* * *
Dino saw something pass across Lou’s face. Guilt? He couldn’t tell. All he knew was the clues had been steadily piling up in favor of Lou being the stalker. And now, after the phone call from Josh at Rockford Security telling him that Lou was seen talking to the fake security guard, he was more suspicious than ever.
“What? I knew that guy wasn’t one of our regulars—that’s why I questioned him.” Lou waved him off and took off back upstairs. “I’ve got work to do.”
“Lou, what is he talking about? Come back here.” Jan shot Dino a confused look and followed after Lou.
Dino trailed after her, his angry steps pounding on the hardwood floor.
Together, they walked into Lou’s office to find him shoving handfuls of documents into his shredder. Jan stepped forward, frowning at the documents, which Dino recognized as the copyright infringements they’d seen earlier. “What the hell are you doing? Those are legal documents. You can’t just shred them.”
“Like hell I can’t.” He shoved in another handful of papers. “None of this stuff has anything to do with you, cupcake. You don’t need to be dealing with any of it, okay? Just let me handle it.”
“No.” She reached for the letter in his hand. Dino could see it was addressed to Jan and had the words “you ugly bimbo.”
“Lou, this is from my stalker.” Incredulous and shaking, Jan held the letter up. “Were you hiding that from me? Why would you hide that from me?”
“Like I said, you don’t need to deal with this stuff. It’s my job to handle it.”
“And you do that by shoving it in the shredder?”
Lou reached for the letter, grabbing it roughly out of Jan’s hand.
The dam broke on Dino’s self-control. He knew he should try to rein in his temper, but the rough way Lou handled Jan had him seeing red. In a flash, Dino stepped between them, grabbing Lou’s collar, his tight fist raised. “I don’t know what your game is, but if you ever go near her again, I’m going to make sure she’s the last person you ever go near.”
Jan laid a calming hand on Dino’s arm, distracting him from rearranging Lou’s ugly face. “You don’t have to hit him. Hitting doesn’t solve problems. You’re not like your father—you’re better that that.”
Dino’s eyes flicked from Lou’s panicked face to Jan. Her look of loving concern and faith … yes, faith in him made him hesitate. Jan believed in him, and that was all he needed. He lowered his fist, his anger subsided. She was right—he was better than his father. And even if he needed to work a bit on it, he would be a better man. For her.
“I’m sorry, Jan, but he’s not handling anything for you here like he says he is. He’s destroying evidence.” He pulled out his cell phone and dialed. “Yes, dispatch? This is Dino Machiavelli with Rockford Security. I need the police at Treble Studios, Imperial Street, between Main and Casino Center Boulevard. Stalker situation. No. He’s not armed. Okay, thanks.”
“Stalker situation?” Lou scoffed. “You think I’m the stalker? That’s perfect. All I’m doing is shredding letters. Like I said, January doesn’t need to read them after all she’s been through.”
“Maybe not, but I do.” Dino reached over and yanked the shredder’s plug out of the socket, silencing the whirring of the machine. “Care to tell me why you didn’t share them with me?”
“They’re not important.” Lou tossed the papers in his hand back onto the desk. “Hell, most of them don’t even make any sense. If I raised a red flag over every insane fan letter Jan got, we’d need a hundred bodyguards to take care of them all.” He sighed and rubbed his hand over the top of his balding head, his tone taking on an edge of desperation. “Listen, I realize what this probably looks like, but I swear I had nothing to do with the stalker situation. Can I at least call my wife and let her know what’s going on?”
“You’re married?” Jan asked, the shock evident in her voice. “Why didn’t you tell me? Where’s your ring?”
Lou hung his head and cursed. “I don’t wear one, and I don’t talk about it because it’s better for business, okay? People see me as some jet-set business mogul. If they find out I’m a happily married man, then they think I’m soft, that I won’t play hardball to get what I want. I actually brought my wife by your house to meet you, but you weren’t home.” He looked over at Dino again. “C’mon, man. Please? I don’t want her to find out on the six o’clock news.”
