CHAPTER FIVE
HENDRICK
Our peace is shot to shit the moment her team arrives. Adora slept—really slept—for hours. I don’t think she’s started to stir when the four wheel drive careens across the landscape toward the house.
It’s one of the reasons I brought her out here.
The house is damn hard to creep up on, and I know the lay of the land well with several exit paths should her rabid fan follow her out here. Which he shouldn’t be able to do.
I stare through a pair of binoculars at the incoming vehicle that I swear isn’t going to make it. The small truck slews around large rocks, misses a ditch that would have up ended the mud colored thing, and pulls up in a mini tornado of dust out the front of the house.
Good thing I have the doors shut or else all that dust would be in here with us.
“Fuck me,” I mutter, running a hand through my hair.
“Hendrick?” A light hand presses to my back.
Tension lights a fast path through my body, heading south. That she’s up now, at almost sunset having slept through the day, slams me with need. Because here, she felt safe enough to do that. How long has it been since you slept properly?
I pivot sharply on my heel, catching her wrist and pull her into my chest. Adora’s eyes flare wide. The need to cup her nape, and meld our mouths together, find out if she tastes like the moonlight that her eyes look like, even in daylight, is overwhelming.
Fuck. I have to stop this.
“Tell me what you want for dinner, love. Your team has arrived.? I drop her wrist, willing her to understand the change in me as I throw on the professional facade that should have been the cold, brutal truth between us all along.
We should never have been close.
I should never have touched her.
Adora considers me for a moment, when offers me the faintest smile I know I’ll fucking treasure for days.
“Pizza, please.”
Then she steps back, her distance both physical and mental as her own persona slips on.
The masks we wear. Protection for ourselves and from others, in her case, I suspect.
There's so much I want to say to her, so much I wish we had more time to talk about, discover about each other. Hell, not only have I broken all her rules, I’m fast working through a list of my own. And the one that I should never, ever break?
I’m falling for this woman. All too easily I can see why she has stalkers. Plural, because she’s liked to me, both on the sheet and in person. But I think I understand why. Either it’s denial or she’s been told otherwise. And now that her friends have arrived, I can find out a little more.
“Pizza it is, love. Pineapple?” I can’t help myself. I am an asshole.
“Only if you want the remains spread across your pillow later,” she murmurs, and glides away, her Adora shaped persona fixed perfectly in place. Even her voice fades, for fuck’s sake.
I stare after her and will my hard on down. Hell, I’m an inch from chasing after her, sliding my hands around her waist and—
Stop. It.
“Fuck,” I growl, low enough that I know she hears me. Hears, and does nothing. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I swear that she’s responded to me the way I have to her.
I’m turning into her next pet stalker.
Maybe it’s for the best that her entourage has arrived. I need a reality check or a cold slap in the face.
A knock on my door provides just that.
I glance back at Adora, but she’s already disappeared back along the hallway toward the back of the house where the bedrooms are situated. A moment later, the door shuts. To either her bedroom, or mine it doesn't matter. But it’s telling that she's hiding from the people who have come for her.
I make a mental note and greet the hoard alone. The moment I unlock the front door, it pushes in. three bodies tumble toward me, mid conversation. The volume in my home ratchets up two hundred percent or more, and so does the color factor.
I had no idea how serene being with her was until this moment, and how much I crave her sense of silence. She’s beautiful and perfect, and this is…
Fucking chaos.
A man who stands half a foot taller than me with short rainbow spikes decorating his head bounds through my door, enveloping me in a bear hug.
“Oh, you’re the hero! Thank you for saving her.
Miracle worker. And you got her out here?
Twice as good. Thank you so much. Where’s the beer?
And you have air con. Dying!” The hug lasts half as long as his speech before he’s off, exploring the house, starting with the kitchen.
I stand, slightly shell shocked, as two other people, one dressed in corduroy that that could have come straight from the seventies, and another in flashes of pinks and golds that leaves my eyes watering slightly both eye my checked shirt and singlet over my dusty jeans from my ride this morning and blessedly give me a wide berth.
Keen to ensure that Adora isn’t inundated with attention and suddenly aware of why she hid, I close the door on a brusque ahem. Jerked out of my mind fog, I pull it open again and am blinded for the second time in two days.
Athena’s white dress doesn't suit my Texas slice of desert, but she’ s managed not to pick up a grain of dirt on her way between the car and the house.
A talent, looking at the satin, white stilettos strapped to her feet.
Adora’s manager/agent is as pristine as freshly fallen snow.
A pity that her moral clock doesn't reflect the same from what I’ve seen.
The conflict of interest in roles barely scratches the surface with her.
“Taylor and Crew are her stylist and her publicist. They come with her everywhere,” Athena steps delicately into the house and shimmies.
I half expect the desert to fall off her, but nothing so dramatic happens. “And the rainbow gummy that fell into the house first?”
“Milo. He’s her teddy bear. Literally,” Athena shakes back her hair that matches her dress and looks down her nose at me.
“Yes, it’s a job description. She takes him everywhere and sleeps with him.
Like a security blanket,” she adds, reducing Adora to a needy creature and the vibrant young man to an object in the same sentence.
My gut clenches. “Do they sleep together? Should I worry about changing the sheets?”
Do I need to worry about Mister Cuddles?
Athena makes a rude noise that I don’t expect of the woman who presents such an elegant front. “Of course not. I mean, he’ll fuck anything that walks, but we all know not to screw with Adora. No matter how much we want to. She’s… Unavailable.”
