The entire week had been spent going over the night with him multiple times and then repeating the process with our lawyers and a bunch of other people. Complaints were taken very seriously, even if the person against whom they were lodged was best friends with the boss.
Bart had to be able to show that he’d followed the process to the letter, or risk the firm’s reputation if the senator spoke out against us. He trusted me and knew me well enough to know it was total bullshit, but we still had to go through the proper procedure.
I’d filled out more paperwork this week than it would’ve taken to get a travelers’ visa to visit North Korea, but at least I was almost done. All I had left to do was to have the videos pulled. Then those would be combed over by our legal team before copies were made available to the senator.
Even though the process was nearly done and I had Bart in my corner, I was still fucking hating life right then. Idiot rich people.
I had no idea what Miranda thought she had to gain from filing a complaint against me, but all she’d done was waste my time. Cradling the phone between my shoulder and my ear, I massaged my hand before I signed the form I’d just completed.
“I’ve spoken to my manager,” the security guy on the other end of the line said when he came back. “We can trace you from the moment you entered our premises until you exited. There’s about eight hours in all. We can provide the video of you, but we can’t release the footage tracing Ms. Mackey without her consent.”
“The footage of me is perfect. That’s all I need.” Some of the tension that had been making my muscles feel as wound up as balls of wool eased. “Can you make copies of it for me? I’ll come by to pick it up when you’re ready.”
“Sure thing,” the guy agreed. “The footage is covered in the agreement your firm had with us, so it shouldn’t be a problem for us to provide you with copies of the video of yourself.”
After he assured me he’d have it done for me before the end of his shift, we hung up. When I pulled the phone away from my ear, I saw a message from Bart summoning me to his office.
What the hell now? I shoved both hands through my hair and hung my head before standing up. If this meeting was about fucking Miranda Mackey again, I was going to put my fist through his wall.
Bart grinned when I walked in and sat down on the chair across from his without waiting for him to invite me to do it. His flaming-red hair was styled today, which meant he’d met with a new client.
“You’re wearing one of your good suits,” I commented while hooking my ankle over my knee. “Who’d you sign?”
His bright green eyes crinkled at the corners as he motioned at his torso. “I’m always wearing one of my good suits, asshole. I did sign a new client for us, though. A Broadway star.”
“Broadway has stars?” I scratched my chin. “Actually, I did know that. My mom dragged me to a show a while ago when they visited.”
“Bravo.” He rolled his chair back and folded his hands over his stomach. “I’m glad you’ve been because you’re going to be guarding our new star starting next week. It’ll help if it’s not your first time stepping foot inside someplace cultured.”
“I’ve been to plenty of cultured places.”
He laughed. “You mean your mom took you to see a show, and that girl you used to date took you to a poetry reading, don’t you?”
I shrugged. “I went to the show and to the reading, didn’t I? Why does this actor need a guard?”
“Actress,” he corrected me. “She’s going to be making a comeback to Broadway on New Year’s. No one knows yet. It’s all very confidential.”
“Actress?” I blew out a heavy breath and scrubbed my hands down my cheeks. “Fuck. I was really hoping you were putting me on a guy this time around. I hate guarding women. They’re all the same.”
“You’re going to have to get over it,” he said. “I can’t have you walking into this job with an attitude like that. I need your sparkling personality back.”
“I don’t have a sparkling personality.” I folded my arms over my chest. “Are you sure you can’t put someone else on this? I’m not convinced I’m the best person for the job.”
“You are the best person for the job because you’re the guy I trust the most,” he said. “There have been some serious threats made on this woman’s life. If we can keep her safe, it might be a way for us to break into the Broadway crowd. A new industry means more clients. More clients mean more money, and more money makes us all very happy. Especially at this time of year.”
“You still want to go on that cruise in January, don’t you?”
He smirked. “I don’t just want to go. I am going. I’d invite you, but I know Mama Demming won’t allow it since it falls in their annual visit time.”
“Damn straight she won’t.” I turned over the prospect of having to guard some diva starlet for the next month. “There’s no way out of this for me, is there?”
“Nope. Not unless you’ve got a conflict I don’t know about.” He reached for a stack of papers lying in his printer and picked them up, placing them into an open, empty folder on his desk. “I promised her people my best guy, and like I said, that’s you.”
Bart had been my boss for almost a decade and my best friend for most of that time. I knew every expression in the guy’s arsenal, and I could tell he was serious about this. Whether I liked it or not, I was going to be stuck with this diva for the next month—at least.
“Is the job only until she makes her comeback?” I asked, resigning myself to the fact that this was going to happen.
He sat back, seeming relieved that I wasn’t going to argue with him about it. He ran a hand through his hair and released a slow breath. “I don’t know. The threats she’s received have all been to get her back onstage, but you never know how this is going to play out.”
“So we’re playing it by ear,” I concluded before realizing something. “Wait, if this is a comeback, she’s not some young diva starlet, is she?”
Please be an eccentric eighty-year-old who’s going to see me as her grandson and try teaching me poker. At least that way, I wouldn’t have to ring in the New Year by filling out more paperwork after another bogus complaint.
Bart shook his head. “I’ve never met her, so I don’t know if she’s a diva, but her team certainly seems to respect her. She’s in her mid-twenties. Apparently, she hit it big a few years ago but she had to take a break for personal reasons.”
“That’s her file?” I inclined my head at the folder he’d just prepared.
He pushed it across the desk to me. “Yep. You know the drill. Familiarize yourself with her, let me know if your spidey senses tingle over anything in there, and let’s put this bullshit with Mackey behind us.”
“Who is this chick anyway?” I asked as I picked up the file containing the information on the next person I had to babysit. Ahem. I mean guard.
A glint came into his eye and he cleared his throat before he started belting out a song I’d never heard before—or tried to belt it out anyway.