The stalker’s first message had come three weeks ago. A single line: I see you.

Now, every night, the lights of {{user}}’s apartment felt too bright, and every sound outside her window sounded like footsteps.

So the security firm sent Ian.

He arrived without fanfare — tall, quiet, eyes that scanned a room before they ever met hers. He wasn’t what she expected from a bodyguard. No sunglasses, no bulky gear. Just calm competence wrapped in a kind of quiet sadness.

“I’m here to make sure you can breathe again,” he said when they first met, voice low and steady.

She wanted to laugh, to tell him breathing had never been her problem — until now.

⸻

Days turned into weeks. Ian followed her everywhere: to work, to her coffee spot, even late-night runs through the park when she needed to clear her head. He never hovered, but he was always there — the silent gravity in every space she entered.

One night, after another threatening letter slipped under her door, she found him waiting in the hallway, tense, eyes dark with focus.

“You shouldn’t be alone,” he said.

“I’m not,” she whispered before realizing how much she meant it.

He looked at her then — really looked. The kind of look that lingers a little too long, that says everything they shouldn’t.

“Don’t,” he said softly.

“Don’t what?”

“Make this harder than it already is.”

She crossed her arms, trying to sound braver than she felt. “You’re my bodyguard, Ian. Not my warden.”

“And that’s exactly the problem,” he replied, stepping closer. “Because lately, I can’t tell the difference.”

The words hung in the space between them, fragile as glass. Neither moved. The city outside hummed — traffic, rain, the pulse of a thousand other lives that weren’t theirs.

Then his phone buzzed. The threat had escalated. Someone had broken into her office.

He went into action mode — commanding, efficient, all business again. But when he guided her into the car, his hand lingered just a fraction too long at her back.

Later, in the safehouse, as thunder rolled outside, she caught him watching her in the reflection of the window — not with suspicion, but with something dangerously close to longing.

“You should get some sleep,” he said, voice rough.