busy myself with wiping down the counter and cleaning out the blender.
I do like him. A lot.
I wasn’t expecting to have my world knocked off its axis so soon after arriving in Heritage Bay. But that’s exactly what happened when Levi Martinez walked through the door of my café a year ago. He was dressed in a pair of gray joggers, running shoes, and a navy T-shirt stretched across his muscular chest with the words ‘High Caliber Security’ in bright gold over his left pec. Dark hair and a day’s worth of scruff on his jaw. He was wearing aviators, but as he approached the counter, he pushed them up to his head to reveal a pair of sapphire blue eyes, and butterflies took flight in my lower belly. I nearly gasped. He was gorgeous.
With him was another man with mocha skin, built like a brick wall, with biceps as big as my head and black tattoos peeking from under the sleeve of his black High Caliber Security T-shirt. He was a few inches taller than Levi, with his black hair shaved close to his head and dark scruff lining his jaw. He, too, wore a blank expression and mirrored aviators that hid his eyes.
Between them stood a tall, beautiful girl—I say girl because she didn’t look a day over eighteen—with long black hair pulled into a high ponytail and olive skin. Her sunglasses were perched on top of her head, showcasing a pair of eyes the color of the island seas. She had full lips and a wide smile. She reminded me of a Brazilian supermodel. Every set of eyes in my café was locked on this girl, and for a moment, I wondered if maybe she was someone important. Especially when I noticed a few patrons had taken their phones out and were snapping photos.
Either the three of them were none the wiser, or they just didn’t care. The two men stood stone-faced, perusing the menu fixed on the wall behind me while she did most of the talking.
I took that moment to study her. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her. My gaze dropped to the large blue diamond on her ring finger, and I’d wondered if she was married to one of them.
I got my answer just as quick as the question popped in my head when Mr. Gorgeous looked down at his Apple watch and scowled as he tapped the screen. “What do you want?” was how he answered, sounding annoyed. The deep timbre of his voice shot straight to my core and had my heart fluttering.
“I want to talk to my wife, dickhead,” a male voice said from the small speaker of the watch.
The dark-haired girl gasped and shot me a look.
I bit my lips between my teeth to fight back a laugh.
Mr. Gorgeous rolled his beautiful blue eyes as he pulled his phone from his pocket and passed it to the young woman, saying, “Your husband is a pain in my ass.”
She snickered as she took the phone and stepped a few feet away to speak to her husband.
I smiled and used that moment to introduce myself. I learned Mr. Gorgeous was Levi, and the other man was his partner, Troy. The young woman returned to the counter, passed Levi his phone, and introduced herself as Jay.
And then it hit me.
She was Jayla King.
Her song “Piece of Me” is still one of my favorites, and I’m not ashamed to admit I listen to it on repeat quite often.
Heritage Bay is home to some of the wealthiest people in the country, and since I opened my café, I’ve served famous athletes, media moguls, and even politicians. But Jayla King is rock royalty.
From what I read online, she’d married her longtime boyfriend over the summer and had just recently wrapped up a three-month tour.
It took everything in me not to fangirl all over her as I took their orders. Two black coffees and a mocha caramel latte.
She thanked me for the coffee and congratulated me on my new café before she and the big guy, Troy, moved to stand by the door. Levi fished a wad of bills from his pocket and thumbed through them, pulling a twenty from the stack and passing it to me. “It was nice meeting you, Hazel,” he’d said with a flirty wink, and butterflies danced in the pit of my stomach at the sound of my name rolling off his tongue.
I’d spent the rest of the day reeling, though I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d had a rock star in my café or because Levi, the hot security guy, winked at me.
Up until a few months ago, the trio came in as often as three days a week. But now it’s just Levi who stops in on his way to work. I suspect it has to do with Jay and that she’s likely pregnant, because she switched her usual mocha caramel latte to a protein smoothie. Only a pregnant woman would order whipped cream and cherries on a protein smoothie. Levi hasn’t confirmed my suspicions, of course, because his job is to protect Jay and her privacy, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.
“You should totally ask him out,” Starr says, pulling me from my thoughts.
I shake my head. “I’ve thought about it, but I can’t.”
Starr frowns. “Why not?”
“Because he’s my customer, and worse, what if he says no?”
Starr smirks. “But what if he says yes?”
3
Levi
* * *
I pull up to the tall wrought iron gates and enter my personal code. The gates swing open, and I ease my company-issued SUV up the driveway toward the massive estate home where I’ve been spending most of my days.
Bass’s black Denali creeps down the driveway toward me. I roll to a stop and lower my window. He stops beside me with his window down.
“What are you doing here so early?” I ask.
“I was gonna ask you the same thing,” he replies. I grunt, shrugging, and he grins, adding, “I came to check on my princess.”
I smirk. I’ve never once heard him call her anything but princess. “She’s up already?”
“Barely.” He chuckles. “Zach’s up, and Troy got here about fifteen minutes ago.”
I nod. “All right. I’m heading in.” I hold out my fist, and he bumps it with his. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
He gives me a quick nod and peels off.
I joined the Marines right out of high school and served eight years, which included two tours in Afghanistan. When I got out, my uncle Jason offered me a job working for his private security company, High Caliber Security.
I was introduced to my partner, Troy Steele, who was fresh out of the Marines like me. Our very first assignment: a seventeen-year-old girl. Troy and I exchanged a look before I’d practically laughed in my uncle’s face, because he had to be fucking kidding me.
He wasn’t.
I wanted to work in security, not babysit some rich, spoiled brat whose life revolved around the number of followers she had on social media.
She wasn’t anything like I expected, nor was she a typical seventeen-year-old. She was Jayla King, also known as Jaybird, deemed ‘the rock princess’ by the media and her famous father’s fans. She prefers to be called Jay.
Jay is the daughter of the late Marcus King, one of the most famous and influential rock stars in the world and the lead singer of one of my all-time favorite bands, Royal Mayhem. Marcus had passed away just six months before Jay and her mother, Emerson, moved to Heritage Bay along with their housekeeper and bodyguard.