Chapter 4
Sloane
The sky outside my manager's office window was as bleak and cheerless as it was inside. Despite the cold that still gripped the city in its clutches, I would’ve rather been out there than in here.
“I know you don’t think it’s necessary, Sloane. You’ve told me a thousand times,” Monica said. “But I’m giving you the same answer I’ve given you every time before: it’s for your own safety.”
“They were just a couple unruly fans!”
“That knocked you into a clothing rack while you were shopping! You’re lucky the store’s manager was there, or you could have been killed.
It’s bad enough that it happened, but now that Celebrity picked up the story, everybody’s going to be watching you closer.
What’s to stop someone else from rushing you again when there’s no one there to protect you? ”
Letting out a huff, I tried hard not to turn around and glare at her where she sat behind her desk.
It wouldn’t do any good, and it might make things worse.
She’d already threatened to drop me if I didn’t take my safety more seriously, and I wasn’t willing to take the chance to see if she would follow through.
Monica had been with me for a little over a year now, and she was the first truly good thing to happen to me since my father died when I was sixteen. I couldn’t risk losing her, especially right now.
I’d lost enough in my life, and I needed the bleeding to stop.
Heat burned through me, and my pulse pounded in my forehead, right above my eye. I pressed my fingers to my temple and lowered myself into the chair beside me before my weak legs decided for me.
This whole thing was embarrassing. From being forced to have a bodyguard to the reason for it—being run down by my fans in the middle of a department store.
The whole situation made me feel homesick. I didn’t have these issues in Los Angeles. There, people stared from afar. But I couldn’t go back to LA—not after what went down. I sometimes wondered if I’d ever be able to show my face in that town again.
“Why don’t you take a break,” Monica suggested, rounding the edge of her desk to kneel at my side.
“Go to the restroom. Splash a little cold water on your face. See if that will help. The men from the security company should be here shortly, but I can always get started without you if you need a few minutes.”
My nod made my head throb, but at least it didn’t feel like lightning cutting through my temple.
Monica helped me to my feet, and I grabbed my purse from the table where I’d left it.
Her disapproving look dropped away when I pulled out my pills.
By the time I got the bottle open and shook one onto my palm, she’d grabbed a water from the mini-fridge and returned to my side.
“Before you ask,” I said, reaching for the bottle and taking a swig, “no, this is not an attempt to get out of this meeting.”
She brandished a wry smile. “I wasn’t going to ask.”
“But you were thinking it.”
Monica squeezed my arm. “I need to get to the meeting. Don’t take too long.”
“Sure. Yeah. I can’t wait to get this over with.” I rushed out of her office as fast as my legs and my pride would allow. Monica’s assistant, Tami, waved as I raced down the hall. I turned toward the restrooms only to crash face-first into a wall.
My purse went flying one way, my water dropped to the floor at my feet, and my pills scattered in the other direction as the cap popped off the moment my fist slammed into a rock-solid chest. The only reason I didn’t land on my ass was the two hands of steel that clamped around my arms.
“Shit, I’m so sorry!” The hands loosened, then left me completely. I was pretty sure they took my ability to talk with them.
The most beautiful chocolate-brown eyes—set in what was quite possibly the most handsome face I’d seen in… well… ever—were staring down at me. I wanted to melt with the chocolate, maybe consume it, if it meant fending off my migraine with the extra caffeine.
Those eyes flared with recognition that was so glaringly obvious, I wanted to shrink away. Only, I found I couldn’t, almost as if he’d locked me in some magical spell that made my ability to move recede.
“Holy shit.” The words were nothing but a whisper, the smile that stretched his lips the sweetest thing I’d ever seen. “I’ve got to be fucking dreaming. Is this… Are you… Oh my god, please tell me this is real? You’re Sloane Rivera?”
“That’s me,” I told him, a tingle sweeping across the back of my neck as he finally released me from his spell. I tore my eyes away from him and glanced at the floor around us, which was now littered with little white pills. The man followed my gaze, then moved before I could think to do so.
“This is so embarrassing, let me help you.” He was on his knees before he finished speaking, and heat flushed through me as I watched him scoop my medicine into his palm before dropping it into the empty bottle.
Thoughts I’d never entertained in my twenty-four years on this earth rampaged through my head at the sight of him kneeling before me.
What would it feel like, to have this man touch me? To have him smooth those strong hands over my skin, move that hard body over my own?
Saliva pooled in my mouth as my attention bounced from his broad shoulders to his narrow hips to his absolutely amazing ass.
Somehow, I forced my attention off him and grabbed my purse and the bottle’s lid from behind me. When I turned back around, he was still there, on his knees, staring up at me with a look on his face that made those indecent thoughts erupt.
He offered up my pill bottle, which shook like a maraca in his hand. I reached for it, our fingers connecting for a brief moment before we both pulled away.
“Can I just say, I’m your biggest fan? Your music…” He brought his hand to his chest before realizing he still had my water bottle gripped in his palm. “Shit. Sorry.”
He held my water out to me, and I took it with a quiet laugh. “Not a problem.”
“Your music means everything to me. Your lyrics just blow my mind, and I… I can’t believe I’m really here. Can I… Can I get your autograph?”
“Of course, you can!” My heart seemed to soar as his wide smile grew so big I wasn’t sure how his face didn’t explode. This would always be my favorite part about my job. The fans who truly got me—got my music—helped make all my pain and sorrow go away.
It didn’t hurt that this particular one was so easy on the eyes.
As he fumbled with his jacket pockets, his attention on the pad of paper he’d pulled from the left one, I shook my head to try to clear away my attraction. This wasn’t like me. Never once, since I started in this business twenty years ago, had I ever felt interested in a fan.
Although, maybe, a voice in my head whispered, someone else had always been in the way.
