Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 125248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
A balance that was harder than it should’ve been.
Xander sat at a long table near the center of the dining room with his team.
His manager, Jesse, and Carla, his publicist, were having an intense, hushed conversation. Xander’s personal assistant, Elliot, was beside him with a notebook and two phones. The studio’s production scheduling coordinator, Nolan Bryce, wore the same tight grimace from the time he’d sat down. Maribel Chase, his crisis PR lead, silver-haired and sharp-eyed, sat eerily calm in the way a person did when they made a living dowsing other people’s fires.
Le Sherre Noir was all pale stone floors, dark wood, brass fixtures, mirrored walls, hanging greenery, and wide-open windows.
The restaurant was too busy and accessible for Cassidy’s liking.
It had three public entrances, a service corridor, four interior choke points, a patio with five-foot high planters that could hide a determined stalker, and a main dining area full of movement.
Fans were approaching him for autographs, and paparazzi had begun to gather outside.
Cassidy hated it.
Not because Xander looked afraid, but because he didn’t.
He’d surprised all of them at the way he’d walked in, shoulders back, chin lifted, sunglasses and hat off.
He’d shaken hands with the manager, smiled at the hostess, signed some menus for a table of giggling college girls, and posed with an older woman who cried and told him his movie had helped her understand her grandson.
Xander seemed okay but it didn’t make Cassidy feel any calmer.
“Tell me again why this was a good idea?” he muttered. His gaze moved across the front windows, the bar, the patio doors, then back to the table. “Xander could’ve met at Jesse’s office, inside a secured building.”
“Xander can’t stay hidden,” Tech answered through comms, his voice as smooth as his silk bow tie. He was posted at the bar with a half-finished espresso in front of him. “His film is still in production. He has award shows, television appearances, studio obligations, an upcoming charity event where he’s the keynote speaker, and every gossip rag in the country speculating on whether he’s too scared to be seen in public. We need to be razor sharp and synchronized in the field, not only behind closed doors. The more we operate around him in open environments, the cleaner his detail becomes.”
Tech was right, but Cassidy still hated it.
Ruxs stood outside the front entrance in a cool posture that fooled no one who knew what danger looked like.
It was California in the summer and he wore dark jeans, a black Bob Marley T-shirt, beneath a worn denim trucker jacket, and biker boots.
Behind his sunglasses he was scanning his AOR—area of responsibility—that covered the sidewalk, valet lane, paparazzi clusters, and any fans who acted as if they wanted more from Xander than a picture and autograph.
Green held the rear interior near the kitchen doors and service corridor. He appeared relaxed, almost bored, but Cassidy could tell he was fully alert.
Tech handled counter-surveillance, comms liaison with Free, and threat identification. He might dress like a prestigious prep-school professor, but his eyes seemed to miss nothing behind those thick black frames.
Cassidy felt Xander’s eyes on him, and he glanced down without meaning to.
There was so much emotion reflected in those blue eyes he could hardly stand it.
Reassurance, gratitude, trust…want.
It hit him fast and everywhere at once.
Cassidy could still feel the weight of Xander’s body against his last night, the heat from his hands where he’d touched him this morning, the taste of him, and how he’d buried his nose against the soft, sweet skin of his neck, inhaling that sexy scent—
“Morrison, what the fuck? Focus,” Green snapped.
Cassidy yanked his gaze away, jaw clenched.
Fuck.
“Your AOR isn’t his fuckin eyes,” Green hissed. “Your attention should be working his bubble. Hands, angles, anyone in his immediate reach.”
Cassidy wanted to tell him to shut the hell up, but he didn’t, because he was right.
“You can’t let him distract you like that,” Green ordered.
Cassidy flexed his fingers at his sides. He knew this, he’d done over eighteen years of personal security in the military to know it in his bones. He felt like a dumbass for being reprimanded on a discipline he’d built his life and business around.
He understood body coverage, evac routes, reaction gaps, threat scans, soft exits, hard exits, and the brutal fact that the second a protector let emotion cloud their vision, their principle would be in danger.
He also realized the mounting feelings he had for Xander—Lane—were going to become a problem if he didn’t get control of them.
“Look,” Tech said calmly. “Trust me. We all get it.”
Cassidy kept his gaze moving, as he listened.
“Steele is my everything. When Free took my position and I became an enforcer, Steele did a lot of hesitating and second-guessing in the field. He had a hard time taking his eyes off me and I had a hard time tolerating being treated like a liability instead of an asset.”