Passenger Princess: A Grumpy Sunshine Bodyguard Pageant Queen Romance (Evergreen Park Book 1)

A million thoughts ran through my mind as I jogged up the stairs and then sprinted down the empty hall to where I last saw Ava, the security guard who was supposed to keep an eye on the room, nowhere to be seen.

Not one of those included Ava standing all dressed up and gorgeous, a man tied up on the floor before her.

Good timing, she said when I walked in, as if she’d been waiting for me, a devilish smile on her lips.

‘Can I Scooby Doo him?’ Ava asks.

‘What?’ Walking further into the chaos, I approach the person before Ava. He’s tied up with the cords of hair tools and absolutely covered in god knows what.

‘I want to take off his mask! See who it is!’

‘Jesus, Ava,’

‘Please, please, please!?’

‘You two are adorable,’ one of the contestants—Miss Wyoming, maybe?—says with a dreamy sigh as if a masked man hadn’t entered this room just moments ago.

‘Ava, you are not touching any part of this. I think you’ve done enough.’ My eyes move to her hands, where a large hair spray can is, and she shifts it behind her like that will help things.

‘Won’t you like, taint the crime scene or whatever?’ Anne says, walking over to where we all stand and worrying her lip. I take her in, reading her and seeing panic all over her face.

‘I don’t think there’s much of a crime scene to taint,’ Cara says. ‘He’s literally covered in glitter and hair spray.’

I sigh, then move, grabbing the man and lifting him under his arms before putting him in a chair. The eyes through the mask look familiar, but I can’t quite place them as I step back, crossing my arms on my chest.

‘Who are you?’ I ask, squatting in front of him.

‘Fuck off,’ the man says, and again, the voice sounds familiar, a bit whiny, but I can’t put my finger on it.

‘We’re going to find out one way or another when the cops come,’ I say.

As seems to be her way, Ava loses patience and reaches over, grabbing the mask and tugging it off before tossing it to the ground. I stand and turn to argue with her, but her eyes are wide.

‘You have got to be kidding me,’ Ava says, standing there with her hands on her hips. Her makeup is impeccable, and she is wearing one of her tiny pink dresses, this one with sequins and feathers, with not a single hair out of place.

A fucking conundrum.

My conundrum.

‘Preston?’ she says, and I turn to the culprit, looking at him and sighing. Tied up in the chair with red eyes from some kind of irritant, glitter, and white powder all over his cheap black outfit is the reporter who has been following Ava, the one who wrote the article that got me fired.

‘Isn’t that Anne’s boyfriend?’ one of the girls asks, and my head swings in her direction.

‘Oh my god, yes! That’s it! She showed us those pictures of them at the beach last year and was bragging about him,’ Joy, Miss Montana, says, snapping her fingers.

Faces move to Anne, whose face is ghastly white. ‘This is not how this was supposed to happen,’ she mumbles.

‘You have got to be kidding me,’ Ava repeats, now mildly entertained.

‘Look, I was just doing a favor for my girlfriend; this got way out of hand,’ Preston says quickly. ‘It was all Anne’s idea. It wasn’t supposed to be this…insane. Just a…’ He pauses, looking around with red eyes, his face covered in glitter. ‘A joke.’

‘Don’t find kidnapping very funny,’ I say. ‘And what about the articles?’

‘Look, this is a bit⁠—’Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

Over this charade, I walk over to him, grabbing his arm to bring him out the door to the security. He must think I’m approaching him to harm him, though, because he shakes his head.

‘Okay, okay! I’ll tell you everything!’

Ava looks at me with humor, fighting a smile because she knows me well enough to know I wasn’t going to attack him.

‘Look, Anne was really upset that you were in the pageant. She asked me to write some articles, do some research, and find some dirt. My bosses liked the reach the articles were getting, so I kept it up, but I wasn’t…I wasn’t stalking you or anything.’

‘My man, you put a tracking device on our car,’ Ava says, even though we have no proof that he put it there. But when his face blanches, I know it wasn’t him, though he knew about its existence, obviously.

‘Look, that isn’t… that isn’t what it seems, it’s⁠—’

‘You followed us on a date in the park, took creepy surveillance photos, then followed us to a friend’s house where we had dinner. I don’t see how it could be anything but⁠—’

‘You weren’t even supposed to be on a date!’ Anne shrieks. ‘Miss Americana isn’t allowed to date!‘

‘Don’t you actively have a boyfriend you’ve apparently manipulated to try and…what? Get me fired? Bully me until I quit?’

