She looks over to a bewildered Dave and opens her mouth to answer but is cut short by the man in question clearing his throat. “I am her security detail.”
My eyes leave her worried ones and regard him. He’s older than I first thought, probably in his forties, but I can tell quickly he keeps himself in top condition. There’s an air of confidence about him, almost arrogance that has my senses on alert. He seems all too relaxed for someone that was just fired.
“Is that right?” I question, folding my arms over my chest and standing to my full height. He may be a match for most guys my age, but there’s no way he’s taking me on and winning. And he knows it. His eyes flare briefly but he reigns it in.
“Yes, that’s right. I’ve been in the employ of the Woodley family for a long time. They’re practically family.”
“Well shit, family huh?” That smug look finds its way back to his face but doesn’t stay there long. “So that’s how you treat family? By leaving them unguarded in an unchecked hotel?”
Dave’s face reddens, and he starts to sputter. “Now hold on a goddamn minute…”
I’m all for giving this guy a piece of my mind but it’s Ray-Ann that holds up her hand and stops him. “Sefa’s right Dave. Now I know my parents told you it was all a misunderstanding and that you still had a job with the family, but I’m afraid that isn’t the case. At least not with me. I’ve made arrangements with my agent that don’t include you. I need people I can trust around me and you’ve been slacking for a while.”
Dave glances between the pair of us in shock. “But Miss Woodley…”
“No buts,” she replies sharply. “Go back to Tennessee, mom and dad will be expecting you. I’ll tell them this was my decision, that I’ve decided to go with a younger guard. They’ll understand, you’ll keep your job, but Dave? If you fail to do your job properly, family or not, they won’t hesitate to fire you.”
He stares at her for a moment, as if he’s seeing her for the first time before he offers a small nod and walks away. Ray takes a deep shuddering breath and reaches for my hand.
“Oh my god, oh my god, I can’t believe I just did that. I can’t believe I just stood up for myself like that.”
She beams up at me and I can’t help but laugh. “That was impressive, you channeled your inner Sydney.”
Giggling, she looks around before settling her gaze back on me. “So, what now?”
“Now Marcus can step in as your detail without any hindrance and we can find the asshole that’s stalking you.”
Nodding, she stands tall. “Got it. Thanks Cross.”
Shaking my head, I chuckle slightly and look around. Sure enough, we’ve been standing here long enough together to have gained an audience. I know what I need to do, it’s just part of the job but it doesn’t feel right. She isn’t the woman I want to be spending time with, no matter how closely she looks like the one that’s wedged in my soul. Now isn’t the time for second guessing though. “Don’t thank me yet.”
Looping my arm around her waist, I pull her in close and smile when she gasps. “Things are about to get real interesting Ray-Ann,” I whisper right before I press my lips to hers.
Chapter 12
Sydney
I pinch the bridge of my nose between two fingers and take a deep breath. “What do you mean Dave’s here? We got rid of him before the tour started.”
“Apparently, your parents sent him back out to continue with his bodyguard duties.”
I’m going to have to figure out what to tell my parents about Dave. He can’t be trusted, therefore can’t be the only person guarding Ray. It just won’t work and I don’t feel comfortable with it.
“I’ll handle it. How’s it going otherwise? I should be out there soon. I’m making sure everything’s fine in Ray’s dressing room before she comes back. Posing as her assistant is definitely a plus to getting me where I need to be.”
“Good to know. I’ll be able to do the same. Oh shit!” Sky startles me when she yells into the phone.
“What? Is everything ok?”
“Um, yeah. Everything is fine.”
“You’re a shitty liar.”
“Let’s just say that operation romance has been set in motion.”
What? Operation romance. What is she talking about? Hang on a second…
“Tell me.”
“I guess Cross thought it was a good time to claim his woman. Him and Ray are currently connected… at the mouth.”
Knowing it would eventually happen doesn’t take the sting away. It’s not like I’m there witnessing it. But I will be eventually.
