by Lucy Score
Micah pushed back from the table. “We’ll meet tomorrow with Advance to talk about the logistics for Angel’s premiere next week and start laying the groundwork for the international side of the publicity tour.”
He glanced at his watch and dismissed them. He had to get to a meeting with a Detective Hansen, another of Micah’s buddies, to open the lines of communication about a stalking complaint. It was the first day in a week he hadn’t spent with Waverly. He missed her. And that annoyed him.
He pulled out his phone, started a text, and then changed his mind. There was no professional reason why he should be checking in with Waverly right now. Unless she changed her mind about going out? Or she needed him for something and didn’t want to ask?
He pulled his phone back out of his suit jacket and dialed her number. She picked up on the first ring before he could convince himself to hang up.
“Hi,” she said a little breathlessly.
“Hi.” Smooth, real smooth, idiot. He cleared his throat. “Just checking in to make sure you’re still where you’re supposed to be.”
“I’m being held captive by Mari and Louie who want to start planning my tour wardrobe,” she said in a stage whisper.
“Don’t you have him running over here guns blazing,” Mari grumbled in the background. “Being held captive, bah!”
“Mari says hi,” Waverly said. He could hear the smile in her voice.
“Tell, Mari, I said hi back,” Xavier told her. “Is there anything you need? I have some meetings, but I could swing by later today…” God, what was wrong with him?
“Actually, that would be great. Kate still isn’t convinced you’re not ready to string her up by the toenails for helping me last night. So it would be nice to clear the air there. Unless you really do want to string her up, in which case she just got a pedi and you probably shouldn’t mess it up.”
“I promise no maiming. And I can give you an update on where we are with Ganim.”
“Sounds good.”
So did her voice.
“Okay, I’ll text when I’m on my way. Oh, and I have to discuss changes to your security detail with you, too.”
“You’re not quitting!” She sounded worried, and he liked it. She wanted him around.
“I’m not quitting. But I want you to have a dedicated driver for the time being. Only if you’re comfortable with him or her, though.”
“If you’re comfortable with them, I’m comfortable with them.” She covered the phone and murmured something to someone in the background and then came back on the line. “See, X, isn’t it nice when we play nice together?”
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Waverly hung up the phone and dropped it on the bed. She bit her lip and then immediately thought of the last person who had bit that lip. To be fair, she had thought of little but Xavier since last night. The fight, the kiss, the whole evening played on a loop in her brain. She’d enjoyed herself. Hell, she’d enjoyed him. And never in all of her twenty years had she ever been kissed like that before.
She wondered if she ever would again.
“Uh-oh. I know that look,” Marisol tsk-tsked, emerging from Waverly’s closet with an armful of clothes.
“What look?”
“That look!” She pointed a finger at Waverly’s face. “The look of love. I looked at my Henri like that and BAM!” She clapped her hands together. “We were married in a month.”
“I do not have the ‘look of love,” Waverly argued. If anything it had been the look of lust, which was entirely different though no less dangerous.
Louie looked up from the rolling rack of dresses he was organizing by color and harrumphed.
“You look like that when you talk to this Saint on the phone. I wonder what you look like when you kiss him?”
“How did you—Mari!”
Marisol waved a slim hand. “You just told me. See? Not just actors can be sneaky. I have learned a thing or two from you Sinners.”
Waverly felt her face flood with heat. She brought her hands to her cheeks. “Mari, you can’t say anything to anyone. It was a heat of the moment kind of thing and nothing else happened… but you just can’t breathe a word of this. You either, Louie.”
Marisol looked indignant. “When have I ever betrayed a trust, ah? You forget who you talk to.”
Louie winked at her. Waverly flopped backwards on the bed and pulled a pillow over her face. “I’m sorry, Mari.”
Marisol perched next to her like a dainty Latin bird and pulled the pillow away. “So? What was it like?”
CHAPTER TEN
Xavier pulled up to the Sinner estate’s gates and prepared to push the opener when his attention was caught by what looked like a wrestling match in progress on the side of the road. He keyed in an alert on the security system app on his phone and jumped out of the SUV.
It looked like two photographers in a half-assed street fight.
“Give it to me!” the rotund one in the headlock screeched.
The second photographer, the taller of the two who weighed half of what the other did, was winning. He clutched a manila envelope high overhead while fighting off the flails of the first man. His camera bag clanked around his legs as he spun around.
“It’s an invasion of privacy,” the tall one yelled.
“Duh! That’s what we do, you fucking moron!” The first photographer was starting to gasp for air.
“Gentlemen.” Xavier had his jacket open, weapon in easy reach.
The taller man froze. He was a lanky six-foot with shaggy light brown hair. He released the other photographer from the headlock and straightened his Avengers t-shirt. “Are you Xavier Saint?” he asked.
Xavier raised an eyebrow. “Who’s asking?”
“I’m Arnie. Some guy just left this here for you.” Arnie held out the envelope. The other photographer took one last wild lunge at it and came up short when Xavier snatched it out of his reach, which wasn’t surprising because one of his arms was in a sling and none of the rest of him looked like it was moving well.
