Fan Fiction ❯ Passion ❯ The Bodyguard ( Chapter 12 )

A/N: Still don’t own it.       The Bodyguard             &nb sp;   Lora leaned her head into the solid strength of Dane’s chest, and for a while her bodyguard just held her, as he often had throughout her life. She loved Dane, more then she had loved anyone in her life. Not in the manner she had loved Jason, in a strange way, the love she felt for Dane was even more important then the kind she felt for a lover. He was like family to her, in fact she was closer to him then she had ever been to her parents.             Her mother, Cindy, had died when she was barely two years old, so Lora could hardly blame the woman for how her life had turned out. But part of her did, the child within who had never known joy, who had suffered for so long in one way or another, who had only loneliness for a companion until Dane came into her life. That child resented the fact that she had never really gotten a chance to know her mother or experience the unadulterated love that existed within a family.             Cindy’s death was said to have destroyed whatever heart Shawn Knightly had. From a young age, Shawn had been driven to succeed. He had been born into a poor family with limited resources, and it hadn’t taken him long to realize that money was power, and power was freedom. He had excelled in school because good grades meant entrance into the finest colleges in the nation. It was in college he discovered the advertising business. He was drawn to its dual natures: a blending of free wheeling ideas and suffocating business politics. By the young age of twenty five, he had established his own company, Epithet. He was ambitious and willing to take risks, and his youthful energy appealed to many companies, so it wasn’t long before he had an impressive clientele. By the age of thirty, he had hundreds of business contacts and clients, his reputation for being determined and ruthless preceded him and he was considered a force to be reckoned with in the advertising world.             Shawn had a competitive spirit by nature, and as such he began to take over other companies in his area of expertise, until he controlled the largest marketing company in North America, one of the fifth largest in the world. He had turned his eyes on, to world conquest, and many claimed he might have succeeded in monopolizing the industry. But then he had met Cindy, and everything changed.             The two had met by chance. Shawn had been on his way to a meeting, Cindy on her way to work. Shawn’s limo had gotten a flat tire and, rather then wait for another car to pick him up; he had gone in search of a cab. Cindy had hailed a cab and was just about to get in it when he approached her, trying to buy the ride from her. Cindy was a kindergarten teacher and knew children of her class’ age could not be left alone, she had refused Shawn’s offer. Shawn hadn’t been told no since he lived at home with his mother, but before he could argue with her; Cindy had offered to share her cab with him instead.             They had shared a twenty minute ride together, and that was all it had taken. Cindy was friendly and outgoing, free of deceit, and when she engaged him in conversation, Shawn had been enthralled by her inner beauty. Cindy had been drawn to his solemn, dominant personality. It had been love, almost at first sight. They complimented and balanced each other perfectly; they were opposites in many ways but had similar core values and so were intrinsically drawn to one another.             Once they parted, Shawn couldn’t get her off his mind. He located her at work to ask her out, and at first Cindy refused him. She didn’t want to date, she was just out of college and getting started in a career that she loved. But she agreed to go out with him as friends. Eventually he persuaded her to marry him. It was said she could make him laugh no matter how dark his moods, and he kept her grounded in reality. Their life was one of bliss, until Lora was born.             The pregnancy was hard on Cindy, the labor exceptionally so, and afterwards she never fully recovered. Her kidneys had been weakened, and she frequently fell ill. And then, when Lora was two, her mother died from renal failure. Shawn Knightly died with his wife that day.             Though Shawn never came out and said it, everyone knew he blamed Lora for Cindy’s death. He grew cold towards the girl, and avoided her as much as possible. He left her in the care of nannies and rarely, if ever, checked in on her. He once more threw himself into his work, and this time he did achieve the goal of his youth: he became the head of the most powerful advertising company in the world.             