Page 2 of Guarding the Rock Star
“What kind of threats?” I asked, jotting down notes on the pad of paper I’d brought to the meeting.
“Homophobic shit. Tells her she’s an abomination who’s going to hell if she doesn’t repent.”
I was tempted to suggest that the stalker was my father given the similarities to what he’d told me when I’d come out to him. I hadn’t talked to my sperm donor since the day I’d left for the military at eighteen, but his words still stung all those years later.
“Also told her that she needs a quote unquote real man to give her pussy the attention it needs and repeatedly threatens to rape her.”
I slammed my pen down in disgust. “Jesus. Are you sure it’s someone in the inner circle and not some crazed fan or something?”
“It’s definitely someone on the inside,” Lois confirmed. “Too much insider information.”
My boss slid a thin file folder across the table to me. I opened it briefly, thumbing through the papers. I’d read those later. On the bottom of the stack was a photo of a young woman playing an electric guitar. She looked vaguely familiar. I studied the photo, wondering why I felt like I knew her. For some reason my heart sped up just the tiniest bit as I looked at her face.
“You’ll be deep undercover. Only the manager will know why you’re there. And Tasha of course.”
“How do we know it’s not the manager?” I asked, closing the folder.
“She’s been friends with Tasha since they were kids. Tasha trusts her implicitly. Also, I didn’t smell any subterfuge from her when we met.”
“Even shifters can be fooled by skilled liars,” I reminded her. “Or people who believe what they’re saying.”
“I’m aware of how my shifter skills work, Diaz,” Lois snapped.
I held up my hands in supplication. “Of course. My apologies, Boss. What’s my cover? New personal assistant?”
“No, you’ll be her new girlfriend. Tasha is not on tour right now, so you’ll be hanging out with her in Seattle, doing media appearances, and depending how long it takes to catch this sicko, going with her on a song writing retreat up in the mountains.”
“Oh no. No way. I am not doing that.”
Around the table, my coworkers let out a collective gasp. Lois’s eyebrows rose almost to her hairline, surprised at my adamant reaction. Not only was I usually a rule follower, I was also a good soldier who obeyed orders without question. We’d known each other for years, and I’d never once talked back or argued with her.
“What’s the problem, Diaz?”
Lois’s voice was dangerously soft, which was worse than when she was yelling at a person. Not that I’d personally experienced this before, given my history as a person who followed orders without question.
“I know exactly how this goes. We pretend to be girlfriends and then one of us is like, oh we should practice kissing so we look natural in front of other people, then we kiss and realize that we’re super attracted to each other and the next thing you know we’re giving each other longing looks and secretly banging and falling in love and shit. It happens every damned time.”
Every person at the table was staring at me now. It was literally the most I’d ever said in a meeting before, other than giving report outs.
“You been reading too many bodyguard romances, Wanda?” Martha teased.
“Angie, remind us how you got shackled with a mate,” I asked.
“I pretended to be her girlfriend when I was on her protective detail and we fell in love,” my friend admitted. “But I wouldn’t say shackled. I actually like being mated to Suzie, especially now that we don’t have Russians trying to kill us.”
Angie had been hired as a bodyguard for Suzie when her father, a U.S. Senator, had pissed off Putin enough for him to put out a call to take him and his family out. With the help of some Belarusian bear shifters who used to work for the CIA, Angie had fought off an attack on Suzie until things settled down. They seemed super happy together, but that didn’t negate my point about fake dating scenarios.
“See?” I said, pointing at Angie but looking at Lois. “Fake dating always ends in disaster.”
I know enough about fake dating to know it sometimes turned real and I didn’t do love. My mother had loved my father once and he’d taken her love and twisted it into something ugly, sending her to an early death. I’d promised myself long ago that I’d never take a mate, and there was no way I was going to risk falling in love with someone now. Not that I was prepared to go into all that in front of my coworkers.
“How else would you propose we explain you being around all the time and going to her cabin in the woods?” Lois said.
I opened the file folder and looked at the picture again. Tasha was tall and lean, almost boyish in appearance other than her long, straight dark hair. Her light brown skin and almond shaped eyes hinted at a mixed race heritage which I was guessing was African American and white, possibly with some Latina mixed in.
“We’ll tell them I’m her cousin,” I said. “I’ll be visiting from Cleveland because I need a long vacation.”
“Fine, fine, as long as Tasha is okay with it you can be her cousin, Diaz,” Lois agreed. “Just don’t fuck this up.” She jabbed a finger in my direction. “I’m counting on you.”
