“From where I’m sitting,” she said, collecting herself, “you’ve already put me in more danger than you’ve saved me from. I’ve never been that close to a car accident in my life.”
She stared at me, and I stared right back.
“If that’s how you really feel, you can fire me.”
Right. That was bullshit.
Brody and Jude had hired me, and I wasn’t going anywhere. But I also didn’t need her trying to push me out the door all damn day.
When she failed to retaliate with a sassy comeback, I informed her, “The truth is, you need someone like me in your life.”
She knew it, I figured, but it was tough for her to swallow. I got that.
Maybe she really wanted to believe the world was filled with the good guys. That what happened last night was a total anomaly.
Unfortunately, I knew for a fact that wasn’t true.
She looked out the window and took a deep breath. After a moment, she said, “I’m sorry. I apologize for my bad attitude. I don’t usually apologize for anything. So please take it. I’m not likely to say it again.” She glanced at me and gave me a faint, forced smile. “I haven’t been myself these last few days.”
“You don’t owe me any apology.”
Her gaze drifted over my face, and her expression changed. For the first time, a little of the fear I’d seen last night showed through.
“How did this happen?” she said, quietly.
It was a question I had no answer for, yet.
“Fuck,” she breathed, looking away. “You know… I didn’t even remember his last name. I had one semi-date with him. If you could call it that. He joined me and some of my friends for drinks one night after a show. Then he asked me to have dinner with him sometime, but I declined. He seemed cool, for maybe an hour. After that, I didn’t like his vibe, or whatever, and I just stopped noticing him. I don’t even know for sure at what point things went… wrong.” She looked at me. “You have to understand, I welcome people into my world. I’m a DJ. I go to half a dozen parties a week, or more. I’m often hosting those parties. And I just assume everyone’s partying with me. I hope they’re partying with me. I can’t possibly like everyone who walks through the door, but I try. I’ve had thousands of Blairs come and go, and usually, when they’re not wanted, they just go. This one… didn’t.”
She shook her head. She looked like her thoughts were far away now, like she was searching her memory for some clue that she’d missed.
“And now… he tries to break into my house in the middle of the night? Why? I didn’t even remember his last name until the police said it to me.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Summer.” I had this strange urge to take her hand in mine, or something. Comfort her. Reassure her. But touching her was out of the question. So I just said, “No one asks for someone to break into their house.”
Her blue eyes met mine. “I didn’t tell the police that I knew him,” she confessed. “When they arrested him. I just pretended he was a stranger to me.”
“Why?”
“Fuck, I don’t know. I guess… I felt guilty somehow. And scared. Afraid that anything more I told them would complicate things. Maybe they’d recommend I get a restraining order, or I’d have to appear in court or something… and it wouldn’t all just go away like I wanted it to.” She shook her head again. “That sounds so damn lame now. So… cowardly.”
“You’re not a coward, Summer. You were scared. It’s understandable. And you’re safe now. Okay?”
She nodded, like she was still trying to digest that. “Okay.”
“You okay to drive?” I asked her. “I can take over.”
“I’m fine.” She looked me in the eye again, and the resolve I saw there made me settle back in my seat.
“Okay,” I said.
She pulled out into traffic, and neither of us said another word for the rest of the drive back to her place.
When we walked into Summer’s house, she said, “Do you carry a gun?”
I’d barely taken off my shoes and she was studying me, warily.
“Private security professionals aren’t allowed to carry guns in Canada,” I informed her as I slipped off my jacket. “Usually.”
She planted her hands on her hips and frowned at me, watching as I lay my jacket on top of my shoes; I didn’t know where else to put it.
“That is so not what I asked you. I asked you if you carry a gun.”
“Sometimes.”
“Like… when it’s legal for you to do so?”
“Yes. But I’m not carrying one now.”
She made a little Hmmm noise, then shrugged off her jacket. She hung it in the coat closet, but didn’t offer me a hanger.
She sat down on the step up to the living room, and started unzipping her tall, sexy boots. But she was still eying me.
I looked away, pretending to be absorbed in examining the lock on her front door.
“Who do you intend to have in and out of this house, besides Maddox?” she asked me.
“Like I said, he’ll be bringing a guy from his brother’s alarm company. I’ve already checked them out. You can believe me when I say I’m thorough.”
“Uh-huh.”
I looked at her. She’d removed the boots and now stood on the step, looking up at me. Even elevated on the step, she was a little shorter than me, though it put her much closer to my eye level.
I tried not to stare at her pale-blue eyes, but they were pretty damn mesmerizing.
Shit, I needed to get myself together. I couldn’t afford to be getting lost in her eyes every five seconds.
“Anyone else?” she asked.
“I’ll have some of my guys here. Sometimes.”
Usually, on a twenty-four-hour detail, I’d have three guys on the client in rotating eight-hour shifts. On this one, for now, it was gonna be me, me, and me, as much as humanly possible, with other guys filling in only when necessary.
I told myself that was because of the recent, and very possibly ongoing, threat to her safety, and the fact that she was a VIP client.
