Clenching her jaw as she thought about the interaction with the man on her front porch, she shoved down the urge to toss her guitar onto the table, instead gently setting it aside. She loved that guitar. She wouldn’t let some random idiot wind her up. But it was too late. She was already wound up.
The front door opened and closed.
Beth.
Exhaling in relief that she could vent to someone she trusted, Chloe felt herself lighten, just a bit.
“Who’s the hot guy sitting in the Jeep outside?” Beth asked as she waltzed into the music room, her wavy brown hair bouncing on her shoulders with each step.
The man was still there? Slightly freaked out at the notion, Chloe leapt to her feet and raced to one of the windows in the front room to peer outside. Sure enough. It was him. Sitting in a black Jeep in her driveway. Like he belonged there.
She spun around and frowned at Beth, who had followed her. “I don’t have any idea who he is.” That wasn’t strictly true. After all, he’d claimed he was her bodyguard, but since she hadn’t hired a bodyguard, technically she didn’t know who he was. Right?
Beth nudged her aside and peered out the window herself. “Maybe you should get to know him. I mean, he’s super hot.”
“You already said that.”
Beth chuckled, then turned and faced Chloe. “Just wanted to make sure you heard me.”
Suppressing the urge to roll her eyes—she already knew he was hot, she didn’t need Beth to point it out—she quietly released a sigh. Anyway, would Beth still think the man was hot if she knew what he had pulled? How he’d tried to scare her? She should share that little tidbit.
Then she thought about the many times Beth had scolded her for not being careful, for opening the door to whomever was there. Embarrassed to prove her best friend right, Chloe hesitated.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Beth said with raised eyebrows and a hand on her hip.
It was like having her mother right there in the flesh. Which annoyed Chloe. Tremendously. She loved her mother. No doubt. But she hated it when her mother told her what to do. When she had just been starting to be noticed by the world, Chloe had turned to her mother for advice. And her mother had given it. Freely. Unfortunately, her mother hadn’t had a clue what she was talking about and had nearly derailed Chloe’s budding career. To her mother’s credit, she’d realized that she wasn’t an expert on managing a singer and had sought out someone who did know what to do—Scotty Moore. Chloe had been with Scotty ever since—going on five years. Scotty was like a father to her. Which was great since her own father had ditched her and her mother when Chloe had been a toddler.
“Clo,” Beth prompted.
Brought back to the present situation, Chloe pressed her lips together before spilling out the whole story, ending with the slammed door. At the look of guilt on Beth’s face, Chloe narrowed her eyes. “You set it up, didn’t you?” Chloe’s tone held barely concealed annoyance.
Beth shook her head. “No. Not me. Scotty did.”
Now Chloe tilted her head. “But you knew about it, didn’t you?”
With the way her expression broadcast the truth, Beth might as well have admitted it. “Okay. Yes. Yes, I knew.”
“Uh-huh,” Chloe muttered as she turned her back on Beth and peered out the window at her alleged bodyguard. “He’s doing something on his phone. Shouldn’t he be, I don’t know, walking around the perimeter of my property?” She spun around and looked at Beth as if Beth had somehow failed. But Beth knew her too well and was clearly not intimidated.
Beth laughed. “Maybe he would have, except he probably figured you’d call the police on him if he did.”
True as that was, Chloe was still deeply irritated by the whole thing. Why did Scotty hire a bodyguard without talking to her first? Well, maybe he’d brought it up a time or two. Or twenty. But Chloe had always shot down the idea. Yet he’d gone behind her back and hired one anyway. She would be calling him. Soon. But first she wanted to question Beth about the man sitting out front. Not because he was hot, but because… well, just because.
“What makes him qualified to be a bodyguard?” Chloe asked, hitching a thumb over her shoulder in the man’s general direction.
Beth whipped out her phone and tapped on her screen before reading something. “According to the bio Titan Security gave Scotty, Jake Mitchell is reliable, hard-working, and former Special Ops.” Beth raised her eyes to meet Chloe’s skeptical gaze. “And he’s single.”
Huffing a sigh, Chloe frowned. “What difference does that make?”
Beth shrugged. “It doesn’t. I just thought you’d like to know.”
“Well, I don’t.” That was a lie because the question had crossed her mind.
“And really, it does matter.”
“How could it possibly matter?”
Beth grinned. “It means he can devote all of his time and attention to you.”
Great. Just what she wanted. A bodyguard shadowing her every move. Not. She shook her head. “Wonderful.”
Beth tilted her head. “I know it’s not ideal, but you have to face facts, Clo. Now that you’ve hit the big time, there are a lot of people out there becoming obsessed with you. And not in a good way.”
Chloe knew Beth hid a lot of the unsavory fan mail from her, which was how she wanted it. She had to focus on making her music, not dealing with obsessed fans. But that didn’t make them disappear. She just didn’t want to think about them. She loved her fans, but in reality, the ones who had an unhealthy obsession with her made her nervous.
Beth looked out the window toward the man in the Jeep, then she turned to Chloe. “Time to meet him officially, don’t you think?”
Reluctantly, Chloe nodded.
Chapter Three
Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw movement coming from the front of the imposing residence. He turned his head to watch the pop princess and another woman stepping out of the front door and begin walking side by side toward his Jeep. By the look on the pop princess’s face, she wasn’t happy. No matter. It was up to him to make this work, to convince the pop princess that she needed his protection.
He’d talked to Tyler, his boss and the owner of Titan Security, about what had happened when he’d arrived. Tyler had told him to handle it, to not lose the contract. Tyler was giving him a chance and Jake didn’t want to blow it. This was Jake’s first protective assignment since he’d gotten out of the military and his opportunity to make this his new career path—a career path in which he was eager to succeed. He had to make this work.
He opened the door to his Jeep and hopped out, then leaned against it as the women approached. He would let the pop princess come to him, let her make the first move. He didn’t want to scare her off before he had a chance to prove himself.
“I’m Beth,” the woman walking beside Chloe said with her hand outstretched, “Ms. Ross’s assistant.”
Jake pushed himself away from his Jeep and took her hand. “Jake Mitchell.”
Beth nodded, then pulled her hand from his. She turned toward the pop princess with a professional smile. “This is Chloe Ross.”