“By the way.” She looked back over her shoulder, standing in front of the glass door. “It was decent, what you did today. It’ll probably be all over the place by now, how one of my security guards tossed a grapher like he was a crushed-up candy wrapper, but whatever happens… just know I think you did the right thing.”
“Thanks.” He hadn’t stopped to think about how his behavior would reflect on her. Maybe he needed to give that a little more thought next time before he did something like that. She’d be the one whose name was mentioned.
It wasn’t just a stalker he had to keep her safe from or rabid fans. It was the entire world.
Chapter Ten
“Hello, Serenity. Earth to Serenity.” Melody snapped her fingers close to Serenity’s face. “Where are you this morning?”
She leaned back, away from those fingers. She wanted to break them. “Did I ever tell you how much I hate it when you do that?”
“Did I ever tell you how much I hate it when you don’t pay attention?” Melody heaved a heavy sigh. “We’re gonna have to start again. For the fifth time.”
“Because it’s ever that simple to create content. Because it’s always perfect.” Serenity sighed the way her manager had, letting her head fall back so she could look at the ceiling. Anything was better than looking at that accusatory expression.
“You’re off your game.”
“You wouldn’t be?” They exchanged a long, silent look before Serenity smiled. “Yeah. I thought so.”
“You’re better protected now than you’ve ever been. You don’t have anything to worry about now.” Melody jerked her head in the direction of the patio where Braxton and Zane were hanging out by the pool.
Was it wrong to hope they took their shirts off? Maybe their jeans? She made a mental note to encourage them to swim. After all, a girl needed something to distract herself with, especially when everything around her sucked.
“Can we just take a short break? Please?” She rubbed her temples to fight off an impending headache, though that didn’t help. “And do you have any aspirin in your bag? My head’s killing me.”
“Maybe you should’ve laid off the wine last night.” Melody’s face screwed up in a look of disappointment. “I found the bottle in the recycling.”
“Good for you.” She popped a couple of pills and washed them down with water. “Last time I checked, I’m twenty-five years old, and it’s perfectly legal for me to drink wine—especially in my own home, which was where I was.”
“You knew you had to create ten videos today. Why would you do that to yourself? Are you trying to sabotage everything?”
She slapped her palms onto the tabletop, making the array of makeup and skin products that sat around her jump and scatter around. “Sometimes I think you forget you work for me. You’re not my mother. I do what I want. Okay?”
Melody’s head snapped back like she’d been slapped. Her eyes widened, then narrowed into slits. “Fine. You can do this yourself today. I’m not in the mood to be abused just because you decided to drink last night.”
“This has nothing to do with that!”
“Bull.” Melody gathered her things. “Seriously, it’s time for you to take a look at yourself. I’m not here to be abused. I’m not one of your lapdogs or one of your so-called friends who only tags along to see what they can get out of you.”
“No, not you!” Serenity shouted, following her through the first floor. “You’re not in this for the money at all. It’s out of the goodness of your heart, right? You only care about me.”
Melody spun in place just before reaching the door. “If you think I put up with half of the stuff you put me through just because I care about a salary, you don’t have the first clue. I’m tired of being your doormat.”
“So go. Get out.” Serenity stormed past her and flung the door open. “Get out of my sight.”
“Gladly.” Melody walked out, her heels clicking on the driveway before she got in her car and slammed the door. Nice car, too. She’d only bought it a few months earlier on the money she earned as Serenity’s manager.
“And that’s basically my car, you know!” she shouted, hands cupped around her mouth. Melody flipped her off as she backed away, then brought the car around and sped off in a cloud of dust.
“What was that all about?” Luke asked. As usual, he’d managed to materialize out of thin air. The fact that he was always close by was only comforting some of the time, she began to understand.
“What did it sound like?” She didn’t look at him, closing the door and turning to go back to the dining area where the products had been spread out on the table. There was still work to do no matter how much she wanted to crawl into bed and pull the covers over her head.
Was this what she’d done it all for? All that work, all that time. All so she could feel like a hamster in a wheel with no way out, no way off.
“Do you need anything?” he asked, following her.
“Just some quiet so I can make these videos. Maybe it’ll be easier without her watching and criticizing. I have, like, a half-dozen products to talk about and some other random filler to record. It’s not like everything has to be perfect. It never was before, and people seemed to like it just fine.”
“You came off as a person, just a regular person. I think that’s what fans related to. The videos you posted weren’t perfect. You made mistakes. You laughed at yourself. That’s what people wanna see.”
“I didn’t know you watched those old videos,” she grinned, taking a seat and adjusting the camera to make sure she was centered in the frame.
“I had to know who I was coming to work for, didn’t I? Wouldn’t you do a little research?”
“That’s true.” She felt bad for being annoyed by his hovering presence only a minute or so earlier since he was the one touch of sanity in her otherwise crazy world. “Thanks. I feel a lot better now.”
“You sure you need to do this today?” He extended an arm, sweeping it above the table. “I mean, would it be the end of the world if you took it easy?”
