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CALL AN
Mornings are much more pleasant when you wake up with your best girl’s head tucked into your chest. Merc was already up-he jogged and did all manner of exercise way too early in the damn day-and Foster was sleeping on Adrianne’s other side.
We didn’t often sleep all in the same bed, but there was no separating us last night. We’d piled into Adrianne’s bed and slept in a tangle. On top of that, I definitely didn’t mind waking up like this. “You’re staring,” came Adrianne’s sleepy voice. Her eyes were still closed, but her body was no longer lax with sleep. How she knew that I was staring, I could only guess.
I smiled. “Can you blame me? It’s a pretty damn good view.” She laughed and nudged me. her warm eyes opened and met mine. “How are you feeling?” I asked. “Last night was . . . intense.”
Adrianne snuggled in closer. “It was perfect,” she corrected. “I’m perfect.” She pushed herself up onto her elbow. “Ethan asked me the same thing last night, whether I was okay.”
“We know that it can be intense, doing something like that,” I said. “Laura was never truly comfortable with all of us at once, to be honest. It was overwhelming for her, and we just want to make sure that it wasn’t for you.”
She thought about it for a moment. “It was overwhelming,” she decided, and my heart sank like a stone. “Having all of your attention is like being in a hurricane of sensations.”
“Adrianne, I’m so so-”
She put a finger to my lips. “That’s not to say,” she added, “that I didn’t
thoroughly enjoy myself because I did.”
I smirked behind the pad of her finger before kissing it. “Enough to do it again sometime?”
She pulled her finger away and replaced it with her mouth. It was a glancing kiss, a “good morning,” but it was enough to make my blood surge all the same. Would I ever get tired of touching her? I hoped not.
“I would be an idiot to say that a night like last night would never happen again,” she said, “but would it be wrong to say that I would rather keep that to be a special thing? I don’t want to give up my individual time with you all.”
I shook my head. “I can promise you that it won’t happen,” I said. “We all like having you to ourselves too much.” I brushed my mouth to hers again, and then because I could, I trailed those kisses down her throat. “Speaking of . . .” I waggled my eyebrows at her, and she laughed.
“Should we wake him?” Adrianne asked, indicating the sleeping blond beside her.
I snorted. “Do you have a trough of coffee ready? Because I would advise waiting if not.” She giggled and then seemed to come to a horrifying realization. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not supposed to have caffeine,” she said mournfully. Her face was a mask of grief, like she’d just gotten the news that someone had died.
But considering how much Starbucks I’d seen this woman consume since we first met, this was devastating news. “I’m sure we can find you some caffeine-free alternatives.”
Foster shuddered and rolled to face them. “That is hardly the same,” he griped.
Nice going, dickweed, I thought and glared at him. “Maybe you can give up coffee with her?” I suggested.
“Oh, no, I could never ask him to do that,” Adrianne said, but she looked at him with these puppy dog eyes that I couldn’t turn down if I tried.
“Fuck you, Callan,” Foster seethed, but then his eye landed on her and he melted. Just like I knew he would. “Of course I will give up coffee with you, Princess.”
She rolled into his arms. “You’re so sweet.”
Foster glared at me over her shoulder. If I was lucky, the worst that he would do was shave my eyebrows while I slept. “That’s me,” he said and dropped a kiss on her shoulder. “Sweet.”
We got up and dressed. Foster and I shaved side-by-side in the bathroom, and Adrianne watched us with a fascination that neither of us could understand. When moments later, she practically climbed into the bathroom sink to put her makeup on, we couldn’t look away. There was something so intimate about seeing the way she got ready, like we were seeing from behind the curtain. “Should we wait for Ethan before we go to breakfast?” Adrianne asked when she’d finished.
“Nah, he’ll know where to find us,” I said. We’d only been going to the hotel’s restaurant for breakfast since we arrived. Adrianne liked their eggs, and it was a nice way to have a central meeting place to talk through the day.
We swung the door open, and on a silver platter on the ground was a letter with her name scrawled across the envelope. I bent down and picked it up and opened it. Inside the envelope was a letter, and when I pulled it out and opened it, a picture fluttered to the ground. Adrianne went for the picture as I scanned the letter.
The letter, simply put, was a nasty piece of work. It accused Adrianne of besmirching Dr. Falconi and the love that she bore for the late Dr. Rutledge. It would be utterly ridiculous if it didn’t also threaten her. It heeded her to “walk away before there are dire consequences for your harlotry.”
“Callan?” Adrianne’s voice was thick, and I looked at her. She handed me the picture that had been tucked inside the letter. It was a shot of Adrianne on her knees in front of me, her mouth stretched open on my cock. The surroundings were . . . horrifyingly familiar. It was from that day in Coober Pedy.
The picture on its own was good blackmail, but the letter didn’t mention wanting money. All it demanded was that she walk away from the movie and renounce her role as Dr. Falconi so as to better “preserve” the integrity of the character.
