DESCRIPTION
Falling in love with my former Navy SEAL protectors was easy.
But avoiding this scandal is the hard part.
Very hard.
My new security team is everything I imagined it to be. Three strong, hot men that would take a bullet for me.
But the “good girl” of Hollywood needs more than just protection.
No sketchy stories.
No unbelievable rumors.
Except for the one I have with my co-star.
My fans don’t know that my heart belongs with the men in my bed. The SEALs have me thinking about them between cut and action. They hate that I have to pretend to love my co-star for publicity.
But we all have bigger problems on our hands than just jealousy.
The reason why I hired them in the first place.
Danger is inevitable when you’re famous.
Especially when I’m about to bring a child into my world of craziness…
1
ADRIANNE
There was a dead bird between me and the most handsome man I had ever met. Its poor little body was twisted and broken. I had found it arranged into a bouquet of red roses this morning. “Where did you find this . . . gift . . . again?” Ethan Mercado, head of Mercado Security, asked.
He met my eyes, waiting for my answer, and all I could manage was not swallowing my tongue.
Ethan had sandy-blond hair, and his eyes were a color somewhere between stormy grey and deep blue, and he was just so big. Everything about him was big.
Seriously, no man should be this good-looking. There should be a sign or something to warn people.
We were standing over a dead bird, for God’s sake, and all I wanted to do was climb this mountain of a man and wrap myself around him like a scarf.
I glanced away, cheeks flushed.
I was being a total creeper, and he had to know it by now. “It was sitting on my welcome mat this morning,” I explained after clearing my throat.
Saying the words out loud was ice water down my spine, and I was able to meet his gaze again. “I have a security fence around my property. There shouldn’t have been a way for anyone to just walk onto my property.”
Ethan frowned. “What kind of security system do you have?”
“It’s a wireless system that’s hooked to a 24/7 service. If there’s movement on any of the cameras, it starts recording, and if there’s a problem, I can call for help,” I told him.
His frown deepened. I was surprised by the genuine concern in his eyes. “It’s already a gated and guarded community. I didn’t really see the point in having someone sit at a guard station outside my house as well,” I said, stumbling over the words.
I looked down at my hands and twirled a ring that I wore on my pointer finger. It belonged to my mother before she gave it to me, and I’d been fidgeting with it ever since. “I’ve never really been comfortable with the bodyguard thing either, but then-”
“You got the part in the new Falconi movie.” Ugh, so he had heard, I thought and prayed that he wasn’t a fan.
Nearly a year ago, it was announced that I would be taking on the role of Marcia Falconi, world-renowned geneticist-turned-superhero after a freak lab accident. It was the latest film in the Falconi series, and at first, I was so excited.
Then, my world exploded, and it seemed like every Internet troll had something to say about how I was the worst casting choice in the history of casting blunders. “The fans can be nuts, huh?” Ethan asked, hitting on the problem instantly.
An unattractive sound hiccupped from my throat. “They’ve been . . . difficult,” I said as diplomatically as I could.
My producer would be proud.
“I had to shut down all of my social media accounts because of the comments. They doxed me, and I moved, and it happened all over again.” I gestured at the bird. “I’ve been getting presents like this for the last month, but this is the first one that’s made it onto my property.”
“Has the production company offered any kind of help?” He looked outright angry now, but I couldn’t understand why.
“The assistant director gave me your card,” I said. “He said you were the best in the business.”
“That’s it? After all of this?” Ethan stood, and my throat constricted.
God, but he was tall. I stayed in my seat, staring up at him. “Ms. Montoya
-”
“Adrianne,” I interrupted him. “What?”
“That’s my name,” I clarified. Ethan blinked once . . . and then again. “You don’t have to be so formal with me,” I added, in case I was somehow unclear.
“Most of our clients in the entertainment business prefer a more formal working relationship.”
I shrugged. “I’m not one of them.”
His jaw clenched visibly, and I found myself rambling out an explanation. “I mean, I know how to have a working relationship, obviously, but I don’t even have an assistant, you know?”
