Free Her Soldier Protector by Soraya Lane

that serves Jamie right for telling you it was time to meet a woman. We just didn’t expect you to set your sights quite so high.”
    Logan was usually ready to spar with Brett whenever he became annoying, but today he wasn’t going to take the bait. He could deal with his friend later.
    “I have to go. I’ll call you later.”
    “I’ll email those pics through to you,” Brett said. “You know, in case you want to check yourself out.”
    “Later.”
    Logan hung up and opened his fridge, pulling out a carton of juice. He managed to take a few sips before curiosity got the better of him, and he grabbed his phone again and checked his emails. Sure enough, Brett had already hit Send, because there was a link waiting for him to click on.

    Naughty night out in Australia for America’s sweetheart. Candace Evans waves goodbye to good girl reputation with mystery man.

    Logan took a deep breath, refusing to let his anger get to him. He clicked through the shots and saw them leaving the restaurant together, a zoomed-in photo of them holding hands, one of them driving away in his car, then hours later Candace running into the hotel, her hair all messed up and one hand held across her face.
    It wasn’t like they’d actually caught them doing anything, but they’d built a story around nothing and put up a few photos together to try to prove a point. The worst thing was that she’d run from him, and he had no idea why she’d just disappear like that after they’d spent the night together. Had someone sent her the photos and spooked her?
    Whatever had happened, he was going to make sure that she was left alone at the press conference this afternoon. Sure, the media might go crazy when they realized he was her bodyguard, but then again they might think they’d made a huge mistake and he’d just been minding her.
    Either way, he was heading to the hotel now to see if she was okay.
    His phone bleeped again, this time with a text. He flicked through to his messages, anger rising again when he read the words.

    Looks like you had an interesting evening. Heads up that the press junket has been cancelled, so you’re officially off duty on this one.

    Great. Even his boss knew what he’d been up to, or allegedly up to, the night before. And Candace had obviously gone into hiding if she was giving up her afternoon appointment. Still, he was going to see her. If she was still in the country, he’d track her down. What Candace didn’t know about him was that he wasn’t exactly a one-night stand kind of guy, either, and he wanted her to know that he’d be there for her if she needed him, until her flight out.
    Candace had made him see that he needed to move on with parts of his life that he’d ignored for so long, and for that alone he needed to thank her. Usually when he freaked out over anything, he went for a run or hit the gym. In fact, he usually did it every morning because his dreams freaked him out night after night, but today was different. Today he actually had to confront the problem head-on instead of try to outrun it.
    *
    Candace stared at her laptop screen. She was a sucker for punishment, and she still couldn’t help clicking through and looking at each photo one more time. She’d looked before her shower, and now she was sitting on her bed, hair wrapped in a towel, torturing herself again.
    She felt like a fool.
    Being with Logan wasn’t something she regretted, even if she did regret the paparazzi getting snaps of her and making it clear to the world what she’d been up to. It was the fact that it had taken Logan’s comments for her to realize how bad her manager was—she’d hidden behind the fact that her mom wasn’t around any longer, instead of dealing with something she knew was detrimental to her career. But those days were gone. The first thing she’d done in the taxi was text her manager and tell him she was okay, that she would be arriving back at the hotel within twenty minutes, and then when