by Anna Brooks
“How the hell did you find out?” Royce punches me on the shoulder.
“Word travels fast, my man, and are we forgetting she’s at your place? You know if you hurt her, you’ll have every one of us on your ass, so you’d best behave.”
He doesn’t laugh, knowing I’m dead serious. “I know.”
“Good.”
“Hi.” Paisley holds her hand out for Quinn. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too.” Her voice is quiet, and I hate that she’s so unsure right now.
“What’s up?” Royce asks.
I clear my throat just as a timer goes off. Quinn jumps about twelve feet in the air. I don’t think, just pull her into the front of me and wrap both of my arms around her and try to soothe her. “It’s okay, Quinn. I’ve got you. He won’t get to you again.” I pull her sunglasses off to look into her eyes, needing her to not only hear me but see the promise as well.
“What the fuck?” Royce shouts.
She jumps again, and I shoot him a glare. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Who the fuck got their hands on her?” I guess Royce has been so busy with Paisley he hasn’t checked the updates today.
“It wasn’t his fault,” Quinn immediately jumps in, defending me. “It was mine. I left when he told me not to.”
“Don’t do that, Quinn. Don’t fuckin’ take his shit on.” I look down at her and get a small nod of concession before finding Royce. “We need to talk.”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go in the kitchen. I have to take the muffins out, and I can get you something to drink if you’d like,” Paisley offers.
“Okay.” Quinn follows Paisley the few feet to the kitchen, and I follow Royce to his room.
“What’s up?” He shuts the door to his bedroom.
“Paisley?” I raise a brow.
He crosses his arms. “Yup.”
“Broke the rules, man.”
“She’s worth it.”
“So is Quinn.” This is what I needed to talk to him about. Not her case.
His arms fall, realizing exactly what I’m talking about and why I’m here. Before I bring her to that meeting, I need to let him know.
“It’s not public, but it will be. I’m telling you this now because when it does spread, you’ll probably have to do some PR for Royal.”
He doesn’t hesitate. “I’ll take care of it.”
I lift my chin in appreciation. “I don’t know how everyone else is gonna take this… It hasn’t happened before, and even though it’s not in our contracts, we all know it’s an unspoken rule.”
“Erik started the company because he fell in love with a client. I’m pretty sure he ain’t got a leg to stand on, and if he tries to say shit, you can remind him of that.”
“Are you insane? I’m not gonna say that shit to him.”
He sighs. “Yeah, that probably wouldn’t be smart.”
“Ya think?”
“So that’s why you’re here? To tell me you’re fucking your client.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Watch yourself, man.”
He smirks, knowing I walked right into his stupid game of trying to see if she actually means something to me. He knows if she didn’t I wouldn’t give a shit if he talked about her like that. “Any new leads on this fucker who got to her?”
“We can’t find him, but he’s getting desperate. Won’t be long.”
“Let me know if you need anything else. I haven’t logged on today yet, so I didn’t see any updates, but I will. And I’ve got your back, you know that.”
“You wanna convince Quinn she’s not going back on tour until we find him?”
He holds his hands up. “I’ve got enough of the stubborn female variety on my plate.”
I reach for the doorknob. “We’re headed to Royal now to have a meeting. She won’t listen to me, so hopefully somebody there will change her mind.”
He nods. “Good luck.”
“Oh, one more thing.” I catch him off guard and sock him in his gut. He grunts, but that’s the only indication I hurt him at all. “Hurt her, and I’ll kick your ass.”
“I won’t.”
“You better not.”
I laugh as I walk out and go right to Quinn, wrapping my arm around her waist. “Told you I’d be fast. Good seeing you, Paisley.”
“You too, Wes.”
Royce walks into the hallway with us, and before we go outside, he checks it out. I get her back in my vehicle, then take off, Damien following.
“What did you have to talk to him about?”
“Nothing.”
“Was it about me?”
I don’t lie, but I don’t tell her the entire truth. “He’s fuckin’ Paisley. She’s like a little sister to me.”
When I don’t say anything else, she prompts, “So you had to go and threaten him?”
“Pretty much.”
“Do you think she’s stupid?”
“Paisley? God no, why would you ask that?”
She shrugs. “Because you’re acting like she’s too stupid to make her own decisions.”
“How the fuck did I do that?”
“You had to make a stop to lay into the man she picked? I doubt she appreciated you or anyone threatening him. Like she’s not smart enough to make her own decisions and basically implying the only way he’ll treat her good is because you’ll beat him up if he doesn’t.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
She crosses her arms. “Of course, it doesn’t to you. You’re a guy.”
“Exactly. And I’m a guy who takes care of the women in his life he cares about, even if that means threatening to kick some guy’s ass if he hurts her. Deal with it.”
I can’t see behind her sunglasses, but I’m pretty sure she just rolled her eyes at me. The discussion is over anyway because I pull into the garage, Damien behind me. We back into the spaces and wait until the gate closes all the way before getting out. He goes in ahead of me, and by the time Quinn and I catch up, he’s already in the boiler room.
I introduce her to Mitch. She’s already met Erik and Q, so they just say hello.
