Page 20 of XOXO, Little Butterfly (The Storyteller’s Bodyguard #2)

Birdie

“I’ll get you set up with a secure connection.

” Tristan guides me down the hidden bunker.

It looks like a secret military operation in action down here.

Computer monitors lined up, playing on them squares of every room in the cabin, the woods and the beach.

Other equipment I’m not familiar with but looks expensive.

A cot and a cupboard filled with water bottles, canned food and guns. Lots of them.

“I thought we kept the guns upstairs in the bedroom safe,” I say.

“Here too.” He reaches for a satellite phone and works his magic. Then, within seconds, he points at one of the computers, grabs the one chair in the room and sets it for me. “It’s ready.”

“You’re so fast. How have you become so good with high-end technology? They teach you that in sniper school?”

“No, but there’s so much you can learn when you can read, and decide to run a security company.

” He bends to work some buttons on the keyboard, and his cologne, mixed with raw masculinity and heat, invades my senses.

My imagination runs wild. A man and a woman in a dark, tight place like this, too intimate, built for making wrong decisions and sweet regrets.

His chest nearly touches my back as he reaches around me to type, his muscled arm brushing against mine. The heat from his body envelops me, and I fight the urge to lean back into him. “Your thirty minutes,” his voice drops lower, rougher, his breath hot against my ear, “start now.”

I shift in the chair, hyper-aware of every point where we almost touch. “You’re going to stand there the whole time?”

“Right here.” His palm flattens on the desk beside the keyboard, caging me in. “Where I can see everything.”

I cross my legs to ease the ache building between them. “Everything?”

He chuckles. “You’re not as subtle as you think, Birdie.

I know you’ve imagined my fingers, my tongue and my pierced cock in your pussy so many times more than you care to count just like I know you don’t only picture me between your squirming legs now, you need it.

” His other hand moves, and for a second I think he’s reaching between my thighs.

But it only rests on the back of my chair. “Twenty-nine minutes.”

Breath catching, skin flushing, I reach for the mouse. “Fuck you.”

“You wish.” He taps the desk, rushing me. “Your agent first, then your lawyer. We need to know what Blake’s been saying, what he might be planning.”

I videocall Martha, painfully conscious of how his body towers over mine, how trapped I am between his arms, the desk and this damn chair.

The connection seems to take forever to start—courtesy of the extra layers of security or the silent tension between us.

At last, Martha’s face fills the screen.

“Birdie, thank goodness. Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for—” Martha chops off her words, and her brows knit.

“What is this place? Where are you and why are you calling me on an app ?” She waves at Tristan.

“And why is your handsome bodyguard breathing down your neck with his serial killer face on?”

A laugh finds its way to my heart despite everything. “It’s a long story. Listen, I don’t have a lot of time. When was the last time you talked to Blake?”

“I don’t know. The day Saldana died or the day after, I’m not sure, but I haven’t spoken to him since you sent me his termination notice email, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Blake hasn’t tried to reach Martha. It’s a good sign. He hasn’t intended to expose me to her—not yet—or the media or she would have known about it. I exchange a glance with Tristan. “No, it’s just that he’s been MIA for a few days. After what happened to Gia, I was worried about him.”

“Gia? What happened to her?”

“You don’t know?”

“No. What’s going on, Birdie?”

Gia’s murder hasn’t made it into the press yet? My head jumps automatically to Jacob. He has his way of controlling the press. Perhaps he’s protecting me behind the scenes, making sure no news about the murder or the stalker gets leaked.

I fill my agent in. Gia’s murder. The police interrogations. “And Martha, there’s a big chance Blake is involved, and honestly—”

“Birdie,” Tristan warns.

I stare at him. “She needs to know to stay safe. I can’t let anything happen to her.”

“Know what?” Martha’s eyes go full dinner plate size. “What’s gonna happen to me?”

“We think,” I swallow, “the stalker might be behind all this.”

“Oh my God. Oh. My. God. You think he killed Gia? Why?”

“She and Blake were having an affair.”

“Holy shit! No way!”

“Ms. Goldman, please know this is privileged information and can’t be disclosed under any circumstances, not even to the police,” Tristan interrupts.

