Page 30 of Breaking the Rules
She stowed her phone in the pocket of her cardigan and returned to the great room. Xavier was still on his laptop, but he’d moved to her couch. She could have picked up and moved over, but what was the point? He’d only follow her around in an evening game of musical chairs until he’d chased her up to bed. And her goal was to keep him up late tonight so he’d buy that she was sleeping late the following morning.
She flopped down on the couch and pulled her computer into her lap, ignoring him. But it was an impossible task. She fired off emails to her agent and drafted one for her publicist to send after her meeting tomorrow. Gwendolyn Riddington-Macks could sell bald-faced lies to a polygraph. And hopefully she could help Waverly repair the damage that the rehab story had done to her reputation.
With nothing else to do but keep Xavier up late, she shut down her laptop, turned on the TV, and picked a fight.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Six came awfully early to Waverly’s way of thinking as she slipped out of bed and tiptoed into her bathroom. Xavier had, of course, chosen the guest room closest to her bedroom, and she wasn’t taking any chances of him hearing her.
She’d snuck downstairs in the middle of the night, testing her luck and Xavier’s ears to leave a note on the dining table.
Picking up breakfast. Be back soon.
On her way back to her room, she’d paused at Xavier’s door and heard him tossing and turning. She’d been possessed with the urge to open the door, knowing exactly what would happen if she entered his room. Her hand had actually grasped the handle before she’d gotten a hold of herself and crept back to her own room.
She lay awake for a good hour after that, thinking about Xavier in his room. Wondering if his head was as full of her as hers was of him.
It had been a long night. But now she needed to be sharp.
She dressed in her leathers and boots and tucked her gun into a holster inside the waistband at the small of her back and a knife in her left boot. She found her tiny can of pepper spray and stowed it in her jacket pocket. If she was walking into a trap, she was doing it armed and ready for a fight.
She grabbed her phone from the nightstand and some cash and her ID and stepped out onto her balcony, closing the doors softly behind her. There was no way she was going to chance tiptoeing past Xavier’s room. She was faster than she’d been years ago, but he could probably still take her in a foot race.
Waverly swung her leg over the railing and found her footing on the edge of the decking. She slid her hands down the railing and lowered herself into a full hang, dangling from the overhang of the front porch.
She dropped the last few feet and tucked into a crouch. She closed her eyes and listened for nearly a full minute. Hearing nothing, she rose and jogged across the drive to her garage. The fourth bay door rose with a quiet whir when she keyed in the code. She grinned when she spotted her baby. The Ducati SuperBike made her feel like freaking Batman whenever she put the Pirelli rubber to road.
She wheeled the bike into the driveway and down to the road. To be on the safe side, she pushed it another hundred feet past her property before starting it up. She snapped the visor on her helmet closed and began winding her way through the neighborhood.
It wasn’t the friendly community that Xavier had grown up in. There were no interconnecting backyards or community fire pits here in Hidden Vista. She didn’t know her neighbors, but the gate bought her the privacy she’d craved.
Paparazzi weren’t even permitted to linger outside the gate, not that they’d be waiting for her at 6:15 in the morning. The sun wasn’t even up yet. And there was no sign of Xavier Saint on her tail. Waverly went through her strategy again as she cruised north. Palo Comado Canyon was an arid park perfect for quiet hikes and clandestine meetings.
She’d go in hot, play it pissed off and scared. After all, an ambiguous assignment had nearly gotten her killed, and her partner was missing. And what had she gotten from the studio? Certainly not answers; just a directive to lay low, instructions to follow. Instructions that never came. She was pissed, and she’d play it that way. She had given them two years of her life, finished every job she’d ever started, and on two occasions, had come home with information that had saved lives. She was a damn asset, not a gopher.
She let the adrenaline roll through her. She needed to be sharp, ready for anything. She’d arrived early on purpose, coasting into the parking area as the sky turned a mottled pink.
Waverly stashed her helmet and gloves and grabbed a flashlight from her saddlebag. It was already light enough to see with dawn beginning to break, but the stubby Maglite would add one more weapon to her arsenal in case she needed it.
She skipped the direct path that would take her where she needed to go and, instead, looped around on a longer trail to come up behind the meeting place. If anyone was there lurking, she’d find them. But she found the vista and its surrounding area empty. She was alone in the final dredges of dusk.
The weight of her 9mm at her back reminded her of how far she’d come. A few years ago waiting alone in the dark for the unknown could have triggered a panic attack. And now? Now, she pitied the idiot who made the mistake of targeting her. She’d made the most of her training and expanded upon it with a self-defense coach. With or without weapons, Waverly Sinner was no one’s victim anymore.
As the sun began to peek above the mountain, she saw headlights cut through the shadows from the parking area above.
She felt a tingle between her shoulder blades. It was show time.
She stood, her back to the canyon and the safety railing, and waited with arms crossed. She could easily reach for the knife or the pepper spray from this stance, and he’d never suspect anything until it was too late.
In her opinion, the studio bought a little too much of her cover as the bubbly party girl. And she wouldn’t hesitate to use that ignorance if it helped her case. She’d learned a long time ago that she was safer when people underestimated her.
She heard the scuff of his shoes and the low cadence of his voice as he approached. Bradley Archibald Tomasso, the youngest CEO in Target Productions’ history, sauntered down the decline to the bench chatting on his cell phone.
“Yeah. I saw the numbers. They look good. Listen, I gotta go. I have a meeting.”
He hung up the phone and flashed Waverly a pearly smile. “There’s my girl! How are you healing?”
He didn’t look like a firing squad in his navy trousers and glossy caramel colored Stefano Bemers. He was trim and energetic with thick dark hair that held a lot of product. He looked like every studio executive she’d ever met. But he was the first one, to her knowledge, to have the foresight to double the studio’s income by farming out talent to intelligence gathering organizations on a contract basis.
