4. Hayden
Hayden
The second I’m out of Gia’s sightline, I’m on the phone calling up The Beacon. The candy-striped lighthouse would be visible from the Pavilion if I stepped out, but there’s no way I’m going anywhere beyond a few feet of my top-priority client.
“How’s celebrity babysitting going, Choi?” Rafi Haddad, Sunbreak Security’s COO, answers on the second ring. “Heard you sunk like the Titanic the moment the pretty pop star fluttered her long lashes at you.”
“I haven’t sunk shit.”
“Oh, right. Half-mast up, then?”
I groan. “Never mind that, Rafi. In your experience running event security, you ever hear about fan mail and gifts being sent to the venue? Or are they usually brought over and left with staff?”
“Left, and eventually discarded. Why?”
“I want a full list and background check on everyone working at the High Tide Pavilion for this concert series.”
Rafi’s silence stretches for a beat too long. “Seems a little overkill. More than half the team working on it aren’t locals. They’ve been brought in by multiple artists, their entourages, their own teams, their own hiring and vetting processes. You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Might be something, might be nothing.”
“And if it’s something?”
The breath whooshes out of me along with a curse. “It might be a death threat.”
“Explain.”
In clipped, quick sentences, I tell him that azaleas are both pretty and poisonous.
They’re also Gia’s favorite flower, a fact the whole of the internet knows, and the sender sent her dead blooms wrapped up in black ribbon with a message that suggested he—assumed male, given the handwritten note, the gift history, and the obsessive romantic undertones of all of it—was keeping a close eye on her.
When I’m done, I throw in another request. “See if you can get ahold of Allie, mention these gifts and ask her if there’s any history here. Anything even remotely similar.”
“You sure about this, Choi? What you’re asking for isn’t a quick job. It’s going to take some time to dig into.”
“I checked the TMZ footage. There’s no video of the moment she falls. Only photos of me carrying her through the halls. How did they know she fainted?”
“Could’ve deduced that with you playing hero. It’s not exactly rocket science.”
“Look. I know it’s a stretch.” I squint at the busy backstage hustle and bustle, the innumerable people with access passes or color-coded wristbands running to and fro.
The Hide Tide Pavilion might be hosting the hottest ticket in town, but it’s also ripe for infiltration.
Someone with a strong enough motivation might not be so easily put off.
“Just run it. I got a bad feeling, and I’m not comfortable letting her out of my sight until we know everyone here’s aboveboard. ”
“What are you saying? You want me to send more guys?”
Gia emerges from her dressing room in a sparkly jumpsuit and a denim jacket slung over her shoulders, ready to meet her adoring public. She scans the crowd as if looking for someone, and when her gaze lands on me, that warm, sweet smile tugs at her lips.
The one I’ve only ever seen her aim at me. The one that makes me insane enough to stroke the soft skin of her leg and press a stupid kiss to her fingers, since it’s all I can do not to draw her into my arms and kiss her teasing, smart mouth until she begs me for more.
I stroke my aching jaw and force myself to relax it as I signal I’ll just be one second.
“No, Rafi. I don’t need more guys,” I say. “I just need her under twenty-four-hour surveillance.”
Rafi’s voice is full of suspicion. “And how are you going to do that with an international superstar? Everywhere she goes makes a brand-new headline.”
“I’m going to take her home.”
“I don’t th—”
“I didn’t ask what you fucking thought. My house is just as secure as any one of our safe houses with closed-circuit cameras and the whole nine yards, and you know it.”
“Sloane’s not going to like it,” he says, voice low and reproachful. “But it’s your funeral, Titanic. Better be worth it.”
“She is,” I bite out, disconnecting the call and striding forward to escort her to the next thing on the agenda.
As I escort her through the halls, I mobilize the rest of Gia’s security squad and instruct them to collect all gifts and letters before they’re brought into the meet-and-greet room.
As part of the prescreening, I demand that every gift be tagged and logged before it’s screened so I know when it was received and what the point of entry is.
Then I make sure every member of staff knows to bring any and all potentially alarming materials to me first.
Controlling the situation, evaluating the risk on the fly—these are the skills I’ve honed through military training and all my security work, but for the first time in my life, unease courses through my veins.
I need Gia safe. To do that, I need to remain calm. And I need her calm.
Until there’s something more to worry about, there’s no reason to panic.