She glares at Ava before crossing her arms on her chest. ‘Both.’ Ava nods her head like this makes all the sense in the world. “You weren’t even supposed to make it to the final pageant. Aunt Regina promised me you would quit before then, that the mean articles and the messages you got telling you to or else would get to you.’

The timing is impeccable as the door opens again, three security guards, one of them the Five Star guard, burst into the door. Their steps falter as they see the mess before them.

Behind them, Regina glides in, and instead of panicking like a normal fucking person, she takes in the disaster zone before her and sighs.

“What is going on here?”

“Your niece just tried to have me kidnapped for…some unknown reason.”

“If you weren’t here for this event, I would take your place, and everyone could see how I was the better fit!” Anne shouts, and I stare at her, shaking my head because that was her plan? To have her boyfriend kidnap Ava so she could wear the crown for one event? Never even thinking that it probably would have been at the very least postponed with Ava’s disappearance.

“And where were you?” Regina asks, glaring at me with her arms crossed on her chest.

“What?”

“Where were you? You’re her security, shouldn’t you have been here to protect her?”

I stare at her in confusion. “I’m off the case. I was pulled this morning at the request of the pageant. At the request of you.”

Regina’s face morphs into utter confusion. “Why would we do that? That makes no sense.” She looks at Landon in his Five Star shirt. “Who are you?”

“I’m the replacement that Five Star sent out, ma’am. I wasn’t here because she”—he points at Anne—“told us there was an emergency in the event space, and we ran to check it out, but it was nothing.”

“Yes, but why are you here? Why is there a replacement?”

Landon’s face gets even more confused, and I actually feel bad for the kid.

“My boss told me you insisted he send someone out to replace Jaime before this event because of the article that came out about him being with Ava.”

“That’s insane, why would…” There’s a pause as something starts to click in her mind before her head snaps up to Anne. “Anne.” It’s a single, chiding word, but when I move to look at the red head, I see it. She’s gone pale.

“If he was around, I knew my plan would never work! So I called up Five Star and pretended I was you and told them if they didn’t remove him right away, we wouldn’t sign a long-term contract.” She shrugs. “Honestly, it’s a shitty security company if they don’t even have any kind of verification process.” No one can argue that point, not really. But that explains some of the parts that weren’t adding up, at least.

“I’m sorry. Can we go back to the beginning? I feel like I’m missing a few chapters,” Cara asks, her arms crossed on her chest.

“Someone has been trying to intimidate Ava for months—since before the crowning event—to quit,” I say. “It seems that person has been Anne.”

‘But it didn’t even work because she didn’t quit, and she cheated and stole my crown!’ Anne whines.

‘How did I cheat?’ Ava asks.

‘I don’t know! But you did. No one would have voted for you—you’re a loser! You’re a nobody! You’re not even pretty!’

‘I won because I’m personable, Anne. I won because people like me, I’m kind, and I don’t act like I’m better than everyone else.”

‘Of course you don’t, because you’re not better than everybody.’ Jesus, this chick is really missing the whole point. ‘Miss Americana isn’t supposed to be likable. She’s supposed to be envied. Perfect. Unattainable. But then you came and cheated and won. And then I made it my mission to make you quit.’ She crosses her arms on her chest with a small smile.

‘So you wanted to make me quit and got your little boyfriend here to write a bunch of scathing articles?’

‘And you trashed Ava’s hotel room,’ I say, jumping in on a hunch.

‘That was local—’ Regina starts, but Anne cuts her off.

‘It was me. But you guys came back too quickly, and I didn’t even have time to write a note, so it didn’t work.’

‘And the guy at the Georgia event?’

‘She hit that poor man, and everyone cheered for her! How is that pageant queen behavior!?’ Regina’s eyes go wide, and suddenly, it’s clear she didn’t realize how much was going on. ‘He was a fan of mine, and I promised him lunch with me if he just made Ava uncomfortable while her bodyguard wasn’t there. I just wanted her to feel unsafe and not want to do this anymore!’

‘Anne!’ Regina says. ‘Is that why you threw a fit, wanting Mr. Wilde to accompany you?’

Anne rolls her eyes. ‘Obviously. He’s up her ass all the time. I tried a few things before that, but it didn’t work because he’s annoyingly good at his job.’

‘No, it really is kind of annoying, trust me,’ Ava grumbles, and I glare at her.

‘Not the time, Princess.’

‘Oh, my god, he calls you Princess,’ Miss Oklahoma whispers, and Ava smiles.