That last seems tacked on, like an afterthought, thought somehow I doubt that’s quite Athena’s intention. Girl crush in the making?
A headache blooms as I consider the intricacies of the internal relationships of Adora’s team.
“Right. Well, the kitchen is that way. Feel free to unpack.” I check for signs of luggage, but there is none.
“Did you leave the limo driver out on the road?” I sent him a message early this morning to make sure he hadn’t been picked off by coyotes while he was relieving himself.
She shrugs. “He wasn’t there when we salvaged her harp.”
I nod, some of the tension in my shoulders receding. “Adora will be relieved.”
Athena throws me a sharp look. “I’m glad you’ve made inroads. The bags and harp are in the car. Milo will help you.” She clicks her fingers.
My eyebrows rise as she slides past me. Not glides; oddly, for all her appearance of perfection, Athena lacks Adora’s elegance.
She clicks her fingers, summoning the rainbow teddy who trots over to her, sipping one of my beers.
A muscle works in my jaw. I force my face into the facade of something more neutral.
“Let’s go grab everything.” Milo bounces beside me like a hyperactive puppy.
His innocence is both contagious and nauseating. “Do you have keys?” I hold out my hand.
He shakes his head. “Athena has them. Don’t bother.” One hand rises when I open my mouth. “Trust me. It’s all organized. And who’s going to rob us out here, anyway?”
I stare at him and hold the door open. “I’m more worried about something being put in the vehicle than anything being taken out. Or your luggage.”
“Like what?” his brow creases as he wanders outside without a care in the world.
I close my eyes and pray for strength. “A bomb.”
His faltered step isn’t half as satisfying as I need it to be after Adora’s entourage has invaded my house. I can’t wait to tell him that we’ll have to search every piece of luggage bit by bit. At least the next hours will be occupied if not in the way I planned. The pizza is on hold, though.
At least Adora has her harp back.
Music filled the house tonight for the first time since I bought the property over fifteen years ago. After Milo and I cleaned out the four wheel drive and checked every item they brought with them—from make-up supplies to a full liquor cabinet—Adora’s team turned my house into a carnival.
She took it all in her stride, accepting the harp I delivered with Milo’s help while the stylist styled and the publicist… I assume Crew did something on social media for her, or themselves.
Eventually, they all ran out of steam. I’m left awake while Crew and Taylor found a spare bedroom together an hour ago.
I haven’t asked about their relationship and I choose to stay oblivious.
Milo sleeps on my sofa, covered by a rug that Athena soured for him.
Athena took a glass of wine to my study and locked herself in.
For all I know she works the same sort of hours that I do, or she’ll sleep in there.
It won’t be the first time that the room has been witness to an overachiever, workaholic’s snores.
The horses whicker softly outside as I lock every window and check the doors.
At Adora’s room, I pause. My hand lingers on her door, but I don't open it. She’s likely asleep, and disturbing her after everything she’s been through just to spend time with her alone is both selfish and cruel, as well as unprofessional.
But we crossed that line from the first moments, and I’m struggling to find my factory reset with her now.
My own room across the hall and a room up is cold and dark. I leave it that way as I strip off and stretch, willing my head to clear of the unnecessary chatter that’s filled it from the hellish day.
The part that wasn’t hell was listening to the notes of Adora’s music filter through the house as she played, unfettered by the chaos that unfolded around her.
Not including her and it struck me that though her people called themselves her team, she wasn’t a part of it.
They simply exist near her, consider themselves important for her…
But after listening to her play, her story and everything that she’s not told me, I know the version of Adora that’s on paper doesn’t match the in person one.
Her file is a fresh load of bullshit that I’m fairly sure Athena has manufactured, and from what I’ve seen, it's clear that Adora doesn’t need her entourage one little bit.
I wonder if any of them know that.
The one person I actually like is Milo. He never once complained when I told him that we needed to pull apart every suitcase in the back of the seven seater that crossed the desert to find Adora. And there are ten of the damn things—only one of them is for Adora, plus her harp.
He didn’t question me, and he worked quietly away from the excessive influence of the team cloistered inside my house. Not that I wanted not to be questioned, but working beside the colorful younger man was…nice.
Annoyingly, I can see why Adora likes him. He’s easy to be around, and doesn't pry, unlike the stylist and marketing department, both of whom attacked her as soon as she walked out to collect her harp from me.
Adora took one look at them, refused to answer their questions, and hid back in her room. From the way they both bitched about her afterwards, I didn't blame her in the least.
My shoulders roll back, releasing the tension they have gathered.
The driving need to be with her is stronger than I can handle.
Forcing myself toward my bed instead of hers.
I’m all too ready to spend my night with my hand on my cock, when I should be getting sleep.
Tomorrow is research day. I need to know more about her stalkers and which one is likely to have taken the shot that should have ended her life.
Christ, the feel of her curled under me as the bullet ripped a fresh path across my back burns anew.
The situation should never have been set up the way it was, but the handover was poorly timed.
On the other hand if I hadn’t been there, Adora wouldn't be in my house right now, and I wouldn't have the opportunity to find the asshole who tried to prematurely end the contract I’ve signed on for.
“Fuck it.” I scrub a hand over the back of my neck, contemplating a cold shower. The mere memory of Adora anywhere near me is too much. I throw back the sheets to my bed, climbing into the cold space, my hand already closing around my semi-erect cock, and find my bed isn’t cold at all.
There's a warm body in it. One without an invitation.