Sirens wailed from outside, and Dino crossed his arms. He had no sympathy for Lou. “You can talk to her at the station. They still give you one phone call.”
Several officers burst in, and Dino directed them toward Lou. They cuffed him and read him his rights while walking him toward the door. Lou glanced up at Jan one last time, his tone pleading. “This is all a misunderstanding. I swear, Jan. Please believe me, cupcake. You’re the best client I have. Why would I do anything to jeopardize that?”
* * *
Jan looked over her shoulder at Lou as they led him away. Lou was her stalker? No, that couldn’t be right. She knew Lou. He had her best interests at heart.
But if she knew him so well, why hadn’t she known he was married? Or had she? Looking back, she vaguely remembered a few mentions of family, but they were so few and far between, they hadn’t really registered with her. Of course, he rarely talked about himself, even when she asked him directly. He always deflected the conversation back to her. Always. A niggle of unease bore into her gut. Maybe Dino was right—maybe Lou was obsessed with her. Wouldn’t be the first time a manager overstepped their bounds with the celebrity entrusted to their care.
One of the officers had pulled Dino aside, while the other approached her. “Ma’am, I need to get a statement from you, if you have a few moments.”
“Uh, sure.” She caught Dino’s eye, and he gave her a reassuring smile and nod, though it did little to quell the growing tension inside her. “Go ahead.”
“Has Mr. Tanner made any threatening statements toward you at all? Mistreated you in any way?”
“No.” In fact, besides Dino, there hadn’t been anyone she’d put more trust in. “He’s never done anything that made me suspect he’d be behind this.”
“What was he doing when you walked in here today?”
“Shredding documents.”
“What kind of documents?”
She sighed, hating the incriminating facts even though everything pointed to her manager being the stalker. “Legal notices and letters.”
“Letters from who?”
“My stalker.”
“I see.” The cop scribbled some notes on the tiny pad in his hand. If he truly had made sense of this whole mess, then that made exactly one of them. “I think that’s all that I need for now.”
He thanked Jan then joined the officers in the hall while Dino returned to her side. “How about we get out of here for a while?”
She rubbed her arms against a sudden chill. “Yeah, that might be good.”
“All right.” He placed a hand at her back and escorted her from Lou’s office and back to the recording studio where she’d left her purse. The whole place seemed abuzz with the news of Lou’s arrest, and the sharks-out-for-blood atmosphere made her sick. Lou had been a good manager and a good friend.
And, apparently, a stalker.
No, that couldn’t be right. Why would he do it? He had no motive.
Jan did her best to block all the gossip out as they walked back downstairs and out to the Tahoe. “I still can’t believe it was Lou. It doesn’t even make any sense. I’m his bread and butter—he wouldn’t want something to happen to me.”
Dino shrugged. “Who knows, maybe he did it for publicity. Maybe he’s crazy. I’m just glad he’s somewhere where he can’t hurt you.”
An image of the photos she’d found in the envelope in her kitchen flashed through her mind—her buying coffee, her with Stacy, her in the recording studio. Wasn’t Lou in one of those? She glanced at Dino out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t dare
tell him she’d found those photos and thrown them out. He’d be pissed. But they’d been in her kitchen—how would Lou have put them in her kitchen?
He paid someone. Of course, that’s what he did. He paid someone to take the photos and to put them in her kitchen. Probably paid off someone at the cleaning company to put the envelope on the counter. Jan made a mental note to question Marta. That would be typical Lou—he never did the dirty work himself. But still, something didn’t seem right ...
“I don’t know, Dino. Lou might act like a jerk, but he’s been at my side the whole time. He never gave me any reason to suspect him.”
Dino helped her into the car then jogged around the front to take his place in the driver’s seat, giving her a pointed stare as he started the engine. “The worst ones never do.”
