Page 37 of Under My Skin

“Your turn. What’s yours?”

“My what?”

“Your middle name. You know mine now,” he said with a playful grin.

“Oh. Right. It’s Sofía,” I mumbled.

“Daniela Sofía,” he said slowly, like he was testing out how it sounded. “I like it.”

“Glad you approve,” I teased, unable to stop myself from smiling.

“Dani!” the barista who was working on the espresso bar called, effectively ending our conversation.

Once the three of us had our drinks and pastries, we settled at a table in the far back corner of the café, Braden facing the wall. Only then did he remove his sunglasses, and the worry and concern I saw in his eyes…it floored me, and I could tell it was one hundred percent genuine.

Why, though? Why did he care this much about me when he hadn’t given a flying fuck about my sister?

He took a deep breath. “Dani, do you mind showing me the email you got?”

I nodded silently as I pulled my phone out of my purse and brought up the message. He took it from me and read it, then sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before handing the phone back to me.

“Can you forward that to me?” he asked.

“Sure?” I said, more a question than a statement, as I did what he’d asked. “Who is this, Braden? And why didn’t you tell me about them before I signed the contract?”

“I don’t know who it is,” he said with another sigh. “I wish to God I did because I’d have filed a restraining order long before now. For the past few months, I’ve been getting emails to my fan email account from literally dozens of anonymous email addresses. It’s like I can’t block them fast enough. At first, I just thought it was an obsessed fan because she was saying stuff about how much she loved and missed me. Around the time I got arrested, it started getting more direct and the girl started sending me nude pics, but nothing with her face or anything identifiable. And then on Saturday morning, after the picture of us kissing outside the restaurant hit the tabloid sites, the whole tone changed. Said if I didn’t dump you, she wouldn’t be responsible for what happened. I should have said something to you, and I’m so sorry I didn’t, but I had no reason to think this woman had access to any of mypersonal info, so I never thought in a million years that she’d even be able to figure out who you are with only a first name to go on. I’m so sorry, Dani.”

I released a long, controlled breath as I tried to collect my thoughts.

The rational part of my brain knew this wasn’t Braden’s fault. He couldn’t control that some random woman had fixated on him. But rational thought wasn’t exactly prevailing right now. Because there was an innocent baby mixed up in this too. A baby I loved more than anything and would have given up my life to protect. If this person had gotten enough background on me tofigure out where I went to school, they had to know about him by now.

“I can’t…I can’t put Isaac in danger, Braden.” My voice was barely above a whisper.

“I’d never ask you to put him or yourself in danger, sweetheart,” he assured me, reaching across the table for my hand – and damn it, I couldn’t bring myself to yank it away. “That’s part of why I wanted to see you today. I’m meeting with a private investigator in an hour so they can help me figure out who this person is and I can get a restraining order. But in the meantime, I want to hire security for you. Two bodies, plainclothes, around the clock on rotating shifts. One person to stay with Lina and Isaac, and one person to accompany you when you go out. Just to make sure you’re all safe until we catch this woman.”

I paused, considering. Was I really worried enough about this to have a security guard follow me around all the time? That sounded annoying as hell. But at the same time, this freak knew where I went to school, so they probably knew where I lived too.

“It’s a smart idea, Dani,” Morgan said quietly, then looked at Braden. “Would they take her to and from school until classes are over?”

“That’s up to you,” he said, ducking his head down a little to catch my eye as he squeezed my hand. “This isallup to you, beautiful. Selfishly, I want to keep seeing you because I like spending time with you, but I understand if you’re too scared to go through with this anymore. If it was me, I would be. And it won’t be anyone’s fault but mine if you decide you can’t handle it. I’m the one who should have told you about this before you agreed to anything.”

I took a calming breath and sipped on the sweet, strong coffee as I thought this through. And the fact of the matter was, I still needed this money. If Braden was willing to pay for securityas a precaution until his PI found out who was doing this, then I had no real reason to worry for my safety.

“You promise this is the extent of it? There’s nothing else you haven’t told me?” I asked.

“I swear on my life, there’s nothing else,” he said, staring straight into my eyes. “And I also swear I’ll tell you if anything else happens.”

“Then I’m still in,” I sighed.

The smile that spread across Braden’s face could have lit up a whole football stadium all by itself. And it was in moments like this that it took everything I had to remember why I hated him. Because my God, this smile…it was so pure. So real. So heartbreakingly beautiful. It wasn’t something he could fake.

“So, I’m meeting with the company who does security for the team during football season in the morning,” Braden said as we walked out into the parking lot. “I’ll make sure they assign people I trust to keep an eye on you and Isaac, and hopefully we can get the detail started immediately.”

Blowing out a long breath, I nodded.

I’d have been lying if I’d said I wasn’t still a little worried about this whole situation, but I could tell Braden was taking this seriously, so I had to trust that he’d make sure I was safe. Besides, even if I had decided to break off our arrangement, what guarantee would I have had that this person would stop? I was probably safer following through with it and letting him provide a security detail for me.

“Okay,” I murmured.

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