‘So the presentation thing? That was…’

‘That was supposed to embarrass you,’ Anne says, pouting. ‘You were supposed to be unprepared and embarrassed, and then it would go viral because you were so boring and stupid. Then it went viral because you did your stupid little self-defense thing. Which is blasphemy because that’s, like, the least pageant queen thing yet! I don’t get it. I kept trying and trying and trying to make everyone hate you, and somehow, every time, it backfired!‘

‘That’s because I’m a decent person, Anne. You should try it sometime.’

‘What else did you do?’ I ask, trying to change the subject. What about the death threats sent to the office?’

‘What?’ Ava asks with shock. I’d never filled her in on those.

‘The death threats Ava has been receiving in her social media and sent to the Miss Americana offices?’

‘How do you know about the ones sent to the offices?’ Regina asks with confusion on her face. ‘We didn’t tell Five Star about them because Anne was taking it too far, and I needed to keep that under wraps.’

‘I know about one of them because someone in your mail room had the vague common sense to call security about them but accidentally called my old boss, who informed me of it. I sat on that intel, wondering if and when you would inform me of them, but I never got it. So you knew about those all along?’

‘Of course, I knew about them. My idiot niece sent them in, and I told my staff to ignore them and give them directly to me.’ She turns to Anne. ‘Because if she didn’t stop this shit, not only was she going to disgrace the Miss Utah crown, but she was going to ruin any chance of winning next year.’

‘I’m sorry, Aunt Regina,’ she says, with big, wide eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I just…I hate her!’

‘So you send death threats? Are you insane?’

“And then she tried to have me kidnapped,” Ava says, like she’s trying to be helpful. “Still not sure what the point of that one was.”

‘You weren’t supposed to win!’ she shrieks, stomping her foot on the ground. “I was supposed to be the youngest Miss Americana. Aunt Regina and I had been planning it for years. It would bring new interest to the event, and I would win a second time in a few years. I was going to make history!’ She stops her dramatics for just a moment before taking a deep breath with a pinch of her fingers and smiling wide with her pageant smile.

It’s alarming to watch in real time, to watch her go from tantrum to calm in a moment.

‘But that’s fine. I can still be the first two-time winner. Next year will be my year, and then I’ll wait a couple of years and be a dark horse.’ She turns to Ava. “That’s what you did; you were the dark horse no one expected to win. Perfect.’ She smiles like her plan is set in stone, and everyone in the room stares at her like she has fully lost it.

‘You know you’re fucked, right?’ Ava asks, looking at Anne like she’s absolutely insane because she is. ‘There is absolutely no way you’re winning a pageant after you have multiple charges against you.’

Anne rolls her eyes and waves a hand. ‘The people love me. And Preston is going to take the heat, right, baby?’ His eyes go wide like this is news to him. “And then everyone will love me. I’ll write a memoir about how I was bamboozled by love after I was unbearably distraught because my crown was stolen and⁠—’

‘She’s insane,’ someone whispers.

‘Oh, totally.’

‘Fully delusional,’ a third pageant queen whispers.

But Ava just shakes her head, a small smile on her lips. ‘Ooh, so, unfortunately for you, I don’t think that’s going to happen. But you can have fun writing your silly little memoir from a jail cell, I guess.’

‘No, I’m not. You have no proof I did anything, and everyone in this room signed NDAs with Aunt Regina, they can’t talk bad about me⁠—’

‘So, funny story, even if that was how NDAs worked, which, I’m so sorry, babe, but it absolutely is not how they work, we were doing a goofy little get ready with us live. You didn’t know because you always sit in the corner and avoid us like the plague because you’re too good for us. Fortunately for all of us, when this bozo came in, it didn’t stop. So, you know. I kind of recorded that whole thing. And.’ Ava looks at her phone and then shrugs. ‘It looks like 283,000 people and counting, saw that. So…”

‘What?’ Anne shrieks.

Ava looks at the phone screen again. ‘Seems the people are not going to be won over very easily now that they know just how horrible of a person you are. The comments are tearing you apart.’ When Ava moves the phone to show me, I see my own face and do a quick scroll through the list of comments.

What a psycho!

We love you, Ava!

I’ve been screen-recording this, too! DM me if you need it!

That bitch deserves prison for life.

And then the comments change in nature.

Oooh, is that bodyguard hottie?!

I’d let him guard my body.

I step back, eyes wide and a burning blush on my face, Ava looking at the screen again.

‘Oops,’ Ava says, with a smile as she reads them too, then puts on a chiding look. ‘Be nice to Jaime, guys, or he’s never going to come on one of these again.’ Then she turns to Anne, whose face is red with anger and panic. ‘Sorry, Anne. But people love a good true crime story, so maybe write the memoir anyway. It might help pay for your attorney fees.’