“That’s the other interesting part. I don’t think Hardy is her boyfriend.”
Lars’s heart thumped against his chest, and his palms started to sweat. He wiped his hands on his jeans. God, Reeves was driving him crazy. “I’m going to put my fist into your face if you don’t explain what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“Danni told me she’s Hardy’s bodyguard.”
“What?”
“Danni called me late last night. She wanted me to run a check on Hardy’s head of security.”
Lars stared at Reeves’s mouth. Words were coming out, but Lars couldn’t comprehend them. Alex Hardy might not be her boyfriend. Maybe the explosive chemistry that Lars thought was one-sided might be mutual.
Lars threw back the rest of his beer. He didn’t want to sound desperate. “You’re telling me that after all this time, Danni isn’t hooking up with Hardy?”
He should’ve asked why Reeves thought Danni might be in trouble first. “Never mind. Her love life isn’t relevant. What has Danni gotten herself into this time?”
“Not relevant?” Reeves rolled his dark eyes. “Man, you basically drool when she’s close by.”
“Every man drools around Danni. She’s gorgeous, and her ballbuster attitude makes men sit up and notice.”
“True.” Reeves smirked. “I’m glad to see her having a good time. She deserves it.”
That was part of the problem. Danni enjoyed playing men. She had the Jenkins brothers, especially Lars, in her crosshairs. It was all a game to her. She was adamant that she didn’t do relationships, only meaningless sex. She enjoyed her life as a single woman making choices. And she had choices in spades. She had a legendary rock star drooling at her heels. But if she wasn’t with Hardy, maybe he had a chance.
“Is this some sort of punk that my brothers put you up to?” His brothers all knew he had a thing for Danni and that she had turned him down so many times he’d lost count. What man wouldn’t want a one-night stand with the gorgeous woman? Two problems, though. One, she was close to his siblings and friends, and he didn’t want to screw up any future interactions. And two, well, Lars refused to dig into the feeling that he wasn’t up for meaningless sex with the woman of his fantasies.
“You can’t tell your brothers.” Reeves ran his hand through his hair. “It’s bad enough that I’m telling you.”
“When Hardy was in Seattle, he had at least three men guarding him. Why does he need Danni?”
“All I know is that Hardy has a stalker who has been sending threatening letters. He asked Danni to be his personal bodyguard.”
Yeah, sure. Like Hardy really needed a beautiful woman to guard him. “Personal” was the part Hardy wanted.
“Danni is taking her role as Hardy’s bodyguard very seriously, which worries me. She has searched the belongings of the band and crew, hoping to find a link between them and the stalker.”
What was the woman’s problem? She couldn’t just go around prying into people’s stuff.
“She’s going to get arrested or get herself killed. Why would Hardy put her in danger?” Lars never liked Hardy, but now he had a good reason to hurt the guy.
“Maybe Hardy wants to keep Danni close by, so he hired her to guard him.” Reeves raised his thick brows.
“Wait, you think Hardy made up a stalker to have Danni in his life?”
Lars could almost sympathize with Hardy for wanting to keep Danni. She was outrageous, loyal to a fault, brilliant, and vulnerable. No matter how hard she tried to sell how tough she was, she was all soft and warm, as he’d discovered during her bedside vigil.
If Lars ever had Danni in his bed, he’d probably be desperate to keep her there too. Another reason he should stay clear of the woman. She was his kryptonite. And he didn’t like how desperate she could make him with her practiced flick of her hair, the sexy way she crossed her legs, and her smart-ass comebacks. She enjoyed tormenting him. Lars fantasized about getting a chance to torment her in the best way possible. And then maybe his need for this one woman would be finished and he could finally move on.
“Can’t you see her wanting to find the stalker and rescue Hardy? You know she has a bleeding heart.”
“Even for you, this is too farfetched. Hardy is a solid guy.” Lars had run a deep security check on Hardy, and the guy was sparkling clean. He donated millions to his refugee program and cared about the environment. The guy was almost too good to be true. Despite his jealousy, Lars had no reason to believe Hardy would manufacture a stalker. Hell, Hardy had passed Richard Dean’s scrutiny when he’d been hanging out with his younger daughter, Sophie. And the software billionaire was notoriously suspicious about anyone who came close to his daughters.