“Any new leads?” I ask Q as I sit down.
“Like I told you a half an hour ago, no. No phone calls to his stepmom. Didn’t log in for work this morning. Cell phone is off. No bank activity. The van was found abandoned on the side of the road about twelve miles from her house, blood on the seat, so we know you got him, and his vehicle is still at his mom’s house. No GSWs matching his description within a hundred-mile radius checked into the ER. He’s vanished. For now.”
“Okay. Let’s get to it then. I want a secure location for her until we find him.”
Chapter 13
Quinn
“Absolutely not,” I grit out. “I am not hiding.” I tell him the same thing I already told him today.
“You’re not hiding; you’re being smart.”
I shake my head. “No. I’ve lost enough because of him. We’ve already went over this with Ian. Besides, me being on stage and stuff will bait him—”
“Fuck that,” Wes shouts. The rest of the guys at the table all rear their heads back at his outburst.
Erik interjects, “I see both sides.”
“Her side is wrong.”
“It is not.” I stand firm on my decision.
“It is, Quinn. It’s absolutely the wrong decision.” He leans closer, and his words have a double meaning. I’m not the least bit afraid he’d hurt me, but Erik must not like it because he pushes up from his chair. “Wesley, enough.”
The veins in his forearms pulse, and I cross my arms. “It’s not stupid.”
“Baby, it is.”
“You won’t let him get near me.”
That makes him relax just a little. He sits down but doesn’t take his eyes off me. The moment he called me baby, the air in the room got a lot thicker. He senses it too because he slides his chair over a little closer, always so eager to protect me it makes me want to cry. Especially wit
h how I treated him yesterday.
He finally looks away, and Erik raises a brow at him and snaps, “We need to have words.”
“We do. Just not now.”
“Jesus, fuck. Shit.” Erik rubs his hands over his face. “Sorry, Quinn.”
“I’ve been with Wes twenty-four seven for weeks. I’m used to the f-word.”
He actually chuckles, then plops back down in his chair. “You know she’s right.”
“That’s—”
“That’s your job. It’s what you do. It’s what we do. We’ll double up on security during the concerts. Put more plain clothes in the crowd. You know she needs to do this. We need to do our job so she can do hers.”
Wes reaches for me beneath the table, and his strong fingers squeeze my knee. “I’m on the stage. Not at the wings or apron, but center. She plants her ass there for the majority of the performance, and while she’s moving across the stage, two guys trail her in the audience. No reaching out to touch fans’ hands and no meet and greets.”
“Fine,” Erik agrees while I’m still trying to make sense of what he just said.
“Wait, what?”
“We’re on our way to Boise in a week. She’s got a sound check the first morning and a show at seven. Seattle two days later, then Portland. Then we don’t have to be in Denver for three days, and we can reevaluate if we haven’t got him by then.”
Mitch speaks up. “We’ve got the manpower but not until that evening. They can get there around four, do perimeter checks, then go from there.”
“Sounds good.”
“What sounds good?” I ask Wes.
“Didn’t you just hear what we said?”
I throw my arms out. “I heard it, but I didn’t understand it.”
“You can do your shows, but your security just doubled, and you have a new dancer.”
“Fuck off.” Wes laughs at Q.
“So the schedule Ian drew up stays the same?”
“It does.”
And for the next week, we keep the schedule as we had planned. I prepare for my first performance back after the hand cutting incident. I got my stitches out. Wes is professional. Strictly. He stays by my side but manages to do it in a way that puts a huge divide between us that was never there before.
For rehearsals, he stood against the wall with his arms crossed and shades on, but I could feel the heat from his gaze on me.
For radio interviews, he sat next to me and listened to the conversation and shut down any questions that went too far.
At nighttime, I sleep in a guest room with no balcony. Wes has come to wake me up from nightmares a couple of times, but he just tucks me back under the covers, then walks away.
He doesn’t bring up what happened, and neither do I. I did this to myself, but having him by my side, even if he’s not really with me, is better than not having him at all. I’ve accepted it. I don’t like it, but just like my aunt Gail is lying in the bed she made, I am now, too.
* * *
“Are you sure this isn’t overkill?”
“Positive.”
I step on my tour bus, newly equipped with a state of the art alarm system. The front is separated with a locked sliding door and in it is the driver and a bodyguard. Then it’s just me and Wesley in the back.
An Escalade will lead, then behind us is another Escalade, and trailing that a few car lengths is another one. Each SUV carrying two men while the rest of the band and everyone else drives separate.
“Okay.”
He turns his back to me as he locks the door and types in a code on an alarm pad. I go to the tan couch that’s half the length of the bus and plop down, then turn the TV on. This part of my job sucks. I don’t like feeling confined and stuck, and that’s exactly how I feel on this bus.
We roll out of the lot. Wes brought everything to Royal in order to load up in a secured location. The bus was swept for bugs or trackers or whatever, and now we’re going down the street. We’ve got about five hours before we get to Boise, and I’m terrified of how things are going to be between Wes and me now.
