Logically speaking, he knew it would be best to call this thing with Lia to a halt. Because she was so different from the usual types of women he associated with, his mind hadn’t dumped her in the “casual sexual partner” category. Instead it had given her a corner all to herself. A corner neatly labeled “Lia.” And because his brain had made that distinction, he was fooling himself into thinking she was special. He was losing sight of their initial arrangement. Just a fling. Casual fun. He’d smashed all her carefully considered rules and had failed to acknowledge that they made complete sense. He’d cuddled, talked to her, gotten to know her, slept with her . . .
She was different. Because Sam had made her different. But he was fooling himself. They were existing in a bubble right now. As soon as the real world intruded, his fascination with her would end. Continuing to make love with her would only serve to make that inevitable reality check all the more jarring.
“Ah, fuck,” Sam breathed a few hours later after finally contacting Colby. He squeezed the nape of his neck, hoping to ease the tension building there. “Repeat that, please. I want to be sure I heard you right before fucking firing your ass.”
Colby sighed.
“Lally’s done a runner. Friday was a nightmare of a day. The police confirmed that one of the prison guards was smuggling the notes out and sending them to Lally on Weathers’s behalf. The guy was arrested, but press got wind of the story and falsely reported that Weathers had escaped. Naturally Lally panicked, she stormed in here and demanded to speak with you and then had a meltdown when we wouldn’t tell her where you were. We tried to tell her that Weathers was still safely behind bars, but she was completely freaked out.”
“Damn it, Colby! I should fucking fire you,” Sam said wearily, his words lacking heat. Both he and Colby knew he wouldn’t make good on his threat. She was good at her job. Lally was a difficult client. Sometimes, despite the company’s best efforts, the client was their own worst enemy. “And you’ve tried pinging Lally’s phone?”
“Of course. We know she went incognito and bought a couple of tickets on Eurostar. So I’m guessing she’s trying to put as much distance between herself and Weathers as possible. When she calms down and realizes that he’s really still in prison, she’ll surface again. The press doesn’t know that she’s gone, and she doesn’t have any concerts or appearances scheduled over the next couple of weeks. Look, it’s not all bad. While she ditched the rest of her team, I think Tyler is still with her. But he hasn’t checked in since last night. His phone is out of order or switched off. We can’t ping the GPS and locate him through it. My theory is Lally did something to it or even chucked it. It’s exactly the kind of shit she would pull. But maybe her being under the radar for a while is a good thing? Tyler will keep her in line.”
“I don’t like not knowing where she is,” Sam muttered, still squeezing his nape. It definitely wasn’t helping with the tension.
“Tyler will check in as soon as he can, I’m sure of that. I’m so sorry about this, Brand.”
“Lally can be hard to curb and unpredictable when she has her mind set on something,” Sam said. “Just keep me in the loop, okay?”
“What happened with those ‘important things’ you had to deal with?” Colby asked, her tongue firmly in her cheek.
“Don’t push it, Campbell, you’re already on thin ice.”
“Yes, boss. Sorry, boss.” Sam shook his head at the impertinence and disconnected the call.
Fucking Lally. He got that she was frightened, but she had never truly trusted his team, and that made her hard to work with. He wouldn’t have been able to remain her CPO indefinitely, even if the attack hadn’t happened—eventually he would have had to entrust her to one of his other officers. But in typical spoiled Lally fashion, she had been resistant to the idea, and he had pandered to her longer than he should have.
After this he’d make it clear to her that if she continued to make her security team’s job difficult, then she’d have to find another agency to handle her protection.
“Hey, sunshine,” Sam greeted when Lia answered her phone later that evening. He had tried not to call, but an entire day without hearing her voice was proving to be too long. “I missed you today. Trevor did really well in his first socialization class. I wish you could have seen him.”
“He did?” she asked. Her voice was still hoarse, but it was improving.
“I’m not going to lie, I was nervous. But our boy was the star of the show. Best-behaved pup in the class. He seemed a little uneasy around the other dogs, but they were all pretty even tempered. He didn’t engage with any of them, but he was more relaxed by the end of the class.”