Lars threw back the dregs on the bottom of his glass. He needed another beer, or maybe five. “She drives me nuts. She doesn’t have the skills to be a bodyguard. Dammit, she’s a scientist.”
“Since her kidnapping, she has been focused on learning Krav Maga. And she is now licensed to carry. Nick helped her find the right instructors and made it all happen. She’s considering joining the FBI. With her smarts and scientific background, I’m sure they’ll be interested, at least.”
“What the hell? Nick never told me.” Lars couldn’t possibly be jealous of his oldest brother, could he?
“Why couldn’t she be like other women and just take a damn self-defense class? Not that any of the women my brothers are involved with would ask for a man’s protection. And they’re all friends with Danni.” Dammit, why did he care so much about everything she did?
“Because she is highly capable and driven to succeed at everything she does. She has a lot to live up to. If you met her mother, you’d understand. Both her parents are professors at Harvard, and her brother is an aerospace brain at NASA.”
Lars ran his hand through his hair, not used to the longer length. His military “high and tight” cut had grown out with his medical leave. His mood darkened with the idea he knew nothing about her family and that he had never had a serious conversation with her. Which was weird; since when did he want to have a conversation with a beautiful woman?
“It doesn’t matter how many classes she’s taken; she would have been killed if I hadn’t been there to protect her when the fricking terrorist had her in his sights.”
Lars appreciated how Danni had kept her cool despite the lethal threat and how she had reacted with force. She had proven herself very competent several times in hairy circumstances, but he never wanted her tested again in a shootout. He would never forget that he’d come close to losing her. It didn’t matter how good your skills were; bad things happened even to experienced operators.
“I couldn’t ask her a lot of questions since I didn’t want her to get suspicious about our concerns. And, bottom line, she wasn’t willing to give a lot away, knowing I might tell her besties Jordan or Sophie, and then they might tell Aiden and Finn. If she knew that I was squealing on her… That’s why I need you to go down there and figure it out. You need to stop Danni from getting herself shot at again. Stalkers can be extremely unstable and dangerous.”
“And why is this my problem?”
Reeves rolled his eyes. “Right.”
“Danni will never accept my help.”
“You’re right. She won’t.” Reeves grinned.
And why did Danni’s stubborn resistance make him happy for the first time since she left him?
“That’s why I’ve come up with the perfect cover. You’re having lunch with Sophie tomorrow.”
Jenkins Security’s main client was billionaire Richard Dean and his two daughters, Jordan and Sophie. Richard’s uncle had started the security company when he became guardian to his nephews after his younger brother had been killed in action.
“You can suggest that you both head to LA for the weekend. Sophie is so bored while Finn is deployed, she’ll jump at the chance. And if you don’t get out of the office, I’m going to have to shoot you.”
Lars leaned against t
he wall. Reeves’s plan had merits…but what if he got down there and found Hardy and Danni were together? He was a spec ops marine—he could handle the pain. And maybe if he saw Danni with Hardy, he’d finally be over the woman. Finally give up on the challenge this woman represented.
“I can’t exactly say, ‘Hey, Soph, want to head to LA to see Danni?’ Soph is no slouch; she’ll know somethings up.”
“If you tell Sophie that you need to interview a new recruit in LA for the business, you could ask her if she would want to tag along since it would give her a chance to spend time with Danni.”
“Finn will kick my ass when he hears that I took Sophie to Hardy’s concert. Hardy had a thing for Sophie. Finn won’t like me taking her to LA to spend time with Hardy while Finn’s in Somalia or God knows where.” His brother, a SEAL, was on his last deployment.
Reeves shrugged. “Finn trusts Sophie. He’ll be happy that she’s with Danni.”
“Are you sure about the part about Danni? Those two women are known as troublemakers for damn good reasons.”
