Chapter 5
DAWSON
Iain had been acting weird all week.
He never hooked up with that Frankie guy the night of the concert. Iain didn’t hook up with anyone, even when the band went out clubbing afterward.
In fact, he hadn’t snuck out or hooked up all week. And I had to wonder if he was feeling ill or something. Or maybe I was reading too much into his strange behavior.
With each passing day, however, he got more agitated, and so did I.
And now we were flying to France. Maybe that was it; he had travel nerves?
Tour buses were more Iain’s thing. You could stop and get out every couple of hours if needed and walk around. But a nine-hour flight was different. Even on a private jet.
Instead of worrying about my primary, I browsed the emails that Regan had sent me last night.
All the hotels and venues in Paris had been security approved. I reviewed the layouts of the buildings and prepared our entry and exit plans while the cabin crew was moving about, getting the plane ready for departure.
My team—Lennie, Petyr, Xavier, Valen, Geoff, Will, and Quinn—sat in the back of the plane with me, trading notes for the upcoming trip.
Iain and Brodie were sitting two rows ahead of me, side by side, with Ronin and Faise across the aisle.
Van was facing Brodie and beside him sat the band’s new manager, Harlow Hines.
All the guys were talking, so I guessed everything was all right.
Even though Harlow looked stressed, bouncing his knee and tapping the arm of his seat.
I’d be nervous in his position, too.
Brodie had been vocal about the fact that he was unhappy with their current music label, Bandit.
The CEO of the label, Greg Haddley, had outed Van when his relationship with Brodie started back in the fall.
I’d been witness to many of the arguments after that, and I knew it was only a matter of time until Wayward Lane would be cutting ties. Their contract was up in May.
It made me think about the future of my team. We were hired by Bandit, so I assumed that once Wayward left, we would be assigned to a new band.
I’d probably never see Iain again.
A painful knot formed in my stomach.
Which was hilariously ironic. Iain had pushed me to my limit, yet when he wasn’t around everything seemed dull in comparison.
Fuck.
I kept replaying Bibi’s advice in my head, but I stubbornly refused to listen to it. I’d heard and seen other bodyguards cross that professional line, and it did not end well. Once you lost objectivity, you were fucked. And out of work.
And I couldn’t afford to do that.
Just before take-off, I video-called my son.
My mom was looking after him, as she usually did whenever I had to travel with the band.
I also had a nanny, Paige, who helped her out while I was on the road.
Back when I shared custody, I got to see Jaxon twice a month, mostly on weekends.
But now that it was just me, the long days and longer nights of my schedule were starting to wear. Jaxon saw his grandmother more than me.
“Hey, Jax.”
“Dad! Guess what!”
“What?” I asked as I stared at his earnest little face.
Jaxon was my spitting image, except he had blue eyes instead of green.
Oh, and he was good-natured—a sunny chatterbox to my grumpy silence.
Despite the grief of losing his mom two years ago, he was doing well in school.
So much that he’d skipped a grade and was now in class with nine- and ten-year-olds.
I worried it might be difficult for him to navigate, but not Jaxon.
He was his mother’s son, making friends wherever he was.
I smiled when I saw he had on his favorite PJs—the ones with stars and planets on them—and was sitting up in bed with my mom.
“I’m reading a story to Nana!” Jaxon yelled out, and I lowered the volume when everyone on the plane turned to stare at me.
Oops.
“You sound just a little bit excited, bud,” I teased him as I finally felt my tension ease.
“The boy in this book is like me. He loves music and cats, and goes on adventures!”
“Cats, huh?”
He’d been begging me for a cat for months, and my willpower was weakening. His ninth birthday was coming up in April, and I knew I’d be making a trip to the local animal shelter.
“That sounds awesome.” I leaned forward. “We can read it together when I get back from my trip.”
“How long again?”
“A few weeks.”
“I miss you already, Dad.”
“I miss you too, bud. You be good for Nana, okay? And Paige.”
“I will. Where’s Holls? Can I meet him?” he shouted.
Oh jeez. My son was eight going on eighteen.
Jaxon loved all kinds of music and when I explained to him that I worked for a band, for Wayward Lane, he was beyond excited. He asked to meet all the guys in the band, but Iain in particular. And yes, I only let him listen to the PG songs, which weren’t too many.
Jaxon was learning to play the piano and was now hounding me for guitar lessons. Guitar lessons and a cat. We were going to have one noisy house in short order.
I held off on introducing Jaxon to the band, though, since I didn’t want to use my position to hold a family tour.
Keeping that line in place.
But Jaxon was persistent. He got that from me.
“Uh, he’s talking to his friends right now, Jax.”
“No, I’m not.”
Iain plopped down on the empty seat next to me and waved at my phone. “Hey, Jaxon! Nice to finally meet you.”
“Nana, look, it’s Iain Holloway! He’s my favorite musician!”
My face began to heat, and I caught Iain’s amused expression.
“Really? Well, you gotta drop by the studio next time. We can give you a tour and jam. Do you play any instruments?”
What was happening right now? My heart began to pound so hard and fast that I was lightheaded. My mouth was dry, too.
