Page 8 of Behind the Scenes

His interest piqued, Hunter asked, “Oh, yeah? Like how hot?”

“She was a model before she became an actress. And not one of those stick figure models either. She’s got a body on her that doesn’t quit. Fuck. Wait until you see,” Xavier said, clearly impressed with Hunter’s new assignment.

“Yeah, he’s right,” Gideon said. “It sucks that you can’t seem to get any time off, but at least you’ll have her to look at while you’re on the job. Trust me, man. Persephone might not hate you as much as I thought giving you this case.”

Pretending to be fine with it all, Hunter shrugged. “I lived in LA for years. I’ve seen gorgeous women. Trust me. If she was that incredible, I would have heard about her before now.”

Gideon shook his head. “You’ll see. It might be work, but it will be work with a smokin’ hot woman.”

The two of them turned back to focus their attention on the football game as Hunter hoped this assignment would be as good as they thought. Having a beautiful woman to look at certainly didn’t make it the worst thing in the world. He just hoped it was over quick. No matter how good looking Alexis Marchand was, she was still an actress and his experience from his time back in LA told him some spoiled diva would more likely than not be a pain in the ass.

And hot or not, that kind of woman was definitely not what he wanted to spend his time with.

All he had to do was protect her and find out who was stalking her and he’d be free to finally get some much-needed vacation time under his belt. If he could focus on that, maybe this assignment wouldn’t be too bad after all.

Chapter Three

For the thirdtime in less than five minutes, Alexis paced across the floor of her bedroom. Two days into living in her new home, she already felt like a caged animal. Wringing her hands, she cursed Paul and everyone else who told her she had to move to be safe from the person stalking her.

A lot of good that had done. She hadn’t been in this new place not even an hour before that son of a bitch made sure she knew he had seen she moved and he’d followed her.

She’d traveled three thousand miles to feel the same way she’d felt in the home she loved. At least in California she could go out in her backyard and feel the sun on her face. Now she had none of that.

Trapped. That’s what he’d done to her. He’d trapped her in her own home.

God, why did she listen to everyone instead of following her own gut? She never wanted to leave her home, and now she knew why.

Her fingers ached from her tugging on them, a nervous habit she’d had since she was a child. Looking down at her hands, she cringed at the sight of her fingertips red from what she’d done to them.

“Alexis, please come sit down. You’re going to make a path in the carpet if you keep pacing,” Lauren said on one of her passes near where she sat in a chair at the end of the room.

“I can’t. I feel like I want to run away and never look back, but I can’t because that bastard has me trapped here. Again. Nothing’s changed, Lauren. Nothing at all, except now I’m stuck here in this damn city instead of being back in LA. At least if I was there, I’d be happy in my own home.”

She reached out to grab a hold of Alexis as she spun on her heels to march off toward the other side of the room. “I know, but it does no good to get yourself all tied up in knots about it. Paul is coming over and he’ll know what you should do.”

Alexis stopped and threw her a nasty glare. “Paul? He’s the reason I’m stuck here in this godforsaken apartment!”

A sound in the hallway outside her room startled her, and she froze on the spot as she waited to see who had made the noise. Eyes wide, she held her breath as the bedroom door slowly began to open, her heart slamming into her chest as she waited in terror.

Her manager appeared a few seconds later grinning like a fool. “Lexi, honey! What do you think of this place? Gorgeous, huh? I knew you’d love it.”

It felt like all the blood ran out of her body as she realized it was only Paul. Dressed in his usual three-piece suit, he looked tanned and relaxed like he’d just spent a week in the Caribbean. Probably on the exorbitant salary she paid him.

His blond hair looked like it was two weeks late for a trim and hung in his eyes until he pushed it off his forehead in a casual movement that gave him a surfer guy look that only served to remind Alexis how much she missed LA.

“I hate this place. I want to go home.”

“Lexi, you fit into New York like you were born here. You’re a natural,” he said with a huge smile as he closed her bedroom door behind him.

All his chipper talk made her more miserable. “Don’t try to bullshit me, Paul. I’m like a fish out of water here. It’s crowded, noisy, and I haven’t seen the sun since I got here. And this penthouse looks like it hasn’t been updated since before the war. I just can’t decide if it’s the First World War or the Second.”

He walked over to the doorway and ran his hand down the dark woodwork. “This craftsmanship is classic, Lexi. People pay handsomely for this.”

Alexis looked over toward the doorframe in disgust. “I know. This place cost me a pretty penny. As far as prisons go, it was very expensive. But starting whenever that designer gets here, all the walls other than a few in the bedrooms are going. Living in a house full of tiny boxes isn’t my idea of six million spent wisely. I need open spaces in my prison.”

Completely ignoring how unhappy she was about this new place, he said, “Speaking of open spaces, did you hear from Melanie about that part? If you get it, you’ll have open spaces, all right. There’s not much more open than Canada.”

All his gushing about that part she hadn’t heard about yet only served to irritate Alexis even more. The thought of Canada usually disgusted her, but even that would have been better than being stuck in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

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