Page 42 of Burning for Him

“Yeah,Lainey. Knock it the fuck off!”

Doug froze as his gaze found a livid Jenn standing on the other side of the VIP rope.Oh, fuck.

Her arms were crossed over her chest as she glared at them. Beside her was Yardley Adams and two other women he recognized as her friends. He’d known Jenn had made plans to go out with them since he was stuck working, but he didn’t realize they would be at the club. Then again, Jenn hadn’t known he would be there since he didn’t specify which client he’d be protecting and where she wanted to go.

“Who the fuck are you?” Lainey asked Jenn as she staggered away from Doug and leaned against a round support pillar.

“Doug’s girlfriend who’s going to bitch slap you if you don’t leave him alone. He’s made it perfectly clear he doesn’t want you to touch him. And don’t try to tell me otherwise. I saw the whole thing.”

Oh, thank God. Hopefully that means she’s not pissed at me!

He glanced at Spade, who seemed to have one eye on the disaster unfolding and another on the crowd. The man knew Doug could handle the situation he found himself in and continued to do his job. Until a TS supervisor indicated that the detail was over, the bodyguards remained alert for any potential danger.

Lainey looked Jenn up and down with a sneer as if his gorgeous blonde bombshell were a piece of trash. “Oh, please. He must have better taste than you.”

Infuriated, Doug was about to say something beyond rude, but stopped when Spade yelled, “Hey!” and jumped over the short wall between the VIP section and the dance floor, diving onto some guy and taking him down. A few people around them screamed and scrambled backward, uncertain of what was happening. Doug spotted several security guards headed their way. He hopped over the rope and told Jenn and her friends to stay back. Once he was sure they were out of the way, he helped Spade restrain the man.

“Get the fuck off me!” the guy bellowed as he thrashed about, but Spade had him secured. “I’ll fucking kill you! Get off me!”

With one of his arms pulled behind his back and up, Spade and Doug hauled him onto his feet, where he continued to throw out demands and threats at them. Doug finally got a good look at the guy’s face and realized it was Evan Jenkins, Lainey’s stalker. He must have seen the woman’s posts on social media—the ones Doug and Spade had told her not to upload.Damn it.

Doug was surprised when someone punched him in the back, not hard enough to hurt him. Spinning around, ready to deck the person, he faced Lainey who feebly thumped his chest with her fist and yelled in his face, “Leave him alone, you assholes!”

“What?” He stared at her in shock. “Why? This is the guy who’s been harassing you!”

Jenkins stopped trying to get away. “Harassing her? What the fuck are you talking about? We’ve known each other for years. Those DMs? She told me to make a bunch of profiles and send them to her so she could go viral for having a stalker! She said not to make any threats because then the cops wouldn’t do anything if they even bothered to track me down. She paid me to do it!”

“Shut the fuck up! I did not!” Lainey stumbled into one of the burly security guards, who managed to catch her.

Doug’s gaze went back and forth between the two. Within seconds, he was ninety-five percent certain that Jenkins was being truthful. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Hey!” the guard holding Lainey up shouted over the music. “Can we take this outside?”

“Yeah. Good idea.”

Spade and Doug led Jenkins out to the parking lot, while the security guards escorted Lainey. A decent-sized crowd followed them, including Jenn and her friends, with many recording the incident on their phones. As long as they stayed back and weren’t in any danger, Doug was okay with that. He had to deal with Lainey and Jenkins first.

Two Tampa PD patrol cars pulled up, lights flashing but sirens off. Four officers got out and strode toward them. They didn’t hurry, as it was apparent that things were somewhat under control.

“Look, I can prove it to you,” Jenkins said when Spade released him and pushed him against the club’s exterior wall.

“Shut up, you idiot! You can’t prove shit!” Lainey yelled at him.

Jenkins reached into his back pocket, but Doug grabbed his arm, earning him a glare. “What? It’s just my phone.”

“Pull it out slowly,” Doug ordered, letting him go. It was probably a phone, but he was ready for a weapon just in case.

When Jenkins showed him the latest iPhone, Doug relaxed a bit. The guy entered his password, then opened his text app. “See?”

Lainey screeched and lunged for the phone, but one of the security guards caught her around the waist and held her back. Doug took the phone and scrolled through the messages. Thecontact’s name was Lainey, and the phone number matched hers.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered before stepping forward and getting in her face. “You made this whole fucking thing up for social media views? It was all a hoax? What the hell? You’re nothing but an egotistical fake!”

“I’m not a fake!” she screamed and tried to slap him across the face, but the guard yanked her backward and dropped her on her ass, clearly without remorse. With her hair and makeup now a mess, Lainey continued her drunken rant and tried and failed to get to her feet several times, much to the amusement of the bystanders.

Doug turned to the police officers and recognized one of them, Lynette Johnson. He’d gone on a few dates with her last year while trying to avoid Jenn. Lynette had been with him when Jenn was accosted by the gang members in the parking lot of Donovan’s Pub. Thankfully, the two women became friendly with each other after the incident and Doug was no longer dating the pretty officer. “Hey, Lynette. I’m pressing assault charges. She hit me inside the club—twice. Not that she did any damage, but she still assaulted me. And she also filed several false police reports about a stalker and hired us to protect her. It was all a ploy to get social media views.” He handed her Jenkins’ phone. “Here’s the proof.”

The female officer smirked. “She’s also drunk and disorderly. We’ll add that.” She glanced over his shoulder. “Hey, Jenn.”

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