CHAPTER ONE
DRAKE
Cha Cha Min’s dressing room looks like a tornado ripped through it.
Costuming scatters every surface, and makeup is scattered across her tables in a spray of colored powders.
An arrangement of stuffies with her branding plastered across their rainbow paws decorates one wall.
The last few dangles sadly, as though someone purposefully yanked them from their display.
Everything had been set up before she arrived for her final show in LA. From what I know about the K-pop superstar, her social anxiety drives tantrums the size of Mauna Loa, and just as volatile. Everything in Cha Cha’s dressing room tells me that today’s preconcert attitude held true to form.
Except for the threat written out on the shattered spiderweb that reflects my face back to me in a million angles. Her manager stares down at me in horror through those same shattered pieces of mirror, and I return his stare.
“Bring her in here.”
“Fuck no. She can’t see this. It will spike her temper—’
“So you want to leave her out there with whoever did this? Because I promise you, they’re still around.” My thighs scream as I rise from my crouch, and take in the rest of the room with a fresh eye. “Was it this bad before?”
“Before she left…” Shayne's mouth hangs open, his expression slack.
I resist the urge to snap my fingers in his face, or slap him. “Before the concert,” I bark. “Was her room this bad, or has someone ramped up the damage while she was on stage?”
Comprehension dawns, and Shayne backs up a step.
Glass crunches beneath his heel. He winces.
“No. No one’s been in here. Right. Right?
” He casts a worried glance at me then over his shoulder to where her little clan of entourage peer curiously into her the dressing room they’ve likely never been allowed inside before, unless sone of them are fucking her.
“Right,” they all chorus like so many pastel birdies perched on a sofa, each slung around the other. A pair that were making out detach from each other’s faces for long enough to shrug in tandem.
“I mean, the lights went out just before intermission," someone yawns in the back and I spot pink and white hair that bobbles around as the man talks. “But other than that the whole waiting thing was boring.”
Someone elbows him, muttering about entitlement, and he shuts up.
I close my eyes, refocusing on my job and will myself not to eject Team Groupie from the building. “The lights went out? Just in this room?”
Eight sets of eyes blink at me. “It’s where we’ve been the whole time,” another white latex suited kid answers me.
“Like, sure. Where else would we be?” This one is dressed in powder blue lace.
Shit, they look like custom made dolls off the shelf, ready for a photo shoot. Maybe that’s the point.
“Where else?” I echo, and glance across at Shayne. “Uh—”
He shrugs. “They’ll piss in a bottle if it means holding the need for twelve hours for a glimpse of Cha Cha.
The sasaeng fans club is the cream of the cream.
Cha Cha took hers and turned them into her personal toy box for giggles.
She even wrote a song about them. La La for Cha Cha.
They’re free marketing, and she gifts them clothes from there.
These are the most obsessed people on the planet.
They’ll do anything to get close to her, but she never lets them. ”
And you wonder why she needs a bodyguard because someone is trying to infiltrate themselves into her life?
A wave of nausea slams me. “Alright. Get her in here. Now,” I bark at Shayne, who jumps faster than he’s moved all fucking night.
My new client needs a break. Away from spot lights and groupies and marketing. She needs time to reset her creative juices. I can’t protect her from the nightmare she and her team have created in a toxic environment like this.
Cha Cha Min is going on holidays, and she doesn’t get a damn choice about our destination.
This is ridiculous.
I don’t want to go.
Who the hell are you, anyway?
All the things I expect to fall out of the global star’s mouth as I drive her away from the stadium bearing her wrecked dressing room simply…don’t.
Cha Cha hasn’t spoken a word to me since we left. Her focus is on the lights outside the windows of my Cadillac Blackwing. Manicured fingers drape over the leather interior like she’s unsure if she should touch it or not, an alien landscape.
I don’t blame the K-pop star for her silence. Shayne shoved her into a car with a man she doesn't know, and told her that her next studio dates were cancelled. Thank fuck this was the last date on her tour, or I suspected we would have had a real fight on our hands.
As it was, she came along quietly, almost dazed, as I led her through the bowels of the stadium where she performed an hour before.
I took photos of the dressing room, not allowing anyone to disturb the scene, and snapped one of their management team as well, her entourage posing prettily in the background.