When Lora reached the age to go to school, he hired tutors for her, and was pleased at last with her when he learned she was a brilliant pupil. Shawn had come to realize that though he might hold little love for his daughter, she was his only link to his beloved Cindy, and the heiress to the business he had worked so hard to establish. He became determined she would learn to run the company when he was gone, and he constantly pushed her to study and work more. But Lora was as stubborn as she was intelligent, and resented the sudden interest he had taken in her after so long. She did everything she could to defy his controlling nature. Shawn reacted as any dominant, selfish man would: he tried to crush her. He deprived her of freedom and took her with him everywhere. As a result, his business partners, and enemies, became familiar with the sight of her. Shawn, fearing his heir might be kidnapped and used against him, hired her a bodyguard. Not just anyone would do for the role, though hundreds certainly applied for the position. In the end, Shawn found the prime candidate himself: an eighteen year old boy by the name of Dane Gruden. Even as a teen, Dane was large and intimidating looking. He also moved with a natural grace and was surprisingly intelligent. Shawn had seen him at an amateur boxing event and had instantly known Dane was the man he’d been looking for. Dane had surprised Shawn though, by refusing the job offer. He’d scoffed at the idea of playing nursemaid to a little girl when he could be testing his physical limitations against men who lived to fight like he did. But Shawn knew the boy was young, and most likely in need of funding for his precious dream, and so he offered the teen a tempting deal: protect the girl until she was of age, and then he was free to leave if he so chose. In exchange, he would be given a staggering 6 digit salary and trained in the finest facilities in any manner of physical combat he desired. Against such temptation, Dane didn’t stand a chance. When Lora and Dane first met it was not all roses and joy. Lora viewed him as her jailer, a lackey for her father and one more restriction on her freedom. Dane viewed her as a nuisance, a hindrance, and a restriction on his freedom. But she was also his meal ticket and so he forced himself to be civil to her, though it wasn’t easy. Lora had no incentive for being nice to him, and since she couldn’t seem to get the best of her father, she turned her frustrations on the hapless Dane. For a year the two quarreled and bickered constantly. Lora tested Dane’s boundaries as any child would, and since he was only a teenager himself, he handled it poorly, often shouting upon deaf ears when he would catch her trying to sneak out for the millionth time. She would turn her nose up at him when he would give her orders for her own safety, but her snotty spirit really came out whenever her father was around. Ironically, it was her father who ended their feuding. Not because he ordered them to get along, which he did on numerous occasions, but because he was so bitingly critical of Lora and so disinterested in her beyond what she could do for him. His heartless treatment of his child did not sit well with Dane, and the boy began to understand why Lora was the way she was. Instead of trying to force her to go where her father ordered, he would ask her to go instead, to show her father how she was big enough to make the decision to go by herself. When her father would command her to study and she would balk, Dane would whisper to her that the only way she could escape Shawn was if she did well enough in school to become independently wealthy so she could live free of him. When Shawn would sneer at her for playing with her toys, Dane would take her to buy more the minute his back was turned. When her father would tell her how she was a constant disappointment to him, Dane would tell her how wonderful she was. And so, gradually, Lora grew to love her bodyguard. Their bond only grew when she was married to Maximus at the age of thirteen. At the time, Dane had been outraged. He had been with Lora for three years and considered her to be his little sister; the twenty one year old found the idea of a man older then him marrying her to be disgusting. He actually considered any man wanting to marry her at her age disgusting. He argued with Shawn not to accept Max’s offer, but all Shawn could see was the makings of a powerful and useful alliance. His daughter, and her wishes, meant nothing to him. The one concession Shawn Knightly made for his child was to send her bodyguard with her, so that she would not fall victim to harm of any kind. The act was not one of kindness: it wouldn’t do for him to lose his heiress, after all. Shawn made Maximus sign an agreement that allowed Dane to continue to serve as her companion and guard until she came of age, at which time she could dismiss him if she so chose, but Maximus could not. Max, well aware of how odd a man Shawn Knightly was, blithely agreed to the terms because he was getting what he wanted: a lovely, young girl who could be shaped into what he wanted for a wife. If he had known Lora better, she believed he would never