But my company had a lot of VIP clients. And if I was being honest with myself… if it were anyone else, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be here at all.
Wasn’t sure I wanted to examine that too closely, though.
“You don’t need to worry about anyone stepping on your toes,” I told her. “My guys are the best in the business. They’ll be discrete and unobtrusive.”
She made a grudging noise in her throat and crossed her arms, which was at least better than the hands on the hips.
“I’m here for your protection, Summer,” I reminded her. “And if Brody or Jude or any of their guys were here, they’d be telling you the same thing I’m telling you right now. You need to call the police about that restraining order.”
She listened, but she didn’t say anything.
I was coming to learn that that was possibly a good sign. At least she wasn’t serving up sass.
“What you want is called a peace bond,” I went on. “It’s a type of restraining order you can get against anyone, and you can definitely get one against a man who’s been stalking you.”
She looked away. She didn’t seem to like that word.
Stalking.
Couldn’t say I blamed her. But I was just gonna go ahead and call the situation what it was, based on the minimal evidence we had so far.
“If you don’t call it in,” I told her, “I will on your behalf.”
She threw me an annoyed look.
Then she dug her phone out of her purse. She held it in her hand, hesitating. “Who do I call?”
“You call 911.”
“It’s hardly an emergency,” she protested. “I’m safe, right? You’re standing right there.”
“Doesn’t matter. You call 911 on this whether or not it’s an emergency. You tell them you need a peace bond. I don’t know how much the operator will ask you upfront, but you need to be prepared to answer some
questions. The police already arrested Sanchuk on your property. But they’ll probably ask you to describe anything else that’s happened, anything that’s made you feel afraid of him. If you’ve written anything down, if you have any messages from him, voicemails, anything aggressive or threatening, you’ll need to tell them that. They may want to talk to some of your friends, too, any witnesses. But you don’t need to have a witness. You don’t even need to have evidence to get the restraining order. Whatever you tell the police is evidence enough.”
She took all that in, listening closely. I could tell it was all sinking in, that this was finally getting real for her.
That the shock was wearing off.
“I’m right here,” I told her, firmly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Then I watched as she dialed 911.
Her voice was small when she said, “Hi, my name is Summer. I need to request a peace bond, please.”
Then her eyes got a little shiny and she turned away.
Chapter Seven
Summer
After I made the most depressing phone call I’d ever had to make, I disappeared into my music room for like an hour. But even music didn’t cheer me up.
I ended up on the phone with Elle yet again, pretty much feeling sorry for myself, yet again—not my usual scene—as she soothed me with her newly acquired baby mama voice.
It was effective.
After that, I got my shit together and went out to my kitchen to make lunch. Usually I had salad for lunch, and loaded whatever I wanted on top of it. Today I smothered it in leftover grilled salmon and chicken breast, with nuts and a pile of cheese, because as long as there was salad at the bottom, it was healthy, right?
I hadn’t seen Ronan since I vanished into the music room to lick my wounds. Asking for help really wasn’t my bag. It made me feel… vulnerable.
Ronan had called it. Apparently, I was vulnerable, in ways I really wasn’t ready to admit.
And I did not like it.
But he was here, in my house… and it felt wrong to just sit down and eat by myself. I always fed people when they stayed in my home. I loved good food, though I didn’t cook all that much. Maybe a couple times a week, when I was home. Usually, it was a combo of takeout and delivery, my cooking, and my friends’ cooking that kept the meals flowing in my house.
When Ronan had told me he had some phone calls to make, I’d said he could use one of the guest rooms to work. When I peeked up the hallway now, I could hear his muffled, alpha voice coming from the guest room at the front of the house—the one with the big window overlooking the garden I’d put in with my mom’s help; you could even see a bit of the view over the city through the trees, and the mountains in the distance.
It was a great room, but maybe sending him in there was an oversight. Was he just gonna stay in there all day now?
The only thing weirder than a virtual stranger who was paid to protect me living in my house was one who didn’t talk to me.
But here I was, alone in my kitchen with my giant salad.
It didn’t seem right to march over to the door and interrupt him, either. So I picked up my phone and found the text he’d sent me.
I’m on the couch tonight if you need anything. Ronan.
I saved his number to my phone. Then I sent him a text.
Me: Would you like lunch? I’m making salad.
I realized, belatedly, that might not sound so appealing to a man. Especially one of his size. And if he was one of those guys who only ate meat and potatoes…?
Me: There’s meat on it.
I’d barely put the phone down when I heard the door open.
I watched him walk into the living room. Actually, I kinda thrust my hip out, exaggerating the curves of my body. I’d already done it before I knew I was going to, so then I was kinda stuck in an unnecessary seductress pose. For no particular reason.
Well, because there was a hot man walking up to me. Some things were just automatic.
Didn’t seem to matter, because at the moment, the hot man only had eyes for my salad. “That’s a salad?”
I glanced at the mountain in my salad bowl.