None of them wanted her to go, though her professional team seemed relieved that someone else took the mantle on.
Above our pay grade didn’t cover it when Shayne hugged me and pressed a sheaf of papers into my hands.
A quick look told me they were threats of all sorts—obsessive promises with sexual connotations, death notices, songs fans had written that leveled from sweet to obscene.
I wonder how many Cha Cha had seen, what interest she took in her personal security.
Shayne stood off to one side while he waved with two fingers and blew air kisses in her direction, his face softening. It was too late; she’d already retreated into herself, a porcelain carving on the sidewalk as I opened the car door and held out a hand.
Cha Cha looked straight at me, ignoring everyone else. Dark eyes stared straight into mine, surprise lancing across her features as she realized that I hadn’t opened the back door to the car at all.
“Your ride,” I murmured, flicking my fingers. I didn’t offer contact, or platitudes. We’d have plenty of time to talk, if that was what she wanted.
If not, I’d do my job, and she'd continue to do…. whatever she needed to survive while we headed off the grid for a while.
“Thank you.”
Her lips framed the word, and for a moment I thought I imagined the sound that hung between us, slightly more than a breath.
Then she sank into the darkness of my car, and I closed the door.
Lights blur into streaks as the city flows past us. Cha Cha’s alabaster mask hasn’t flickered since we pulled away from the stadium, her focus unbroken. If she needs the time to internalize, that’s great, but I’m about to fuck her night right up.
The light ahead of us is green, leading to the interstate. I apply the brakes and turn right, into an industrial area. The change in direction jolts her out of her reverie.
“Where are we going?” It’s the first time she’s spoken to me, beyond the looks she gave me when I held the car door for her. Hell, she didn't even acknowledge me when Shayne introduced me as her bodyguard.
“This car’s too recognizable. We need something more discrete and more useful for where we’re headed.” I glanced sideways at her. “I wanted to give you a comfortable ride for a short while.”
One glance at the silk white pantsuit she wore told me that my final destination of the trip would not be her favorite place.
Shayne and her team put together a pack, and assured me she’d be comfortable with their choices.
I can’t imagine having someone else make those decisions on my behalf but if that’s her preferred process and it gets us away from the toxic environment she exists in, then I’m happy for her.
That’s utter bullshit. At least half of it. The only thing I'm happy about is leaving the building without any further threat to my newest client.
Cha Cha Min is mine for the next two weeks.
That’s the length of my initial contract, how long I have to protect her from whoever the hell has walked straight through her security and right into her dressing room to total her displays.
Mind, it looks like she already did plenty of damage of her own.
I can’t wait to see her try to destroy my personal home, because that’s where we’re headed.
Away from the lights. Far from the glitz that she’s used to.
Scant services. No internet. No tech.
I pull into the secure parking lot that reads my plates, the electronic gate closing behind us.
The only spot in the five car garage is between a covered vehicle and a Jeep Rubicon with a hell of a lot of custom mods.
It even has a Built not bought sticker plastered to the back window. That’s custom, too.
Cha Cha freezes when I park in the empty spot and open my door, hauling her small white sparkly bag from the cramped back seat of my sedan. She doesn’t move as I transfer the rest of my kit to the Rubicon, then open her door.
“Your new ride, ma’am,” I say evenly. “There’s a toilet here if you need. I’d use it. We have a six hour drive ahead of us. The roads I take are a little bumpy.”
Cha Cha stares at me, then across at my Jeep.
“Where in the hell is this holiday that I'm meant to be going on, Drake?”
The edge of fear in her voice the first time when she says my name shouldn’t make me smile, but it does.
I wiggle my fingers like I’m summoning salmon in the river. Her gaze flickers, mesmerized. “Come on, princess. It’s a long drive, and I’d like to get there before the sun rises. Then you can sleep.”
Cha Cha’s mouth moves, like she might rip me a new one. For a moment, I think she’ll entertain me with my first diva level tantrum of the trip, but I’m disappointed when she slides across the seats and out the driver’s door instead, ignoring my advice about using the amenities in a silent protest.
At least the rest of the trip will be interesting. I have every intention of driving hard.