Twenty-One
Twenty minutes later, Dino parked the Tahoe in front of Jan’s house. He got out and came around to help her from the car then led her inside. There was still unfinished business between them, but given the fact that her stalker had been apprehended and she looked ready to drop where she stood, he figured their talk could wait.
Jan tossed her bag on table in the foyer then stood there, looking around like she had no idea what to do next. He wanted to pull her into his arms and carry her up to bed and make love to her until they forgot about everything except each other.
He opted for a safer route instead. “Why don’t you have a seat in the living room and I’ll make you some cocoa?”
“Cocoa?” She chuckled, a low, sexy sound that set his blood to zinging. “I haven’t had that since we were kids.”
“My special recipe. I use a secret ingredient that makes it a bit less PG.”
“Sounds intriguing.” She rubbed her arms and shrugged. “Okay.”
“Great.” Dino removed his jacket and headed into the kitchen. Ten minutes later, he emerged with two steaming mugs and carried them over to the large overstuffed leather sofa. After handing one to Jan, he took a seat beside her and sipped his steaming drink gingerly. Usually he used Irish Cream, but he hadn’t found any on hand, so he settled for some bourbon instead. The rich, dusky flavor helped mellow out what was left of his rough edges. “So?”
“So.” Jan tried her drink as well then smiled. “This is really good.”
“Thanks.” He took a larger drink then set his cup aside. “Feeling better?”
“Yes.” She held the steaming cup between her hands. “Still a little unsettled about Lou, though. I know all the evidence points to him, but this just doesn’t seem like something he’d do.”
“People do crazy things sometimes.” He looked around the room, out into the foyer, anywhere but at the woman next to him. If he watched her too long, he got lost in her. “I’ve learned that the hard way.”
“Yeah, that’s true.” She kicked her shoes off, snuggled farther back into her seat, then tucked her feet beneath her. “And things don’t always turn out like we expect.”
Dino had a feeling they weren’t talking about Lou anymore. “No, they don’t.”
She took another long gulp of cocoa then watched him over the rim. “Look at you.”
He raised a brow at her but remained silent.
“You were all set to become this great football star. Blake too. Now, you’re both in the protection business. I never would’ve guessed that one.”
“How about you, Miss Country Star?” He gave her a crooked half smile. “Can’t say I didn’t expect that, though. You were always a star to me.”
Jan bit her lip and lowered her gaze, a slight flush staining her cheeks.
With the bourbon oozing through his system, his strict self-control faltered a bit, and he shifted in his seat to face her, resting his arm along the back of the sofa. This private little space seemed perfect for sharing secrets, or making confessions. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” She leaned over and put her mug on the coffee table then drew her knees into her chest, wrapping her arms tightly around them as if to make herself as small as possible. “Go ahead.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you break up with me back then?” He pinched his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger, frowning. “I’ve thought about that day from a million different angles, and none of them make sense.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Humor me.”
“Well.” Jan ran a hand through her long, loose curls, and Dino had never wanted to be someone else’s fingers so much in his life. “People were saying things, about you and Erin McCabe. And I was afraid they were true.”
“What kinds of things?”
“That you were sleeping with her behind my back.”
“So, you broke up with me because of a rumor?” He gave a rueful snort and shook his head. “Did it never occur to you to, I don’t know, ask me about it?”
“I was seventeen, and you were the most popular guy in school. Teenaged angst and poor decisions aside, I didn’t really see a point. You were headed off to college in the fall, and I was going to lose you anyway. I thought it was better to make a clean break, so I ended it.”
“Clean break, huh? What you damned near killed me.”
“I’m sorry.” She lowered her forehead to her knees. “I was so self-conscious back then, so shy and introverted, and I never understood why you would want to be with me in the first place. So when I heard that you’d taken up with the gorgeous, outgoing head cheerleader, it made sense. Way more sense than you and I being together back then.” She sighed. “If it’s any consolation, it damned near killed me too. You were my best friend.”
