one
It was three a.m.
He fucking hated three a.m. phone calls.
Colin fumbled for his phone on the bedside table, knocking a half-empty water bottle and his wallet to the floor in the process.
He actually didn’t love any calls after two a.m. and before about five a.m. Nothing good happened between those hours when he was asleep and the people who had this number weren’t.
He frowned at his phone. It wasn't ringing. What the fuck? What was that noise then?
He listened for a moment, prying his eyes open. That was definitely a phone.
He looked around. Was he in his own bedroom? He hadn't spent time in too many other bedrooms since coming to Louisiana, but it wasn't absolutely out of the realm of possibility.
Yes, this was his room. He reached for the opposite side of the bed. It was empty. He didn't have a hangover and he didn't remember bringing anyone in here last night, so the phone ringing had to belong to him. Didn't it?
He pushed himself up to sit. Then it came to him. He had Henry's phone. Right. Now he remembered. Henry had just left town a few hours ago, leaving his work phone with Colin. Dammit.
Colin didn't know all of the people who might be calling Henry at three a.m., but he couldn't imagine that it was with good news.
Except that it might be Cian. Cian O’Grady was Henry's best friend and Henry had been Cian's bodyguard for the past ten years. Cian was in line—though fairly far down the line—for the throne of Cara. Yes, the throne. Cara was a small island nation south of the Faroe Islands. It had been gifted to Cian’s great-great-great-grandfather, an Irish sailor, by the King of Denmark after Cian’s ancestor saved the king’s life. It was a…wild history. And there was a crazy present to go with it. All of the grandchildren of the current king—including Cian—had abdicated the throne and come to the U.S. where they’d lived for the past decade. In spite of his anger over that, the king had insisted all of his grandchildren have bodyguards. So Colin had been assigned to Fiona, Cian’s sister, and her daughter Saoirse, while Henry had been assigned to Cian, the young playboy prince.
Cian would absolutely call someone, especially Henry, at three a.m.
If Cian was calling and causing Colin to answer in the middle of the night for something stupid, he was going to get an earful, prince or not.
Colin finally located the offending device on his bedside table on the other side of the lamp. He grabbed it up, swiped across the screen, and held it to his ear. “What?”
There was a pause on the other end, then a soft, feminine, definitely-not-Cian voice said, “Henry?”
“No.” Henry was supposed to have told his clients that he was going to be out of town. But Colin supposed, given the last-minute flurry around Henry’s leaving, someone could have missed the message. “Who's this?” Colin tried to soften his voice.
“I really need to talk to Henry.”
Okay, the really caught Colin’s attention. “He’s not here. Who is this?”
“Oh, um…”
If Henry had given this number to a girlfriend, Colin was going to…well, fuck, he wasn’t going to do much. Colin was Henry’s boss, but Henry knew damned well that Colin would never fire him. Henry was too fucking good. And Colin liked the guy. And trusted him. The trust thing was way more important in their line of work than the liking thing, but it was nice to like the guys he depended on too, he supposed. They’d known each other too damned long for Colin to boot Henry for being stupid about a woman, that was for sure.
Especially one with a soft, husky voice like this one.
But Colin was sure as hell going to chew Henry’s ass for handing out his work number for personal reasons.
“Ma'am, Henry isn’t reachable. Can I help?” Colin asked, finally managing to make his voice a little less gruff and firm.
“No, I need Henry. Never mind. I'm sorry.” She hung up.
Colin pulled the phone back away from his face. Okay, well, that was that. He could set the phone on the table and go back to sleep. Henry’s girl would have to pull out her vibrator or find someone else. It wasn’t Colin’s fault that Henry hadn’t given her his personal number. And Henry would have to deal with the fall-out of her realizing that whenever he got back.
But something was bugging him.
He was not offering to help Henry’s three a.m. hook-up with scratching any itches, but…this didn’t feel right.
And one thing Colin Daly always did was trust his gut.
Dammit. If she was a client, he needed to find out who she was. Clients didn't call their bodyguards at three a.m. for no reason.
He tapped back to find her number. She was listed simply as HER. Real nice, Henry.
But at the same time, Colin knew it was possible that this client needed to be listed by initials or a pseudonym so that not just anyone could find her name.
Which meant, she wasn’t a hook-up.
They were bodyguards. Private security. They took care of people who needed protection. They didn't have any really high-profile clients right now—unless you counted the royalty for Cara, which most people probably wouldn't, considering most people didn't even know the tiny country existed. Additionally, now that Cian's older brother Torin had returned home to take over the throne, his siblings definitely had less pressure on them.
But Colin wanted to have high-profile clients. That was the whole point of starting this new company. He, Henry, and Jonah, Torin’s ex-bodyguard, were now essentially unemployed, specially trained, not-qualified-or-interested-in-much-else security professionals. Colin needed to build this company up and the client list was important.
Maybe Henry had recently talked to someone who was thinking about hiring private security and she was just getting back to him.
Colin tapped her number and listened to it ring twice.
“Henry?” she answered.
“No. Henry's not available. But I'm happy to help. I'm filling—”
She hung up.
Dammit.
Instead of calling her back again, Colin punched in Henry's personal phone number.
It was nine a.m. in London, and Henry answered with a perky, “Good morning, Boss.”
“Who is HER?”
“Her who?”
“You have someone in your phone listed as HER. Who is she?”
Henry paused. “Why?”
“Dammit, Henry, she just called. It's three a.m. here. She's looking for you and won't talk to me. She hung up twice when she found out you’re not answering this phone.”
Henry muttered a curse. “Hayden Ross. She didn't say why she's calling?”
Hayden Ross. Well…fuck.
Of course, it would be her. “She did not,” Colin said. “Any idea what’s going on?”
Obviously, she needed something. This was a problem on many levels. Hayden Ross wasn't a huge client. Yet. But holy shit, the potential was there.
She was a new, up-and-coming singer-songwriter. She'd been discovered less than a year ago but had blown up quickly on social media. Colin’s company had been tapped to provide some additional security for her at a recent show because they had mutual friends.
She was just starting out. She was young. Twenty-three. If she turned into a star, even moderately successful, she could need long-term security.