Dropping The Ball - A New Year’s Billionaire Romance - Weston Parker Page 0,13
to get her back onstage, but you never know how this is going to play out.”
“So we’re playing it by ear,” I concluded before realizing something. “Wait, if this is a comeback, she’s not some young diva starlet, is she?”
Please be an eccentric eighty-year-old who’s going to see me as her grandson and try teaching me poker. At least that way, I wouldn’t have to ring in the New Year by filling out more paperwork after another bogus complaint.
Bart shook his head. “I’ve never met her, so I don’t know if she’s a diva, but her team certainly seems to respect her. She’s in her mid-twenties. Apparently, she hit it big a few years ago but she had to take a break for personal reasons.”
“That’s her file?” I inclined my head at the folder he’d just prepared.
He pushed it across the desk to me. “Yep. You know the drill. Familiarize yourself with her, let me know if your spidey senses tingle over anything in there, and let’s put this bullshit with Mackey behind us.”
“Who is this chick anyway?” I asked as I picked up the file containing the information on the next person I had to babysit. Ahem. I mean guard.
A glint came into his eye and he cleared his throat before he started belting out a song I’d never heard before—or tried to belt it out anyway.
I stuck my fingers in my ears and pleaded with him to stop. “Don’t quit your day job, buddy. That was terrible.”
He pressed a hand to his chest and pretended to be offended. “I think I was born to be in musicals.”
He said it in a very poor Southern drawl, then chuckled before flicking a finger at the file. “Everything about her is in there. Unlike me, she was actually born to be in musicals. She’s got the voice of an angel and the face of a fucking supermodel. It’s easy to see why people are so obsessed with her that they’d threaten to kill her if she doesn’t get back onstage.”
“Really?” I tilted my head. “It’s easy to see why people would want to kill her?”
“I’m just calling it like I see it. She’s got something of a cult following, it seems. They want her back.” He pointed at me. “Do whatever you have to do to keep her safe, Carter. She’s had some pretty scary things happen to her, and according to her team, she’s taken everything in stride. If she’s finally agreed to let them put someone on her, it’s because she’s taking this seriously. We have to do the same.”
I saluted him before standing up. “You know I’ll do my job to the best of my ability. Let me go check her out. I’ll let you know if I have any questions.”
When I got back to my house, I went to make a cup of coffee before I settled in behind my desk to do my research. I nearly spat out my first sip when I saw the name and picture of the client I was going to be looking after for the next month.
Holy. Shit. It’s Rylee. My Rylee. Well, not mine but my best friend’s little sister. Wow. Yeah. I’m definitely taking this job now.
Fate had to be at work here. I just didn’t quite know what it was playing at yet. What I did know was that if people were really making death threats against Rylee Naples, there was nothing I wouldn’t do in order to keep her safe.
I’d have to go out to buy pants with more space in the crotch so I wouldn’t be fucking uncomfortable all the time, but Bart was right. This was serious.
Well, there goes it being a once-in-a-decade experience.
Chapter 6
RYLEE
Almost exactly two years ago to the day, I’d given my last interview. At the time, I’d thought it would be my last one ever.
It had been only a couple of weeks after the fall, and mere days after my diagnosis. I’d barely ever heard of MS before that. I couldn’t even remember if I’d realized it was a real disease until the day the doctors told me I had it.
It’d been a terrifying, confusing time. All I recalled knowing for a fact was that my life as I’d known it was over. Leaving the reporters behind was about the only part of it I hadn’t minded that much.
Little had I known that two short years later, I’d be sitting across from the jerk from the New York Times, ready to