Edrick
With an exasperated sigh, I picked up my phone to call my chief security officer.
"Afternoon, Mr. Morgan," he said when he answered. "Everything alright?"
"Yes," I replied. "But I need a favor. Do you have any female bodyguards you could send over for an interview?"
The chief security officer paused for a moment, thinking. "I do," he replied. "I can send them over tomorrow. Is there anything you need them for specifically?"
I sighed again, thinking back on the incident with Moana and the male bodyguard that I had assigned to her. She clearly felt uncomfortable with him, and it was obvious that the other teachers and students were uncomfortable as well. All I wanted was for Moana to be protected, but it wasn't going to help any if she kept pushing away the bodyguards.
"I need someone who can work closely with my... fiancee," I replied, still feeling strange about referring to Moana as that. Even though we had marked each other and had become a lot more affectionate since it had happened, we were still technically not in any sort of official relationship. At least, we hadn't talked about it yet. "She needs someone who can be helpful with kids, and someone who's easy to get along with but who will also provide good protection. Do you have anyone like that?"
For a few more moments, the security officer paused. I could hear him typing on a keyboard on the other end, like he was looking something up. After a little while longer, he finally said, "Aha! I found someone."
"Who is it?" I asked.
"Her name is Katherine," he replied. "She's twenty-eight, has experience working on one-on-one jobs in family settings, and it looks like she performed excellently on all of her physical and intellectual exams."
I nodded, letting out a small sigh of relief. "Send her over to the penthouse tomorrow," I replied. "I'd like to have an interview with her."
I felt infinitely relieved by the time I hung up with the security officer. Perhaps having a female bodyguard who was good with kids might lift Moana's mood and make her feel a bit more comfortable. Not only that, but maybe I could finally rest easy during the day knowing that Moana had an experienced bodyguard by her side in case of an emergency... Although part of me felt as though I would never really rest easy. Not as long as I still had to worry that Moana could shift at any point out of nowhere.
For the rest of that day, I prepared what I would say to Moana. She hadn't exactly been out of line with how she handled her first bodyguard, per se, but I needed her to understand why it was so important for her to be more open to this new bodyguard. When she came home that afternoon, however, judging from the angry expression on her face and the way that she stormed toward me it seemed as though my pre-planned speech might fall on deaf ears.
As Moana stormed into the apartment, she immediately sent Ella off to her room to play before grabbing me by the arm and pulling me unceremoniously into my study. When the door was shut behind us, she folded her arms across her chest and shot me an angry glare.
"He can't keep stalking me like this," she growled. "The agreement was that he would drive me to work and wait in the car, not that he would sneak around with binoculars and spy on my every move. Yesterday, he mistook another red- haired teacher for me. Today, one of my students started crying because she was scared of the enormous man on the park bench who kept staring into the classroom window! Do you want me to lose my job?"
I sighed and shook my head. "No, Moana," I replied. "Look... I'm sorry, but you need a bodyguard. I don't feel comfortable with you and Ella returning to school with someone just sitting outside. Someone could sneak in. You could shift during class and wreak havoc if no one is equipped to handle it."
"I won't shift," she insisted. "I think that I would know if I was going to shift."
"It's not that simple," I replied exasperatedly.
"When someone shifts for the first time, they can't always recognize the warning signs. Many people can lose consciousness during their first time shifting, and their wolf can cause a lot of damage. Normally, people shift for the first time as children, in a safe environment with teachers. But as a late bloomer such as yourself, things are different. I understand that you're entitled to your independence, but do you want to potentially destroy your classroom and terrify your students if you shift suddenly? What if you injured someone?"
Moana fell silent for a few moments while she chewed the inside of her cheek. "Fine," she finally said quietly. "I get it... I get that I'm just a late bloomer who could cause all sorts of problems."
I raised my eyebrows, shocked at this sudden use of words. "What are you talking about?" I asked. "Where did that come from?"
"Everyone keeps saying that I'm bad luck as a late bloomer," Moana said, her voice quiet and almost timid. "My colleagues keep whispering about me. No one wants to be near me, and with this whole security guard nonsense, it's even worse. I'm not only there for a job, you know. I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, I could... I don't know. I thought that I could—"
"Make some friends?" I asked. Moana nodded and I sighed, running my hand through my hair. "Would you want to be friends with superstitious people who spread nasty rumors like that anyway?"
For a long time, Moana stared blankly at the floor in front of her. Her jaw shifted from side to side as she seemed to be thinking deeply, before she finally dropped her arms to her sides and shrugged. "I guess not," she said. "But either way, this bodyguard business is causing problems, and I do have a job to do. Besides, people know that Ella is my 'daughter', and I don't want anything bad to rub off on her."
"Well..." I smiled slightly. "You'll be happy to know that I found an alternative. A new bodyguard that you can have in the classroom with you. Wouldn't that be better?"
I expected Moana to feel better, but for some reason, this only seemed to make her even angrier. Her cheeks turned a shade of red that almost matched her hair, and she folded her arms across her chest again and shook her head vigorously.
"Did you not just listen to what I said?" she asked. "I won't allow a bodyguard in my classroom! And if you try, I'll... I'll send them away again!"
"No." Now, I finally felt the need to put my foot down, and I narrowed my eyes at Moana. "No," I said. "You won't send them away. You're going to just have to deal with this new reality, Moana, or I'm going to have to take us to the mountain estate for real this time."