Daddy's Angel (Montana Daddies 7)

Larry glared up at him, but he did remove his hand from her arm and step back. “You are being ridiculous! I’m no danger to her. Arianna and I have been together for years.”

Together? He made it sound like they were a thing. But Bain had seen her reaction to the other man. There was nothing romantic about their relationship. In fact, Larry seemed to enjoy bullying Arianna one minute then being a condescending ass the next. Why the hell did she put up with this guy?

His surge of protectiveness caught him by surprise. It was just because she was the client. That’s all.

“They’re staying, Larry. Caleb hired them so I know they’re the best. He’s going to find me a permanent bodyguard.”

Larry moved his gaze from her to Bain then his lips curled up. “Fine, keep your bodyguards. I guess I can do something with them, but it’s a missed opportunity, Arianna. You get a guard with more of a following and it’s only going to help with sales of your next single. It flops and I’m gone. Not going to grab hold of a sinking ship, babe.”

Fucking asshole.

He could feel the slight woman standing beside him tremble, but she never made a noise, and she slipped slightly in front of him. What did she think she was doing?

“But don’t worry,” Larry said with an oily smile, as though he’d sensed he’d gone too far and was now working clean-up. “I can make anything work. I’ll have the media lapping all of this up. I can probably spin this. Yes, why didn’t I think of that before?”

“Think of what?” Dominic asked.

This guy was getting on his last nerve.

He clapped his hands together gleefully. “Singer’s courage in the face of her stalker. That’s some great publicity right there.”

“No,” Bain told him.

“No? What does that mean, no?” Larry blinked.

“It means that we can’t allow you to make these threats public,” Dominic said smoothly.

“Excuse me? Do I tell you how to do your job? This is gold, I just can’t believe I didn’t think about working this angle before. I can get behind this, definitely.”

“Protecting Ms. Silvers is our job,” Dominic interjected before Bain could do something stupid, like plant his fist in the weasel’s face.

Damn, that would be satisfying.

First thing first, though. He needed to get the client out of the line of fire. He stepped to her side and moved so he was standing halfway in front of her.

“Our job is to protect Arianna, and making these threats public could just serve to anger her stalker or it could give them what they want. Feed into the delusion. It could increase the risk to her,” Dominic said reasonably.

Bain didn’t know how he managed to stay so patient.

“What the fuck do you know about stalkers?” Larry gave Dominic a derisive look. “I’ll do what I have to in order to keep Arianna’s career alive and the money coming in. You do your job, I’ll do mine.”

Larry scowled at Bain. “Will you get out of the way? I need to talk to Arianna. We have work things to discuss.”

Bain crossed his arms over his chest. Like fuck he was leaving her with this dickhead.

But then a small hand touched his forearm. He glanced down into wide, moss-green eyes set in a calm face. He had to hand it to her, she knew how to hide her emotions. If he hadn’t felt her trembling, he’d have thought she was completely unaffected by this douche.

He felt certain she was about to ask him to remove Larry. And that would definitely be his pleasure.

“Could the two of you please give us a minute?” she said to Bain then turned to Dominic.

She wanted him to leave? What the fuck? He glanced over at Dominic, who was frowning. Two frowns in the space of an hour from Dominic. That didn’t bode well for his state of mind.

“Ms. Silvers?” Dominic asked. “You want us to go?”

She nodded. “Yes, please.”

Larry gave them a superior look as Bain stared down at her.