Page 76 of Vain

“Ah, I see. I’ll make a note in her file and talk to the nurse’s station to let them know what’s happening. You have to be quiet, though. I can’t have you disrupting the rest of my patients.”

“I’ll be good. Scouts honor.”

Reese snorts, but the nurse just rolls her eyes. “You were a boy scout about as much as I was a Harlem Globetrotter.”

That makes me chuckle even as Aiden gives her the side eye. “I’ll have you know I was an excellent scout. It was not my fault they asked me to leave–—”

Reese’s laughter makes him give up trying to explain. She shakes her head at him before giving me a playful wink.

“Rest,” the nurse orders.

“Yes, ma’am,” I respond as she turns and leaves the three of us alone.

“Well, I’m gonna sit outside so I’m not the third wheel—” Reese stops talking when Aiden’s cell phone rings.

He pulls it out of his back pocket and answers. “Tell me you have something, Banner.” He puts it on speaker so we can all hear it.

“I’ve got something. The truck is registered to a business called Cox Security.” He says something else, but I stop listening. All I hear is ringing in my head.

I look at Aiden, whose face is like thunder. “Yeah, thanks, Banner. I’ll call you back.”

“Did Daniel do this?” I choke out.

“I don’t know. From what I can tell, all his men drive company cars.”

“What’s happening right now? You guys know who did this?” Reese asks, but I’m still too shocked to answer.

“After Matilda was stalked at work the first time, the studio hired a security team to watch over her. When she was recuperating, she took over paying them and had the same team guard the house.”

“So many people wanted to know what happened to me. Paparazzi would camp out on my lawn, fans tried to break in to check on me, and those who followed Andrew Summers, who was on trial then, wanted to finish where he left off. It was a shitshow. I hired Daniel’s team to keep everyone away from me. I made the house a kind of fortress, or I thought I had until recently,” I tell them, justifying why I hired him. I can’t help but feel like a complete fool.

Aiden takes over. “She started getting notes again, like her original stalker left, so she called me in to be an up-close and personal guard.” Reese’s lips twitch at that, but she doesn’t comment further. “Daniel is the owner of Cox Security. He acted like a shit the second I arrived on the scene.”

“Wait, this Daniel guy owns Cox Security, and he’s acting as a house guard?”

I nod.

“For how long?”

“Not including when he worked for the studio, about eighteen months. I stuck with them because they were familiar.I only just found out that my mom had been paying Daniel for inside information about me.”

“Ouch. What a dick,” Reese curses.

“One minute he’s confessing his love for me, and the next he’s trying to kill me? I don’t get it.”

“Ah, fuck.” Reese sighs.

I look at her and see she has clearly figured something out. “What? What am I missing?”

Aiden answers for her. “Most stalkers are half in love with their targets. In Daniel’s head, your relationship with him was likely so much more than what it actually was, which explains why he hated me being there inside the house with you.”

“If he was the one writing the notes, he might have been hoping it would be him you brought into the house to look after you. He wants to be your hero, a role you gave to Aiden,” Reese says softly.

I open my mouth, ready to deny it. But I can’t. Daniel’s behavior of late has been shit, which is why I fired him in the first place. I can’t believe he’d want to hurt me, though.

As if reading my mind, Aiden’s hand skims over my hip. “I’m the trigger.”

“It doesn’t matter if you triggered him or not. Something was always going to push him over the edge. Most likely, it would have been Matilda’s constant rejection of him. He’d have pushed harder, made bolder moves. And when that didn’t work, he’d snap,” Reese states.