“What in the hell is going on here?” I muttered, mostly to myself. Foster held out his hands for both, and I handed over both the letter and picture to him.
“The paparazzi from Coober Pedy did this?” Adrianne asked. “That . . . doesn’t even make any sense.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple,” I said. “What do you mean?”
“We have two choices here. The first is that the man from Coober Pedy followed us back to Sydney in order to get you to comply with this.” I pointed to the letter in Foster’s hand. “Or there is the scarier option.” I swallowed. “What if the person who’s been leaving you presents at home found us here?”
Adrianne looked as horrified as I knew she would be. “That’s . . . that can’t be right,” she said, and her eyes shifted to Foster. “That can’t be right, right?”
Foster was re-reading the letter and considering what I’d said. “It’s not entirely farfetched,” he said, looking at her. “Remember the phone call you got? How the person addressed you as ‘Dr. Falconi’?” He held up the letter. “Whoever this person is, they’re having a hard time differentiating between you and the character you’re playing. Like, they’ll use your name and state that you’re ruining ‘the role for which you’ve been chosen’, but at other points they talk about your betraying your love for Rutledge, which is strictly the character.”
“So whoever wrote that letter and left me all those gifts is losing touch with reality?” she asked. “That’s just . . . great.”
“What’s great?” We all jumped, and Adrianne shrieked. It was only Ethan, coming back from his run. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded. Adrianne rushed over and threw herself into his arms, tears flowing down her cheeks now. “Adrianne, Princess, what is the matter?”
“We’ve got a problem, Merc,” I said, and Foster handed him the letter and picture. He scanned it, and his frown deepened.
His eyes flicked to mine. “You thinking it’s the same guy from California?”
I nodded. “It would make sense. If this guy has lost this much reality, it wouldn’t be impossible that he would follow her here.”
We should have anticipated that before we left, but there had been such a relief to just leave the problem behind in the States. Stalkers didn’t regularly cross international waters. We all figured that he would still be in California when we returned and we would deal with it when we got back. “We should have flushed him out before,” Foster said. “We could have had this handled in California and not had to deal with it now.”
Adrianne’s head snapped up. “What do you mean, ‘flush him out’?”
Ethan glared at him, and I concurred. It was too dangerous. “We would purposely seek him out,” Foster explained. “Then, we would deal with him
accordingly.”
“How would you seek him out?” “Bait,” Ethan spat the word.
Adrianne paled. “Like me? I would be bait?”
Ethan shook his head even as Foster nodded. “We would have you in a controlled situation,” Foster said. “We would make it look like you were alone in a public place, and it would hopefully lure him out so that we could confront him and get the help we needed for him.”
She looked like she was going to throw up. “How could you make it safe?” she asked.
Foster opened his mouth, but Ethan beat him to the punch. “You can’t,” he said. “Not entirely. There is always an element of risk that we’d have to accept. Things can always-and frequently do-happen that are outside of what you think is going to happen.” Ethan shook his head, mostly for Foster’s benefit. “I’m not okay with any level of risk when it comes to you,” he said, and then sent a sharp glare at Foster. “I can’t believe you’d play with her life like that.”
A complicated emotion passed over Foster’s face. “It’s not that I would be okay with putting her at risk,” he said, “but for how long are we going to let him do this? Follow us and get close enough that he could still do something violent. At least if we flush him out and confront him, it’s done when we say so and when we’re ready for it. No more surprises.”
I watched Adrianne’s opinion change in real-time. She went from terrified of the idea to wanting to do it in seconds. “This could be over?” she asked. “Well and truly over?”
Foster nodded. “We’d either turn him over to the authorities or make sure he gets the mental help that he needs, but either way, he wouldn’t be on the streets anymore.”
Ethan was going to strangle him. I could see that in the tension in his shoulders and arms. “I could be wrong,” I said. “It could just be an overzealous pap.”
Foster leveled a look at me. “Who sent us the damning picture instead of selling it to a magazine for the highest bidder? There’s no way that would happen, and you know it. This is Adrianne’s stalker, and you and I both know it.”
I knew it, but I didn’t want to be right. Being right meant that Foster was right. We needed to flush the bastard out and deal with it head-on. “Can
we put a pin in this?” Adrianne asked. “I’m supposed to meet with the stunt coordinator in an hour, and even though my stomach is a mess, I still want eggs from the restaurant downstairs.”
We all agreed to discuss it later, and Ethan rushed to change so that we could go get Adrianne her eggs, which she ate with a gusto that was probably at least twenty-five percent bravado. After breakfast, we took a town car to the set. The first of several fight scenes was being prepped by the stunt team. The coordinator, Maria, was overseeing it with a clipboard in her hand.
“Maria, may I speak with you?” Adrianne asked.
