by Amy Brent
“I need to hear you say it,” Bridget said. I could tell she was holding back tears, and I didn’t blame her. It was astounding to me that this woman was employed by Bridget and was talking to her this way. I was sure a million other agents in Hollywood would’ve given their left testicle to manage the Bridget Meyers.
“I didn’t mention your little secret you enjoy blaming me for,” Linda said.
“Linda, you know that’s not—”
“Gotta go. Meeting time. Talk to you when it’s imperative.”
And with that, the phone call was done. Bridget turned off her phone and slid it back into her pocket. Then she settled in for the rest of the ride in a sudden silence. The air was thick with tension, and I could tell a million thoughts a second were running through her mind, but all I did was slip my hand over and wrap it around hers. Right now, she didn’t need someone to tell her what to do. She didn’t need commands or admissions or new theories or even headway on what was happening.
Right now, all she needed to know was that she wasn’t alone and that she was safe.
And I could provide her with both.
“We’ll be home soon,” I said. “Then, you can take as long of a nap as you want.”
“And you’re free to go get Lacey from school,” she said.
But little did I know what we would run into when we pulled up into her driveway, and it made me thankful I’d asked my mother to be on standby that morning.
Chapter 29
Bridget
“Park down the street,” Thomas said.
“What?” Bernie asked.
“Something’s wrong with the house,” Thomas said. “Park on the side of the road and let me walk up.”
“Thomas, what?”
“Bridget.”
Thomas turned and looked at me with a fury that was both stunning and petrifying. His eyes were stern, and his jaw was set. I could see his hand was already trained onto his gun.
“Thomas, what’s going on?” I asked.
“When we rounded the corner, I looked up at the house, and someone was running around it. Bernie, park the damn car at the bottom of the driveway and stay here.”
“On it, sir,” he said.
“Thomas,” I said. Tears were forming in my eyes, and my hands reached out and grabbed his arm. I didn’t want him to go. I didn’t want him to get hurt. I knew I had hired him as my bodyguard, but something inside of me was petrified of letting him go on his own.
“Bernie, if something happens, if you hear a gun or grunting or anything that ricochets down the driveway, get Bridget out of here and take her to this address.”
I watched Thomas type something into his phone before I watched Bernie plug in a foreign address into his GPS. This was happening. The person that had left the note had finally grown the balls to come for me, and the idea of Thomas possibly whisking me away via Bernie to a place I didn’t recognize made me sick to my stomach.
“Thomas, please,” I begged.
“Stay here,” he said. “You’ll be safe, I promise.”
He leaned in and kissed the side of my head before he threw his door open and my heart sank to my toes. For the first time since I’d hired Thomas, I felt truly helpless and vulnerable.
“Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay.”
I chanted that mantra in the back of the car while I listened out for anything that might have been happening. Thomas slowly creeped up the driveway with his gun in his hand, then disappeared over the crest and left me. Everything in my head was whirling, and my hands were trembling, but Bernie tried to console me while I tucked my shaking hands between my legs.
“Mr. Jeffries is very capable of taking care of this,” Bernie said. “You’re going to be just fine.”
“Yeah, but what about him?” I asked. “Who’s gonna make sure he’s all right?”
I heard a loud crash ricochet down the driveway. Bernie yanked the car from park, but I knew I couldn’t leave Thomas behind. I couldn’t leave without him and not know if he was all right, and I sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere without knowing if Lacey would get her father back.
So I unbuckled my seatbelt and jumped out of the car just as Bernie started to pull off.
“Miss Meyers!” he yelled. “Get back in this car!”
I ran up the driveway, stumbling with every step I took. Every single scenario that could’ve possibly happened was running through my mind: someone had shot Thomas, and he was lying in a pool of his own blood, or someone had clobbered him through the front door, and he was unconscious. Maybe he had shot someone and was now calling an ambulance or maybe they were fighting in the middle of the driveway with blood trickling down their faces.
Either way, my soul panicked at the idea that Thomas was not all right, and I couldn’t leave this house without him.
Without him beside me.
“Thomas!” I shrieked. “Thomas! Where are you?”
I finally got to the top of the driveway, and I saw him sitting on the ground. There was something flailing underneath his body while a baseball bat rolled down the driveway toward me, but when I went to go pick it up, I heard Thomas’ booming voice.
“Kick it off to the side, Bridget. Don’t touch it.”
I kicked my foot out and shoved the bat into the grass before I approached the scene. The man Thomas was sitting on was bleeding from his nose, and he was quickly giving up the fight underneath Thomas’s body. I heard Thomas talking into the phone in his ear, probably calling for backup or help or something like that.
But all I could do was look at the face staring back at me.
“You,” I said.
“You know this man?” Thomas asked.
