Page 6 of Max

“You spent the night there last night?” Real alarm shivered through him. If the man had gotten in once, he could again.

“Of course not. I stayed at a hotel last night.”

“Good. We’ll need to go in this morning and assess your security there. Anything you need, we’ll put in.” He pulled out his phone and texted Mason Kincaid, KSI’s tech guy. Mason had just graduated college in May, and his brothers put his computer skills to good use.

“You want access to my apartment?” Shay frowned, not sure she was okay with people in her apartment while she wasn’t there. She sort of knew Max through Desi, but she didn’t want strangers around her things.

“Miss…Shay. We need to go in and find out how he got through whatever security you have. We need to make sure you’re safe before we can let you go back to your apartment.”

“So, you’ll take my case?” She hoped to God he said yes. This was starting to scare her. The man had violated her home in Virginia and her apartment here in New York.

“KSI will be happy to do it. I’ll go into the office this morning and arrange for a bodyguard for you. Security here on set is pretty lax. I don’t trust that your stalker won’t get through the gates and back here to you…”

She was already shaking her head before he finished. “No. I don’t want some stranger following me around.”

“Shay, this is why my baby sister dragged me out of the bed at four in the morning when I’d barely gone to bed. It’s why I got in my car and drove my ass here. You need help.”

“Yes, I do need help,” she admitted.

“Then let us help you.”

“You don’t understand. I don’t trust strangers. After my divorce last year, the press is finally starting to leave me alone. I don’t want anyone around who might leak stories to the media.”

“What do you want us to do here? KSI needs access to you to protect you.”

“You’re not understanding.” She stood and started to pace. “Desi said you could help me.”

“I’m trying.”

She heard the frustration in his voice and knew it was her fault. She wasn’t being clear. “I want your help, Max, because Desi trusts you. I feel like I know you, as much as she talks about you. You’re not a stranger to me. The only person I’ll give complete access to me is you.”

“Me?”

“If you want to be my bodyguard, I can do that, but I won’t agree to anyone else unless you’re here too. I’m afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Did Desi tell you anything at all about me and my divorce?”

“No.”

“Of course she didn’t.” Shay sighed dramatically. “I was married to Duncan Kane. We went through a very nasty, very public divorce last year.”

She watched as the realization of who her ex was washed over Max. Everyone knew Duncan Kane, Hollywood’s darling and action star extraordinaire. What they didn’t know? He was a first-class asshole who wanted to control everything she did and then bitched if she so much as hinted at having a thought of her own. He was verbally abusive, and he became physically abusive in the last few months of their marriage.

If it hadn’t been for Desi, she might still be married to the man. She’d been drowning in self-doubt to the point she started to believe his bullshit. Desi found out and put an end to it. She threatened to tell the media their darling wasn’t so darling. He let Shay leave after that. Des may be a little flighty at times, but Duncan knew her well enough to know she never lied. She’d do what she said she’d do.

It had taken Shay months to regain her self-esteem while dealing with rumors and the press hounding her. She couldn’t handle them on her twenty-four-seven again. If someone from Max’s firm slipped them information or photos…no. Her nerves couldn’t take the constant worry alongside the fear she was now feeling thanks to a stalker.

“I’m not a bodyguard, Shay. It’s not what I do.”

“You do work for a security firm, don’t you?”

He smiled the laziest smile, and for a moment she forgot the press and her stalker. That smile of his was going to be her undoing.

“I do. I find people who don’t want to be found. It’s not all bodyguards.”

“You’re the person who goes out and does stakeouts on cheating spouses?” Desi sang Max praise after praise. If that was what he was in charge of, she was sunk.

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