While I lived in the Hollywood Hills, unlike many of the people I worked with, I didn’t grow up there. My mother was a night nurse at Cedars-Sinai, and she worked harder than any person I’d ever met in my life.
She would have a conniption if I hired a maid, not when I’m perfectly capable of cleaning and cooking for myself. After my first movie, I paid off the mortgage on her condo. I wanted to buy her a house, but we “compromised” on the condo. She didn’t want to get a big head about her big-shot superstar daughter.
“Adrianne,” he said, and my name rolled off his tongue in a way that made me tremble all over.
What in the hell is wrong with me?
I wasn’t the girl who got instantly swoony over a guy. I had met some of the most beautiful people in the world, worked with them, and I had never felt a glimmer of attraction. “I’m worried that your production company hasn’t done enough to take care of you. They should have insisted on a bodyguard or a security detail.”
“I didn’t want a security detail,” I insisted, standing because I didn’t want him looking down at me. Ethan’s eyebrows pulled together in surprise. “Mr. Mercado, I have always taken care of myself. My mother raised me to handle my own problems, and until I found the bird on my doorstep this morning, I thought I was handling it. I purchased a highly rated security system, and I pay extra for around-the-clock monitoring. I never posted about my whereabouts when I had social media, and when the comments and doxing got too bad, I removed myself from social media entirely.”
He was quiet for a moment, and then he cracked a smile. “First, if I’m going to call you Adrianne, it’s only fair that you call me Ethan.”
His eyes seemed to assess me, and I tried to stand cool and unaffected under his gaze, but I’m sure he could tell that I was shaking. “Second, you’ve done well so far,” he conceded.
I smiled back. “Thank you, Ethan,” I said, “but I do think it’s time to turn things over to the professionals.”
“Agreed,” Ethan said. He reached out and picked up the conference phone on his desk. “Rue? Can you send in Callan and Foster, please?”
I didn’t hear his assistant’s reply, but no more than ten seconds later, the office door behind me opened.
The first man who came through the door was a smidge shorter than either of his colleagues. He had dark eyes and equally dark hair, and there was a hint of a tattoo peeking out of the collar of his shirt. I wonder how far down that tattoo goes, I thought.
The second man, a tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed Cali-surfer type, followed after him. Where the first man had an easy smile, the second barely looked my way.
Just like Ethan, these two were . . . devastatingly good-looking. I couldn’t decide which one I’d rather look at.
What is wrong with me? Had it been that long since I’d gotten laid or something? Where was all this coming from?
“Adrianne,” Ethan said, dragging my attention back to him, “these are my associates, Callan Shepherd and Foster Wyatt. They are the best of the best. I served with them in the Navy. I have literally trusted them with my life.”
The dark-haired one, Callan, laughed. It was a rich, good sound. He was the kind of guy who laughed easily and often. “Aww, LT, we love you too,” he said and reached out a hand. He had the kind of smile that could make a nun’s panties melt off.
Our eyes met as I took his hand. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said.
“You too,” I managed to choke out, and his smile grew into an all-out grin. Great, I thought, he knows exactly what I’m thinking. “You called him LT?”
“Lieutenant,” Callan explained. “Merc was our team leader.”
I shifted my gaze to Ethan, filing that information away for later, and then I looked at Foster, who was standing beside Callan like a blond shadow. I reached out a hand to him. “Adrianne Montoya,” I introduced myself.
Foster shook my hand in a perfunctory way, but his eyes slid over me slowly, branding me with only his eyes. “Foster Wyatt, ma’am,” he said.
The ma’am made me giggle, and a wrinkle formed between his golden eyebrows. “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to stifle myself. “I’m not laughing at you, I promise. I’ve just never been called ‘ma’am’ before.”
Foster’s face froze. “I apologize if I’ve offended you, Ms. Montoya.”
I waved my hands. “You haven’t offended me at all,” I promised him, and for a split-second, I got a smile from him. It was soft and a touch awkward, but it filled my stomach with butterflies all the same.
Those are the kinds of smiles that people do anything for, I thought. “And please, call me Adrianne.” I looked at Callan. “All of you. You’re going to be . . . protecting me, after all, right?”
