Page 4

DENVER

“Jesus, it’s a fucking wreck.”

I clench my jaw at Jenson’s words. He’s not wrong. The inside of Sterling’s piano bar, Seasons, has been eviscerated beyond recognition. Where there was once a low stage with a baby grand piano, there’s now a pile of charred remains, emitting a stench like that of a corpse.

“It’s going to need work,” I clip as I place my hands on my hips and survey the mound of what’s left of the tables and velvet seating that the clean-up team have moved to one side of the shell of a room, ready to be removed. “That fucker.”

“Hope he rots in jail,” Killian says as he bends and lifts the remnants of a picture frame from the ash, the photograph inside melted to the glass.

The chain of piano clubs is the thing that my boss, Sterling, threw his energy into after his wife, Elaina, and their youngest son died. I know a man clinging on to something when I see one. One so lost in his grief that he needs a purpose to get out of bed every morning.

Seasons was Sterling’s.

It became a place where people yearned for a membership, to be welcomed into its inner circle where you weren’t judged on anything other than the type of man, or woman, you were between its four walls. Now it’s destroyed. Obliterated by a person with a grudge against Sterling and Halliday.

And I failed to stop it.

“Grayson Global is handling the re-model. Sterling will want to take the reins, no doubt. But we are still to take as much of the strain away from him over this as possible, understand?”

Jenson and Killian nod.

“Good. Our point of contact there is Imogen,” I tell them.

“Not the British guy, Drew?” Killian asks, mentioning the guy who did the original design.

“No. He’s about to become a father,” I say.

“Is everyone knocking people up around here? At least we know ours will still swim when we’re Sterling’s age. Ouch!”

“Idiot,” Killian snorts, whacking Jenson up the back of the head. “That’s your boss you’re talking about. The guy who paid for your grandmother’s surgery and gave your baby-faced ass a job.”

“Hey, I know.” Jenson throws his hands up. “I didn’t mean anything by it. He’s a solid guy. I’m actually impressed, and a little in awe. He’s fifty and getting laid more than me.”

I step over the blackened floor, shards of smoke-stained glass crunching beneath my shoes, ignoring the two guys as they joke with one another. This place needs to be even better than it was before once it’s finished. I’ll make damn sure they do a stellar job rebuilding it.

I owe it to Sterling.

My phone rings in my jacket pocket and I pull it out.

“Hello.”

“Mr. Layne? I’m returning your message about Miss Beaufort’s car. I understand you’re the one who will be collecting it once it’s ready?”

“That’s right.”

My eyes track to Jenson and Killian who have stopped jerking around and are directing some of the workmen and women who have arrived to where they should start.

Sterling placed Sinclair under my protection, which means I need to know when her car is fixed.

Something tells me she’d be all too happy to pick it up and go out alone in it without telling me if she gets the chance.

“Well,” the guy on the other end of the line sucks in a breath, “It’s the crystals… Like I said to Miss Beaufort, the windscreen cleaned up nice, and the shit, well, shit don’t stick, does it?” He chuckles. “But those crystals have to be ordered in from Switzerland. I told her it’d take a while.”

I stop walking. “Did you say shit ?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve known someone to take a dump on a car. Assholes.” He sighs. “Like I said, it’ll take a while until it’s done. I’ll call you.”

I grind the heel of my shoe into a piece of glass, relishing the way it pops, then splinters beneath my weight.

“Take your time, she won’t be needing it.”

I end the call and curl my hand around my phone in a fist. If Sinclair thinks she can leave out details like the fact that some fucker with a death wish took a shit on her car without me finding out, then she’s got a shock coming.

Sterling entrusted her safety to me. And I never break my word.

Sinclair Beaufort, no matter how difficult she tries to be, is stuck with me until we work out if she’s in any danger, and until we figure out why the hell this Neil guy is back in New York.

Exhaling a tense breath, I open up the tracking app on my phone. Her phone location is showing her in her Park Avenue apartment where she said she’d be. I make another selection and a small blue dot pops up on the screen.

“That’s a good girl,” I rasp, as the tracker I snuck inside Monty’s collar shows him as being in her apartment too. She hardly goes anywhere without that dog. If he’s at her place, then chances are that she listened to her father when he told her she can’t go anywhere without me.

“We’re heading out to get these guys some coffee,” Killian calls, gesturing to the workmen and women as I turn. “You want one?”

I shake my head. “Not this time. I need to be somewhere.”