“That’s why I don’t think you should share anything with Sophie about the stalker… If Sophie is in danger, Finn will kick both of our asses.”
Chapter Three
Danni rushed into Alex’s dressing room to check for a note. There hadn’t been one before she went on her little scouting excursion. Like tonight, Frank definitely had the opportunity to deliver the notes at every city, including Portland.
She immediately headed to the scotch and Dom Perignon on the table in the middle of the seating area. The tray with Alex’s drink requests had been the spot where the stalker had left the previous menacing letters. Nothing. Danni moved to the changing area. The long table in front of the mirror was filled with deodorant, expensive hair products, several brushes, and a hair dryer. Alex was very particular about his hair and the hair products he used to keep its shine, but nothing was out of the ordinary.
The expansive change space held a rack of Alex’s clothes against one wall. Ironed T-shirts hung next to at least ten pairs of torn black jeans. Designer Converse runners and black boots of all sorts were under the clothing rack. At every concert, Alex had an entire wardrobe brought backstage. He always chose his shirt, jeans, and shoes to match his mood at the beginning of each concert. He had a highly honed brand, and he was careful to choose what met the different expectations of each city’s crowd.
Danni dropped into a chair and reached for the Dom Perignon. Her adrenaline bounce was bottoming, and she was headed toward a crash. All she had accomplished was acting paranoid and tiring herself out by her search. She wanted to help Alex, and she wanted to solve this problem. She excelled at deductive reasoning and thrived on being challenged. Besides, sleuthing gave her a damn good excuse to be away from Seattle and Lars Jenkins, the man who risked his life by diving in the line of fire to protect her.
Who took such risks?
Insane alpha male protectors. She wouldn’t allow herself to think about Lars, bleeding and vulnerable, lying on the floor. She had made her decision. Like any self-actualized woman, she assessed the threat to her well-being and ran away as soon as Lars was discharged from the hospital. Ran away from the only man who could make her repeat the same stupid mistake of caring too much. A man who wasn’t interested in anything more than fun in bed. She was sure that he had left a record-breaking number of women wanting more.
Alex, his long black hair down around his shoulders and his skin glistening in sweat, sauntered into the dressing room after finishing his set. His open shirt revealed a sculpted chest. His tight jeans hugged his muscular thighs. He was the living, breathing sex god image that he had promoted for years to keep his thousands of women fans panting.
Why couldn’t she get a bolt of animal magnetism? He was a perfect specimen of male virility. Where was the overwhelming craving to undress him and lick every inch of his chiseled chest as she experienced with a mere glance from Lars Jenkins?
Alex’s narrowed eyes searched hers. Relief floated across his face when Danni shook her head.
“Thank God. She didn’t follow me to LA.” Alex poured a small amount of Balvenie into a glass and threw it back.
Danni sipped her champagne, letting the cool liquid soothe her frazzled nerves.
“Or she hasn’t arrived yet—four more days here.” He poured himself another shot.
Danni hated that Alex had started drinking heavily. Alex wasn’t the typical rock musician cliché. He didn’t drink or get high when he performed. He was an athlete and an artist. He worked out and did intermittent fasting and ate a healthy diet. He was way better disciplined than Danni, who was a sucker for fried food and bubbly.
“We’re going to get her, Alex.” Danni tried to sound enthusiastic but didn’t feel any of it. “Maybe she made her point, and she’s finished.”
“You don’t believe that, and neither do I.”
Danni tried to muster a smile, but this wasn’t the time to get into it with another set to perform.
“We can talk about it later. Go get your shower. Dom Perignon can’t block your stink.” Another reality of touring with a band. Sweaty rock stars looked good on stage, but up close, they reeked.
“Sure, Mom.”
Her friends would think she was insane if they found out she was mothering Rolling Stone’s hottest musician, Alex Hardy, instead of getting down and dirty with him. Maybe she really hadn’t recovered from Jax’s betrayal. It had been over a year. She’d stopped loving him, but not what he represented.
