Fake Summer Boyfriend

No wonder. He was clearly an asshole.

He must have mentioned his father to Hayden once he found out about her classes at Huntley, in an attempt to get some leverage over her. What kind of a loser does that to a young woman?

Leaning back in my huge leather chair, I stared out the window into the dark, pondering my options.

There were many possibilities when trying to remove a threat. I’d had stalkers’ cars impounded so they couldn’t harass my clients before an important event, like a wedding or graduation. Yes, it was definitely underhanded for a slew of parking tickets to suddenly appear in the system, but it was definitely the lesser of two evils.

People had a right to privacy. It was one of the most basic things I believed in. But when someone harasses an innocent person, they give up that right.

Even though I already had Craig’s home address, I wanted to be able to know where he was at all times. Since he seemed to enjoy sitting in his car outside of Hayden’s home and workplace, I had decided to take that privilege away from him.

Calling up my tracker app, I transferred the code to my phone.

The little red blip showed that Craig was parked in front of Hayden’s building. Running his coordinates for the past few hours, I could see he had tried to follow us, but given up fairly quickly. After an hour of circling aimlessly, he had parked in front of her house again and remained there.

The fifty bucks I had slipped those skateboarders to place a magnetic tracker the size of a silver dollar under his back bumper was money well spent.

Hayden had told me not to confront him, but she hadn’t specifically said that I shouldn’t keep an incredibly close eye on him. Maybe it was a gray area, but I had to do absolutely everything I could to help her relax.

I wasn’t sure why it bothered me so much that she hadn’t been enjoying her summer. Maybe it was because the break between college and a person’s first real job was their last shot at youthful, irresponsible, high energy freedom.

Hayden seemed like a hard worker, and such a nice girl. She deserved that one big hurrah.

Somehow, I was going to find every possible opportunity to give it to her.

Chapter 7

_____

Hayden

I stared groggily at the ceiling. There was something wrong with the texture. Then I bolted up, gripping the covers and looking around. It took three blinks to realize where I was, then I relaxed and smiled.

Not only was I in Leif’s house, I was somewhere far away from Craig. It was the first time in ages that I felt like I had a white cloud full of rainbows following me around instead of doom and gloom.

After a quick shower, I got dressed for work, hoping that Leif wouldn’t mind giving me a ride. But when I went to check my phone, it was completely dead.

Following the smell of coffee, I went downstairs to the vast, gorgeous kitchen.

“Good morning,” Leif said, immediately reaching into a cupboard to grab a mug. “How do you take your coffee? Or would you prefer tea?”

“Coffee is great. Just a splash of milk, thanks.” He set it on the long marble countertop in front of a stool.

“I knew I would forget something,” I said, holding up my phone. “Do you have a charging cable I could borrow?”

“Of course.” He rummaged in a drawer, then plugged my phone into the outlet right beside me.

I barely had two sips of coffee when it sprang to life, already ringing. “Hello?”

“Hi, Hayden, it’s Alex.”

If my manager was calling me an hour before I was due in, something must be terribly wrong. I could already feel my stress levels rising.

“What happened?” I asked, standing up so I could think on my feet. “Do I need to come in early? Sorry if you called earlier and I missed it, my phone was dead and I’ve just now been able to start charging it.”

“Relax,” Alex laughed. “I’m calling to tell you not to come in at all.”

“Oh.” I was so taken aback that I nearly sputtered for a second. “Why?”