Page 15 of Guarding the Rock Star
“Ms. Blue, it’s so nice to see you again,” Lois gushed. Actually gushed. I was pretty sure my boss was physically incapable of gushing like that.
“Please, call me Tasha,” my mate said with a friendly smile.
This was Performance Tasha, as I thought of her when she adopted this persona. She was friendly but distant, polite and the tiniest bit self-effacing. She reminded me of the girl next door who became a princess in the romance books I absolutely never read in the privacy of my home.
Lois introduced Tasha to Angie and Martha. Angie gave her a polite greeting then pulled out her scanning equipment, but Martha grabbed Tasha’s hand and got way too close to my mate for my taste.
“Oh my God Tasha, I’m such a huge fan,” Martha cooed, batting her eyelashes. “You’re so talented. I just love you.”
Before I knew what was happening, my fangs had dropped, and I gave a low growl of warning as I shoved my way between Martha and my mate. Everyone in the room turned to look at me. Lois glanced between me and Tasha several times, and I saw the instant she put things together.
“Martha, go help Angie scan,” she ordered. “Diaz! I’ll see you in the kitchen. Now!”
Tasha looked around in confusion, obviously picking up on the silent conversation we were all having.
“Don’t let us keep you from whatever you were going to do, Tasha,” Lois politely dismissed her. “We’ll give you a holler if we find anything of concern.”
Tasha’s gaze turned to mine again before looking away. “Um. Okay I’ll be in my practice room if you need me, Wanda.”
As soon as Tasha left the room Lois stomped into the kitchen, expecting me to follow her. Of course I did.
“So, she’s your mate, is that it?” my boss growled.
“Yeah, I think so.”
She pinned me with a hard glare. “You think so, Diaz? Either she is or she isn’t. There’s no think about it.”
“Yes, she’s my mate,” I sighed.
“You should have told me,” Lois chided. “But I understand why you didn’t. You don’t want me to pull you off the case, and I get that, but I need to have all the pertinent information for us to plan how to keep your mate safe.”
I appreciated that my boss was taking this so well. Then again, this wasn’t the first time she’d dealt with one of her staff falling for a client.
“You’re right,” I conceded.
“I can’t hear that enough,” Lois said.
I resisted rolling my eyes.
“Now tell me everything, right from the beginning,” she ordered.
Twenty minutes later we convened at the kitchen table with Martha and Angie. My coworkers had confirmed my suspicion that the picture was likely taken with a drone or someone who had accessed the fire escape since there was no evidence of any recording or listening devices in the penthouse. Lois studied the note that had come today.
“This note is different,” she stated. “It’s longer and more descriptive. The tone is almost urgent.”
“Yeah.” I’d noticed that too but hadn’t wanted to say anything about it to Tasha.
“I think you two should consider going out of town,” Lois continued. “Then we can work on a plan to smoke this guy out.”
“My mate was planning on going up to her cabin in the woods next week to write some new songs. Maybe we can go up there sooner,” I suggested.
“Mate?” Martha asked. “Whoa. Is that why you growled at me like that? Because the cute little rock star is your mate?”
I shot my coworker a glare at her calling my mate cute, but then I heard a voice behind me.
“Mate?” Tasha asked. “What does that mean?”
“Oh hell,” Lois mumbled under her breath. “It’s time for us to leave.”
