Page 189 of The Stalker

Tatiana looked over at her, and although Heather was smiling at them, there was a deep sadness behind her expression.

“Yeah. Keeping a secret from you is pretty damn hard,” Hayden chuckled.

There was a discussion of when everyone had guessed about their relationship, and Ariana said, “I knew for sure when Tatiana was crying in our bathroom because Hayden had gone missing.”

“You didn’t say anything!” Heather gasped.

“We were kind of busy, and I thought that Hayden and Tati should get to tell everyone themselves when he got back.”

“Speaking of which, I should tell you guys what happened,” Hayden said, and the mood in the room sobered.

Tatiana squeezed his hand to comfort him as he began telling them about what had happened with Daniel and Sarah. She also told them all about what had happened from her perspective from the time she left them. It was intense, and Hayden took multiple breaks with Tatiana taking him into the spare room where she held him before he could compose himself enough to continue.

It took even longer than his interview the night before because he had the space to really fall apart. His friends were as supportive as Tatiana had expected them to be, and all of them shed a few tears as Hayden shared his story with them.

They had been talking for about half an hour after he’d finished his story before they ordered food from room service for lunch. There was a knock on the door of the suite, and Gabriel went to see who it was. He came back with Cooper trailing behind him.

The tension in the room ratcheted up and Tatiana was on edge as she glanced at Sebastian, with memories of holding him back from harming Cooper coming to her mind. Sebastian seemed calm, though, as he held his sleeping daughter in his arms.

As soon as Cooper saw Tatiana, where she sat with her hand linked in Hayden’s, his eyes gleamed maliciously. “I see how it is.”

Hayden shook his head. “You can stop right there, Cooper. I don’t want to hear whatever it is that you have to say.”

“I’m here to talk about what will happen with the tour. Imagine my surprise to see that your useless security specialist has apparently tricked you into some kind of relationship.”

There was a heavy silence in the room in the wake of Cooper’s words. Tatiana ran her gaze over the group, particularly Sebastian, but they all seemed to be waiting for Hayden to respond to the comment.

She turned to look at him, and his eyes were black, his anger obvious in his expression, but his voice was coolly calm when he spoke. “I’ve been told about what happened while I was gone. You can leave now. You’ll be hearing from our lawyer about us terminating your contract.”

Cooper stared at him, his jaw set, before he said, “You can’t do this.”

“I just did. Goodbye, Cooper. Leave now, or Tatiana will make you leave.”

Tatiana couldn’t withhold a smirk as Cooper’s gaze flicked between her and Hayden.

“I’ll fight this, you know,” he snarled.

“Great. Just make sure all of your communication goes through our lawyers from now on. Goodbye.”

Cooper glared at Hayden, and Tatiana prepared herself to move into action if he did anything other than leave, but he finally whirled on his heel and left the suite.

“I guess we need to find a new manager?” Sebastian asked the room in general.

“Good riddance! I’ll break my contract as well. I’m done with that asshole,” Heather exclaimed with a genuine smile on her face.

“I guess we do need to find someone new to manage us. At least now we won’t be stuck with the only person willing to sign us,” Hayden shrugged before he turned to look at Harrison. “Any idea if Tanya will be willing to continue working with us now that we’ve fired Cooper? I don’t want to lose her after this tour.”

It was at least half an hour later when Harrison came back from speaking to Tanya in person. “I told her about what happened with Cooper, then asked if she was willing to continue working with us. I told her that we don’t have a manager at the moment and asked her to liaise with me instead until we do.”

“And Tanya’s okay with that?” Gabriel asked.

Harrison gave him a rueful smile. “Honestly? She seemed glad to not have to deal with his shit anymore. She’s talking about postponing the concerts for the next four weeks in light of what’s happened. She’s already in discussions with venues, etc. about the possibility of moving those concerts to the back end of the tour. She said there might be a couple of venues who can’t accommodate the change, but if we’re flexible with our schedule, it should be able to be worked out.” He smiled over at Hayden. “Her biggest concern is that you’re okay, and you get a break to rest after what’s happened.”

“Shit. Is this what it’s like to have someone who cares about more than money in charge for once?” Sebastian laughed.

“Apparently so,” Hayden said. “I don’t know how I feel about postponing concerts, though.”

Tatiana turned to look at him and said gently, “I know that you love your fans, Hayden, but they love you, too. You wouldn’t be canceling on them, just taking a break to get your head together after a pretty traumatic experience. It’s important that you take care of yourself.”

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