“Syd, you still there?” Sky asks after I’m silent for way longer than I intended. Nobody can know this bothers me.
“Yeah sorry, I thought I saw a stalker letter on the couch. False alarm. I’ll be out there in a minute.” I hang up the phone without listening for her goodbye.
I place my hands on the counter of the vanity and look into the mirror. The person staring back, I don’t recognize due to my stupid makeover. It’s almost like I’m a different person. I certainly haven’t felt like myself lately.
“Time to get your ass out there Syd. Do your job.”
As I’m walking towards where all the talent has been corralled, I try to mentally prepare myself for what I’m about to see. When I exit into the sunlight, of course the newly romantic couple’s ten feet in front of me and Cross is holding Ray like he held me the night we were together. His mouth is on hers, still. Hasn’t it been a fucking hour already?
I have the sudden need to flee. When I back up to escape, I run into a statue and it topples over with me on top of it. After rolling to my knees, I look up and cringe when every eye is on me.
“Oh man, who put this here?” I quickly pick the statue up with help from Randy, the tour manager of all people. He’s someone I’d rather keep my distance from after pretending to be my sister this morning.
“Some guy a decade ago if I had to guess.” He answers on a laugh, then gets up and brushes off his pants. When he looks towards me he sticks his hand out. “Randy Brookes, I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”
“I’m…” Shit, who am I? This whole situation has me feeling flustered and I don’t do flustered. I force myself to take a calming breath then smile at the man. “I’m Lindsey, Ray-Ann Woodley’s assistant.”
“You must be new.”
“She hired me a few weeks ago. I really should get back to her.” I go to leave but he throws his arm over my shoulder.
“Let me come with you. Who would have thought our little Ray would get involved with Sefa? Talk about opposites attract. They better get to a private room before the clothes start flying.” He laughs, secretly gutting me in the process.
“Yeah, who would have thought?” I chuckle as we walk over to the pair. When they see us coming they turn towards us as my sister giggles and fixes her lipstick.
I know she’s playing the part but I can’t say it doesn’t hurt seeing them this way. I know, I know. I don’t want a relationship and all that bullshit. Imagine your most recent fling and I’ll admit, someone that’s burrowing their way under my skin, making out with your sister. I don’t care the circumstances, it’s not a fun situation. Not only is she my sister, but my twin and I know from the look on her face I didn’t mask how I’m feeling enough.
“Look at you two. You had me fooled this morning, I knew something was going on.” He slaps Cross on the back as a cocky grin appears on his lips.
I can’t help but shoot daggers at him. The last thing I want to see is Cross looking like he conquered Mount Everest after making out with Ray. My eyes track his hand as it slowly rubs up and down her arm, coming dangerously close to her breast. He’s challenging me.
“What can I say?” Cross replies pulling Ray even closer to him all while smirking at me.
“Ray, I think we need to check on your meet and greet.”
“Huh?” She replies pissing me off. Doesn’t she know how my mind work
s by now?
“That soundcheck, the special soundcheck they set up for you.” I try to convey with my eyes that she needs to come with me.
“Oh, ok. You said meet and greet at first and threw me off.” She giggles and turns to Cross. “Sorry, duty calls.”
For a moment, his eyes lock with mine and the challenge is still there. “Of course, I’ll see you later babe.” He leans way down to reach Ray’s height and kisses her on the lips. Not just once, but three gentle kisses. Kisses I still fantasize about.
They don’t work fast enough for me and I grab Ray’s hand, pulling her towards the building. Once we’re inside I stop when Ray pulls her hand out of mine.
“Listen, I know this is hard for you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I look anywhere but at her. I’m unable to meet her eyes because I know she’ll see the hurt there.
“Hey, Syd, look at me. Please.” Her face shows nothing but apology and I take a deep breath knowing the kisses from Cross meant nothing to her. “I’m sorry that hurt you. Honestly, I didn’t expect to see that reaction from you. You always say how much you aren’t into him.”