Ethan nodded. “If you decide to hire us on,” he said. “Adrianne, here, has a stalker who’s escalating.”
Callan and Foster’s attention snapped to Ethan. “Escalating how?” Foster asked.
“I’ve been getting presents in my mailbox, drawings of me as Dr. Falconi, creepy fanfiction-type stories, stuff like that,” I told them and then pointed to the dead bird on Ethan’s desk. “Today, that was on my porch in a bouquet of roses.”
Callan’s warm smile dropped off his face, and I missed it immediately.
It was like losing the sunshine. “Any threats?”
That made me snort in an unattractive way, but the sound got a little smile out of Foster, which made my heart race. Just a little. “The dead bird isn’t a threat?”
He gave me an apologetic look. “Unfortunately, no,” he said. “I’ve seen fans send some crazy things to clients before, and they always seem to think that the person would like them.”
That was a nauseating thought. “What about me says I would like
something like this?” I gestured at the desk.
“It’s usually not about you, specifically,” Ethan said gently. “This person is conflating you with the character you’re going to play, and if I remember my comic book lore, Dr. Falconi was doing tests on avian DNA when she had her accident that gave her superpowers.”
I tried to think back about all of the research I’d done on the Falconi comics, and it did ring a bell. “Ugh,” I groaned and sank into the seat in front of Ethan’s desk. “This is a mess.”
Callan sank down onto his knee beside me. “I know this is scary.”
I shook my head. “It’s not scary,” I said. “I mean, it is, but I’m so used to taking care of myself that I thought I could handle having a stalker.”
A self-deprecating laugh bubbled from my throat. “I’m an idiot.”
All three men reacted immediately to the word. They all started talking at once-you’re not an idiot and don’t talk about yourself that way-and they all shifted toward me physically.
They didn’t touch me, but I felt more physically surrounded than I had before. It should have been intimidating, that many guys on all sides, but all I could feel was an intense excitement.
Confusion and arousal rushed through me. An ache was forming in my core, and I squeezed my legs together to try and ease it.
Beside me, Callan gasped. Did he see me?
“I think the question to answer now is whether you want Mercado Security watching out for you,” Ethan said, easing back so that he wasn’t looming over me. “We’re a hands-on firm, and there are some non- negotiables in the contract.”
“Such as?”
“No ditching us,” he said. “We had a wealthy couple hire Mercado to watch out for their teenage daughter, and she kept trying to give us the slip because she thought it was funny. When we brought it up to the parents, the mother laughed it off as ‘kids being kids’. I don’t like my time being wasted.”
I wasn’t sure whether to be offended or not. Was I supposed to be the teenager in this scenario? “Do you expect me to pay you, and then run away from you?” I asked and tried not to sound petulant.
Ethan smirked at my tone but shook his head. “I just want to make the non-negotiables clear, Adrianne.”
My name in his mouth should not be as hot as it is. I nodded. “Anything else?”
“We’d work as a team,” Ethan explained, indicating Callan and Foster. “We’d switch off as we need to, but it would mean at least one of us is with you at all times. Especially since whoever has been sending you these gifts knows your home address and has already gotten around your own security system.”
“Okay, that makes sense,” I said, and I hoped I sounded normal. One of
these men with me at all times? The throb between my legs was quickly
becoming more of an ache, and all I was doing was sitting here, talking to them.
He spread out his arms. “So, which one of us do you want?” The question short-circuited my brain for a moment. “What?”
“Merc wants us to start tonight,” Callan explained, voice tinged with laughter and eyes filled with mirth. “So, which of us do you want going home with you?”
I heard the words, but it was like my head wouldn’t wrap around the question. My body seemed to have no trouble at all comprehending. When was the last time I was this wet from just being around someone? Never?
“Uhm . . .” My throat tightened, and I did my best to swallow around it. Sweat popped up on my lower back. It shouldn’t be a hard decision . . .
but it felt oddly important at the same time. As if whoever I picked was my favorite. “You all decide who has the freer night. I don’t want to put anybody out. I’m just going to pop into the restroom.”
I rushed for the door and did not stop, even when Ethan called my name.