“You’re a bad influence,” she snickered, pointing at him. “I don’t need any reminder of how much I don’t feel like doing this right now.”
“Then why are you doing it? Seriously, why? Why not just make a quick video and talk about visiting the convention yesterday and leave this for another time? You know it’ll show up on camera, how tired you are and how worried you are.”
She frowned. “I seem tired and worried?” she asked, chewing her lip.
“Well, yeah. Who wouldn’t feel that way in your position?”
“I’m supposed to be an actress. I can act like there’s nothing wrong with me.” She squared her shoulders, prepared to barrel through this challenge the way she’d barreled through so many others. One thing she’d always been able to count on was herself. Sometimes, that was the only thing she’d been able to count on.
“Serenity…”
Her head snapped up. “What? Are you going to give me a hard time, too? I’m fine. I have things to do, and I can’t sit around and let whoever this is grind me down. That’s what they want. They want me to curl up in a ball and be unhappy and afraid and shut down. I won’t do that.”
“I agree.” Braxton had come in at some point—she hadn’t noticed, too busy getting ready to rip Luke’s head off for pushing her too hard. He kept his distance though, eyeing up the other man. “Whoever they are, they want to stop you from being you. They want to get in your head, make you question yourself, make you step away from your life. Even if they’re not here to watch it happen, they’re probably imagining it and getting a lot of satisfaction.”
She shivered. Was that true? It was impossible when he talked that way not to imagine somebody holed up in some crummy apartment, alone, imagining new ways to make her miserable, imagining how stressed she would be, feeling proud of themselves for ruining her.
It was just what she needed to imagine to give her the willpower to keep going.
“I can’t let anyone see a lapse in uploads. And I can’t let them see my energy flagging. This is what I need to do. It’s my job.”
Luke held his hands up in front of himself, looking from her to Braxton. “Hey, I’m sorry. I only want what’s best.”
“I’m sure Serenity knows that,” Braxton murmured.
“I don’t need you to speak for me,” she reminded him. Just because they’d shared a few minutes by the pool didn’t make them best friends, and it didn’t give him the right to speak for her.
“I know,” he assured her, but there was something about the way he said it, about his frown, that made her wonder what he was thinking. What was going on in that head of his?
Did she really want to know?
“Did you have any plans to go out today?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I was going to do this for as long as it takes and then study my script for the movie. Why?”
“We just need to know so we know what’s expected of us.” He looked to Luke, shrugging. “Honestly, if you’re bored, there’s really not much to do around here. Zane and I have things under control.”
She held her breath. So that’s what he was getting at. He didn’t see Luke’s presence as being necessary. Come to think of it, maybe it wasn’t just him. Yes, Luke kept her sane in her crazier moments, but it wasn’t like she couldn’t exist without him.
Luke looked to her. “I work for you. Not for them. Tell me what you want.”
“Look, I’m not trying to have a pissing contest—” Braxton began, crossing the living room, but Luke cut him off with a single glare.
“I’m talking to her now, not you.” He turned back to her, and there was something in his eyes that wasn’t there before, something she had maybe never seen. Insecurity? Was that it? He had nothing to feel insecure about as far as she was concerned, but he clearly didn’t know that.
“It’s up to you,” she shrugged, at a loss. The thing was if she kept him around it would only cause more tension.
The light left his eyes. They hardened. “Okay. I could use a day off.” He was angry. Pissed. Hurt. Her chest tightened.
“Don’t take it personally! Please!” But it was too late. He was on his way out the door. At least he didn’t slam it.
“He’ll be fine.” Braxton murmured when they were alone.
She turned slowly toward him, eyes narrowing. “How would you know? You don’t know him. You don’t know anything about him other than what he does for me. You don’t know how this makes him feel.”
“I think I know that much,” he insisted with a smirk.
“You know so much. You’re so smart. Right?” She rolled her eyes. “You don’t impress me that much, so you can stop strutting around like you’re something special.”
He only chuckled. “I was testing him. Come on. You’re supposed to be so smart.”
“Testing him why?”
“Again, that intelligence of yours isn’t doing you any favors.”
“How about you stop insulting me long enough to answer my question?”
He grew serious like he’d flipped a switch. The know-it-all smirk slid off his face in favor of a stern stare. “We can’t take anybody in your life for granted, especially not the people closest to you.”
It finally clicked into place, and when it did, she couldn’t help but laugh. “Luke? You think Luke’s responsible for the email?”
“You’re taking this way too lightly,” he warned.
“It’s just that I know him. He’s been with me for a year—no, more than that. He’s probably the only level-headed person in my life right now. He’s not capable of something like that.”
“You’re so sure, then?”
Under the table, out of his line of sight, her fists clenched in her lap. “I know what I know. Okay? That’s gonna have to be enough. Besides, and I hate to sound nasty, but he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. A nice guy with a good heart but I don’t think he could manage to send something untraceable. And I guess it’s untraceable since none of your team has been able to find where it was sent from. Right?”
