Sweet Temptation: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 3)

by Jaine Diamond

  It was nothing special, but there was a big window that looked out toward downtown and the mountains.

  Since it was the weekend, I was the only one here. The security needs of our clients didn’t exactly take days off, but one of the more forward thinking changes we’d implemented after my uncle left the company was letting our staff work from home on weekends. Naveen, who was the only partner who was married with kids, had really pushed for that.

  The first thing I did after I took off my jacket was call him up. Figured I’d given him enough time to wake up and start his day. It was Sunday morning, so he’d be at home with his wife and three kids, but he’d be working, too.

  “Naveen. What’ve you got for me?” I asked him as soon as he picked up.

  “Good morning, Ronan. We’re having breakfast, thanks for asking.”

  “Right. How’s the family?”

  “They’re great.” I heard some muffled whispering. I started pacing, waiting for him to fill me in. I heard him say, “Yes, it’s Uncle Ronan. I’m sure he’d love to see the princess palace you built. I’ll tell him. Uh-huh. Eat your cereal.” Some more shuffling around and then, “Lemme just get some privacy here.”

  “You got it.”

  “You know, Cami really wants you to come play LEGO again soon. We finished the Frozen palace. I told her you’re busy with a very important client who wears glitter. She now thinks Summer Sorensen is a princess.”

  My lips twitched. “Pretty sure Summer would be okay with that.”

  “Okay, I’ve locked myself in my office. How’s it going over there?”

  “Good. How’s our tail?”

  The guy we had on Blair Sanchuk was there so we’d know where he was—and if he was headed anywhere in Summer’s direction. But he was also there to gather any intel on Sanchuk that we could get. Because a restraining order wasn’t enough. Brody and Jude wanted to know who this guy was and why he’d tried to break into Summer’s house.

  I did, too.

  “You’re gonna love this,” he said. “Blair Sanchuk was hanging down at the Sinners’ clubhouse last night.”

  I stopped pacing.

  This was news. And not good news.

  The Sinners were another motorcycle club, of the outlaw variety. They had a chapter in the Vancouver area. And they were rivals of the West Coast Kings.

  “He’s a biker?”

  “I guess that’s what you’d call it,” Naveen said. “But he’s got no bike.”

  I considered that. “So, he’s a wannabe?”

  “Guess so. Seems crews are full of them these days. Sinners especially. I talked to one of my contacts in Organized Crime at VPD, ran Sanchuk’s name by him. Seems he wasn’t on their Christmas wish list until recently. They know who he is, but they’ve got nothing on him. Our tail managed to get pretty close to the action last night, though. From what he could tell, looks like Sanchuk rolls with a few of the Sinners’ prospects.”

  “A hangaround.”

  “Yup.”

  That’s what they called guys who weren’t yet official prospects, and maybe never would be, but socialized with the clubs and sometimes even did minor dirty work for them. Hangarounds.

  I’d known some guys who were hangarounds with the local MCs myself. Back in my teenage years, when I was far less discerning about the company I kept.

  Fuck.

  This was a major detail I couldn’t exactly not report to Jude.

  I really didn’t want the Kings deciding to involve themselves in my work. At best, they were a complication. At worst, they were dangerous. Frankly, they were fucking criminals.

  But I both trusted and respected Jude Grayson. He’d hired me for this detail, and I knew he wanted to keep Summer safe.

  “So,” I asked Naveen, “what else has our archaeological dig on this asshole uncovered?”

  Naveen had been doing a deep dive on Sanchuk for me, and I was hoping to dig up something that would tell me exactly who this guy was and what he wanted with Summer, soon—give me a better picture of what exactly I was protecting her from.

  Dumbass meth addict on a one-time, poorly-thought-out mistake?

  Creepshow obsessed-fan-turned-stalker?

  Targeted attack with farther-reaching motivations? Money? Property? Retribution?

  If there were bikers involved… who the fuck knew.

