Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
“Does Damion know?”
“I can’t reach him, and I have to report to my call time.” I glance at my watch. “Now. I have to go now.”
I try to step around him, and he catches my arm. “I have to tell Damion.”
“Tell him. He’s going to lose his shit though, so make sure someone is with him to pull him off his father.”
His lips press together. “I’ll handle it once we get you to the studio.”
“How? You’re stuck here with me.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“I’ll be in a soundproof booth. No one can get to me there. I’ll be in there for hours. I’ll be safe, locked down even. You can go handle this, and I’ll be fine.”
“We have a second man on his way over. I’m not leaving you alone.”
“A second man is a little excessive, don’t you think?” I challenge.
“No,” he says, offering nothing more, and I can’t help but wonder what he knows that I do not.
He opens the dressing room door, surveys the hallway, and then motions me forward. I glance at my ring, and consider removing it, but decide against it. It makes me feel close to Damion and I need that right now. I step out of the room, and join Adam. Side by side, we travel toward my destination, and when we’re finally there, thankfully everyone else is already inside, and I hold up a hand to Adam. “You can’t go inside. This is the actual recording studio.”
“I’ll need to clear your location. That’s non-optional. The studio is aware of my presence. They’ve approved me to do what I need to do.”
“Adam—”
“Alana,” he counters. “I’m going to clear the room, or you’re not going in.” There’s an absoluteness to his tone. Damion hasn’t just paid him to protect me. Instinctively, I know he’s threatened him, though I have a sense that neither of those things matter to Adam. What does is how much I mean to Damion to make him do those things.
I draw in a breath and nod. He opens the door to my destination, steps inside, and, after about sixty seconds, returns. “Clear.”
“Thank you,” I say softly. “I know you’re just trying to help. I don’t mean to be difficult. I’m just not used to—well, all of this.”
“And we’re going to do our best to ensure you don’t need to get used to any of this. We’ll help Damion make it go away. He loves you.”
His words matter to me, especially the part where it’s obviously enough that he knows Damion loves me, but I’ve never really questioned that love. We’ve always loved each other. There have just always been obstacles between us, and every moment I’m reminded that nothing has changed.
“I love him, too,” I whisper. “Very much.” I rotate away from Adam and step to the door, pausing to calm my nerves and steel myself for what comes next.
Dread fills me at the million questions I will face inside, but a part of me is now quite relieved that Adam is present. He’s an extension of Damion, who is finally back in my life after years of back and forth and turbulent times. But I cannot help but feel I’m the catalyst for something dark and dangerous, and perhaps destructive.
Maybe I should have stayed away from Damion, and him me, but I’m objective enough to know that was never going to happen. We were always going to find each other again, and this time it means war. My fear, which evidently echoes that of Damion’s and now Adam’s, is that our love is going to turn bloody.
Chapter thirty
The minute I’m inside the soundproof booth, Lana corners me. “You have a stalker?”
“Seems that way,” I eek out, steeling myself for the questions to follow.
“And you didn’t tell me that?”
“I was trying to downplay it, but it seems that just won’t be possible.”
“What happened?”
My mind races for a story to control her and keep her far from the truth. “The kicker was the flowers I got today with a rather scary coded message. Damion decided it was time to act, and he approved it with the studio.”
“Do you know who it is?”
“No,” I say, because, truly, I’m only guessing that it’s his father. Even though I guessed right, of course.
Her eyes light. “What if we—”
“No. No is the answer to what you’re about to ask. What happens when you trigger this person and they attack me, or even you? And what would the insurance company for the production say?”
“You’re going to have to give me something juicy sooner rather than later. You know that, right?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “Let’s get to work.”
Three hours later, we still have at least an hour to record, when I finally get a break that allows me to step out of the sound booth. I dart out of the room to find Lana talking to Adam. “Why not?” Lana asks.