Page 37 of The Yeah Baby Series: Vol 3

Chapter7

Calista

"I hearyour first client is a moviestar."

I yanked the phone away from my ear for a moment to make sure it really was Evie calling. Yeah, it was her. “How in the hell did you hear about that already? I haven’t even gotten the official word from Xander yet that he’s going to put me on thecase.”

“Oh, the client is definitely yours, but I wouldn’t say you’ve been assigned to it—more like Mr. Hollywood insisted you takeit.”

“Seriously, did you bug the place or something?” I glanced around the office Jessa had shown me to earlier that morning. Knowing Evie, I wouldn’t put it past her, especially since her husband felt bad about my shooting since he was my superior at thetime.

“Nah,” she laughed. “You apparently made one hell of an impression on Xander. He called to let me know how pissed off he was that I mentioned you when I talked to Rhys Campbell, the financial guy I told you about.”

I dropped my head down onto the desk and banged it a couple of times for good measure. In the span of one day, Xander had gone from being not-so-subtle around the office by kissing me in front of his other employees to being completely obvious by calling to yell at people because I was going to be protecting a Hollywood heartthrob. At the rate he was going, he’d be hiring a skywriter to announce our relationship to the whole city tomorrow. “He didwhat?”

“You heard me. Mr. Hollywood uses Rhys as his financial guy, too, and that’s how he got the recommendation for Gray Security. Xander is beyond pissed that the guy knew about you and pretty much demanded you provide his personal protection—while posing as his girlfriend.”

“Fuck,” I groaned. That had to have gone over like a lead balloon with Xander. “Ewan didn’t mention the girlfriend idea or how he knew Rhys when I bumped into him in the hallway while he was on his way to his meeting with Xander.”

“Luckily for me, most of his anger was directed towards Rhys. They’ve known each other forever, and they don’t hold back any punches when they’re fighting. All I got was a growly phone call, but Rhys got a call to his wife that’s bound to put him in the doghouse for a littlebit.”

“Sounds like I’d better hold off on transferring my accounts over for Rhys to manage,” I grumbled. Handing over my life savings to a guy who wasn’t getting any from his wife in part because of me didn’t sound like a smart move on mypart.

“Nah, he might fool most people with the suits he wears, but he’s just as much of a macho caveman as Alex… and Xander when it comes to you apparently,” she trailed off, her voice turning up questioningly at theend.

“Yeah, about that,” I sighed. “A funny thing happened after I got off the phone with you the other night. Xander was at the bar down the street from my hotel, and I bumped into him. Only I didn’t know he was the owner of Gray Security at thetime.”

“From the way Xander was acting, it sounded like you bumped into him an awfullot.”

I could practically hear her wagging her eyebrows suggestively. “Enough that he wants me to skip the apartment hunting and move in withhim.”

“Damn,” she whistled. “He’s even faster than Alex. It only took him a day to talk me into a week-long trip to Fiji, but it took two for him to convince me not to go house-hunting in D.C. so I could move in with him instead.”

“Well, shit. When you compare him to Alex like that, it makes Xander’s suggestion sound semi-sane.” And it also made me wonder if I should just give in and tell him I’ll move into his place.

“At least he knows about your career with the CIA,” she pointed out drily. “The same couldn’t be said for Alex or me, and look how well everything turned out forus.”

Their marriage was like something out of the damn movies. They were together for four years without either one knowing the other had a secret life as a spy, until the agency assigned them different objectives on the same case. “Who would have ever thought the CIA’s best snipers would settle down quite somuch?”

My hand drifted down to my belly as I thought about Emmy and Ash, Evie and Alex’s children. In nine months, I might be a mommy, too.

“Holy shit,” I breathed out, as the reality of it all hitme.

“Calista! Are you still there?” Evie’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

“Yeah, I’m here. I’m sorry, but I need to go. There’s something I need to talk to Xander about.”

I didn’t wait for her to say goodbye before disconnecting the call and jumping out of my chair to race to my door. When I flung it open, Xander was standing on the other side. I yanked him inside and slammed the door shut again.

“I swear, between me thinking the offices were bugged by Evie and your ability to seek me out right when I want to talk to you, my new job could give my old one a run for its money when it comes to gathering intel.”

He chuckled at my irritation, earning himself a death glare that should have had him worried but only made him smirk at me. “I didn’t know you needed me since I came to talk to you about acase.”

“Yeah, I already heard all about how I’m going to have to pretend I’m Ewan’s girlfriend in my role as his bodyguard.”

“Over my dead body.” His eyes iced over as he paced back and forth. “I don’t care what anyone says about the customer always being right. The fuckwad isn’t going to get that close to you. I get that it would be easier for him to pretend like he doesn’t have someone guarding him, but if that’s what he wants, then he’s going to have to work with someone else. There’s no fucking way I’m going to stand byand—”

I rolled my eyes and interrupted his rant. “Yeah, yeah. I hear you. You’re the boss around here, so it’s completely up to you how to handle this. Although I would like to point out that I’m one of the best employees you have, so not using me because you can’t handle watching me stand next to another guy sounds like a stupid, macho decision to me. But, I wanted to talk to you about somethingelse.”

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