Jesus. Dino scrubbed his hands over his face. He would’ve laughed if his heart didn’t ache so badly. All those years. Fifteen wasted years while they were both off living their separate lives—they could’ve been building their future together. And why? A bunch of stupid lies and rumors.
He reached over and took Jan’s hand, lacing his fingers through hers, unwilling to let another day go by without her knowing the truth. “Nothing happened between Erin and me. Hell, I barely knew her. She flirted with me a couple of times, but then she flirted with all the guys on the team. I turned her down, and she moved on.”
“You turned her down?” Jan raised her head slightly, her gaze narrowed on him. “Why?”
“Because the only girl I ever wanted was you.”
She scoffed and tried to pull free from his grip, but he refused to let her go. Not this time. “Yeah, right. I wasn’t popular. I wasn’t pretty. I wasn’t—”
He leaned over and kissed her.
By the time he pulled away, they were both breathless.
“You’re gorgeous, sweetheart. You always were. Inside and out.” Dino gathered her in his arms and laid her back on the sofa, covering her body with his, loving the feel of her soft curves against him. “I think we should make a fresh start. Forget the past and move forward, just the two of us. No more rumors. No more lies. What do you say?”
Jan reached up and traced her fingertips down his cheeks, over his jawline, slipping them into the hair at the nape of his neck. He shivered against her and smiled. “I think that sounds like an awesome idea.”
She pulled him down for another kiss, and Dino slipped his tongue into her mouth, tasting chocolate and booze and desire. His hands shook with need as he removed her clothes then his, stripping away all of the barriers between them until they were stretched out side by side on the cool leather, skin to skin, soul to soul. His cock ached, he was so hard, so ready for her, but he refused to rush. These intimate moments with Jan were as sacred to him as his vow to protect her, no matter what.
He ran the backs of his fingers down her cheeks, her neck, her shoulder, all the way down until he reached her hard nipples. Then, he cupped her breasts in his hands and lowered his head to take one sensitive peak between his lips, savoring the way she arched beneath him, her low moans of passion, how she pressed him tighter to her with her hand
at the back of his head as if she was afraid he’d leave her again. Wrong. So wrong. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was exactly where he wanted to be.
Dino released one nipple and moved to the other, slipping a hand farther down her flat stomach to cup the wet heat of her. He slid his leg between hers, urging her thighs wider. Her breath hitched as he traced one finger up the center of her slick folds, spreading her arousal before finding her swollen clitoris and rubbing it gently.
“Oh, Dino,” she gasped, opening even more for him, inviting him deeper. He accepted her invitation, thrusting first one then two fingers inside her, stretching her, preparing her for him. She met each of his movements, pressing her hips against his hand, her eyes closed, her face scrunched as she sought her release. He’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life. Her words emerged as little more than a breathy whisper. “Please, Dino.”
“Please what, sweetheart?” he asked, resting his chin in the valley between her breasts, satisfied just to watch the fascinating display of emotions flicker across her face—need, bliss, hunger, pleasure. “Tell me.”
“Please…” She bucked harder against him. “Please make me come.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” He dropped a kiss on her chest then moved lower, positioning himself between her spread thighs then leaning close to lick her folds from top to bottom before taking her throbbing clitoris between his lips and sucking it gently.
“Oh, oh…” Her fingers tangled in his hair, her nails scraping against his scalp, as he loved her with his lips and tongue and fingers. He curved his fingers inside her and pressed upward toward her pubic bone, and her inner muscles quivered around him as she came hard. He continued to nuzzle her body through the fluttering contractions, lost in the sounds and the scents and the tastes of her.
At last she stilled beneath him, and he rose above her once more, grabbing a condom from his jeans pocket and slicking it on before lowering his body to hers once more. With the tip of his cock poised at her wet entrance, he kissed her gently and stared into her eyes. “No more rumors. No more lies.”
Deadly Betrayal (The Rockford Security Series Book 1) Page 19