No need to cause unnecessary worry for a client about to take to the stage and perform for the masses.
I repeat this mantra in my head nonstop while Gia sets up for the meet-and-greet. This time, I stay within arm’s reach. I nudge her forward, pull her back, casually touch her to let her know I’m close depending on how relaxed or how tense she is for every fan interaction.
Ever since I caved and let my hands curl around her ankle, it’s like I can’t get enough skin-to-skin contact to satisfy the impossible desire I’ve been fighting to keep in check.
Through the next two hours, I stand as a silent sentry, scrutinizing every fan just in case anybody gets too handsy or Gia grows uncomfortable. But it doesn’t happen.
Instead, I watch as Gia Golding, pop star, goes to work, beaming nonstop and exuding nothing but endless patience and genuine joy with every new, squealing fan who requests a photo or a signature.
Her team directs the flow of fan traffic, handing their phones to a designated photographer to snap pictures in both landscape and portrait.
Passing along the perimeter are a couple of the show’s photographers, documenting the whole thing for whatever behind-the-scenes marketing thing they’re doing.
Through it all, she’s charming and funny, a complete natural with the crowd. It’s easy to see why so many love her when she laughs with her fans, tears up when they say something that moves her, and more or less completely embodies the celebrity best friend persona she’s known for.
For three weeks, I’ve watched her go through this, night after night, and never once complain about it or talk badly about the swaths of strangers who come to her in all states—screaming, crying, and yes, even one who looked like they might actually throw up on her.
Every person that enters, she treats them like a new friend, and they leave believing in the power of their connection.
It doesn’t matter if she’s come off back-to-back shows or had shit sleep, or even if she’s just getting over a cold that relegated her to staying in bed until the last possible moment.
Gia Golding is a certified star in more ways than one, and I want so badly to lump her in with the rich, spoiled princesses I’ve known…
But I can’t.
Gia’s admirably real. Authentic and open, beautiful inside and out.
And I was never supposed to fall for her.
“Okay, what are you not telling me?” Gia asks, the second we’re free from the crowds and back in her dressing room.
Do not panic the client. Do not panic the client.
“Nothing.”
She turns away from the lights and the mirrors to side-eye me.
“I don’t pay my staff to lie to me, Hayden.”
I lift my chin. “All due respect, I’m not staff.
I’m security. That means I’m responsible for your personal safety, whether or not you agree with my methods.
I am personally responsible for you. You can call the shots all you want with your business, but your body—your safety—is my business, and you don’t get to tell me how to watch your back. ”
“My body is your business, huh?” she repeats, scoffing.
Then, she starts shedding her clothes. First, the light denim jacket she’d slung over her shoulders after the air conditioning got cranked up too high hits the floor.
Then she tugs on the knot behind her neck, loosening the halter top of her jumpsuit.
It falls to her waist, where it catches and the synapses in my brain reconnect.
“Wh-what are you doing?” I should turn away, redirect my attention to the door that’s still ajar, but my eyes drink her in. The nude lace of her bra, the curve of her breast.
She undresses with the practiced ease of someone used to having her body ogled and eyed, and I’m standing here with my dick hardening in record time.
“I’m due on stage in about an hour. Any minute now, another team of people will be here to slap another layer of hair, makeup, and costuming on me. So if you want to watch my back, Hayden, you ought to see it.”
Then she pushes the jumpsuit to her feet, and my mouth runs dry at the sight of her bare, brown skin.
Her hips flare wide, emphasizing the curve of her thick thighs, and I stare hard at the tattoo of a dragon snaking around her hip, weaving its way through botanicals—more azaleas, but sunflowers, too—and unleashing its tongue to disappear somewhere under her panty.
Goddamn.
I want to fall to my knees, tug that excuse of cotton off her hips, and see exactly what treasure this mighty dragon guards. I want to trace it with kisses, taste it with my tongue, and loop her legs around my neck while I lose myself in her sweet spot.
“Here. See?”
Gia’s voice is soft, and her hands trail over her belly. Up, up, up, until I see it—the old scar of puckered flesh, knit together in a wide arc that follows the curve of her left rib all the way around to her back.
My rage is instantaneous. I close the gap between us and trace the path of the wound with my fingertips. Someone’s done this to her, carved this into her skin and made her hurt.
When I’m finally able to speak, my voice is tight, raw, and angry.
“Who the fuck did this to you?”