have agreed to take her as his own. Then again, one could never say with Maximus. Her defiance had always intrigued him; for all that he demanded obedience. While life at her father’s home had been lonely, Lora found life at Maximus’ home to be far worse. Unlike her father, Maximus did not take her with him everywhere. The servants were afraid to speak to her, save her own tutors that had come with her from her father’s home to continue her education per another stipulation of Shawn. At the Knightly home she had some influence; at the Carlton home she had none. The residents treated her like an ignorant child and took orders only from Winston the head butler when Maximus wasn’t home. The only one who offered her any real company was Dane. He was never far from her side, and as she grew older and blossomed into a beautiful teenager, her bodyguard was practically attached to her side. Although Lora knew she was attractive, she had no concept of the depravity some men were capable of when it came to beautiful women. Dane did. He had spent years training since first coming to work for Lora’s father, and not just in simple combat. He had enrolled in negotiation and rescue classes offered by Special Forces instructors, stealth by martial arts masters, and espionage by privately hired men that to this day Dane still had no idea who they worked for. He had been taught rudimentary psychoanalysis for his dealings with Lora as well as others. It paid to have an employer as wealthy as Shawn Knightly, who was willing to spend any amount of money to keep his daughter from being taken from him without his permission. And so Dane knew what went through men’s heads, and he kept a watchful eye on Lora as she grew older. Unfortunately, her main threat was her husband, the one man Dane had no real right to interfere with. And so the bodyguard had dealt with the husband as tactfully as possible, until one day it no longer became possible to do so. Lora was confused by Maximus’ love for her, but Dane was completely confounded by it. His years of training suggested to him that the volatile man was bipolar at best and schizophrenic at worst. Unlike Lora, he had the advantage of being an adult from the time Max came into their lives, although that did him precious little good since Maximus was so different from anyone else he had ever known. One could never be certain what Max was going to do under even the most normal of circumstances. When Lora first came to the Carlton house after the brief wedding ceremony performed by a judge in the Knightly gardens, Maximus treated her with deferential tenderness. He was kind to her, but he made demands of her much like her father had, expecting her to do well at her studying and to learn manners befitting a girl of her station. When she failed to do well, Max was harsh and cruel because of his unruly temper, but he would always return and apologize to Lora, bringing gifts with him. And while it was true he apologized, he always did so in a backhanded manner that was manipulative, no matter how sweet the words he used to mask it were. Dane had never cared for Shawn, but he despised Maximus. The only thing that kept him from killing the man, even at risk of death, was the fact that Max showed no sexual interest in his child bride. In later years, Dane often regretted not killing Max before the man had time to scar Lora. And there was no doubt Maximus had done just that. The man would be gone for months at a time, but he was “considerate” enough to call his wife once every week or two to see how she was doing. And he always sent her exotic trinkets from around the world. When he was home, he would spend all of his time with her. He would read to her and play board games with her and lavish her with attention. It was the complete opposite of his treatment of her while he was away, and it confused her. Max made her feel as if she was the center of his universe, and yet as unimportant as the doormat he wiped his shoes on. As she grew older, Maximus began to come home more frequently. Dane immediately noticed this and knew the reason behind it. He tried to prepare Lora for the day she would become Max’s wife in more then name, but he was a young man and she was a teenage girl and it embarrassed her to discuss such things with him. When Maximus began to court her, Lora had no idea what his intentions were. She had never gotten to date, and so his compliments and the increasing number of times he casually touched her went straight to her head. But she was not ready to be intimate with her husband. He had spent perhaps a year in her presence during the first five years of their marriage, and to her he was a virtual stranger. When Maximus tried to become more physical with her, she fled his attentions. Max was not a man used to waiting or being told no, and his temper was unpredictable at best, so when she resisted him he simply took her without a second thought. She was his wife after