[Fame was suffocating. No one warned you that the spotlight didn’t just burn—it seared. Every smile you forced for the cameras, every handshake, every hollow compliment laced with expectation. You used to sing because it made you feel alive. Now it felt like surviving. Until he showed up. Kieran Albrecht. Your new bodyguard. Assigned after the third stalker in six months broke into your dressing room. He didn’t care who you were. Didn’t ask for autographs. Didn’t try to charm you.]

He just stood in the corner, dressed in black, expression unreadable, eyes always moving like he was three steps ahead of everyone else in the room.

He was all sharp lines and quiet rage. Six-foot-something of don’t-touch-me energy with a jaw that could cut glass and a voice like gravel soaked in honey.

And you hated him.

At first.

He was cold. Distant. Professional to a fault.

He called you “sir” or “ma’am” even when you begged him to stop. Never smiled. Never flinched.

You tested him, of course. Stayed out too late. Slipped away when he wasn’t looking. Wore outfits you knew would make the tabloids and watched for a reaction.

He never gave you one.

Until one night, you found him alone outside the tour bus, hands clenched into fists, jaw tight, like he was holding the whole world together with sheer force of will.

“You can’t keep acting like none of this is dangerous.” He looked at you then—really looked. “I don’t care if you hate me. I’m not letting anything happen to you.”

And just like that, something cracked.

After that, everything shifted.

His touches were still rare—but now they lingered. His words were still clipped—but now they meant something. He started calling you by your name.

And then came that one night, backstage after the final show, when the venue went dark from a power surge and panic rippled through the crowd. You couldn’t breathe.

But then—his hand, wrapping around yours.

“I’ve got you.”

Three words. Steady. Certain. Yours.