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

Our next stop is in Stafford at an ice cream shop. Apparently, it was Miss Vermont’s first job and owned by her mother. While we’re there, Ava works the counter, scooping ice cream and serving fans. A portion of the proceeds goes to a local cause that Miss Vermont fundraises for.

Ava is smiling and joking the entire time while scooping ice cream terribly. I know ice cream server was definitely not ever on her apparently long list of previous jobs. But she is great with balancing it all—joking with the customers and serving them—while managing her Miss Americana duties.

I know she said she’d never been in the pageant world, much less the public eye before, something I confirmed when I researched her after getting the assignment, but she’s a natural. It’s like she was made to be watched.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

I’ve seen many people trip into the public eye in my years as private security to the stars, and not everyone does it gracefully. Even less do it with minimal issues when it comes to handling the press or answering questions meant to embarrass or catch her in a bad light.

But not Ava.

Eventually, it’s time for a taste test. I watch as everyone orders, with Ava forcing me to get a double scoop of chocolate. I don’t miss how she diligently looks at the menu before she shakes her head with a small smile, declining. She mumbles something I can’t hear—I’m standing far enough to stay out of the shot of cameras, something Ava begrudgingly agreed to.

I’ve noticed she does this each time we’re out to eat, staring at dessert menus with longing, probably calculating calories or whatever, before shaking her head and getting nothing.

It’s a reminder of why I don’t like her and why I can’t like her. She’s too obsessed with appearances—how people will see her—if a single scoop of ice cream will somehow transform her slim body into something the cameras will hate.

While everyone eats, she moves away from the group, sitting next to me and my double scoop. I tip the cup her way.

“Want some?” I ask.

She looks at the chocolate ice cream dripping off my spoon with that same longing before shaking her head. “No, thank you.”

“It won’t kill you, you know. A few calories.”

Her head cocks back in confusion. “What?”

“Ice cream. Or any dessert, for that matter. It won’t make you gain a million pounds or whatever it is you’ve convinced yourself of. I know you’re probably used to pageant diets, but—” I don’t finish because her laugh fills the area, making heads turn our way, as tends to be her way. Ava’s humor and joy are like a flame, and the world is full of moths.

Lately, it seems like I’m the one most willing to get burned.

Her head is tipped back, hair trailing down her back in soft waves as she laughs, the sun bouncing off her skin like that’s it’s entire job, and I’m enthralled by her.

Finally, she stops laughing and looks at me. “I have a dairy allergy, Jaime.”

I sit there, blinking at her, and she shakes her head, still smiling.

“It’s relatively new, I found out in the past year or so. It makes me break out in hives. Unfortunately for me, I love ice cream and desserts, but most have some kind of milk, obviously.” Her hand lifts, patting my cheek like she finds me entertaining—a sweet little boy who has no clue.

To be fair, it’s absolutely how I feel around her.

“I know we keep joking about it, but I’m really not some self-centered pageant queen.”

Suddenly, I feel like an ass.

She’s not wrong: I’ve been judging her since the very beginning, assuming she was some diva who only cared about herself and her appearance, but never once has she actually reinforced that belief, other than the amount of time she spends getting ready. But even that, she explains, is just something she does because she likes it. Not for anyone else.

I think I keep trying to cling to that, to believe it, because if I decide she’s not that, I have no fucking shot of keeping this professional.

“I’ve been trying to tell you I’m not what I appear, Jaime. You just refuse to open your eyes.”

A moment passes with her soft hand on my cheek, looking into my eyes, a small smile playing on her lips before I open my mouth to say…I don’t know, but I don’t have to stress about it because, in that moment, she’s called off by someone. She stands, winks at me, and literally skips off to the reporter who called her name.

The woman is a puzzle.

And I am a giant asshole.