all. It had been a terrible experience for Lora, she had cried and pleaded for him to leave her alone, but he would not listen. When her cries grew to screams, Dane could no longer stand it and kicked in the door of Max’s bedroom. He lifted her husband off of her, punched him square in the face and threw him across the room into a wall. Dane had carried Lora to her own room, and it had been several hours before retribution came because Maximus was out cold. When Max woke up, he went straight to Lora’s room and attacked Dane. Although he was a good fighter and a big man, he did not have Dane’s level of training and so he was thrashed. He called in his own bodyguards and had Dane beaten, then he finished what he had started with Lora, though he was much gentler with her then before. Lora was traumatized by what she had seen happen to Dane, by what her husband had done to her, and she was never able to forgive him. Over the years, such scenes had been common in the Carlton household. Max would force himself on Lora; Dane would intervene and get punished for it, sometimes beaten to within an inch of his life and being hospitalized for weeks. The only reason Max did not have Dane killed was because Lora had forbidden it, telling her husband she would never forgive him for killing the man who was like a brother to her. Because Maximus knew Dane was not interested in Lora sexually, and the bodyguard was his wife’s only real friend, he let the man live. For all his dark nature, Max did love his little wife and wanted her to be happy, and knew she would be miserable alone. Of course, she had been miserable from the time she turned eighteen on, but at least she had not been alone, Dane thought ruefully as he tightened his arms around her. Lora sighed and shifted in the circle of his arms to look up at him. “Thank you,” she whispered. He shrugged it off and was about to speak when a knock sounded at the door. Dane was instantly on his feet, guns in hand. He nodded for Lora to get the door before sliding into the hidden alcove in the hall. Lora nervously adjusted her clothes, her heart pounding as she wondered if it was Allen. Maybe he had come to talk to her? She had been having such a wonderful time today; she really did regret what happened… Her thoughts trailed off as she opened the door and was greeted by the vision of a voluptuous redhead in an expensive business suit that fit her body like a second skin. Her features were striking, her eyes a piercing green as they studied Lora speculatively. “May I help you,” Lora finally asked, wondering who on earth this woman was. “Actually, I’m here to help you,” the woman replied, flashing a brilliant smile that revealed perfect teeth. “I’m Amanda Hunt, Vice President of Epithet. I’m here on behalf of the company, at your father’s request.”   *~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~   Terry was in a foul mood when he stormed into Wayne Manor. He ignored Ace II’s greeting and just grunted at Bruce as he entered the kitchen. The older man was used to being the designated grouch, and he scowled at Terry as he said, “I take it your date didn’t go as you planned.” “When do things ever go as planned with women,” Terry snapped as he grabbed a bottle of beer. He kept a case at Wayne Manor just in case, since Bruce had never cared much for drinking. Bruce and the dog exchanged knowing glances. “It could be worse. She could be a criminal who runs around dressed in a cat suit.” Terry tossed him an annoyed glare. “Actually, I think what happened might be worse.” Bruce crossed his arms and waited. He wasn’t one to pry into another man’s business, but he could tell Terry needed to talk. Terry was practically bursting with irritation. He had only counted to four when the younger man growled, “She is so impossible! She won’t open up to me.” “She hardly knows you,” Bruce reasoned. “And it’s not like you’ve told her everything yourself. Perhaps she can sense you’re keeping something from her.” “Are you suggesting I tell her I’m Batman,” Terry sarcastically bit off. “No,” Bruce retorted, “I’m suggesting you might want to back off of the girl. Give her some time to get to know you before you start pushing her so much.” “But I want her to be interested in Allen, not Batman,” Terry protested. “I want a more normal relationship with her, and I don’t want to have to worry about her being taken hostage to use against Batman.” Bruce waved a hand impatiently. “No need to point that out to me, boy. I know all about it. I just think you might be rushing her, and Lora seems to be the type who values her independence.” “That’s an understatement,” Terry muttered. “She pushes me away every time I try to get close to her. But that’s not what I’m concerned about. What’s got me worried is…she still loves her husband.” “Ah,” Bruce replied, and that brief reaction seemed to say it all as Terry stared off into space with a brooding look.              & nbsp;            &nb sp;