“That’s the guy from—”
“The club?” Thomas asked. His eyes cascaded down to the man who had finally given up trying to get out from underneath him, and he stood to his feet before he grabbed the man by his shirt.
“Thomas?” I asked.
I watched Thomas hoist this man into the air by his collar before his fist came around and cracked the man right in the jaw. I shrieked as the man tumbled to the ground, writhing in pain while unadulterated anger burned behind Thomas’ eyes.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked.
But all the man did was roll over onto his back and cough up blood. Thomas kicked him in his rib cage, and I ran over, tugging on Thomas’s arm and trying to get him to stop.
“He can’t move, Thomas! It’s all right! I’m safe.”
“He stalked you, Bridget,” Thomas said. “He cornered you in that club, and now he’s at your house with a baseball bat.”
I ripped Thomas away from the man while sirens sounded in the distance, and I walked over to his side, hovering over him. He looked harmless with all the blood running down his face. His eyes, prying and desperate, were so familiar from the club that night, but something else was mixed in with them.
Or rather, something else was absent.
“Are you the one that left that note on my door?” I asked.
He nodded as the sirens got closer, and that’s when I heard Bernie finally crest the driveway with the car and stop at the scene of the crime.
“Bridget, we need to get you away from here,” Thomas said.
“Hold on,” I urged. “Were you?”
“Yes,” he said, choking.
“How did you figure out my secret? Huh? Who told you?”
I watched him while his eyes studied mine. I was waiting for him to say Linda. I was waiting for him to say my bitch of an agent had betrayed me, that she had finally opened her big mouth to someone and that it backfired.
I wanted to hear that it wasn’t Thomas.
“I just followed you,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“From the club that night,” he said.
“You followed me from the club?” I asked.
“Yeah. It’s how—”
“It’s how you found out where she lived?” Thomas asked.
&n
bsp; The man nodded, and that was when I realized the grave error I had made. The secret the note was discussing wasn’t my identity, but simply where I lived. This piece of trash had made my life a living hell over a refused dance, and the entire time, I accused Thomas of blabbing my identity to someone when really, someone just fucking figured out where the hell I lived.
The sirens in the distance got closer and closer, and Thomas took my arm and escorted me over to the car.
“Get in and stay there,” he said. “I’m gonna talk to these guys real quick. Then we’re gonna get the hell out of here for a while.”
“Good,” I said. “Because I don’t feel safe here anymore.”
I ducked into the car just as police cruisers wound around my car. The bleeding man lying on the ground was yanked up by a police officer and cuffed right in front of me while Thomas gave his account of what happened. Then, they looked over at the car and pointed. I was so scared I was going to have to talk to one of them, scared I was going to have to open myself up to yet another person, but the police officer bypassed my car and went back to his without a second glance.
I watched them silently load the bleeding man from the club into the police cruiser after a medic looked his face over. Then everyone began to pull out while Thomas made his way back to the car.
“You all right?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I don’t feel safe here. I don’t want to go inside. Just get me to a hotel, and I’ll be okay for the night. There’s a nice one nearby.”
“You’ll come home with me,” Thomas said.
“What?” I asked.
The door opened, and Thomas sat down beside me before he looked at Bernie and rattled off his home address.
“We gotta go get Lacey at my parents’ place, but you’re gonna come be with us for a bit. Just until you feel safe again. I can watch over you, Lacey will be ecstatic to see you, and you’ll still be in familiar territory.”
“I’ve never been to your parents’ though,” I said.
“I meant when we get back to my place,” he said. “It’ll just be a quick stop off to get Lacey.”
“I take it I don’t have a choice?” I asked.
He looked over at me before his hand slid over to my leg. His fingers spread out, encapsulating the whole of my thigh, while his eyes bored into mine. His touch was hot, and his eyes were stern, and I knew the second I caught his gaze that I didn’t have any choice in the matter.
He was taking me back to his home, whether I felt like I could be there or not.
“A man figured out where you lived by following you home and came back with a baseball bat,” he said. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until I know he’s behind bars and that you’re safe.”
And all I could do was lean my body into his as he pulled me close.
“Bernie, you can go ahead,” Thomas said.
“On it, sir.”
Chapter 30
Thomas
“Wait, don’t I get to grab a few things?”
I looked down at Bridget as Bernie stopped the car halfway down the driveway, and the moment Bridget recommended going into the house, everything in my body bristled.
“I want to clear it first before you go in, all right?” I asked.
“Whatever you have to do,” she said. “But I’ll need clothes and my toiletries.”
