Page 28 of The Stalker

She met his gaze, and he asked, “Want me to put Sebastian’s address into the GPS for you?”

“Sure,” she replied.

Tatiana finished adjusting the mirrors as Jesse put the address in for her. She left the underground parking garage and followed the directions the car gave her as they headed off.

“Do you mind if I play music?” she asked Hayden.

“Fine by me.” he looked up from his phone, and she could see him smile at her in the rear-view mirror before he looked back down again.

She turned the radio on, then waited through the adverts and for the DJ to talk about some inane topic before a song finally began to play.

She glanced in the rear-view mirror to check that Hayden was still on his phone.

“What’s with the weird looks?” she asked Jesse in an undertone.

She’d noticed him giving them to Hayden as well, and wondered if there was something to tell.

He looked straight ahead out of the windshield and said, “What do you mean?”

She made sure Hayden was still not paying attention before she spoke again.

“I mean that you keep looking at me in a strange way, and I want to know why.”

Tatiana hoped that this wasn’t a sign that they wouldn’t be able to work together.

“I’m just curious to see how you work,” Jesse shrugged his shoulders. “It’s different, that’s for sure.”

For crying out loud, Tati. It’s just about your work. Nothing to do with Hayden.

“How so?”

“Well, we don’t use clients’ first names for a start. But also, you seem to have a knack for handling people. Hayden definitely seems to like you.”

His voice and face were both neutral, and Tatiana hated that she got pleasure from knowing that Jesse thought Hayden liked her.

As. A. Person. Because he has a boyfriend. And he’s a client.

It was just nice to be liked by anyone, really. It didn’t matter that it was Hayden. She would’ve felt the same if Jesse had told her anyone liked her.

Bullshit.

“Well, I have to be able to put my clients at ease. People skills are kind of a part of the job.” She glanced over to smile at Jesse.

As she followed the final instruction from the GPS and pulled into the underground parking garage of a fancy apartment building, Jesse said, “I’ll be interested to see how your people skills stack up to Sebastian Fox.”

Tatiana laughed, “I’m sure I can handle him.”

Sebastian’s reputation definitely preceded him, and he’d lived up to it yesterday. From what she’d seen, he was just as arrogant as he seemed in the articles she’d read about the band. He had a reputation as a womanizer, and she’d lost count of the number of women he’d been pictured with when she was doing her research.

When they entered his apartment, however, he looked about as far from that reputation as she could imagine. He was sitting on the sofa in the living room holding a newborn baby. His phone was next to him, and white noise was coming from it. His head was resting against the back of the sofa and his eyes were closed.

“Hey, S—” Hayden cut off his words as Sebastian’s eyes flew open and he shook his head quickly.

“I just got her to sleep,” he whispered as Hayden approached him.

Tatiana hovered at the entrance to the room and observed the two men. Hayden leaned over and peered at the baby wrapped in a tiny gray blanket.

“She’s gorgeous, Seb,” Hayden said softly.

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