“Oh, she wanted to move to LA so she could be like her girl crush.” West pointed to the folder. “Ally Pearson. Have you ever had to watch that show? It’s mind-numbingly boring, and those people are so full of themselves. All they do is party and spend money like it’s water. I had this whole family thrown at me for a year and a half.”
“You could have walked away,” Wade pointed out.
He didn’t understand how hard the dating scene was in Broken Bend. There wasn’t a lot to do but work and hang out. “I liked her otherwise. But that show put all kinds of notions in her head. She wanted to be an actress, thought I was holding her back when I didn’t support her dreams. It got to be too much.”
“I find it ironic that you’re here in Dallas while she’s back in Broken Bend,” Wade pointed out.
“She went to LA for a while. She came back with an infant and not much else.” It was a sad story because it was one that happened a lot to people in Broken Bend. “She’s living with her momma again and working at the diner.”
Where she would probably be for the rest of her life.
“You do know that’s not Ally Pearson’s fault, right?” Wade asked. “She didn’t make Rhonda’s choices for her. She’s an actress playing a part.”
The part was her life. Reality TV blurred a lot of lines, but he did believe in personal responsibility. “I just wished Rhonda had been obsessed with someone else.”
“Well, now someone else is obsessed with Ally Pearson, and not in a fangirl way.” Wade tapped the folder. “Read it if you want to consider the assignment because she has a serious stalker. And the job estimate is over a hundred thousand. Her parents are paying the bill. Your part of that would easily be fifty K.”
Fifty thousand dollars. Between that and what he had saved up, he could get his own place. It was past time for him to move out of the condo he and his twin had bought when they’d come to Dallas. “All right. I’ll do it.”
It was probably a mistake, but it would be a mistake that paid.
Chapter One
“Ms. Pearson, am I boring you?”
She forced herself to look up from her phone and directly at the big guy who seemed to be the boss of this particular company. He was big and broad and totally gorgeous. “Oh, yes.”
The hot guy at the end of the table snorted and started to laugh but quickly covered it up when the hot dude beside him sent him a death stare. It was a good death stare, as those went. She believed it.
They looked a little like brothers. Brothers or really close friends, though one of them seemed significantly older, so she was betting on a familial relationship.
A brow rose over the big boss’s icy eyes. “Well, don’t let me keep you then.”
“So you don’t need me?” She stood up. If she could go, there were a million things to do before the table read.
“Allyson, sit down.” Her stepdad had flown out with her and seemed determined that she take things seriously, hence she was at McKay-Taggart sitting in a conference room going over things she’d already lived through.
She sighed and sat back. “Fine, but I already know all these things. And everyone has a folder about the case. You know this is the part of the movie I never understand. The scene is obviously only there to inform the audience about the facts of the case. Wouldn’t a smart writer find another way?”
“I don’t know the facts.” The ridiculously hot guy at the end of the table held up a hand. He had sandy blonde hair and all-American good looks. His accent was slightly twangier than the rest of the people in the room. She would bet he hadn’t grown up here in Dallas. Most of the people she met from Texas cities had light accents. “I mean, I know some of them.”
“That’s great, West.” Sarcasm dripped from the big hot guy’s mouth. “Since she’s your client.”
That was interesting. The minute she’d entered the conference room, she’d noticed the guy at the end of the table. He was big, too, though not as massive as the truly scary dude. Lucky for her, she’d learned how to handle scary dudes. You ignored their scariness and plowed right through.
“Sweetie, this is not a movie,” her stepdad pointed out. “They need to be able to ask you questions, and that means going over the case with you.”
“But they have the reports.” She wasn’t sure why she would have to go over it again. She mostly wanted to forget those episodes of her life.
“Sometimes there’s more nuance to a situation than what shows up in a report.” The big guy’s wife was gorgeous, and she seemed to be something of a fan.
The morning had started okay. She’d been greeted by a bevy of women. Charlotte Taggart had introduced her friends as Genny Rycroft and Yasmin Tahan. She’d signed some autographs and answered some of their questions. They seemed to be the kind of fans who understood that reality TV wasn’t a hundred percent real. Charlotte had offered her some truly excellent coffee, and they’d all talked while they waited for the exposition…conference thingy to start.
She liked those women. They were cool. And there was a teenaged girl hanging around who looked like she wanted to murder someone. Ally already liked her.
“I think I can get what I need from the reports,” the hot bodyguard guy said. He was seriously gorgeous and had a smile that lit up a room. There was no smile on his face now, though. “I doubt she’ll add anything to the discussion.”
Oh, he was not a fan. She wasn’t sure if it was because he knew who she was or he simply didn’t enjoy the company of fun, charming, successful women. It could be either.
“I have questions, and I have procedures,” the big boss explained. “If you don’t want to follow them…”
He let the threat dangle, and Ally sat up a little. Now she was interested because this dude knew how to make a few regular words into a threat that had everyone at the table straightening their shoulders like they were soldiers and the general wasn’t happy. Even her stepdad. This dude had some serious mojo, and she could work with that.
She’d played an ex-military character before. She’d done training with a group of soldiers who took her through an abbreviated BUD/S program. It wasn’t like the infamous Saving Private Ryan training, but she’d done her time in the field. She’d eaten MREs and learned how to survive in a forest and the desert.
Mr. Taggart could be excellent inspiration if she ever had to do it again. Not that the character had to be military. She could use it for Delia Crowne. She had a monologue that she knew the director wanted her to shout her way through, but now she wondered if she shouldn’t go quiet. It might be far more impactful.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Hot Guy Who Didn’t Like Her said. “I only got the assignment last night. I’m happy to be brought up to speed.”
“Ms. Pearson, this is West Rycroft.” Taggart sat back, using the pen he held in his hand to point West’s way. “He’s going to be your main bodyguard and will be coordinating all of your security. You’ll spend most of your time with him, but he’ll have two other guards who fill in when he needs time off or if he thinks you need more than one set of eyes.”