Page 9 of East (The Moral Compass 3)

“Oh, so you were serious when you said you needed my help?”

“Yes, and your friend’s help. We need to keep up the disguise of me being Drake. You are now my PA, and your friend... I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“Chelsea,” she pipes up.

“And your friend, Chelsea, is your assistant. East, Drake has gotten himself a stalker. One who is sending death threats and accessing his hotel rooms and sending weird shit. It’s a little more than the normal stalker stuff. His security can handle that. Whoever this is, knows how to work security systems. Every time something has happened, the security footage has been wiped, and we can’t get it back,” I explain.

A little glint lights up those blue eyes. They are almost glowing. Tech is East’s drug. She feeds off it. The thing is, I never even put a face to the name. I just imagined her as a female North. So, this stunning enigma that stands before me blows my mind. How can someone be so beautiful but also a geek right to her core?

All she needs is a pair of those thick black glasses, a short skirt, and a pencil through her ponytail. Bending over her laptop and—fuck… Zed, stop this right now.

I can feel a bead of sweat on my forehead. I don’t think I’ve ever been so turned on by a woman, and she has no clue what she is doing to me. I think her friend has noticed as her smirk is getting bigger as she looks between the two of us.

“Right, sorry, where was I? Lost my train of thought there for a second. Oh, yeah. So, you two are now working for me as Drake. That’s it. But really, I need you to look into anything you can find and watch out for anything weird. You know the score, East.”

She nods.

“Okay, that’s great, but we are only here until tomorrow. I have work on Monday,” Chelsea announces.

“Oh, right. Shit.”

“It’s fine. East can stay. She was only saying last week how bored she was back in New York,” Chelsea offers.

“Hello… I am standing right here you know?” East interrupts. “But, yes, I’ll stay and help. Do my brothers know what you’re working on or is it a secret?”

“No secret, but I’ve not told them. I don’t want them flying out and getting all hands-on unless it’s needed.” She nods back in understanding. The more new people around, the less chance of catching whoever it is. This needs to be discreet.

“So, Chelsea, what do you do when you’re not hanging around rock stars?” I ask.

“I’m a reporter, but don’t worry. I made a pact with East when we first met that what happens with East stays with East. I won’t ever break that promise or that bond for anything. You don’t need to look like I’ve just crapped in your cereal.”

That’s exactly how I feel. I need to keep things close to my chest until she leaves. None of this can get out. I know she just promised but, hey, we all know promises can be broken under the right amount of pressure or the right amount of money.

East and Chelsea spend the next day looking through old security footage that we have and draw a blank. Drake takes to the stage, and his concert goes off fine. No issues. No security breaches. Everything is really calm. I’m starting to wonder if this is all in his head.

East waves Chelsea off at the airport. Then, it’s just the two of us. With a bunch of security. But there’s no buffer between us, and I can feel that same energy I felt in the private office.

I don’t like the thought of East being in a hotel room on her own, so I demanded she be moved up to the same floor. What I didn’t do, is think it through clearly.

East will still be on her own in a room even if it’s on the same floor. So, I torture myself even more and make sure it’s the room that has adjoining doors. That way, if she is in trouble, I can be in there in seconds.

Surprisingly, East is okay with the arrangement, even when I ask her not to lock the adjoining door. You see, this is the perfect woman. She understands. When I ask for something, she doesn’t question or whine. She accepts that it’s right and goes along with it. She obviously trusts me. After all, I am her brother’s best friend. More’s the pity right now.

Every time I look at her, I see those eyes, that arse, and those fucking legs. She’s tiny, but those legs would wrap around my waist perfectly. And those lips—

Stop it, Zed!

I thought the first night without Chelsea might be awkward, but we decided to have dinner in our rooms with the doors open. After two bottles of wine, East is telling me all about her infatuation with my brother. Yeah, real mood killer. She tells me all about the night she spent with him and that it was really unusual for her to be so sick from alcohol to the point she thought she’d been spiked.

I make a note to ask Drake if any of his otherfriendshave had issues. If they spiked East, it could have affected her more, as she has never had drugs in her system before. It’s a strong possibility that this could have been going on for longer than we thought.

After an hour of listening to her drone on about Drake, I have to know.

“So, East, if he was to walk in here now and offer you his hand in marriage, what would you say?” I expect her to think about it. What I don’t expect is:

“Hell no! Oh no. Not now. Not now that I’ve actually spent some time with him. He’s not like I expected. He’s a bit… weird. He really loves himself and, I don’t know… he’s just not…” She stops talking and looks directly into my eyes. Oh crap.

“Zed, can I ask you something?”

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