“I’m not. Well, not really.” I kick the invisible dirt on the ground. “I don’t know what I feel for Cross, but seeing you with him really got to me. I wasn’t expecting for it to upset me.”
“You like him, even if you won’t fully admit it to yourself. Tell me what I can do to make this easier for you.”
“Ease me into it. Make out with him in public when I’m not around. Keep it to holding hands, you are Country’s sweetie, you’re practically virginal.”
“I am not!” She scoffs. “Just because I don’t flash my boobs all over the place and screw some guy in public, doesn’t make me virginal.”
“And I love you for that. I promise I won’t react this way in the future. I’ll get this out of my system and put my game face on. I swear, I’m not an amateur. It’s just…”
“Cross. I get it.” She smiles and pulls me into a hug. “I’m so happy you’re having boy troubles instead of me.”
“Ugh, it’s so weird.” I laugh.
I wonder what this new development means? Now that I know I have feelings for Cross, I’m not sure how to proceed. Honestly, whatever I’m feeling has to be put on the back burner until my sister’s shit is taken care of. I need to stop letting my emotions rule my actions and focus on what’s important. Keeping Ray safe.
“Well, you don’t really have a soundcheck.” I shrug my shoulders.
“It’s ok, we can hang out in my dressing room. I really hope with all the acts here for the tour that I didn’t get a closet.”
“I’ve seen it firsthand and it’s not too shabby.” I link my arm with hers as we begin to walk down the hall.
“Can I say something about Cross without you getting pissed off?”
I already know what she’s going to say. “Could it be about his lips?”
“They’re so freaking soft! Softer than mine and I have top of the line lip treatments.”
“One of the many mysteries of Iosefa Cross.”
One of the many.
Chapter 13
Cross
“You suck!”
I barely dodge the shoe as I walk through the door to my hotel room and quickly shoot a glare in the direction of my attacker.
“What the fuck is your damage Marcus?”
The man lifts his hand and shows me his middle finger as he paces the room, a pissed off expression on his face. “First, you become best friends with my regular booty call, meaning if I ever fuck up with Sky she’ll run to you and you’ll kill me. Then you bang Sydney, which Bro code clearly states makes her off limits for the future. And then, as if you hadn’t already done enough damage to our friendship, you get to make out with Ray-Ann fucking Woodley for the whole world to see and you didn’t even give a brother a heads up? I could have lubed up, been prepared to watch the show on YouTube…”
“Don’t finish that damn sentence!” Chantel yells, her face contorted in a look of disgust as she stalks out of the bedroom.
“It’s on the net already?” I question.
They both shoot me a bewildered look and I wave them off knowing it was a stupid thing to ask. Of course, it’s already viral. We knew it would be, that was the whole point. But damn, considering it was meant to be a closed set, that’s a little unsettling.
Then there was Syd’s reaction. She didn’t look like someone that wasn’t bothered about me, that was for sure. I wanted to feel smug about it, maybe even rub her face in it a little. She deserved as much for the way she kept pushing my buttons but it wasn’t the way I was wired. I didn’t want to cause her any pain but we both knew going into this job what it might entail. She hadn’t cared then, and it was too late to think up a new plan now.
“Anything I need to know?”
I slump down onto the sofa and rub my temples. Today had been a lot harder than I anticipated. Too many memories, good and bad were floating to the surface and I didn’t care to remember any of them. Not when we need to focus.
Truthfully, not even if we didn’t need to be on our A-game. But I had signed on to do this, and I didn’t go back on my word for anything.
“Well, it’s nothing exciting per se, but it is interesting,” Chantel says slowly, bringing up the camera feed for the hotel and the surrounding area on her laptop. She zooms in on something just down the street from the hotel and from a distance it doesn’t look like much but when she zooms in further my eyes narrow.
“That’s got be a woman, the build is too slight,” Marcus murmurs as he studies the hunched, barely concealed body in the lush shrubbery next to a boutique.
