Page 8 of Crossing the Line
“I don’t need security,” she stated again. She hated repeating herself because it meant that no one was listening to her, as usual.
“Now, Waverly,” Phil spoke up for the first time, his round cheeks flushed. “After last week, it’s clear that some measures must be taken to ensure your safety.”
“Yes,” Sylvia agreed, nodding her head vehemently until her blonde curls trembled. “You certainly weren’t taking any safety precautions when you flew out of here for some silly reason, and you were careless. What were the photographers supposed to do? Be understanding that you had a bad day and leave you alone?” She laughed at her own joke.
Waverly drummed her fingers on the linen arm of the sofa. “I didn’t leave for ‘some silly reason,’” she said, looking pointedly at her father, who suddenly became fascinated by the tips of his loafers.
“Waverly, you haven’t been yourself lately. Not only were you careless last week with those photographers, you’ve been ignoring social functions, you haven’t settled on a new project yet, you’re refusing to do any press on the accident. Why, Zoey Grace had the cover ofIndulgencelast month. You go to the same gym, yet she manages to hit the gossip sites twice as often as you do.”
Waverly realized that they didn’t want security for her safety. They wanted security to keep her in line. “I wasn’t being careless,” she said, zeroing in on that offense. “I’mnevercareless. The photographer was the one who got out of line, not me. Why do you want to punish me when it was a grown man acting like a criminal?”
Sylvia sighed dramatically, a diamond laden hand floated to her heart. “Do you see what I have to deal with, Xavier? You try reasoning with her.”
Xavier shifted his gaze from Sylvia the Martyr to Waverly the Enraged. She glared at him. If he couldn’t read that his presence was unwelcome, he was an idiot.
“Waverly,” Xavier began. Again, her name from his mouth was like a rough caress. “Security isn’t meant to be a punishment. Regardless of whose behavior was out of line last week, you could have been killed. With your level of visibility, you face greater risk than the average twenty-year-old.”
“Exactly,” her mother interjected. “Darling, I know this is hard to understand. You’re very young, and your father and I have done everything we can to protect you ourselves.”
Waverly saw it, that quick tightening of Xavier’s jaw, but it was gone just as quickly. She wondered what it meant. She wanted to make a smart remark, to get in a dig that would make her mother feel something real before she disappeared again into the scripted soap opera in her head. But she couldn’t, so she bit her tongue and counted down from ten.
Her father crossed his legs restlessly. Conflict and confrontation were anathema to Robert Sinner. He preferred subtle, passive-aggressive tactics to get what he wanted. “Look, darling. You are an important, special person and unfortunately that puts you at a greater risk for unwanted attention.”
“We tried security before,” Waverly reminded them. Though, a sidelong glance at Xavier reminded her that the two goons Phil had hired were nothing like the man next to her. She’d spent the summer she turned sixteen slipping their coverage. After a few half-hearted attempts to catch up with her, they’d struck a bargain. Waverly would leave the house with Hoss and Lenny, and they’d all go their separate ways until it was time to return home. It worked for a month until the tabloids busted them by shooting Waverly at a tennis lesson while her bodyguards were caught “guarding the bodies” at a strip club.
“This time will be different,” Sylvia predicted cheerily. “Xavier is the best at what he does, and you’re not going to test him.”
It was like waving a forbidden electronic device in front of a toddler. She shot Xavier a look. Those unreadable eyes met hers again and hardened. A challenge? Another dare?
“I’m not sixteen anymore. I can handle myself. I don’t need a babysitter.”
Her parents exchanged a glance, and her father cleared his throat. He plowed on with the script she assumed her mother had provided. “Waverly, you’re misunderstanding this. We aren’t doing this to control you. We’re doing this to protect you. You are the most precious thing in the world to us, and you must be kept safe.”
Waverly opened her mouth to argue, but her mother interjected.
“If you feel the need to fight us on this, we may have to review the terms of your trust,” Sylvia said, taking a proper sip of tea.
Waverly could feel her heartbeat throbbing in her head. Her parents had tucked away every one of the paychecks she’d earned before she turned eighteen into a trust. A trust that would finally be hers in four months on her twenty-first birthday. She’d been careful with the money she’d earned on her own and, combined with the trust, it would mean freedom and independence. And her future plans depended on having that money in her control.
Of course her mother would threaten her with that. And of course she would surrender.
She listened to the nineteenth-century mantel clock as it ticked off the seconds. Waverly could kiss the next four months of her life good-bye since she would be stalked by the devil himself.
“Fine. Your fragile special snowflake will be under lock and key from now on,” she said, rising abruptly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a fitting for a ball and chain.”
CHAPTER THREE
He gave her a thirty-second head start before excusing himself from the back-patting fest in the parlor. Robert felt that it had gone better than expected while Sylvia was predicting to Phil that Waverly would be attached to a new movie by the week’s end. They were all either blissfully ignorant to Waverly’s rage or just didn’t give a rat’s ass. Either way, he was all too aware of what a pissed off starlet was capable of.
If she were anything like the other girls he’d guarded, she’d strike back with a drug binge or a sex tape.
But something told him Waverly was different. He’d seen pictures and videos, but nothing had prepared him for when she walked into the room. Flawless golden skin, mile-long legs that demanded attention in short Lycra shorts. She wore her corn silk hair piled on her head in some kind of sloppy knot, providing an unobstructed view of the graceful curve of her neck and her movie star face. She wore no makeup that he could see to enhance her high cheekbones over delicate hollows. Full, unpainted lips had parted when she spotted him watching her. Her gray-green eyes were wide and heavily fringed with lashes. And in those eyes, he could see storms brew as her parents broke the news to her.
She wasn’t what he’d expected. And that was a problem. He’d thought he’d be meeting Sylvia’s mini me. But she was different, and that was trouble. His physical reaction to her took him by surprise. He’d spent years honing his control, reining in his reactions. And all she had to do was walk into a room and get pissed off for his blood to migrate south.
The attraction wouldn’t be an issue, he assured himself. He wouldn’t let it. He’d get used to looking at her, and that punch-in-the-gut reaction would dull. And once he got to know her, the interest would be gone. He knew the spoiled princess type. There wasn’t anything a girl could do on the outside to make up for being a vapid vacuum on the inside. He’d find the ugly or the annoying in Waverly and be back on an even keel before dinner, he decided.
He caught up to her by the pool, the crystal waters sending off blinding sparkles under the mid-morning sun.