The woman jerked slightly, and her eyes went a little round when she noticed that Adrianne was being flanked on all sides by her security team. “Did I miss some kind of safety drill?” she asked half-jokingly. Maria didn’t mind us individually, but there was something about all of us together that made her uncomfortable. Maybe she just thought it was wasteful on a “safe” set. Maybe she thought Adrianne was silly for hiring us in the first place.
“No,” Adrianne said, keeping a smile on her face. “My security team is being extra cautious. It seems my little problem from California has followed me to Sydney.”
Maria’s half-joking smile faded into a frown. “Have you told Lee?”
“He’s next on my list,” Adrianne assured her, although I wasn’t sure how truthful she was being. “But there was something I wanted to discuss with you directly, first.”
“With me?” Maria crossed her arms over her chest. “What’s up?”
Adrianne took a deep breath, and I wished that I could wrap my arm around her for comfort and strength. “I just found out that I’m pregnant,” she said. “It’s early days, and I’d prefer for it to stay quiet . . . but I have to know that I’m being safe while doing these scenes.”
For her part, Maria didn’t swear or cuss Adrianne out. “Do you know how far along you are?” she asked in an even voice.
“I’m still in my first trimester,” she said. “Maybe a little more than eight weeks. The scan wasn’t entirely clear on that.”
The stunt coordinator looked incredibly relieved. “What we’re doing should be fine,” she assured her. “I’ll re-block anything that might have ended in a blow to your abdomen, but you should be able to do the stunts without a problem . . . though the harness may be uncomfortable.”
“Was it ever going to be comfortable?” Adrianne asked, and they shared a polite Hollywood laugh. “Can I trust you to keep this quiet for now?” she asked. “Lee’s a great director, but his track record for treating pregnant actresses with respect is . . . not great.”
Maria’s face twisted at the mention of Lee’s name. Adrianne was right before-there was no lost love for him when it came to the crew. They tolerated him for his genius, but no one liked Lee. “Let’s get this movie wrapped,” she said. “Then we can worry about telling Lee anything.”
“Thanks, Maria.” Adrianne looked like she wanted to hug the woman, and so did I.
When they got Adrianne into her harness a short time later, Foster opted to step outside. “I can’t watch her do this,” he said to Ethan.
“You can’t watch her do something that they’ve just tested ten times for safety,” Ethan said, “but you can use her as bait to lure out an unstable individual with an unhealthy obsession with her. How in the hell does that make sense?”
Foster clenched his jaw, but he waited for Ethan to dismiss him to actually leave. “You don’t have to be a dick,” I said. “He’s not wrong about flushing her stalker out, and we both know it.”
Ethan didn’t even look at me. His eyes were on Adrianne as they lifted her into the air slightly to test the fit of the harness. “He can be right and still be an asshole for suggesting it in the first place,” he said, and I couldn’t really argue with that.
For the rest of the afternoon, we watched her film action scenes. It was exciting to see our girl command the set so regally. She became her character, and it was easy to see what the casting director had seen at her audition.
On the way back to the hotel that evening, Adrianne was exhausted, and she laid her head on my shoulder. The driver wasn’t staring at us, but I did what I could not to draw his attention our way . . . but it was hard to simply be her pillow when all I wanted was to curl around her like a cat.
“I was thinking,” Adrianne said softly to me. Ethan was in the front seat, and I wasn’t sure whether he heard her or not. He didn’t react as if he had. “About being bait in order to flush out my stalker.”
“Yeah?” I asked, dreading what she might say.
She nodded. “I want to do it,” she said. “I want to feel safe again, and I don’t think I ever will until he’s gone.”
I knew that’s what she was going to say, and it still made my belly sink to my knees like lead. “Adrianne, it would be dangerous. No matter how many precautions we take, it wouldn’t go perfectly. It never goes perfectly.”
“I understand that,” she said. “But what’s the worst-case scenario?”
“That he kills you,” I said, making myself say the words, “and we couldn’t live with that possibility.”
“Callan,” she said, “do you think that you would ever put me in a situation where that would be the outcome?”
I wanted to say no, of course not, but there was that nagging doubt in my mind. “We would do everything in our power to protect you,” I said. “But sometimes, that’s not enough.”
Adrianne touched my arm, just for a moment. “I’m not Laura, Cal.”
“No,” I said, “you’re not. This is worse because we would be the ones putting you in danger. Laura was a combat nurse. she knew exactly what she was getting into going into a warzone. You have no idea how dangerous this could get. None of us do.”
“I trust you to keep me safe,” she said. “I trust that you know how to handle dangerous situations. Why don’t you trust yourself the way I do?”
Because you’re not just a client, I wanted to scream. If something went wrong, we wouldn’t just be failing a client, we would be failing the woman we love. “We’ll talk to Merc at the hotel,” I said. “He’s team captain. He gets the final decision. Can you live with that?”
“I can,” she said. “I just hope that you can live with it when he agrees with Foster and me.”
I hoped that I could too.