Damn circulated air.
“Piano, but I want to learn the guitar next,” Jax explained.
Iain nodded. “Cool. I started out playing piano, too.”
“Dad, when you get back home, can you take me to the studio?”
“We’ll talk about it. Now it’s time for you to finish your story with Nana and go to sleep.”
“It was nice to meet you, Jaxon,” Iain replied with a wave.
“You too. I’m gonna tell all my friends at school tomorrow!” Jaxon shouted, and despite the lower volume, his voice carried.
The chuckles of my colleagues seated nearby echoed in the cabin.
All it took was one phone call and my personal-professional boundary was gone.
“Good night, bud. I love you.”
“Love you too, Dad.”
“Put Nana on, please.”
The screen went blank until my mom came into view. Her red hair was now white but just as long and thick as it was when she was young.
“Hey.”
“He’s never going to sleep now,” she teased me.
“That’s my fault,” Iain added, leaning against my shoulder, pointing to himself.
His hair tickled my jaw. My breath caught, and I struggled not to fidget.
Why the hell was he still sitting beside me? And why the fuck did he always smell so good? Like leather and citrus.
I’d been in training all day, so I probably smelled like stale sweat.
I turned and glared at him, but he just laughed and shook his head.
“Kathryn Everly,” my mom announced. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Holloway.”
“Iain, please.”
What? He never told strangers to call him by his first name, but now my family was the exception? I’d entered some kind of twilight zone.
“So nice to put a face to the name. Dawson talks about you all the time,” she added.
“Does he?”
“Do you mind?” I turned to him, my cheeks hot. “I’m having a personal conversation.”
“Then why do you have it on speaker?”
I had no reply to that.
“Not to be rude, but your son is kind of a grump,” Iain said and pointed to my face.
“He doesn’t get that from me,” she fired back.
“Anyway,” I interrupted. “Mom, are you sure you’re gonna be okay for the next few weeks?”
“I will be fine.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow then. Love you.”
“You too. Be safe.”
I tapped end and turned to Iain.
“What the fuck was that?” I demanded.
“That was me saying hi to your mom. And your son. Who, by the way, is your twin. Only, he’s into music, so he’s way cooler. And he’s nicer.”
“That’s ’cause he’s never had to work with you.”
“He’s eight. He shouldn’t be working at all.”
“Smart ass.”
Iain smiled at first, and then, just as quickly, a look of sudden panic crossed his face.
“I’m getting strange text messages from unknown numbers,” he blurted out.
“What?”
He nervously licked his lips, and my eyes locked on his mouth.
I quickly glanced up, and that wasn’t any better. His deep brown eyes were so serious and framed by long blond eyelashes. This close, I finally noticed the dark circles under his eyes, and that unsettled feeling I had all week was confirmed.
“Here.” Iain tapped on his phone and shoved it at me. “Look.”
I took hold of his cell and glanced at the text messages.
Unknown number: I miss you
I saw you today, but you didn’t wave to me
Your last concert was so good. I was standing right in front of you. But you ignored me.
Why are you with so many men? Am I not enough for you?
I kept scrolling. There must have been twenty or so messages. Fear and anger slammed into me, and all my protective instincts went into overdrive.
“How long has this been going on?” I calmly asked, even though I felt anything but.
My hand gripped his phone so hard I was in danger of cracking it in two.
“Just over a month.”
“Around the break-in?”
Iain nodded.
“Brodie knew something was bothering me last week at the concert. I promised him I would tell you.”
“And you thought, what? ‘I’ve got some stalker after me, so I’ll wait another few days to tell my security lead?’”
Every word that came out of my mouth was louder than the next. Heads turned, but I ignored everyone but the man sitting beside me.
“We don’t know for sure it’s a stalker. And I knew what would happen, all right? I need my phone. You can’t cut me off from the world entirely.”
“This needs to be investigated. We’ll get you a new phone as soon as we land in France.
Of course, it would have been easier if you’d told me before we were on a plane headed overseas,” I bit out.
“I’ll let you keep this one until we get your replacement.
But don’t erase any messages. I want to keep tracking them. ”
“I deleted and blocked the first few that came in. But not in the past two weeks.”
“Could it be an ex?”
“I don’t date. No romantic relationships.”
“Never?”
Iain shook his head.
“Someone you rejected?”
Iain rolled his eyes. “That’s a long list.”
Yeah, and that was a dumb question. There were probably hundreds of men he’d had to turn away. There were only so many hours in a day.
I picked up my phone and typed an urgent message to Regan. We’d need to revise our security protocols.
“I’m sure it’s just some weirdo who will stop once they realize I’m not responding,” Iain reasoned.
I glanced over and sighed. “Regan and I will be the judge of that.”
“What does all this mean? Because if you put any more restrictions on me, I’m not kidding, Daws, I’m gonna lose it.”
“There will likely be additional security measures in place, yes. Round the clock. And we’ll have to vet your partners with twenty-four hours’ notice.”
He shook his head. “Jesus, I might as well write ‘out of business’ on my ass.”
I pulled out a pen and handed it to him.
Iain was not amused.