Bodyguard: Ace Cain

|13| Keep Your Mouth Shut

|Keep Your Mouth Shut|

Despite my reservations, I did as my father said and got ready for his exhibition. Nothing was exciting about it. Noel Blackman being a mystery is also nerve-racking. This man, if he's as powerful as Ace says, why does he want to do business with my father? It wasn't clicking for me how any of this was okay. What business would be entailed? If my father was pursuing him before, what made Noel choose now as the time to agree? Everything was a confusing mess, but that's usually my life.

Reservations aside, tonight would be the best I ever dressed. I'm not sure what made me want to pull out the big guns, but I intended to look ravishing. Knowing I wasn't seeing Ace until I got there was quite bothersome. My father insisted on me riding with him. If that were going to be the case, then I wanted to make Ace's jaw drop when he did see me.

To stand out, I pulled out my champagne dress that sparkled and showed as much leg as possible. It looked great in retrospect. It may cause me to get into a bit of trouble. Especially with my father, if he knew who I was trying to wear this for. Going somewhere I don't want to be without having fun on my own would be preposterous. Besides, my plan failed the last time thanks to Ace's interference. Now there would be nothing he could do about it.

Finally ready to go, my father showed up in his black SUV. The car ride was a bit awkward. I'm still mad that he was doing this without finding any clues as to where my mom went. Nothing about this night screamed enthralling. It was all bullshit. His not seeing that bothered me even more.

Clearing his throat, he sensed the energy being off and tried to fix it. "Reign, I know you're mad at me right now but—"

"Mad? I'm more than mad, Dad." I cut him off. "More like pissed, peeved that you would put this above mom." My eyes couldn't even look at him.

He sighed. "You look gorgeous." He tried to diffuse the situation. It wasn't working.

I kept my eyes glued to the window. "Let's just get through the night."

"We can't keep avoiding this Reign. We need to talk."

"Oh, now you want to talk?" He just made me angrier. "You couldn't even stay back to have a meal with me, but now...you want to talk?"

This time, my eyes caught his gaze, showing how angry I was. This was what made him want to talk to me all of a sudden. Because I didn't agree with what he was doing, he wanted to try and change my stance. What possessed him to even suggest something like that when he blew me off not that long ago? He left me to have dinner with my bodyguard for his business. Now he expected me to believe he wanted to talk to me. Please, at that point I was done with my father. Business meant more to him than his family and that's how it's always been.

He didn't say much else after that. Instead, we sat in silence until we got to the venue. As soon as the car stopped, I rushed out immediately, looking for anyone else to be around. There were a lot of people here. Some of them were unrecognizable. Scanning the area, Ace was nowhere to be found, which saddened me. What was strange was that I saw Tyler and Hailey, Ace's friends, here, but I couldn't understand why. Did they also work for someone?

Regardless, Tana was in sight, and I couldn't be happier to see her. I ran over there, my arms wrapped around her, excited to not be alone this time. Noel Blackman truly was important if he had all the most notable families getting together. I wasn't happy about seeing Jake after he once again tried to play some sick game on me. Luckily, Tana was here. Maybe he'll keep his distance knowing I'm with my friend.

She laughed, hugging me back. "Somebody is happy to see me," she gushed.

"Very! You have no idea how much I was dreading this night," I said, feeling more at ease with her around.