Guarded

Sofia Reyes has exactly one plan for the summer: headline her own tour, run her own life, and never again let a man with a clipboard decide which version of her is allowed onstage. Seven years of that was plenty. The Uncaged Tour is hers ? every set list, every spotlight, every gloriously reckless decision included.

Roman Hale has a plan too: not this. He runs Vanguard Protection for actual threats, not glittery pop stars with paparazzi problems. He'd rather be anywhere than guarding a woman who treats his safety rules like dares and fires him roughly once a day.

Then one paparazzi photo of the two of them goes viral, and overnight the grumpy man in the charcoal suit is Sofia's rumored new boyfriend. The internet is obsessed. Her label is thrilled. Roman is appalled. And Sofia decides that if the whole world already thinks they're together, she might as well enjoy watching him squirm.

Fake dating was never in the security plan. Neither were the hotel-room arguments, the backstage almost-kisses, or the way Roman kisses like he forgot the whole thing is pretend.

But someone's been leaving things in her dressing room. A Polaroid. A name no one's called her in years. And Roman is the only one who realizes the person behind it isn't chasing the pop star at all ? he's reaching past her, all the way back to the girl from Montana who thought she'd gotten out clean.

She thinks he's just another man trying to cage her. He thinks keeping her alive is the job. Neither of them planned on the part where it stops being pretend.

Guarded is the spicy, fast, funny opener to The Vanguard Series: grumpy/sunshine, fake dating, forced proximity, a bodyguard who loses every argument, and one very real threat humming under all the chaos. Spice level 2?3.