Bernie headed back up to the house and parked over the massive puddle of blood in her driveway. I got out of the car and told her to stay put. Then I unlocked the house and cleared both levels of her home. I knew, deep down, she was safe, but I couldn’t leave her here for the night. I had to have her beside me, just for a few days, until I knew no other threats would approach her house after this one. Who the hell knew? For all we knew, he told people where Bridget lived, and a swarm of people would descend without us knowing about it.
I wasn’t subjecting Bridget to anything else, and I knew I could do that if she was with me.
“All clear!” I called out.
I followed Bridget around while she gathered a few things. She threw in some outfits and some shoes before she grabbed everything in her bathroom, and by the time she was packed, we were both carrying a suitcase.
“You staying for the month?” I asked.
“You want me to be pretty while I’m around?”
“You’re pretty no matter what you do,” I said.
“Aw, so sweet. But a liar. Nice try.” She winked.
We loaded her trunk down before we got back into the car, then Bernie backed down the driveway again and got us on the road. Bridget told Bernie he could have the next few days off to do whatever he wanted without his pay being docked. Then, she settled silently into my body while we rode through town. We navigated toward my parents’ home to get Lacey, who was probably wondering what in the world had happened to me, while Bridget’s mind whirled at a thousand miles a second. I could tell she was thinking about a lot of things, so every once in a while I placed a small kiss on the top of her head.
Her body was still trembling slightly from the threat that had just been taken care of, and I wanted to remove the rest of her fears before Lacey got into the car.
“It’s all right,” I said. “You’re safe.”
We pulled up into my parents’ driveway, and I told Bernie to stay here. We’d need a ride back to my place before we could all use the other car I had in order to get around, and Bernie simply nodded and cut the car off.
“Their house is too cute,” Bridget said.
“Come on. Let’s go get you introduced and get Lacey picked up.”
I grabbed her hand to help her out of the car, but the moment I heard the door open, I knew what was happening. I heard little footsteps on the grass behind us before a small rush of air ran past my leg, and before anyone could take in what was happening, Lacey was attached to Bridget’s leg and bouncing up and down.
“You’re here! You’re here! You’re here!”
“Hey there, beautiful,” Bridget said. “Miss me?”
“Yeah, you miss me?” Lacey asked.
“Of course, I did,” Bridget said, smiling.
I turned and saw my parents walk out onto the porch with broad smiles on their faces. Bridget put Lacey down before my daughter grabbed her hand, and we all made our way up to the porch in order to do introductions.
“Mom. Dad. This is Bridget Meyers,” I said.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” my mother said. “I’m Sarah, and this is my husband, Brandon.”
“I’m a big fan,” my father said.
“Well, it’s wonderful to meet you both,” Bridget said.
“I don’t know much about what my son does,” my father said. “But you being brought here means something must have happened. Is everything all right?”
I side-glanced at Bridget and saw her body pull tight. The look in her eye flashed to fear for a split second, but I knew it was enough for my mother to catch what was going on. My mother reached out and took Bridget’s hand, bringing her back to reality with her soft touch, and that’s when she had one of the best ideas I’d heard in a while.
“Why don’t we all go inside and have a drink, hmm?” my mother asked.
“A drink sounds wonderful, thank you,” Bridget said.
The four of us made our way inside with Lacey bounding behind happily. She was rattling off questions and asking Bridget all sorts of things, but the moment my father bent down and started talking with her, Lacey got real quiet. Her demeanor completely changed, and she brushed past all of us to go sit on the couch, and I turned my gaze back to my father who had a small smirk on his face.
“I told her the grownups needed to talk, and if she was a good girl, she could watch a movie when she got home,” my father said.
“Uh huh,” I said. “Pawn that late night movie off on me, huh?”
“Wine?” my mother asked.
“Perfect,” Bridget said.
We all sat down at my parents’ table and began to talk. Mo
m set out wine glasses for all of us while I slowly talked them through the night. The moment I mentioned the baseball bat, Bridget’s leg came flying over to mine underneath the table.
“He showed up with a baseball bat?” my mother asked.
“Yeah. Apparently, he followed Bridget home from a dance club she was at one night after cornering her in the bathroom.”
“Please tell me this piece of shit is behind bars,” my father said.
“He was arrested and hauled away before we headed here,” I said.
“Bridget, honey. Are you all right?”
My mother reached over and laid her hand over Bridget’s, and I watched her jump. A bit of wine spilled out from the top of her cup, and I could see tears welling in her eyes. She was petrified, reliving the story like this, and my father caught on and steered the conversation in another direction.
“Well, son,” he said. “I’m glad you were there for her. Because of you, we can now enjoy wine with one of Hollywood’s greatest beauties.”
“Oh my gosh, you’re too kind,” Bridget said, giggling.
“We’re very proud of you, son,” my mom said.
“I was lucky to have him around,” Bridget said. “I don’t even wanna think about what might’ve happened if he wasn’t.”