He pulled a pen from his interior pocket, then flashed a sweet-as-sin smile my way as he rose to his full height.
I watched as he did, lifting my chin only to lift it again when he didn’t seem to stop. He was so much taller than me. At five-foot-three, that wasn’t difficult. Still, I couldn’t help the new barrage of fantasies that rocketed through my mind.
“I’m, um…” He swept his brown hair off his forehead, an act that only served to make him look more attractive and sweeter as he stumbled over his words. “I’m… My name is Kolton.”
“It’s so great to meet you, Kolton,” I told him, taking the pen and paper from his shaky hands. “Do you spell it with a C or a K?”
“Yes.” He nodded vigorously, then blinked and shook his head. “I mean, no. I mean, K. Kolton with a K.”
My god, he was cute. My fans came in all kinds, but the ones who were this shell shocked to meet me were the best.
“Well, Kolton with a K.” I signed my name with a flourish, finishing off my signature with two hearts instead of my usual one. “Would you like a photo, too?”
“Oh my god, really? Would you?”
“For my biggest fan? I’d love to.”
He practically vibrated right out of his skin, and I chuckled quietly as he rushed to find his phone in yet another pocket. Meanwhile, I took out my own.
“One for you and one for me,” I told him, flashing my phone to him as he held his up triumphantly.
He nodded, but when he didn’t move, I scooted closer to his side. Did a thrill flow through me as his fingers wrapped around my hip seconds later?
Most definitely.
He snapped a few pictures, his smile nervous but so damn cute.
When it was my turn, it became obvious my arms were much shorter than his.
I pressed closer to get us both in the shot, the light stubble of his cheeks brushing mine.
I snapped one picture. Snapped two more as his fingers tightened on my hip.
I wasn’t sure what came over me. I pulled away only slightly, then held my finger down on the button, catching a stream of photos as I leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
His gasp was barely audible, but oh! The look in his eyes when I edged back enough to see him sent warmth through every inch of my body. His wide eyes were chocolate saucers, his lips parted in a near-perfect O.
The smile that curled the corners of my mouth felt strange. Foreign, even. Yet somehow, completely genuine. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt like this.
Certainly not anytime recently.
“You. Are. Amazing,” he whispered.
“You are good for my ego, Kolton with a K.”
Color rushed to his cheeks, and he pressed his palm to the one sporting a hint of my pale pink lipstick. “Thank you. For everything. I will remember this moment for the rest of my life.”
So good for my ego.
“Thank you for being a fan. I couldn’t do what I do without you.”
His cheeks darkened as he dipped his chin, and my heart stumbled and skipped. He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder and looked at me through a fringe of dark lashes. “I should go. But thank you. For everything. I’ll remem—” He grimaced. “I already said that, didn’t I?”
I bit my lower lip, wishing he didn’t have to go. “You did.”
He ran a hand through his hair, leaving a tuft in front sticking straight up. Then he beamed, turning his face toward the ceiling before shaking his head. “I’m gonna go before this gets weird.”
Laughter shook my shoulders, and his own rolled around in his chest as he turned and walked away. I watched until he reached the doorway. Waved my fingers as he peered back over his shoulder at me, and I soared as his cheeks flushed and his cute smile peeked out again.
I sighed as he stepped out of view, then pressed my fingers against my temple and closed my eyes. Kolton’s smiling face flashed behind my eyelids, then images of what I wanted to do with him, both competing with the twinge of pain for my full attention.
With a quick swig from my water bottle, I rushed to the bathroom and took care of business. Then I splashed cool water over my face, wishing for the thousandth time that this meeting I was going to wasn’t a thing.
If only those fans hadn’t run me over.
If only I hadn’t been in that store.
If only I hadn’t come back to Chicago.
If only I hadn’t found my best friend being pounded like a sex doll by my boyfriend in my bed back in LA.
A sigh left me, deflating my lungs and dragging my shoulders toward the floor. I allowed myself a moment to breathe before I lifted myself up again.
I was Sloane Rivera.
I was strong and resilient and could overcome all of this.
As my biggest fan, Kolton with a K said: I. Was. Amazing.
With that thought in mind, I dusted my face with a light powder and blush, swiped on a smear of pink lipstick, then left the bathroom and headed back to the conference room down the hall from Monica’s office.
My manager was already there, shaking hands with a behemoth of a man that made me even more angry at this whole situation. The man was so huge, you could probably fit two of me inside his shadow and still have room for more. Hell, his biceps looked bigger than my head!
How the hell was I supposed to go anywhere without drawing the attention of everyone within a ten-mile radius with this man at my side?
As I lifted my fingers to my temple once more, Monica turned around and gave me a smile that was more warning than anything. Before I could demand to speak with her in private, she stepped toward me and put her hand on my shoulder, drawing me into the room.
“There you are. I’d like you to meet Lee Bridgewater, owner of Bridgewater Security.”
The big man extended his arm, and my hand disappeared as it was swallowed by his. It sounded like the freight trains that used to rumble past my childhood home when he spoke. “Nice to meet you.”
I couldn’t have spoken if I wanted to. It felt like hot steam was blasting out of my ears. I turned to Monica, intent on stopping this, when she grabbed my arm and dragged me closer to her side.
“And I’d like you to meet your new bodyguard,” she said, her quick glance at her notebook on the table enough of a pause for me to blink a dozen times to try to clear away the image in my head that just wouldn’t go away. “Kolton Johns.”
The man whose cheek I’d just kissed. Whose pictures I’d snapped because something inside of me thought this golden boy—with the chocolate eyes and the smile that melted the empty hole in my chest where my heart had once been—could be fodder for my dreams and get me off in a way my ex never had.
Kolton Johns.
Kolton with a K.
My biggest fan.
My new bodyguard.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”