Page 68 of Billionaire Unexplained: Kaleb

“I’m not that comfortable with Anna coming out of hiding for this awards performance,” I told Tanner truthfully. “What if she becomes the new target? It’s going to become very obvious that she knows the truth soon. That shell company has been cut off from receiving any more money from her.”

The thought of Anna being in any kind of danger made me even more uptight.

“That might be unlikely,” Tanner replied. “Now that the feds are onto them, I’d think they’d be too busy trying to avoid prosecution to pursue some kind of revenge. Honestly, is it even possible for anyone to get to Annelise Kendrick? She’d be a hell of a lot harder to get access to than her parents.”

I nodded. “She has good security at her place in Beverly Hills, and she usually has bodyguards close by for events and appearances. The security will be especially tight for this awards performance. But I still don’t like it. There could be someone out there who wants to hurt her, Tanner,” I grumbled.

“You do realize that you’re going to have to get used to the fact that you’ll have to share her with the rest of the world, right?” Tanner questioned.

“I’ll share Annelise because I have to do it,” I said, disgruntled. “Anna is a different story.”

Logically, I knew those two women were the same person, but I hadn’t really seen that much of Annelise in the Anna I’d gotten to know and care about. Nothing was familiar to me when it came to her public personality except her music.

The music room had been soundproofed, but I’d listened to her play many times.

Sometimes it was a song she’d written that she wanted me to hear, but she still enjoyed playing classical music, too, and luckily, she usually asked me to sit with her when she felt like playing classical.

Annelise was a brand that had been carefully created.

Anna was real, and I was willing to do almost anything to make sure the woman I cared about stayed safe.

“We have two weeks,” Tanner reminded me. “The feds might make some progress before she leaves for California. Enjoy the time you have with Anna right now and stop thinking about what’s going to happen when she’s back in California. We have a security team that we almost never use ourselves.”

“Don’t think that I haven’t thought about putting them on her gorgeous ass every minute of the day when she’s back in California,” I said in an agitated tone.

“I’m not sure she’d go for that,” Tanner said doubtfully. “Her life is already stifled enough in her world.”

“Fuck! I know that. I don’t want to strangle her. I just want her to be safe. They could tail her without getting in her way.”

Tanner shot me a concerned glance. “You do realize she’s thirty-five years old and she’s lived with all of this her entire adult life, right?”

“That was before we met,” I said unhappily. “And before her parents were murdered. I know that she’s generally cautious, and I trust her judgment, but I don’t have a good feeling about any of this.”

“You have the best instincts I’ve ever seen, in and out of business,” Tanner said solemnly. “Trust them.”

The problem was that I wasn’t sure if they were my true instincts anymore or if I was just paranoid about something happening to Anna.

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure if I could trust my gut because my judgment was skewed when it came to Anna.

Tanner rose from his chair to leave, and I walked him out to the front door.

“I’ll probably be coming in late to the office tomorrow,” I told him distractedly as I opened the front door. “I’m hoping Anna and I can talk later.”

Tanner sent me an irritated look. “We have an entire team that does most of the work once we make a decision, Kaleb. You have two weeks with Anna. Come in when you feel like it. Or don’t come in at all. We’ve worked our asses off for years now to get to where we are right now. This is the time when we should start enjoying the benefits of giving up our personal lives for all those years. I won’t be coming into the office for at least a day or two when Lauren gets here to look for a place, and I’ll be leaving early after that until she goes back to Boston. I haven’t spent any quality time with her for years.”

He was right, but old habits were hard to break. I’d spent my entire adult life hyper focused on KTD.

I gravitated toward the music room after Tanner left. The door was partially open, so I could tell that Anna was having a lively conversation with someone about the upcoming awards show.

Eventually, I wandered out to the barn and worked a little on a table in the heated woodworking shop that I’d never used before I’d met Anna.

Tanner was right. I was going to have to learn to share the woman I cared about with the world.

It was unreasonable to think that she’d ever have a normal life.

Hell, I didn’t always live a normal life, either.

Annelise was part of Anna, and she worked long hours on her music sometimes.

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