  “Not much,” Naveen said, which was the last thing I wanted him to say. “But VPD definitely thinks he’s dealing.”

  I took that in. I walked over to my office window and looked out. Sometimes, just looking out at the mountains helped to infuse me with a sense of rightness when everything was starting to go wrong. I’d been on this job a day, and the frustration was already starting to creep in.

  Know your enemy, right?

  I fucking hated not knowing everything there was to know about this guy. And yet everything I found out had the potential to be bad fucking news.

  “Anything else?”

  “He’s pretty new in town,” Naveen said. “Popped up maybe six months ago. Grew up out near Hope. Lived there all his life, until now. Worked as a contractor on residential construction crews.”

  Hope was a small town about two hours east of Vancouver on the junction of the Trans-Canada Highway and the Crowsnest Highway. Probably a decent location for a dealer. Just one of several commuter communities to be hit with a serious meth problem in recent years, but it was hardly part of my domain. I had no idea who was supplying that meth. Didn’t particularly want to know.

  “So…” I ventured, “I’m guessing his newfound interest in big city life has more to do with his extracurriculars involving street drugs than it does his career in home construction?”

  “I’m thinking so. Have you got anything more on your end?”

  “Not really.” I sat down in the chair behind my desk.

  Last night, I kept thinking through what Summer told the police over the phone when she requested the restraining order, and what she’d told me.

  And what she hadn’t told me.

  Like the fact that someone had set off her neighbor’s house alarm the night before Sanchuk tried to break into her place—which Naveen had learned in one of his conversations with VPD—and the fact that she’d had one of her wardrobe cases stolen from a gig the same night—which Brody had told me.

  I’d listened to her explaining to the police how Sanchuk had basically been stalking her for months. Though she didn’t seem to want to frame it that way.

  “Summer said Sanchuk came on the scene about five months ago,” I told Naveen. “He showed up at one of her shows. As far as she can remember, that’s the first time they crossed paths. She had drinks with him once, sometime after they met.” I hadn’t told him that part yet. Wasn’t sure why. “She said it was sort of a date, but there were a few other people there, friends of hers. She tried to brush him off after that, but he didn’t take the hint. She said she started getting a bad vibe off him at least a few weeks ago, when she noticed he was lurking. Then he starts getting more aggressive, calling her, showing up where he’s not wanted. I made her look through her phone and count. This past week he called her sixteen times, sent her over forty texts. She just kept dodging his calls, thinking he’d take the hint and go away.”

  “You said Dirty’s crew bounced him out of an event she played at the Artemis. That was a few weeks back?”

  “Yeah. Two weeks ago. According to Jude’s guy, he left the club without incident. I spoke to him yesterday. You know, Flynn. Elle Delacroix’s bodyguard. He said Sanchuk didn’t give him any push-back. It didn’t seem like a problem. Summer told Flynn, that night, that Sanchuk had been offering meth to her girlfriends. But she didn’t say anything else. She never told anyone what was going on. Seems like no one on Jude’s crew knew it went any further than that.”

  “You think this has anything to do with the Kings?” Naveen asked, voicing the question running through my head. “Jude’s a King. His brother is the Kings’ VP… Maybe ther
e’s some connection.”

  Fuck, I hoped not.

  “Not on her part, I don’t think. But this situation feels like it’s getting messier by the second.”

  “Yeah. Could be MC bullshit,” Naveen said. “Territorial rights? Pissing match? Payback for some perceived wrongdoing? Maybe the Sinners were targeting Jude’s crew in general… that extended to Summer somehow?”

  “I think it’s a stretch. There’d be much closer targets if they were trying to get Jude’s attention.”

  “But maybe none who were as easy to get to?”

  “Maybe.” Christ, I did not like that idea. “Either way, I’ll have to run it by Jude.”

  “Let me know how it goes.”

  “Will do.”

  “So,” he said. “We gonna address the weird-ass elephant in the room?”

  “And that would be…?” I sat back in my chair, prepared for what was coming.

