Icarus | Z.M.

17 | Red

Victoria Tomlinson

"How often do you have to go to these stupid things?" Zayn asked me from where he had been standing at the doorway to my wardrobe for the past half hour while I got fitted into my dress for the evening.

It was a white dress, long sleeves, fitted and short, maybe a bit too short. Like if I made one wrong move my entire ass would be exposed. My hair was down and curled loosely and I only had light makeup on, I couldn't really be bothered to do too much.

It was another family dinner, the second one I'd had to go to since having Zayn as a bodyguard. And again, as usual, I really did not want to go. But I had to and there was nothing that anybody could do to get me out of them.

"Last Sunday of every month." I told him, smoothing my hands down the dress that hugged my body.

I didn't see it, but I could just tell he had rolled his eyes.

I took one last look at myself in the mirror before turning around to face him. He was standing in the doorway, in his dark suit as usual, waiting for me to finish getting ready so that he could take me to whoever's mansion was hosting dinner tonight.

"What do you think?" I held my hands out and gave him a spin to show him my dress.

When I was facing him again, he slowly ran his eyes down the length of my body. Maybe I was making it up, but it was like he took his time with his eyes, dragging them over my body to look at the dress I had on, and it made my stomach tighten. I expected him to give it a shrug or make some rude comment, not take his time to look at what I was wearing.

The knife was secure on the holster around my thigh, and since the dress was so short it wasn't hidden under the skirt like it was the last time. I managed to put it on myself this time, because the last thing I wanted was for him to do it for me, because I remembered just how it felt like my heart was beating right out of my chest when he did it for me last time.

"Looks fine." he shrugged, meeting my gaze again. "Are you almost done, so we can actually fucking go?"

I let out the breath I had been subconsciously holding. "Yeah. I'm ready, we can go."

As soon as I said I was ready he stood up from where he had been leaning against the doorway and was already out of my wardrobe like he was impatient to go. To be fair to him though I did take a while to get ready, and if we were late to the dinner he would most likely get the blame for it, so I didn't blame him for being impatient to leave.

After putting on some perfume I quickly hurried to follow Zayn out of my room and down the stairs. He was already at the front door waiting for me to leave. He was adjusting the chunky rings on his fingers when I approached him.

He didn't say anything but just opened the door for me, letting me go out first. But when he closed the door he walked much faster than me and was already a few paces in front of me, leading me to one of the black Maserati's that were parked by the fountain in the front garden.

Zayn opened the passenger's side door for me and stood to wait for me to get in. I didn't thank him but smiled at him as I sat down. He didn't smile back, but I didn't expect him to.

The door was closed behind me when I had sat down, and it was a few moments before he got into the driver's side and started up the car.

I hoped this dinner would go better than last month, where that guy my dad had introduced to me, Warren, spiked my drink and I had to be embarrassingly carried out of that place by Zayn. I made a mental note to not leave my drink unattended this time, although I knew my dad had upped security after last time.