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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I rritation coursed through Doug’s veins.

The last thing he wanted to do was babysit Lainey Hall, but there he was, standing in a dance club she insisted on going to with her obnoxious friends as they sat in the VIP section.

The music was so loud, to the point that the bass reverberated through every cell in his body, and he wondered how anyone could hear themselves think, much less talk to anyone else.

He hadn’t been able to talk her out of going because other social media influencers were there, and she refused to be left out.

God forbid they were at a popular event while she stayed home, safe from her stalker.

Other than constantly creating new profiles and messaging Lainey, Evan Jenkins hadn’t done anything else that they knew about.

None of his DMs threatened her—they were just of the “Oh, you’re so sexy” and “We should go out sometime” variety.

Doug was beginning to wonder if they were wasting their time protecting Lainey, but as long as she paid Trident’s fees, they would stay on her detail.

While she hadn’t posted any of her guards’ faces in her online photos and videos, they hadn’t been able to stop her from talking about the stalker and the fact that she now had bodyguards.

Despite their repeated warnings that doing so was counterproductive to reducing any threat against her, she continued to post, mentioning one or both at least once a day.

She’d tried to snap a photo of herself with Peter Jacobson in the background the other night, but the TS employee noticed it right away and demanded she delete it.

She reluctantly did that, complaining that she’d only taken the photo because her followers kept asking if her bodyguards were hot and wanted her to post pictures of them.

On the other side of the roped-off VIP section, Nolan Spade had his head on swivel as he kept an eye out for any threats.

Doug was only stuck with the assignment because every other bodyguard in the Personal Protection Division was either already on a detail, recovering from long shifts, or out sick.

Over the past few days, a stomach bug had affected about a quarter of the TS staff.

Anyone with even the slightest symptoms was ordered to stay home in an attempt to prevent it from spreading further.

A waiter appeared, carrying another full tray of drinks.

Scowling, Doug unhooked the gold velvet rope blocking anyone not invited from entering the area.

He lost count of how many drinks had been delivered to the party of eight—five women and three men, who were well on their way to being drunk off their asses.

Doug had demanded all their car keys two rounds ago.

While his asset was Lainey, he couldn’t in full conscience allow any of the others to drive drunk and possibly kill themselves or anyone else.

After giving him shit, they finally handed over their keys when he threatened to call a few friends on Tampa PD to wait in the parking lot and nail each of them for DUI.

“Wahooo!” Lainey shouted before downing half her drink. She spilled the rest of it on the table when she tried to put the glass down, which didn’t seem to bother her at all. “Let’s go dance.”

Doug met Spade’s gaze as the other man shook his head and rolled his eyes before watching the crowd again. It was the fourth time Lainey had tried to leave the VIP section, but Doug refused to allow her out on the dance floor, which was too crowded for the men to protect her.

He grabbed her arm as she tried to pass and pulled her out of the way of her friends, who were free to go wherever they pleased.

Dressed in a silver, metallic dress that stopped mid-thigh and matching high-heeled shoes that he had no idea how she walked in, Lainey pouted and stomped her foot like a petulant five-year-old. “I wanna go dance! Let me go!”

Leaning forward so she could hear him, he repeated the same thing he’d told her the three previous times.

“Either obey our rules or hire another company.” Ian had permitted him to tell her that after learning how difficult she could be.

If a client refused to follow the rules for basic protection, Boss-man was more than happy to drop them rather than putting his employees at risk.

“We can’t protect you on the dance floor.

It’s bad enough that there are far too many people in this place.

Unless you have to use the restroom, you’re staying right here. ”

She ran her hand up his arm to his shoulder in a provocative caress. “You’re a party-pooper, you know that?”

“Yup, I do.” He tried to shrug off her wandering hands, now that the other one had joined the first. “Either stay in this section, or we’re taking you home. If that happens, then tomorrow you can find new bodyguards to put up with you.”

Stepping closer, too close for his comfort, she wrapped her arms around his neck and rubbed her body against his.

He put his hands on her hips and tried to push her away, but she stumbled back into him, her face pressed up against his neck.

After being with Jenn, having another woman who was intimately close to him felt wrong and unwanted on so many levels.

“Come on, Doug! Don’t you wanna have some fun? Let’s go somewhere private.”

“Ms. Hall.” He made an effort to back her up again but held on to her waist to keep her from falling when she swayed.

He had no desire to take her to the ER if she injured herself.

Unfortunately, she leaned forward, wrapped her arms around his neck again, and tried to kiss him.

He dodged left to avoid her lips. When she dropped one of her arms and made a grab for his crotch, he was done.

Enraged, he snatched her wrist and twisted it away from his family jewels. “Lainey! Knock it off!”

“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.