8. Hayden
Hayden
Afew hours later, I escort Gia through the back entrance of the Sunbreak Harbor Police Department, taking extra care to ensure no paparazzi are following behind or waiting across the street to snap a shot they can cash in on.
Thankfully, it’s early enough on a lazy Sunday morning that there aren’t many people around, much less those vultures.
But still, Gia’s had a member of her team bring a bag stuffed with her clothing into my house.
She’s clad in ripped jean shorts that accentuate her every curve and a loose-fitting linen top that’s partially tucked in and partially falling off her shoulder.
Her curls are piled into a messy bun atop her head, and her big, brown eyes are hidden behind enormous shades.
She’s even got on a pair of Flojos on her feet to show off her cute, painted toes and that hemp anklet Chloe made.
Looking at her, I would never guess that she was an international superstar strolling amid mere mortals, but I now know she doesn’t really think of herself as above the rest of us. She just thinks of herself as one of us, even if she’s aware of the privileges she’s had.
That down-to-earth authenticity she has is just one thing I love about her.
My pulse picks up, the room suddenly feeling a touch warmer than it had a moment ago.
And when the officer comes out to call us in, I stand alongside her, feeling a little dazed.
She slips her hand in mine and leans into me. “Will you stay with me, Hayden? I don’t want to do this alone.”
“Yeah. I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart.”
Because I fucking love you.
Swallowing hard, I let her lead me into a back room where the police have pinned up the hundred or so photos obtained from the inside of the box I had bagged and sent over. Rafi and Sloane are already there, and the second they turn and see me, I know they clock Gia’s hand in mine.
They hold their silence, making way for her as she saunters into the room and pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head. Even at a cursory glance, the scale and magnitude of one man’s obsession with her is overwhelming. She leans into me and I put my arm around her to help steady her.
“Oh, God, I was being watched the whole time?” Gia asks. “The entire time I’ve been here?”
The photos of Gia include her surrounded by Allie and the original security team on the pavilion’s loading dock, sipping drinks in the VIP section of the Sandbar & Sips, and sunbathing on a private yacht cruising down the marina.
Then, they get more intimate as the photographer grows bolder, more confident.
Photos of Gia backstage, riffing with her band, hugging crying fans, and even in mid-costume change.
“How did you figure out who it was?”
“Hayden had a hunch.” Sloane uncrosses his arms and slides a file across the stainless steel table. “And Allie had the old files. Buried in there are scanned copies of letters sent to your residence, to the hotel here, and dropped off at the venue.”
“But the key to figuring it out was you, Gia.” I rock back on my heels.
“When you showed me your scars and told me your story, I asked Allie about it because it wasn’t in the original batch of files she sent over, since it only covered the last five years.
She had the name of the man who attacked you, and with a little help from our friends here—” I gesture to the officers in the room “—we discovered that he’d been released from prison. ”
“Hayden already had us running down names for everyone with an access pass,” Rafi adds. “But when he asked me to focus on higher-level new hires and locals, we had a name pop that caused some alarm.”
“And once we were able to get our hands on these pictures,” Sloane adds, “identifying our man became a helluva lot easier.”
“He was in them?” Gia swallows hard.
“No one outside this room has seen these, and this is the only printed copy. It hasn’t even been digitized yet because Hayden stressed your desire to keep the perpetrator’s name and image under wraps, but I’m afraid it’ll need to be passed on as evidence.
” Sloane’s face stays unreadable as he slides a single glossy photograph over.
This one far more intimate and personal than any of the others.
Because it’s us.
Taken just hours before the box appeared right when the stylist interrupted. While we were still wrapped up in one another inside her dressing room just hours before showtime, sharing an undeniably passionate embrace.
Gia’s face is tilted upward to the sky, mouth open in a gasp of pleasure.
Her knees are splayed wide around my hips, and her hands are fisted into the hair at the nape of my neck.
In the well-lit mirror behind her, I can just make out the fuzzy image of an older, bearded man clutching a DSLR camera.
The tattoos on his arm weren’t visible when I first saw him.
My mind shuffles back to place him, and I vaguely remember skimming over him as an older gentleman keeping to the perimeter.
I’d assumed he was there waiting for his daughter or grandchild, but no, in my mind’s eye, I can remember him wearing an access pass labeled for tour photographers. But that wasn’t where I first saw him.
He’d been in the hospital waiting area, sitting with his arm in a sling, tinkering with a camera.
Gia seems to identify him at the same time I do because she pulls out a chair and sinks into it, eyes fluttering shut.
“You’re kidding. They let him out?”
“He was at the hospital,” I say. “The day Allie had her baby and Gia drove her in like the superhero she is, he was in the waiting room and I had hospital security escort him out.” I fist my hands against the table and hate that I hadn’t clocked it earlier, hadn’t picked up on this guy being off earlier.
