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If she blew it, she’d never get another one.

She cradled the charms in her hand for a minute, watching the light reflect off them.

There was no way she was giving up this opportunity. This was what she’d been born to do, and she refused to slink back to her family just so they could look superior and say “I told you so.”

The voice behind her startled her. “You got another one, didn’t you.”

Ashley nearly jumped out of her skin—she hadn’t even heard the door open. Her hand jerked and the charms skittered across the top of her vanity table. She swung around to see her tour manager, Harrison Ward.

“You scared the crap out of me, Sonny,” she said, using her childhood nickname for him. “Am I going to have to put a bell around your neck?”

The big man snorted, running his hand through his curly bronze-colored hair. Harrison was a lion shifter, and he looked it—six-six and bulky, his hair a tangled mane. He refused to be diverted by her complaint.

“You got another letter from that crazy-ass stalker,” he repeated.

She sighed. “Don’t make a big deal out of it,” she said. “Come on, Sonny. If my family thinks there’s a threat—”

“I promised them I’d protect you,” he interrupted. “And I do not want to have your father and brothers pissed off at me, thank you very much. They’ll destroy me and devour my bones.”

He was only exaggerating a little. Maybe. Her family expected things to be done right, and screw-ups weren’t tolerated.

“You know they’ll make me go back if you tell them,” she argued. “The tour will go bust, and both our careers will be ruined. Neither one of us wants that to happen.”

He ran his hand through his hair again. “Then I’m getting you a bodyguard,” he said.

Oh, fuck. She drew herself up into diva mode. “We already have the tightest security in show business,” she snapped. “I refuse to have some ape standing over me night and day, watching my every move. I might as well be back home if that’s how it’s going to be.”

Harrison just grinned at her. “Don’t you go all princess on me, Princess,” he said. “You want to sing, you have a bodyguard. On account of the only thing worse for me than telling your family I’m leaving you unprotected against a stalker is me telling them your stalker kidnapped you—or worse—because I didn’t think you needed a bodyguard.”

“Nobody’s kidnapping me, Sonny,” she said, turning back to her makeup mirror and picking up her hairbrush. She made a show of curling a lock of hair around it just so. “Who’d want me? I’m too much trouble.”

“You can say that again,” he said, shaking his head. “Good thing I like you anyway. But you’re getting a bodyguard. You don’t like it, complain to your dad.”

As if. She’d used up all her father’s patience for the next twenty years just getting him to let her come to Nashville.

She sighed. “You win,” she said. But she couldn’t give in completely—at least, not without messing with him a little. “If you have to get me a bodyguard, though, at least get me a hot one. Blond, green eyes, with that sexy little ‘v’ of muscle leading down to his Mr. Happy—”

“Seriously?” Harrison folded his arms. “You want fries with that order, Princess? I’m getting you the bug-ugliest bodyguard I can find, and you leave his Mr. Happy alone. Or I will tell your dad on you.”

Ashley swiveled to face him and pouted ostentatiously. “And what the hell am I supposed to do with him if I can’t play with Mr. Happy?”

Harrison shook his head and blew out a sigh. “Just try not to get kidnapped until I get him here, okay?”

Ashley glanced down at the charms. With the others, they spelled “RUN ME.”

Nobody runs me, she thought. And nobody runs me off.

“Fine,” she said grumpily, turning back to her makeup mirror. “Bring on the ugly.”