It was only about a week ago that I lied through my teeth and told him he was just a bodyguard. I hate that I did it, and I want to take it back, but it doesn’t change that he’s going to be a father.
“Ian set up a rehearsal this evening with the dancers at the hotel. We’ve got the conference room for two hours at eight tonight. Sound check tomorrow at eleven.”
“Okay.”
He presses his lips together, then nods and sits at the couch. A laptop is already on the table, and he opens it up. I cautiously sit next to him and peek at what he’s looking at. “What is that?”
The bus jumps as we drive over a bump, and I grab the table to keep from sliding.
“Blueprints.”
“Of what?”
“The venue in Boise.”
I hate this. The tension. For one, he’s mad because of what I said to him. I, of course, don’t blame him for that. And he’s mad because he doesn’t want me to do this, but I have to. He needs to understand that this is all I have. Singing, my voice, it’s all I have. “Wes, I… if I can’t sing, it’s like I can’t breathe.”
“Whatever, Quinn. It’s fine.”
“I don’t want you to be mad at me.”
“I’m not mad at you.”
God, this sucks. “The night he got into my room the first time, he kept telling me to tell him I wanted it. Tell me you want it. Tell me you want it. Over and over again. I don’t even know what it was, but I know you know about it because it’s in the reports. But what I didn’t tell anybody was that the only thought I had was if he took my voice away from me, I wouldn’t be able to survive. I’d rather have him rape me, or beat me, or anything else but put his hands around my throat. It’s all I have…”
“Quinn, I—”
“I grew up with a mom who was amazing. She was kind and sweet and loving. We didn’t have much, but we had each other, and that was all I needed. And when she died… The only thing I have left of her is her voice. Once she was gone, everything changed. Everything fell apart.
“I didn’t even realize how much I got away from who I really was because of Gail. I was scared, and I had nobody at my back, nobody I trusted enough to make sure she wouldn’t follow through with her threats, and you did that. I can never thank you enough or repay you for that.”
He turns in his seat, but I avoid his handsome face by looking over his shoulder instead. “You have a baby on the way. That’s why I said what I did. I don’t want Terry to get you instead of me and have something happen to you before you even meet your baby.” I like that he refuses to leave my side, no matter how selfish it is.
“It’s not my kid.”
“I know your history with her and if—”
“I can’t have kids!” His voice raises, but the level of pain in it makes my limbs so loose, the bottle of water rolls out of my hand and onto the floor. “I can’t have kids, Quinn.”
My mouth opens, then closes, unsure what to say. Or even how to say it.
“She knows this. She was with me when I went to the doctor because we’d apparently been trying—”
A pained gasp leaves me, and I immediately feel my eyes burn from both the force of it and the sheer pain of knowing he cared about her enough to want kids with her. However unreasonable it is.
“Sorry, babe. But it’s important. There’s like a zero point five percent chance, and she’s playing on that. It’s not my kid.”
“You were trying for a baby?”
His eyes soften, and he cups my face. “She was. I wasn’t. And it was years ago. She stopped taking her pill for like a year because she wanted to find a way to hook me. I didn’t know she dumped her pills, so when that much time went by without her getting knocked up, she finally confessed. After I got over being livid with her for lying for so long, I got concerned, so I went to the doctor.”
“But why…”
“Why would she lie? Because she�
��s a bitch.” He shrugs. “I don’t have a better answer.”
I lick my lips, and they part. “It’s not yours?”
“No. But Quinn, I told you that.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t, though. You didn’t believe me.”
“No.” I shake my head. “It’s not that I didn’t believe you. I just… didn’t want to be responsible for something happening to you and then—”
He puts a finger to my mouth. “You’ve gotta stop with all this defending people who can defend themselves bullshit, Quinn. Your dad is perfectly capable of protecting himself. He doesn’t want people to know because of the chance you might get hurt. Not him. The life you lead, he can’t ensure your safety, but I can. And I don’t need you kicking me in the balls because you feel this unjustified sense of self-righteousness to protect me. Me, Quinn. I’m a fucking bodyguard. I’m the one who protects you. Not the other way around. Fucking ever.”
Wesley
Even though I better understood where she was coming from now that she told me, it still pisses me off. Almost more so now that I know she did it because she wanted to protect me. No woman does that, not for me.
And after I laid it out for her, I hope to God she understood where I was coming from. So for the rest of the drive, we kept our distance, and she let me work while she rested. Hopefully giving her time to clear her head results in the understanding of where we are.
I still want her… bad. But until she can come to me and put down her shield, I’ll be waiting.
After we arrived at the hotel, the guys did a walk-through before Quinn and I went to her room. Then we left right away for rehearsal with the dancers.
So now here I stand at the door, foot rested against it and my arms crossed. Part of my job sucks. A lot of it does actually. Most celebrities, especially young and beautiful singers, are stuck-up bitches. They’re superficial and think they’re better than everyone.
But not Quinn. No. She’s not only beautiful, but she’s also sweet and shy. What she puts out for the world is her job, it’s an act, and I love that I get to see the real her. I love that she whispers my name, and the meaning behind it is the realest thing I’ve ever felt in my fuckin’ life.