The outside of the envelope did indeed have his name scrawled across it.
“Arnie, you look familiar,” Xavier told him.
“Douchebag Joe and I hang around here a lot,” Arnie said, shooting a look at Joe who was leaning against the side of a Toyota and wheezing. “Hey, don’t dent the fender,” Arnie warned him.
“Fuck you, Arnhole.”
“Ah, the Douchebag Joe who tried to get my client killed,” Xavier said, his tone ice cold.
“Yeah? Well fuck you, too. She almost ran me over. I was just minding my own business,” Joe sputtered. “I should fucking sue. Then I’ll live in this house, and Arnhole here can wait around to take my picture.”
“Yeah, because that would happen,” Arnie rolled his eyes.
“Tell me about the man who dropped this off,” Xavier said, waving the envelope.
“He wasn’t famous,” Joe snapped. “So I don’t give a shit about him. I don’t get paid to—”
“When I want you to talk, I’ll tell you,” Xavier said. He let his jacket gap just enough that Douchebag got a good look at his holster. He turned his attention back to Arnie. “The guy who dropped this off.”
Arnie shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and hunched his shoulders. “Uh. He was about Douchebag’s height but way less fat.”
“Fuck you.”
“I’d guess around one sixty, maybe one seventy. His hair was like a blah brown. He had sunglasses on. But there was nothing special about him. Just kind of ordinary.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Khakis and a t-shirt,” Arnie shrugged.
“What kind of car did he drive?”
Arnie shook his head. “No car. He walked up to the gates, which is weird. This isn’t exactly a foot traffic kind of neighborhood, no sidewalks or anything.”
Xavier pulled up a picture of Ganim on his phone. “This the guy?”
/> Arnie squinted at the screen. “Yeah, I think that’s him. Hard to tell because of the sunglasses, but I’m pretty sure.”
“How long ago did he leave?” Xavier wanted to know.
“About five minutes before you pulled up. He was real squirrely. Didn’t talk, just stared at the house and then us for a while and then walked away. Douchebag wanted to open the envelope when the guy left it at the gate.”
Xavier eyed up Joe again. The man had bandages and gauze wrapped around his good arm and a nice scrape along his jaw. He walked like a ninety-year-old after a marathon. Apparently he was still healing from his near death experience with Waverly on the highway.
Another Tahoe rolled up behind Xavier’s, and two Invictus staff members got out. “Is there a problem, Mr. Saint?” one of them asked.
“Do me a favor, run a patrol through the neighborhood. Our person of interest was here. He’s got a five-minute head start heading south on foot.”
The men took off and Xavier handed Arnie a business card. “You see this guy again, you call me.”
“Is he dangerous?” Arnie asked, frowning.
“What’s in the envelope, man? You could at least show us, let us take a few snaps,” Joe whined.
“How do you stand hanging out with this guy all day?” Xavier asked Arnie.
“Hey, I’m standin’ right here!”
Arnie shrugged his skinny shoulders again. “Tuning him out really helps me work on my Zen.”
Xavier left the bickering photographers and pulled up the driveway. He called into the office and talked to the monitoring department. They had the gate footage, which corroborated Arnie’s story. Ganim had walked up to the gates coming from the south, deposited the envelope, and stared at the house as if waiting for someone to magically appear. He’d walked off but not without staring directly into the camera mounted over the intercom.
Xavier decided that he’d review the system footage himself. He parked behind Kate’s Explorer and stared at the envelope on the seat beside him. Whatever was inside wasn’t going to be good. But it wasn’t going to open itself.
Carefully, he worked the seal open. A dozen photographs spilled into his lap. All of Waverly. All recent, he noted, his mind working calmly, methodically even as his body registered the threat with a surge of adrenaline. Waverly leaving her gym alone. Waverly and Kate entering a designer’s studio. Waverly through a window, half-naked being pinned into a gown. Waverly and Xavier entering Nobu. The two of them on the carpet at the awards show yesterday. And another one of Waverly last night in Kate’s Explorer at a stop sign. He’d been so close, and Xavier hadn’t known.
He shoved his way out of the SUV and tried to calm his need to run. He wanted to see her, to touch her, and make sure she was okay. The pool house felt like it was a million miles away, and he was in a half-jog by the time he burst through the front door.
Startled, Waverly looked up from a pot on the stove and then smiled brightly. She was wearing leggings and a tank top with her hair piled up on top of her head. Her feet were bare. “I thought you were going to text me when you were on your way?”
She was safe and here and smiling. She was okay.
His momentum carried him into the kitchen and then he was reaching for her. He pulled her into his arms and his mouth found hers in a fierce, possessive kiss. He wanted to brand her, to claim her so no one else could touch her.
He spun her away from the stove, bumping them against the island. His tongue invaded her mouth with a swift thrust. She moaned into him, and he clamped his hands possessively on her hips.
“Holy shit! I mean—”
Xavier spun around, pinning Waverly against the island with his back.
Kate stood in the doorway of Waverly’s bedroom gaping like a guppy and peering through her fingers.