Martha’s image breaks and blurs, cutting off to a terrified face, and then a funnier one somehow, before it stabilizes.

“Of course. Birdie made us all sign NDAs. Anything involving that crazy-ass freak is off-limits. Not that I’m stupid enough to get on his wrong side. He killed Gia for crying out loud!”

“We don’t know that for sure,” I chime in. “But it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“Mr. Stalker, if you’re listening, I’m sorry for calling you a crazy ass freak, and I love Birdie. I’ve never done anything to hurt her. I even got her that deal she wanted.”

I blink incredulously. “You did?”

“Well, not exactly fifty percent, but twenty-five. I can definitely push for thirty.”

Thirty percent of what I’ve made the house, not bad at all. “What about my rights? Will they revert them back to me?”

“Uh…no, but they’re offering a seven-figure deal per book in whatever new series you’ll write next. I can get you a whole five mil for a trio!”

I mull it over. “No. I don’t want to publish with them again.

I’ll take the thirty percent and my rights.

Nothing more, nothing less. But listen, keep stalling them until my divorce is over.

Warn them if Blake knows anything about this deal, it’s void, and I’ll sue their dirty asses penniless.

I don’t know how far Blake is willing to fight, but I won’t let him get a single dime out of this deal. ”

“I understand. You got it.”

“Be safe, Martha, and please let me know asap if you hear from Blake.”

Tristan presses a few more buttons before he ends the call. “One down. One to go.”

I nod, all innocence and compliance. “Of course. Whatever you think is best.”

“Good girl,” he taunts back.

For some reason, my vagina likes it. Traitress .

My email takes painstakingly long to open. “Is this normal?”

“Yes. Routing and rerouting and encrypting—”

“Oh God, I’d rather just watch the page load in silence.”

“Really?” He bends lower, his breath tickling my ear. “I thought the technical boredom would be a nice distraction from the aching throbs in your—”

“Email!” The aching throbs in my email. Yup. That would totally make a cute line in a cutesy rom com, but my book is definitely not one of those. The emails staring me in the face are enough proof. “Adriana sent me five emails in the past forty-eight hours.”

“Open them.”

I read as fast as the letters load. “She’s reached out to Blake because…he contested the divorce. Fuck.” I was hoping he’d be too wasted and miss the twenty-day window to contest it.

“What did he say when she talked to him?”

“I don’t know.” I read each email thoroughly. “She doesn’t say. But it doesn’t look so good if she’s urging me to call her that badly.”

“Then what are you waiting for? Make the call.”

My breath shakes on my fingers, pressing over my lips, as I wait for the call to go through.

“Hello? Birdie?” Adriana is in her office, stunned. “Is that you?”

“Hi. Yes. Sorry for the strangeness. This is not how we usually communicate. But it’s the safest option at the moment.”

“Don’t worry about it.” A frown contorts her face. “Are you all right? Has your husband made any contact with you? Did he hurt you in any way?”

“He didn’t directly contact me, not since the day he tried to attack me, but he did leak the stalker issue to the press when he received the divorce papers. It’s been escalating since. I’m worried it may escalate even further. I was hoping you’d already talked to him and mentioned our leverage…”

She pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs. “About that…”

That doesn’t sound good at all. My heart sinks.

She glances at Tristan. “Is it safe to talk?”

“Yes. Tristan knows everything. He’s my bodyguard. You met him once.”

“Yes, I remember,” she says warily. The way she looks at him sends an eerie feeling through me. What’s going on?

“Ms. Lockwood, we don’t have much time.” Tristan interrupts my line of thought. “We have too much on our plate with the stalker situation. We don’t need another active threat. My client would like to know what the situation is with her husband so that we can take precautions and counter his moves.”

Adriana hesitates for a second before she speaks. “When I talked to your husband, he didn’t agree to the terms of the divorce. So, as we planned, I mentioned the video you gave me, however…”

I grip the desk edge, bracing myself. “What did he say?”

“He said, and I quote, that video could put me in jail for a few months,” she swallows, “but what I have on her will send her in for life.”