That confident expression of his slipped a little. Was it wrong to feel a surge of relief when she saw it? Probably, since the fact that the email hadn’t yet been traced to its sender wasn’t exactly good news. At least she’d knocked him off his high horse.
“We’re working on it,” was all he’d say.
“Good for you. And God knows I hope you find out who sent it soon. Now, excuse me, but I have work to finish.” She pointed to the camera. “Unless you wanna be in one of my videos.”
He turned a pointed stare toward the array of products on the table. “No, thanks. I don’t think that lipstick would go well with my complexion.”
She tried not to giggle and couldn’t stop herself. “It’s lip gloss,” she corrected. “Come on. You’ve gotta learn the terminology if you’re gonna throw it around sarcastically.”
He snickered, opening the door to the patio. “I guess I have a lot to learn, don’t I?” What was it about the way he said it that made her think he wasn’t just talking about makeup?
Chapter Eleven
“God, I would never get anything done if I lived out here. Can you imagine?” Zane sighed, tilting his head back to soak in the sun.
“I imagine you ending up with skin cancer.”
He snorted. “Not something we ever have to worry about, and you know it.”
“Yeah, well, maybe we’d better at least pretend we care about the damage the sun could do to our skin so long as we’re here. Know what I mean?” They didn’t need to clue the girl in to what was different about them.
“Right, right.” Zane frowned as he slid a pair of sunglasses off his face, settling them on top of his head. “What’s with you? You’re in a mood.”
“I’m not in a mood—though if I was, it would be because we have no leads on who sent that message. Our client’s in her own little world, and the more I talk to her, the more people seem to crawl out of the woodwork. Potential bad guys. You know what I mean.”
“And don’t forget the thousands of people who follow her on social media,” Zane snickered. When Braxton didn’t join him, he grew serious. “Look, I know this is overwhelming. But she’s safe enough here, isn’t she? And there are only so many people who now that personal email address. We have that on our side.”
“Right. I keep forgetting about that.” He settled back against the lounge chair with a sigh. “I don’t know where my head is.”
“I know where it is.”
“Watch it.”
“What?” Zane asked, innocent and offended. “I’m just saying.”
“I know what you’re just saying. You don’t have to tell me. You’re just saying she has me screwed up.” He folded his hands behind his head. “I’m not in the mood to play games.”
“I’m not playing any games.” Zane leaned in, lowering his voice. “Listen. I feel it. I feel what you’re going through. The wolf does, anyway. You don’t have to pretend. Okay?”
“I’m not in the mood to talk about this.”
“It doesn’t matter if you are or not. We need to focus up here. We need a list of people who knew about that personal email address so we can at least know where to start looking for who had a reason to threaten her. Our call with the team is in a few minutes. Get your shit together.”
“Yes, sir.” He sketched a sarcastic salute.
“Yeah, and get all that outta your system before we talk to Logan, too,” Zane added. “He won’t let you get away with something like that.”
“Like you need to tell me.” Even so, he knew his friend had a point, and if their roles were reversed, he would’ve given the same advice.
He should’ve gotten the list of people with knowledge of the email address long before now, but he hadn’t. Why? Because he was busy telling himself he had to get to know her, had to understand her mind, her life, the sort of people she surrounded herself with.
&nbs
p; All because she fascinated him and his wolf—especially his wolf. The wolf wanted an excuse to be near her, to stay here and be close to someone who infuriated him. Was he that big a glutton for punishment, that wolf of his? He’d never been like this before.
He was finally starting to understand why Jace acted the way he did when they were guarding Kara Collins. Maybe if he’d had this sort of insight back then, he would’ve been a little more helpful, a little more sympathetic.
Instead, he’d considered Jace weak, even if he would never have said so. Now he could hardly stand the guilt, seeing that same weakness in himself and knowing there was nothing he could do about it. Once the wolf got involved, that was the end of it. Instinct took over. There was no such thing as sense.
An unfortunate situation, to put it mildly.
She was inside working on her videos. He could just make her out in spite of the glare off the glass doors, holding up a product and talking about it with a big smile. Even out here, he could feel her charisma. He could barely take his eyes off her.
“She’d be wasted in any other sort of job,” he murmured mostly to himself.
But not enough to himself since Zane heard. “Yeah, she’s got that thing about her, doesn’t she?” he agreed. “She’s not just a face or a body.” Though the face and body were pretty good on their own. Better than pretty good.
“She could be huge if given the opportunity.”
“She’s already on her way.” Zane looked longingly at the pool.
“You wanna go in for a swim?” Braxton chuckled, turning his attention away from her. He had to stop thinking about her personally, at least for a while. Long enough to do what needed doing.
“I can’t help it. We were supposed to be on vacation.”
“I doubt she’d have a problem with it. Maybe once we’ve finished our call.” As if on cue, his phone rang. “And here we go.”
They sat together at a table under an umbrella since the shade would make it easier to see and be seen. Logan’s face filled the phone’s screen when he answered. “Good morning,” he grinned.
Wolf Shield Investigations: Boxset Page 32