  “You have anyone in mind to take over for you in the field? You could be running this job from the office. You know, where you planned to be for the rest of your career?”

  He wasn’t wrong. For many months, I’d been griping about bringing my last, lingering, fucking annoying bodyguard assignment to an end.

  Obviously this sudden change in my MO had stoked my partner’s curiosity.

  Plus, he probably wanted to rub it in. Naveen had never believed for a second that I was actually “retiring.”

  “No need,” I told him. “I’m staying where I am for now.”

  “Uh-huh.” He went silent a moment, and I knew I wasn’t gonna like this. “You know, you’ve been working around the clock on this DJ Summer thing. Pardon my observation, but you seem to be taking this one on a little more… personally… than usual. Less than forty-eight hours ago, you were right here in my living room, hellbent on never playing bodyguard again. To anyone. Much less the ‘spoiled famous princesses’ of the world. I realize you were referring to your last assignment, and she really was a princess. But you were pretty vehement on that point.”

  “A man can make an exception.”

  “Right. I saw photos of your new client online. Pretty compelling reason to make an exception, I’ll give you that, but—”

  “That’s not what this is about.”

  “No? You sure?”

  “Did your wife put you up to this? She’s that hot to fix me up, huh?”

  “Speaking of which. How’d things go with Roshana the other night? You hit it off?”

  Fuck me. He knew we didn’t.

  By now, Tamara would’ve called her friend to get the scoop, and Roshana probably told her every detail of how I’d dropped her off and evaded her good night kiss. Probably made me sound like a heartless asshole.

  Women talked about that shit, right?

  And anyway, I was a heartless asshole.

  “Maybe you could tell your wife to give up on me. I’m a lost cause.”

  “So you’re not interested in DJ Summer?”

  “I’m interested in protecting my client,” I said icily.

  Had I really been acting that unusual? Enough to make Naveen think I’d lost my shit and fallen in love overnight?

  “I’m just saying. You don’t usually get so personal with clients.”

  “It’s not personal. I just want to do the job right.”

  “I get that. But there’s a chance you go overboard like this,” he pressed. “And I feel I’d be remiss not to mention it right out of the gate.”

  I knew what he was getting at. But just because I’d once gone a little “overboard” on a job that bore a few similarities to this one didn’t mean it was happening again.

  That was years ago. This was now.

  “I’m not going overboard. And the guys can fill in when I need coverage.”

  “Yeah, but that only works if you actually call them in. I noticed you haven’t assigned anyone to rotate in. Have you changed since you started this detail? Or are you still wearing the same clothes you left my house in the other night?”

  What a fucking dick.

  He knew me way too well.

  “I’ve changed,” I informed him. Luckily, one of the guys had picked up some workout clothes I’d left here at the office and dropped them off to me last night. Otherwise, he’d be right. “And for the record, I’m at the office right now. Taking care of some things for you, for this week and beyond.”

  “So you’re really staying on Summer for the foreseeable?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “May I ask why? If it’s not her, then what is it?”

  “I don’t know. Something just feels… off.” I tried to put my finger on it, but so far, I hadn’t been able to. “I can’t quantify it. It’s a feeling.”

  “What kind of feeling?” Naveen was more than accustomed to me and my unquantifiable gut feelings about things.

  We both had them, after so many years on the job.

  “I don’t know. This Sanchuk creep… you’re sure he hasn’t made another move in her direction? Nothing?”

  “Nope. Other than the Sinners’ clubhouse, he’s barely left his shit hole apartment except to hit the grocery store.”

  “Alright. Just keep me posted.”

  “Will do. Try to take a break today at some point. Hit the gym or something. Andre’s been up my ass, griping about more hours. Put him to work.”

  “Yeah. I’ll do that.”

  Maybe.

  We signed off, and as soon as I’d hung up, I bit the bullet and dialed Jude.

  I knew I had to call him on this asap, given the MC connection, and anyway, I’d promised him updates. He was still in Australia right now, which meant it was probably… close to three in the morning? I figured I’d leave him a voicemail.

