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The man that walked in with Alex was not what I had been expecting at all. This man was at least six feet tall, slim but athletic build, with floppy curls framing his face. He had dark soulful eyes that looked like they hadn’t seen sleep in a week. The fact he broke the stereotype I had assumed would be walking in here, mixed with how lost he looked, spoke to me. Something in my body yearned to connect with him.
Johnny smiled and introduced us. “Lennox Love, this is Tom Thatcher. He owns the security firm we hired to deal with all Spitfire Junction’s security.”
I held out my hand for him to shake and was caught off guard to feel a warm tingling radiating up my arm and into my body from every point his skin made contact with mine. “Nice to meet you. Sorry about the circumstances.”
He grimaced and all thoughts of Levi being the right guy to take the lead on this assignment went right out the window. After the reaction Lennox had just inspired in me, I was going to be the lead bodyguard on this case.
“It’s all good.” I smiled warmly back at him. “It’s your protection I’m here for.”
Lennox’s eyes met mine and seemed to search for something and then looked away. “Thank you.”
I didn’t miss the almost negligible side eye offered to me by my friend Johnny. I gave him a slight eyebrow raise as a challenge and whatever he had been implying was dropped as quickly as it was raised.
Lennox sat opposite me with Alex beside him and Johnny at the head of the conference table.
“So, last night Lennox had an uninvited visitor to his hotel room while he wasn’t there. The police were called, as was Eric Mullan.”
Agreeing with the decision to bring Eric in on this, I nodded. He was a damn good investigator and the more information we had on whoever this was, the more equipped we would be. Sure, the cops were on it, but with how under-resourced they were these days, it was better for Lennox’s safety that Johnny and Alex went that extra mile for their latest signing.
“Who’s Eric Mullan?” Lennox interrupted.
“A private investigator, best I’ve worked with,” I interjected before Johnny could say anything. “When is he hoping to have data back to you?” My eyes didn’t leave Lennox until the last word, even though I was addressing Johnny.
“He thought it would be a few days.”
“Any more gigs before that?”
Lennox answered, “There’s one tomorrow. If it’s as bad as you guys think it could be, shouldn’t we be cancelling these? Or rescheduling them?”
I shook my head. “Negative, right now our best defence is the fact that she doesn’t know we’re looking for her.”
Lennox eyed me with suspicion. “I’m not sure how comfortable I feel about being bait, Mr Thatcher.”
I adorned my best smile and attempted to turn on the charm. “No, you completely misunderstand my meaning here. You won’t be anyone’s bait. When pressure is placed on a subject who is already escalating, it can cause them to panic. They then move forward faster or derail completely and do something dangerous, ill advised, and ultimately someone always gets hurt. If they don’t know that we’re aware of them, they continue with whatever plan they have to their own timescale which is infinitely safer for you. Plus, it gives us a much better hand to play.”
Lennox looked at me like he didn’t believe a word I’d just said. Johnny and Alex didn’t look like they did either.
“Look,” I tried to explain it further, “if you had a plan, and thought that I might stop you, you’d panic, you’d change your plans, and you’d take risks. Risks are what get people hurt.”
Johnny smirked at me. “Lennox, I know he sounds like he’s talking out of his arse right now, and that he’s being very flippant and blasé about your safety, but I would trust this man with Alex’s life. He’s that good at his job.”
Alex smiled sympathetically at Lennox and nodded his agreement with his partner’s statement. “He might not be good at describing why and how he knows what he does, but if we thought he would put you or anyone else at risk, we simply wouldn’t hire him.”
“I wouldn’t be as successful and trusted as I am in this business if I didn’t know what I was doing,” I added. This first meeting with a client wasn’t going anything like it usually would. Maybe I should have just been leaving this one to Levi. No, that’s definitely not happening.
I put both my hands up in the air as a symbol of surrender. “Look, give me forty-eight hours to protect you. At the end of that time, if you’re not happy with the protection you’re given, I will assign someone else to take over your case. Deal?”
Lennox’s gaze left me feeling like I was being put under a microscope.
“Okay,” he agreed.
Internally I sighed with relief. I didn’t know why I needed him to trust me, or why I needed to be near him, but I had an inexplicable desire to find out.
“Guys, can you give me some time with Lennox so I can find out what exactly has been happening with him and this stalker?” Alex and Johnny agreed and left us to it. “So, do you want to talk me through everything about you and this hotel room visitor?”
CHAPTER 3
LENNOX