Sinclair rolls her eyes as she opens her apartment door.

“I told you I’d call you when I need you to scare the murderers that are poised, waiting to pounce on me the second I step foot outside.”

She huffs when I don’t react.

“It’s Manhattan. And this is the Upper East Side, not The Bronx. You don’t need to be with me every time I leave my apartment. I can take a walk in the neighborhood with Monty and be fine.”

“Your father put me in charge of?—”

“Ruining my social life, destroying my image, and sucking any fun I might have a hope of experiencing, from me? Yes, I’m aware.” She folds her arms and leans against the doorframe. “You’re here to check up on me, aren’t you?”

I clock the gym bag by her feet, and she kicks it to one side.

“Going somewhere?”

“No.”

“Sure about that?”

She tips her head to one side. Her blonde ponytail flows over one shoulder as she narrows her eyes at me. She’s dressed in white workout tights and a matching cropped vest, sneakers on.

“You have a workout scheduled with your personal trainer, Brad Garrett-Charles,” I say.

She snorts. “Why are you using his full name? And how do you?—?”

I hold my phone up, showing her the imported calendar her agent sent me, so I’d know all of the places Sinclair needs to be over the next couple of months.

“Oh, that bitch! I got her diamond earrings for her birthday. Our new collection that isn’t released yet. She isn’t getting them now.” She huffs.

She chews on her lower lip, her gaze skirting back to me and over my black suit in disapproval.

“Monty sits upfront with me. He can get sick in the back,” she says, pursing her lips.

“That’s fine,” I reply.

She mutters something under her breath as she retrieves the bag she kicked away. I hold my hand out for it, and she arches a brow, pausing for a moment before depositing the handle into my palm.

“Monty!” she calls, clicking her fingers.

He appears next to her. The white patches of hair on his small gray body shake as he wags his tail.

“We’re going to see Brad. I packed you a chew toy that you like. I’m sorry about the…” Her eyes flick to me “… company.”

Monty scampers over to me, tail wagging, and licks my hand as I bend to pet him. Sinclair looks at the two of us, then steps out into the hallway, pulling the door closed.

“My session with Brad is for an hour. You can wait in the car.”

She lifts Monty into her arms and strides off ahead of me, talking to him as she goes.

We pull up outside the studio and Sinclair reaches for the door handle on the passenger side the moment the vehicle stops.

I lean over her seat, enveloping her hand as I pull the door closed again with a firm thud.

“What are you doing? I’ll be late.”

My face is level with hers as I meet her annoyed glare.

“When you’re with me, I do that.”

“Do what?”

“Stay there.” I fix her with a look that makes her frown.

I exit the car and round the hood, making quick work of getting to her door before she can try to open it again herself and really piss me off.

She stares at my offered hand for a beat before taking it and climbing out of the car with Monty cradled in one arm. She blinks at me, the top of her head level with my eyes. She’s five foot eleven, and I still tower over her.

“I can get my own door, you know.”

“You can. But when you’re with me, you won’t.”

Her lips purse like she’s trying to think of a snarky comeback.

“Can I go inside now?” She arches a brow.

I fetch her gym bag from the trunk. “We can now.”

She holds her hand out to take the bag from me, but I keep it held firmly by my side.

“Seriously? You’re coming in?”

“I gave your father my word I would take care of you.”

She stares at me, then snorts. “It gets better.”

I wait for the argument, but she turns and walks toward the entrance, and I follow.

The walls in the entryway have large, framed posters of a guy with blond hair who I recognize from the background checks I did when she started training with him.

“Why don’t you take a picture so you can stare at him more later?” Sinclair smirks as she opens another door.

A state-of-the-art fitness studio is set up inside, with wall-to-wall mirrors. No more posters, thank fuck.

“Hey, Sin.”

The blond guy sweeps her up into a hug and my fist tightens around the handle of her gym bag.

I take a seat on a bench against the wall and place her bag next to me, my eyes fixed on the two of them.

Sinclair deposits Monty next to me, then rummages in her bag, handing him a treat and taking out her water bottle and towel.

“Won’t be long, baby,” she coos.

She rubs Monty behind his ear, her eyes flicking to me for a brief second before she spins and heads over to where Brad Garrett-Charles is waiting for her.

I used his full name when I spoke to Sinclair because it’s what he uses on his fitness blog where he posts pictures of himself flexing his muscles, much like the ones in the entryway.

And because it makes him sound like a douchebag.