Extra-delicious, she was sure. But she had snug t-shirts and hip-hugging jeans to fit into. Bloating was not her friend while on tour.
Once everyone was well fed, Ryan and Hope took the kids down to the lake, leaving Dean and Liana alone to get more serious about bodyguard orientation.
He’d come prepared with more than just breakfast. He jogged back to his SUV and returned with a black utilitarian looking messenger bag, out of which he pulled a folder of papers, a slim tablet, and the little notebook from the day before. It looked like many more pages had notes scribbled on them.
“Did you sleep at all last night?” she asked, watching him set everything out in front of her—all neatly squared off, too.
“A few hours.” He snapped open the folder and crisply handed her the top two sheets. “Signed non-disclosure agreements from Zander and myself. Hope’s picking up our fees, but we want you to understand that we’re serious about being on your side. Nothing you tell us will ever leave the vault.”
She ran her eyes over the neat rows of black ink. Smart. And she hadn’t even considered… “Thank you.”
“Not a problem.”
Mercy, he was suddenly all business. She kind of missed the winking smile from breakfast.
“And we’ve worked up a couple of possible cover stories for why you’re returning to the tour with a bodyguard.”
“Cover stories.”
He nodded.
“You worked them up?”
He set the tablet down and frowned at her. “Are you okay?”
“Yep.”
“Maybe you should have had more breakfast.”
“When did you guys do this?”
“This morning at the diner, while Frank was making the sandwiches.”
“Oh.”
“Nobody else was there.”
No, she imagined not. “Everyone else was sleeping,” she said dryly.
He laughed. “Not in Pine Harbour.”
She took in all the work that he’d done, then looked back up at him. “Okay, I’m impressed.”
He leaned against the table, his arms and broad chest flexing against another light cotton button-down shirt, this one a solid dark blue. He caught her gaze and held it. “We’re not playing here, Liana.”
“I see that.” She nodded up at him. “Tell me what our options are for introducing you.”
He waved the tablet. “We could invent a threat. Pretty easy to do, but the downside would be someone from the label wanting to get the police involved. Could also be easily exposed, although we’d go to significant efforts to cover our tracks.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know how I feel about that. It could be seen as a ploy for sympathy if it ever came out.”
“Yeah, we agree. Next option is we fly through New York on the way to Washington. Our contacts tell us that trips to New York and Los Angeles are often times when celebrities secure the services of security agencies. Usually short-term contracts, but it could be explained away if you’re going to maybe consider buying property in one of those two cities? To maintain this story, I’d recommend we visit those cities again in those down days between tour legs.”
She leaned back in her chair, looking at the man across from her with new appreciation. “That’s very clever.”
He grinned. “Thank you. That one was my idea.”
“Only problem is that I have no reason to buy real estate in New York. Maybe Los Angeles, although it’s not my favourite city.”