“Uh, X?” Waverly’s voice was breathless from behind him. He moved off of her, turned to face her. She looked as though she’d just been ravaged, her gray-green eyes were wide, her lips swollen. It made him want to kiss her again, but he backed off.
“Should I, uh, leave?” Kate asked, still in the doorway.
Xavier shoved his hands into his pockets. Less than twenty-four hours prior, he’d vowed never to touch her again, a promise he’d also made to his partner this morning. And here he was devouring her in her own kitchen.
“We need to talk,” he told Waverly.
She nodded wordlessly, her mouth still open as if the kiss had stolen her senses.
“I can just go home,” Kate suggested again.
“We’re all staying,” Xavier said flatly.
For the first time, the state of the kitchen registered. The counter tops were littered with ingredients and utensils and something that smelled like heaven was simmering on the stove. “What’s going on here?”
Waverly recovered her speech capabilities. “I’m making us all dinner.”
He ruined their cozy little evening with work. He sat Waverly and Kate down at the table and walked them through the day’s events starting with the Ganim investigation. He’d systematically worked his way through Detective Hansen and was explaining what happened at the gates when his team returned. He met them in the driveway where they reported what he’d expected. Their canvas had turned up no signs of Ganim.
Xavier sent them on their way with orders to knock on a few doors—or security gates—to see if anyone would be willing to share their security footage.
When he returned to the pool house, he carefully spread the photos out on the coffee table for Waverly and Kate to examine.
“That creepy motherfucker,” Kate said, voicing Xavier’s sentiments.
Waverly remained silent as she stared at the proof of the invasion of her privacy. She picked up the photo of her dress fitting. “This is my premiere dress,” she said quietly. Waverly flipped it over.
Tell her to wear red for me.
It was scrawled across the back of the picture in the same handwriting that was on the envelope.
Xavier swore quietly and searched the rest of the photos for more notes, but they were all blank.
“Can we take these to the police?” Waverly asked.
Xavier nodded. “We can.”
“But it’s still not actionable, is it?”
“No,” Xavier agreed. “But it helps establish a pattern.”
“Would it help if I personally went to the police and filed a complaint?” she asked, still staring at the pictures.
Xavier hated to see the vulnerable look on her face and packed the photos back into the envelope. “It still isn’t enough for Hansen to move on Ganim, but I think us going in will help remind him of how serious this is.”
“Okay. We’ll go tomorrow,” Waverly said with a curt nod. “I’m going to stir the asopao de pollo.” She started to rise.
“Waverly?” Xavier’s tone was serious.
She looked at him, and he saw that those green eyes had lost their light.
“Are you a good cook or should I call for pizza?”
A ghost of a smile played across her lips. “I guess you’ll have to stick around and find out for yourself.”
“It’s kind of like to-die-for jambalaya but Dominican,” Kate explained, scenting the air like a bloodhound. “It’s Mari’s recipe, and Wave’s been making it since she was a kid.”
“So, no on the pizza then?” Xavier joked.
Kate waited until Waverly was busy at the stove.
“Couple of questions here. What does this mean for her premiere? She can’t not go. It’s seriously like the biggest film she’s ever done. Do you guys have any idea where he might be? Are the cops even looking for him? Do you think we should add a few more bodies to the detail?”
He waited until she paused for a breath. “Anything else going on in that hyperactive brain of yours?”
“Uh, yeah. Are we not going to talk about that kiss? Was that the first one? Was it the last one? Oh my God, are you guys goi
ng to get married and make babies so beautiful that mere mortals can’t look directly at them? Can I start calling you Xaverly?”
“Shut up, Kate,” Waverly and Xavier said in unison.
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They all had dinner together and pretended it was nothing out of the ordinary, even though Xavier kept leaving the table to take the half dozen calls that came in from the office. And every time he excused himself, Waverly found herself being grilled by Kate. In fits and starts, she told her friend most of the details.
“So you vowed never to do it again, and then he just storms in here and lays one on you?” Kate wanted to know. Waverly had no answer for her. Getting it out of her system was feeling less and less likely. God. When he touched her everything inside her unlocked and came alive. But she had other things on her plate that needed to be considered. Les Ganim was able to walk right up to her front door to personally deliver evidence that he’d been following her, closely.
Yet the creeping fear that she knew she should feel hadn’t made itself known. He wouldn’t get to her. Xavier wouldn’t let him and she knew that. When he’d burst in through the door, the look of relief and worry and need on his face told her he cared. And not because he was paid to. And not because she was a Sinner. He cared about her, and he would protect her.
Xavier returned, a grim look on his face. Waverly picked up his plate and popped it in the microwave. He’d been working on the same helping for forty-five minutes, and it was beyond cold.
He told them his team had finally hit pay dirt with a neighbor’s home security system and got footage of Ganim getting into a car. They got a solid description of the car and a partial plate.
“It’s a place to start,” he said grimly.
“Then why do you look like you just knocked down someone’s grandma?” Waverly asked.
“It’s not enough. We need to find this guy, and we need to get the cops to move on him. Until we get him, you’re going to be in a virtual prison because I can’t just let you walk out that door.”