Page 1 of Breaking the Rules
CHAPTER ONE
The whine of the jet’s engines did nothing to block out the nagging pain in Waverly Sinner’s side or the calamitous thoughts that swirled in her head. She shifted in her seat and grimaced as Lake Tahoe fell away beneath her.
“You’re still bleeding, but it’s slowing down,” her friend and personal assistant Kate York said, probing the gauze.
Waverly set her teeth as Kate prodded a little too hard.
“Did you call in?” she asked.
Kate nodded and let Waverly pull her bloodstained sweater back down.
“Yeah, when the doc was stitching you up.”
“And?”
Kate shook her head. “No bodies.”
“What about Dante?”
“No bodies,” Kate said again. “No Dante.”
Thank God.It meant there was a possibility that he was still alive after the ambush. Waverly would cling to that hope that the man who had given her a chance to change her life could still be among the living. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”
“Belize. They’re flying in a very nice, very discreet plastic surgeon to patch you up so you don’t look like you just got shot. Your orders are to lay low, very low.”
Waverly’s phone signaled in her lap. It was her mother. “What’s the story?” Waverly asked before answering.
“You’re going to hate it,” Kate warned.
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Xavier Saint’s attention was fixed on one of the three TV screens in his office. The one with a publicity shot of Waverly Sinner floated about the ticker that threw out the news casually as if it hadn’t moved the earth under his feet.DUI accident. Injuries. Rehab.
The vulture announcers with their peroxide grins gleefully speculated on the scandal and what it would mean for the actress’s career. There was speculation, of course, that Waverly had been on a downward spiral since her last breakup with leading man Dante Wrede. Their on-again, off-again volatile relationship had been fodder to the gossip sites and tabloids for two years.
Xavier wanted a drink. A cigarette. A coma. Something, anything, to get the need for Waverly out of his system. It had been five years. Five years since they talked, five years since he felt her body under his, five years since she’d nearly died in front of him. And yet it felt like yesterday. He could still remember her scent, that layer of exotic spice and a sweetness that never faded.
He muted the TV and made himself another cup of coffee.
Nothing he’d done in those five years had been able to erase her from his mind. Invictus Security had grown, first from the blood and sweat that he and his partner Micah Ross had put into the start-up and then from the notoriety of the Ganim case. Now they had offices in L.A., New York, D.C., and a brand-new chapter starting in London. He’d long-since retired from fieldwork and instead focused on training, consulting, and the day-to-day of running the top private security firm in the country.
Everything he’d worked for since his time in the Army and Defense Clandestine Service was now his.Except her.
He’d followed Waverly from the safe distance that entertainment news provided. Every movie, every award, hell, even her college graduation. She’d finished a degree in psychology and international relations from Stanford in three years while still managing to release a movie a year. That still lit the spark of pride in him. She’d been smarter than anyone around her gave her credit for. And now the world was taking notice.
The last two years had been one hit after another. The following that she’d earned from being the near victim of serial killer Les Ganim five years ago had grown into a huge, legitimate fan base.
Waverly Sinner was officially a star in her own right now. She pulled in bigger paydays than most of her male co-stars. And comparisons between her and her mother, screen goddess Sylvia Sinner, were now entirely complimentary.
He barely recognized her public persona these days. Gone was the frightened girl who built walls to protect herself. In her place was a ballsy, vivacious woman who didn’t take shit from anyone.
When her publicist announced that Waverly was dating her co-star Dante Wrede, Xavier polished off a bottle of whiskey alone in his apartment, and when he surfaced from his hangover, he vowed that Waverly Sinner was out of his system. He tried to get over her. He’d dated, casually. And even attempted not-so-casually dating. He’d met a nice enough woman who had a busy career of her own. They’d talked marriage a few times—well, she had—but he’d never made a move in that direction. And when she’d ended things, he felt as much relief as he did guilt.
Xavier stared at Waverly’s picture on the muted screen and felt it. The buzz that something wasn’t quite right. Heknewher, and despite the last five years of distance, he was sure there was something rotten with this story.
He’d watched her for the last two years as Waverly had put herself in every situation that she’d despised within the Hollywood experience. She’d club-hopped and shopped and gotten into shoving matches with aggressive photographers. Her new best friend, Petra, was the daughter of a Russian billionaire, and the two downed vodka tonics by the gallon as they partied their way around L.A.
Her hair was a little shorter now, a darker honey blonde instead of the silvery Rapunzel tresses he’d had his hands in years ago. But the eyes, those sea witch eyes, were the same.