Danni leaned back in the seat and listened to the sound of the shower. She could join Alex in the shower and prove that she was over her Jax’s cheating ways and that she was free. Unfortunately, a naked Alex didn’t conjure one fantasy of soaping his hard body…but a damn Scandinavian twin with an irreverent sense of humor and raw hunger in his bright eyes had her brain spinning and her body tensing.
Danni was lost in a fantasy of Lars begging. It was one of her favorite fantasies—kneeling in the shower, her lips around him, making the macho marine beg.
“What the fuck?”
Danni rushed to the bathroom door, which stood open. Alex, bare-chested with his jeans half-open, held a T-shirt.
“What’s wrong?”
“What the fuck?”
“Did the wardrobe person not iron it?”
She had never seen him lose it over something so trivial as a T-shirt. The pressure of the stalker was getting to him. Maybe it was time to stop touring—take a break like Frank had recommended—despite how much she hated agreeing with Frank.
Alex stretched the T-shirt between his hands. Exactly like the threatening notes, the T-shirt had bold red calligraphy surrounded with red blotches resembling blood. The difference was the stalker’s canvas was now a T-shirt. Unlike the previous three letters’ threat, “March 2006” was in the center of the blood splotches on the shirt. The stalker had taken a great deal of time and care to construct the artistically awful T-shirt.
A thousand icy pinpricks jabbed at her skin.
The stalker had invaded Alex’s space again under Danni’s watch. And this time, the assault was more personal. The stalker had touched his belongings.
The only way the stalker was able to gain access to Alex had to be due to a breach in his security. But Alex would never accept that Frank was complicit with the stalker or possibly even was the stalker.
Danni led Alex to a chair, then poured him a glass of water. Alex needed to pull it together since he had to perform in less than twenty minutes. “You need to hydrate.”
Alex drank the water in one gulp. “I’m so fucking tired of the invasion. And tired of being paranoid about everyone around me.”
Danni dropped into the chair across from him. “This is a real clue. We can figure out what happened in March 2006. This is a good thing.”
“Oh, sure, a good thing.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I have no idea what March 2006 means. Who remembers what they did eighteen years ago?”<
br />
Had Frank placed the shirt after the wardrobe person set up Alex’s clothes? To be fair to Frank, the wardrobe person did the setup way in advance of Alex’s arrival at the venue, giving anyone who was backstage time to leave the shirt.
“We need to have Frank look into the wardrobe person—run a background check. And check the security tapes.” Since Frank wasn’t privy to Danni’s role as Alex’s personal bodyguard, Danni couldn’t tell him what to do. Not that testosterone-swaggering Frank would listen to her anyway. Now she was glad that Frank didn’t know her role, since she planned on upping her surveillance on him.
Alex leaned back in the chair, stretching his legs out.
“You know, you’re amazing. I know you said no to sex, but, Danni, I don’t know what I would do without you. I’d really like us to be more than friends.”
Despite her dual PhDs, she might never understand men. “Let’s focus. You would’ve been eighteen years old in 2006. Someone from your past? An old girlfriend before you became famous?”
Alex gulped the water. An obvious shudder went through his body. “I had a girlfriend my freshmen year in Providence, but she died after I dropped out. I got my first recording deal January 2006, and they wanted me to start touring at semester break, so I guess I left college in March.”
“You left school. Can you remember where you were touring in March? Maybe a fan you hooked up with?”
Alex stared at her. “You’re kidding, right? Like I would remember. It’s pretty much a blur. I was all over the place. Milwaukee? Cleveland, Dayton, Scranton. Who knows? And who remembers the roadies?” Alex stood. “I need to get dressed. Frank will get on this. He’ll need to file another police report.”
Danni turned the T-shirt inside out and read the label. She’d call Reeves. This was a custom T-shirt, and if anyone could trace the manufacturer, Reeves could. And if the stalker had ordered the shirt online, Reeves would be able to track the order and possibly discover the identity of the stalker.
Mission: Impossible to Protect (The Impossible Mission Romantic Suspense Series Book 6) Page 2