“Okay, when I was like eighteen,” I explained, “I worked at a barbecue restaurant. They served a pulled pork salad that was basically a handful of lettuce with a whole barbecued pig on top. So yes, to me, this is a salad.”
“Fair enough.” He looked at me. Was that the slightest glint of amusement I saw in his eyes?
Maybe it was hunger. Hard to tell.
But damn, he was handsome. That face.
I was a major face girl.
Obviously, I enjoyed a nice muscular butt or a six-pack or a solid set of shoulders as much as the next girl—and my new bodyguard appeared to be endowed with all those features, too. But I’d made very bad decisions, historically, over a handsome face.
“I’d love some,” he said, when I just stared. “If you have enough.”
“I do.” I went to get him one of my giant salad bowls and put it together for him as he watched.
“I should tell you,” he said, “you’re not expected to feed me. I was just gonna call for delivery, actually. I’m pretty used to it. And whenever I do that, if you want to join in, and I can order you some.”
“Sure. I love delivery. But if I’m cooking, I don’t mind.”
He didn’t say anything else about it, but I got the feeling he didn’t want me waiting on him in any way.
Too bad.
“Here you go, big boy.” I set his salad, heaped high with salmon and chicken, in front of him. I passed him a fork, then lined up several bottles of dressing in front of him. “Take your pick. I’d recommend the green goddess dressing. My friend Carissa makes it. It’s to die for.”
He took my recommendation, which pleased me way too much.
Maybe there was hope for us becoming copacetic here?
Unfortunately, the whole invite-him-to-a-show-and-do-him-backstage idea was probably out, now that he was sticking around as my bodyguard. And had politely requested that I not flirt with him.
But we could be friendly, right?
Butting heads with him twenty-four-seven was bound to get old, fast.
“Cheese?” I set a few bowls of cheese in front of him. I had a bunch of grated and chopped stuff left over from last night’s party; my friend Jewel was pretty handy in the kitchen, and he’d made us nachos at like midnight. “That’s smoked gouda, and white cheddar from New Zealand. And feta, obviously.”
“Thank you.”
I watched as he dressed his salad with all the fixings.
“So, what’s on your agenda for the rest of the day?” I prodded gently. He seemed like a quiet man, but I was curious about what he did all day.
Flynn just always seemed to stand around, but what the fuck did I know? I never really paid all that much attention, honestly.
And Flynn wasn’t much of a talker either.
“I still have some calls to make,” he said. “Then I’ll take another look around here. I took a quick look through the house last night, but I’ll go over it in the daylight.”
“And what are you looking for?”
“Anything that might cause a security vulnerability,” he said, meeting my eyes. His were this gorgeous light-brown color that sometimes looked darker and sometimes reflected the light. “Maddox and his guy will be here later this afternoon. You can just go about your day.” I watched him pick up his fork and his salad bowl. He nodded at me. “Thank you, really. This is generous.”
“You’re welcome.” Why was he picking it up, though?
“Enjoy your lunch,” he said. Then he turned and disappeared up the hall to the guest room. I heard the door close.
My jaw had tumbled open somewhere around the moment he walked out of the room.
I put my hands on my hips, though no one was here to see it. “Well, fuck,” I muttered to myself.
That was… strange.
Not that he’d walked out. That I was so�
�� disappointed about it.
Stop drooling all over him.
He’s your bodyguard.
Yes. Yes, he was. And he said he had work to do.
But to be fair to me, I’d never had a bodyguard before. Maybe I just had to get used to the routine.
And the rules?
Fuck, I hated rules, though.
I took my salad down the other hall, to my music room, and chilled out to Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets,” one of my favorite songs of all time. And when I “chilled out” to music, I cranked it. Loud.
The music room wasn’t soundproofed like my studio downstairs was, but oh well.
Just another thing my new live-in bodyguard was gonna have to get used to.
And speaking of bodyguards…
When I was finished eating, I turned the music down and called Flynn. It rang a few times, and I mentally weighed the likelihood he’d pick up. No, because it was easier to awkwardly avoid me if he let it go to voicemail. Yes, because he’d feel duty bound to answer in case my hair was on fire and I needed him.
Duty won out.
“Hello, Summer,” he answered, stiffly. “Everything okay?”
I could just imagine the shit running through his head right now. Sure, I had his number. But I’d never actually called it before, out of the blue.
I had two reasons for calling him now, though.
One, to do some digging on Ronan, obviously.
And two… well, two was a little less fun, so I decided to get it over with.
“Hi, Flynn. Before you get any ideas, I’m not calling to stalk you like some crazy man-eater.”
“Oh…”
I rolled my eyes. “But let’s not make this weird, okay?”
He went silent, for way too long—like he was actually considering pretending not to know what I was talking about.
“I tried to kiss you,” I said clearly, so he couldn’t pretend not to hear me. “And you weren’t having it. It’s fine.”
It was fine. Really.
But ever since that night, whenever we’d crossed paths, he was awkward as hell. And unfortunately, we crossed paths a lot. He was just always around, watching Elle’s back. Watching my back, too, when I was with her.
Sweet Temptation: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 3) Page 9