Looking up at Sloane and Rafi, I ask, “Did you get him?”
“Yeah, we picked him up last night, sniffing around the lobby of the hotel,” the officer answers as he fiddles with a laptop. “Good thing you thought to notify them in advance to alert us in case of any suspicious characters trying to gain entrance to the penthouse suites.”
Then the officer spins the laptop around, and Sloane crosses his arms.
“All Gia has to do is ID him, and they’ll book him in.
He’ll go straight back to the hellhole he came from since he’s in violation of his parole and the restraining order you’ve got against him.
” He leans over to me and lowers his voice.
“And after all this gets wrapped up, you and I are going to need to have a little talk.”
His tone promises disciplinary action, punishment, and more, but I don’t care what happens to me. I only care that we make sure this guy never has a chance to come after Gia again.
The entire ordeal doesn’t take as much time as I expect it to after Gia pinpoints the perpetrator with no issues and gives her statement to the officers.
So, before I know it, the officers are clearing away all the evidence and showing us out of the station. On the outside steps, I chase after Sloane. Best to get this over with.
“Listen, Archer. I know I crossed some boundaries.”
“I’ll say,” Sloane snorts, looking back and forth between me and Gia.
“You know the handbook, forward and backwards. You really want to talk about this now? This is a whole-ass code of conduct fiasco I’m going to have to iron out with HR.
Your judgment got fucked, but I guess that wasn’t the only thing, huh? ”
“Wait, now. Hang on a minute.” Gia squeezes in between us and places me squarely behind her little, curvy body.
Sloane’s eyebrows shoot up as he looks at her protective stance, which is a little funny considering she’s a whole foot shorter than me.
“I know what we did was unprofessional. That goes for the both of us, but I’m not the least bit sorry. If you’re going to fire him for a lapse in judgment—”
“I could fire him for gross misconduct, right here, right now.”
Gia swallows, but doesn’t cower. “You ought to know that I came on to him. I started this. Not him. And, as of yesterday, I fired him. He’s no longer my bodyguard.”
Rafi rolls his lips between his teeth, but in my peripheral view, I can still see his shoulders shaking.
“Y-You came on to him?” Sloane blinks. “And then you fired him? Fired us?”
“Oh, no, it’s nothing against your firm at all. If you can spare another team member to cover my detail, please, send them over. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no breach of contract, and if you’re happy to still have me as a client, it’s still in force.”
“Not sure legal will see it that way.”
“My point is Hayden can’t stay my bodyguard when I obviously want him for more than that,” she says breezily, waving a hand in his face and reaching back to slip her hand in mine. “And anyway, my family and I have access to an entire team of lawyers, if you need help, ah, looking for a loophole.”
Rafi chokes, coughs. Tries and fails to cover up his laugh as I stare in wonder at Gia.
Then, he reaches out and claps a hand on Sloane’s shoulder.
“Take pity on the man, Sloane. He’s sunk, just like I told you. He’s Titanic.”
“He’s right,” I say, squeezing Gia’s hand.
“I’m sunk, Chief. I love her. Despite all my best efforts to stay in line, I couldn’t.
Not with her. I accepted a gift from her on day one, which I know is against company policy.
I breached the code of conduct the second I kissed her.
And all that’s before I broke protocol by not taking her to a safe house but to my house. I had my reasons, though. Rafi knows.”
At this, Sloane angles a sharp look in Rafi’s direction, but all he does is raise his hands in the air.
“Whatever you decide to do, I understand.”
He stares hard at me for a moment, then at Rafi, and finally at Gia, who stands before him, still charmingly defiant.
“Why don’t you take the week off, Choi? I’ll sort out replacement cover for Miss Golding here and let you two figure out… whatever the hell this is. Just promise me one thing.”
“What’s that, Chief?”
“No more scandalous press pics, okay?”
Then they’re gone, and it’s just me and Gia left standing in the sunshine, hands clasped together.
“Is that true?” she asks, eyes shining bright as the ocean breeze kicks up and her skin prickles with gooseflesh. “You love me?”
“Yes, I love you, Gia Golding. I’m wildly in love with you. I don’t even care that our lives are… a little different. We’ll figure it out. I have faith that we can—”
“Okay, good. Stop there.” She places her finger over my mouth to shush me, then her face breaks out into the small, sly smile I now know she reserves just for me.
“Because this right here is my wish come true.” She sticks out her ankle and wiggles the hemp bracelet on it. “And it hasn’t even fallen off yet.”
“You wished for…?”
“For love. For family. For you.” She throws her arms around my neck and rises to the tips of her toes. “I love you, Hayden. I’m batshit crazy for you, and I told you already, I plan on keeping you.”
“Well, sweetheart, I’m all yours.”
Then I bend my head and kiss my future wife, long and hard.