Excerpted from THE BODYGUARD AFFAIR by Amy Lea:
“Some guy just walked into my stall while I was peeing,” I announce instead, keeping my head low.
Laine’s brows shoot up to her hairline. “You didn’t lock the door?”
“I thought I did, but it was broken. And that’s not even the worst part. The guy saw everything because I had to take this whole thing off.” I motion to my onesie.
“Full bush?” she asks, because apparently that’s an important detail.
“Not full. But overdue for a wax.” Not that I’m planning on getting one. No one’s venturing downtown anytime soon. No point in subjecting myself to socially sanctioned torture just to impress a man.
Laine erupts in booming, witchy laughter, following it up with a smack on the thigh. She does that when something particularly amuses her (which is most things). Her tendency to feel every morsel of emotion with her whole body is one of the things I love most about her. Her intensity is what makes her excellent at her job. When she’s finally collected herself, she turns and pops her head over the back of the booth like a gopher peeking out of its burrow, scanning for predators. “Who was it?”
“I don’t know. I was too mortified to get a good look at him.” Aside from his eyes.
She slaps the back of the booth like she’s at a high-energy sporting event. “Andi, is that him?”
I duck my head even lower, chin to chest, making a triple chin. Highly attractive. “Not looking.”
“Code red. Code red. He’s coming over. And he’s kind of…hot. Not really your type, but—”
I shrink inward, averting my hard stare to the ring of condensation pooled on the sticky table. I will not make accidental eye contact with whoever just saw me nude, hunched over on the toilet. I refuse.
“Uh, hey.” It’s definitely him. It’s the same deep, rough-around-the-edges voice that yelled, Shit! in the bathroom. There’s a weight to it, a grit that stops you in your tracks.
I don’t look up. If I can’t see him, he can’t see me.
After three of the longest seconds of my life, my theory proves false.
“Andi? He’s still here,” Laine informs with a sharp poke in the ribs.
Death, please take me.
I begrudgingly lift my eyes, raking them over a pair of dark wash jeans, a grey Henley T-shirt covering more muscular arms than I’ve ever seen up close, a prominent Adams apple poking through a dark, neatly trimmed beard. His face is boyishly cute, with a slightly bulbous nose and ears that stick out a little from beneath overgrown waves the colour of dark roast coffee. And then there’s those blue eyes, crinkling at the corners, twinkling even in the dim bar lighting.
Laine is a hundred percent right. He is not my type. And by “not my type,” I mean aesthetically superior to me in every way, face and body.
Before I can slither under the table and disappear forevermore, those eyes latch onto mine. He raises his hand, fingers hesitating in mid-air, like he hasn’t decided if he’s committing to a wave or a handshake. Apparently, he decides on neither, shoving both hands into the pockets of his jeans.
“Uh, hi?” I say.
“Hi.” He stops, the apples of his cheeks turning a touch pink above his beard. “Sorry. I already said hi. Um, I think we uh, just met in the bathroom?” He jerks his thumb back to the direction of the bathrooms, squinting adorably at me with one eye.
“Yup. We sure did,” I yelp.
“I wanted to apologize and make sure you were okay.”
“Oh, uh, thanks? I’m okay.” As okay as one can be mere minutes after a stranger inadvertently saw their naked body.
I expect him to do us both a solid and leave, but he lingers. “It won’t happen again,” he assures with a dip of his chin.
“You won’t walk in on unsuspecting stranger in the bathroom again?” I clarify, gaze stuck somewhere around his full, soft-looking lips. I can barely look at him without my cheeks heating, wondering if he’s secretly judging me about my lazy grooming.
“Never. I’m gonna peek under the stall first to make sure it’s unoccupied.” He stops and winces. “Actually never mind. Peeking under the stall…that’s equally creepy, isn’t it?”
“Yup. Sex predators tend to do that kind of thing.”
“I swear I’m not a sexual predator. Or a predator of any sort. God, I can’t believe I just said that. I feel horrible about the whole thing.” I can tell he’s genuine, based on furrow of his thick brows, the downturn of his shoulders.
“Don’t. It wasn’t your fault. The lock was broken. It’s all good,” I say, sitting up a little straighter.
I’m not convincing enough, because he’s still rooted in place, hands twisted in front of his torso. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I fully accept your apology.” I meet his eyes reluctantly.
“Okay. Well…have a good night?” He cheerfully knocks on the back of his booth before backing away, one side of his mouth quirks into a lopsided smile that sends a single spark ping-ponging down my spine.
“Have a good—bye.” I slow-wave, watching him turn away into the crowd. He rakes his hand through his waves and strides back to the bar, plunking down beside another guy in a backward ball cap who’s also scarily fit, tattoos decorating both arms.
Laine gives me another slap on the thigh, though this one is with purpose. “Um, are you ill?”
“What?”
She shoots me a hard stare from under her thick lashes. “Bathroom guy. He’s…hot. Weirdly hot. Like, does-not-belong-in-Ottawa hot. I wonder if he’s a Sens player or something. He kinda has that hockey guy swagger. And the shaggy hair. Minus the wet dog smell.”
I don’t recognize him, not that I’m familiar with the Sens roster. As someone with weak ankles and zero bodily coordination, I don’t exactly follow sports. “So?”
“So! He was flirting and you let him walk away. You don’t let guys like that walk away,” she says, apparently under the delusion that I’ve sent the love of my life away into the mist, never to be seen again.
“He just came over to apologize,” I assure. He smiled at me a fair bit, but I assumed those were sorry-I-accidentally-saw-your-pubes-smiles. Like the way I smile weakly at panhandlers outside my apartment.
Laine emits a disgruntled sigh and levels me with a look that screams come the fuck on. “He was interested. He’s still looking at you. Right now!”
I brave a look, confident she’s lying to boost my morale.
Shit.
She is not.
Our eyes meet again and he grins, revealing dimples. Dimples. The kind I write about. Sweet Christ.
Excerpted from The Bodyguard Affair by Amy Lea Copyright © 2025 by Amy Lea. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
A secret romance writer discovers that the hottest story of summer might just be the one happening between her and the Prime Minister’s bodyguard, from the international bestselling author of Set On You.
Andi Zeigler lives a double life. By day, she’s the no-nonsense, steadfast personal assistant to the Prime Minister of Canada’s wife. By night, she slips out of her heels and writes romance novels under a top-secret pen name. But when her steamiest book, The Prime Minister & Me, unexpectedly becomes a bestseller, rumors of a real-life affair between her and the PM start swirling out of control.
Enter Nolan Crosby, the PM’s new close protection officer (aka bodyguard) – and Andi’s failed one-night stand from three years ago. Nolan’s in town very temporarily to care for his mother, who’s battling early-onset Alzheimer’s. But when the scandal erupts, Andi ropes him into a fake-dating plan.
As loyal employees, they’ll pretend to date for the summer, just long enough to put the scandal to bed and save their boss’s reputation. In an unexpected plot twist, Andi and Nolan discover that keeping their romance strictly fictional might be easier said than done.
Romance Multicultural | Romance Comedy [ Berkley, On Sale: December 2, 2025, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593641781 / eISBN: 9780593641798 ]
Amy Lea is a Canadian bureaucrat by day and contemporary romance author by night (and weekends). She writes laugh out loud romantic comedies featuring strong heroines, witty banter, mid-2000s pop culture references, and happily ever afters.
When Amy is not writing, she can be found fan-girling over other romance books on Instagram, eating potato chips with reckless abandon, and snuggling with her husband and goldendoodle.
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