Page 16 of Kiss Marry Kill
“Already on it, Meg.”
“Really? Don’t I have to hire you first, or something? Discuss prices? Sign a contract?”
“You think I’d sit back and wait for a stalker to break in again while we discuss pricing options? Fill out paperwork?”
“Okay, thanks for rushing on that.” She blew out a long sigh, relieved that he was already working on it. She hadn’t really known where to begin if the cops weren’t going to help her. “Of course, I’ll pay you.”
“Not having that conversation now.”
“Jax—”
“We have a history. Whether or not we’ve seen each other is irrelevant. I didn’t come back from that godforsaken desert to see someone else get hurt. I’m not going to let you be unsafe and I’m not going to charge you to protect you. Wouldn’t have done it then, won’t do it now.”
“It was different then.”
“Why? Because I wasn’t incorporated?”
She smirked and took a drink of her coffee “No. Because this wasn’t your business back then, and because I wasn’t really in danger.”
“You weren’t?” He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You were in danger of dying of boredom, Meg.”
“Jax—”
“We’ll deal with payment and all that bullshit later. I’ve seen your net worth. If I need to expense something, I know you’re good for it, okay?”
“Fine.”
It seemed like his patience for chitchat was wearing thin. He stood up straight and finished his coffee. “I need to go to your house today and look at your current system and then I’ll send some of my guys to work on it. But you gotta use it. No point in having a state-of-the-art security system if you don’t turn it on.”
“Trust me, Jax, I’ll never forget to turn on my alarm again.” A shiver ran down her body.
“Are you done with the Q and A? ’Cause I got some questions of my own.”
“Shoot,” she said, taking another bite of her banana.
“How is it that you went from law student to pop star millionaire with a Grammy in five years?”
She’d known this question was coming. “I never made it to law school. After you dropped me off at home that Monday morning, I told my parents I wasn’t going.”
“And . . . what? You just joined TNT? I know it doesn’t exactly work that way.”
“No, it doesn’t. Short version is, I waitressed at Robbie’s for six months before Tamara—one of the Ts from TNT—walked out on them. They asked me to help out for a couple of gigs until they found a replacement. A couple of gigs turned into a permanent position, and at one of those shows, a scout for RLC was there.”
“RLC, the record label?”
“Yep. We signed a contract with RLC, recorded a single. Single blew up. And as they say . . . the rest is history.”
“Damn.” He shook his head. “Damn,” he said again, in disbelief. “How about your parents and the douche?”
“After two years he deserved a face-to-face explanation, so I gave him one. He was livid that I’d humiliated him on national television. You know that video of us kissing at the baseball game went viral, right?”
He rolled his eyes. “I heard.”
She took her mug to the sink and began to wash it. “Anyway, he was an asshole and I should’ve broken up with him a long time before. He didn’t love me and I didn’t love him either. My parents had pushed us together and being with him had just seemed like the thing that was supposed to happen. Afterward, I found out he’d been sleeping with one of the law clerks at the firm.”
“Dickhead,” he said, and placed a hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t turn around, instead she continued to wash the mug as if its cleanliness was imperative to the survival of all humankind.
“Nah. It was fine. Took away some of my guilt for having kissed you. Plus, the fact that I wasn’t hurt when I found out really put things into perspective. I mean, finding out that your boyfriend was screwing someone else should be devastating, right? The fact it wasn’t says a lot.”