  Instead, he picked up.

  “Ronan,” he said.

  “Sorry to bother you so late.”

  “I’m up. What’s goin’ on?”

  “Got some intel for you on Blair Sanchuk. Turns out he’s a hangaround with the Sinners MC.”

  Silence.

  “You’re fuckin’ kidding me,” he said.

  “Really wish I was.” I filled him in on everything Naveen had just told me, finishing up with, “Our contact in VPD says he’s known to them, but they’ve got nothing on him.”

  “So what’s your reading on it?” he asked me.

  “Hard to say. He has no record, but that doesn’t mean much. Could be he keeps a low profile. Low-level dealer, and maybe a user, given the meth pipe I found in Summer’s yard.”

  “You found a pipe in Summer’s yard?”

  “Yup. Smashed on the ground under her balcony, the one he climbed.”

  “He ditched it. So the cops wouldn’t find it on him.”

  “I’d put money on it. And low-level scumbag or not, the fact that he tried to break into Summer’s house makes him a threat any way you look at it.”

  “You need to get that restraining order sorted and keep him the fuck away from her,” Jude said. “Keep him the fuck out of our universe. The second you see him around, you let me know. I don’t like bein’ across the goddamn globe when shit like this goes down, but I won’t be back in town ’til Christmas. Until then, whatever you need, you call Brody. Call in more guys. Whatever. You’ve got carte fuckin’ blanche to do whatever you need. Just keep her safe.”

  “You got it. I’ll call you with anything more.”

  “Good.” He hung up.

  I didn’t bother asking him if he’d be calling this into the Kings, or if he’d be updating me.

  I’d known Jude Grayson for years, professionally, and one thing I’d learned: if he wanted me to know the answers to such questions, he’d tell me.

  “Fuuuck,” I groaned, to no one.

  I got up, went over to the window again and looked out over the city as I dialed Maddox.

  “Yup,” he said when he picked up. I could hear faint drilling sounds in the background.

  “It’s Ronan. Please tell me you knew that.”


  “Got you on speed dial, boss,” he said, with more sarcasm than I needed.

  “Good. How’s it going over there?”

  “It’s goin’ fine. Got the locks changed. Be a couple more hours gettin’ the alarm in.”

  “Okay.”

  How’s Summer?

  I wanted to ask, but that would just be… weird. I’d been gone for half an hour. Clearly, everything was fine. She was probably still in the shower or something.

  “See you in bit,” I said, and hung up.

  Then I paced some more.

  Naveen was right. I needed to work out or something. I was agitated and had nowhere to put this dark, unsettled energy.

  I was fucking pissed, actually.

  Jude’s team should’ve seen this coming sooner, before it fucked with their universe. Flynn should’ve known after that night at the club. Something.

  But the fact was, Flynn wasn’t working for Summer. And it’s not like Summer had told anyone that anything was wrong or that this guy was harassing her.

  Maybe she never would’ve voluntarily told them, until he crossed some major line like he did and she was forced to reach out for help.

  Clearly, she didn’t want to ask for help. She didn’t want to admit any vulnerability, or change the way she lived.

  She didn’t want the party to have to end.

  I sat down at my desk and tried to focus. I had a lot of shit to delegate to others so I could clear my plate enough to focus on Summer’s round-the-clock security detail, plus managing the Players’ security, and putting a plan in place, within budget, until Brody and Jude brought in someone to take over.

  At that point, I’d be back to my regularly scheduled programming.

  When things were wrapped up enough for me to feel satisfied, and confident that I could leave the office and potentially not walk back through the door for a few weeks—or however long this assignment took—I went to my safe and opened it. I got out my handgun and put it in a duffel bag, along with a few boxes of ammunition. I’d take it to my place and store it there, for now.

  My apartment was closer to Summer’s place than the office was.

  And with all this talk of motorcycle clubs and drug dealers… it wouldn’t hurt to know my weapon was a little more accessible.