“That was my first thought but seriously, it could be a young man, a teenager maybe. Whoever it is, they don’t move until after Ray-Ann left the building and unfortunately, I can’t track where they went. They must have backed out behind the shops and they don’t have surveillance for some stupid reason. I mean, come on people, it’s the 21st century,” she fumes.
“Any attempts to get into the rooms?” I can’t believe this was just a reconnaissance mission.
“No,” she says, her fingers flying over the keyboard. “But Colby’s been monitoring the phone lines to the hotel and he says there was a call claiming to be your assistant and wanting to check your reservation for dinner in the restaurant this evening. Obviously, they were told there wasn’t one and the woman apologized for bothering them. Not out of the ordinary, things like this happen all the time and the hotel knows how to deal with such calls but what had Colby on red alert, was the fact that the call came from a withheld number. When he tapped into it, it was coming from the hotel lobby courtesy phone. We checked the feed, and at the time, there was no one using it.”
“So whoever made the call was scrambling?” I ask, becoming more curious by the second.
“Must have, I don’t have another answer for it, but Cross…” Chantel trails off.
I glance over and see the wheels turning in her head. The average Joe doesn’t know the first thing about scrambling calls. If we’re right, that means this stalker knows a little bit more than we anticipated. If this isn’t just a crazed fan, we need to up our game.
***
Sydney backs out of the bedroom and closes the door quietly behind her. “She’s sleeping, she needs her rest before the show tonight.”
She settles in on the sofa opposite me and joins in on the FaceTime conversation the other girls are having with Briella. I know it was bugging Colby and Bri being out of the loop so to speak but that was about to change. We have a feeling the extra eyes will come in handy so they’ll be joining us at the next venue. Secretly, I just think they want to have kinky fun with the disguises they’ve decided they need.
“So seriously,” Marcus whispers. “What was it like kissing Ray-Ann?”
Rolling my eyes, I drop my head against the back of the sofa and stare at the ceiling. No way was I having this conversat
ion with him.
“Aw come on! You’ve got to give me something.”
No, I really don’t, and not wanting to put up with him pushing me for the next couple of hours, I decide to take a leaf out of Ray-Ann’s book and get some rest. I don’t say a word, just get up and walk through the adjoining door to my suite, closing the door behind me and letting out a deep sigh.
What would I say anyway? That it had been fine? Nice? That wouldn’t be a lie, but it was as close to one as could be. Did I enjoy kissing a woman I wasn’t interested in? Not at all. That wasn’t who I was. I couldn’t keep going over it all in my head, it was screwing with my focus. Instead, I fling myself down on the bed and close my eyes, hoping for a little peace and quiet.
That lasts for all of five minutes before the door creaks open and soft footsteps pad over to the bed. I wait, knowing it’s Sydney. My heart picks up its pace, but I don’t move a muscle. It’s a good minute before she finally sits on the edge of the bed with a sigh.
“Colby and Bri said to tell you good luck tonight.”
Opening one eye, I turn my head and watch her. “Ok, thanks.”
She toys with the comforter, clearly wanting to say more. She sighs again and this time a small chuckle rumbles in my chest. She snaps out of her thoughts and turns her glare in my direction. “What the fuck is so funny Cross?”
I hold my hands up in surrender but can’t keep the grin off my face. She narrows her pretty eyes further and it just makes my grin wider.
“Oh, you’re really enjoying this aren’t you.”
“A little bit, not gonna lie,” I laugh, placing my hands behind my head and getting real comfy.
She slaps a hand to my chest and leans down close. “Is that right? Enjoying trading one sister for the other, are you? Wouldn’t be the first time that’s happen…”
I don’t give her a chance to finish her venomous sentence. She’s upset and blaming me, that’s fine, but I won’t take her shit now or ever.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” I state, yanking her arm until she lands on my chest, her face dangerously close to my own. “I’m playing a part, playing a role. I’m not trying to win your sister over and I’m not playing the two of you off against each other in some sick game. You know that.”
Deception (A Stalker Novel Book 2) Page 6