I never knew what dumbstruck really meant until this moment.

I’m face to face with the woman from the billboard. The woman I’ve been hired to protect. And in person, Molly Parker looks more stunning than anything I’d even thought about imagining. I never knew a photoshoot could dim someone’s good looks, but this woman looks so good it’s criminal.

Her hair spilling down her shoulder is like rich, dark wood, and it sets off the tone of her pale skin beautifully. Then there are those eyes that hold me paralyzed even though they just looked as stunned to see me as I am to see her.

Fuck me, I’m not starstruck, am I?

I always imagined getting glared at condescendingly by someone so famous, but Molly looks as stunned and frozen as I do. It almost feels like we’re looking into mirrors, and before I know it, a full five seconds have passed with us just...taking each other in.

Then it wears off for us at about the same time, and she tries to slam the door in my face.

“Miss Parker,” I nearly bark as I catch the door with one hand, keeping the heavy wood from getting thrust shut. Her face looks surprised and a little scared that I’m able to hold it open so easily. In the same moment, I take out my wallet and flash my security agent license in the crack of the door. “Wes Jameson. I’m the security you hired.”

Her mouth hangs open for a moment as she seems too taken aback to talk. I knew she was famous for those lips, but standing in front of them, they’re fuller than any camera could capture.

When she finally regains her senses, she gives her head a little shake, and color comes to her cheeks. “Security. Right. Um...come on in, sorry.”

She pulls the door open and lets me step inside. I cast a glance behind me once more before I step in.

As the heavy door shuts behind me, the sound of the door shutting gives me plenty of information. Hollow steel frame filled with insulation to dampen sound. Solid-core, bonded wood. Automatic magnetic lock. The usuals you’d expect in a five-star hotel.

Next, I take in the room. With a name like the Grand Arbor, I was expecting luxury, but damn. The interior is wood-panel walls with chocolate brown trim and more wall-lights than I can count. It’s roomy enough to be a big living room in a regular house, and there’s a massive coffee table standing in the middle of it with a huge bouquet of flowers on it. A California king-size bed sits on a little raised platform of white tile above the rest of the light brown wooden flooring.

And in the middle of all of it is Molly Parker, running her fingers through her rich hair, standing there awkwardly. She’s wearing jeans, a tank top, a cardigan, and her makeup isn’t nearly as heavy as she has to keep it for camera appearances.

In the middle of all the luxury, I have to admit, she almost looks like a regular person.

“So uh...hi,” she says with a nervous smile and a wave after tearing her eyes away from...was she checking me out? “Molly Parker. Sorry about that. Nice to meet you. Wes, you said?”

“Yep.”

She nods, and there’s another pause between us. Her cheeks go a little red. This is gonna be a long night.

“So,” I say, breaking the tension and stepping into the room, slinging the heavy bag from off my back and setting it on the coffee table. “I’ll be honest, the contract I got was a little slim on details, Miss Parker,” I say as she backs away from me while I walk through the room. She’s jumpy. That, and I stand out in this room like a bull in a china shop. “So I over prepared.”

She comes a little closer to watch me take a large laptop and a few handfuls of wires out of my bag. I notice her eyes lingering on some of the ammunition I have in that bag, too. I have guns strapped to my torso, but she doesn’t need to see those unless I need to use them.

“Anything you could possibly need for a one-person hotel room, I should have covered,” I say simply, hooking up a few cords to the laptop and carry it over to the hotel phone, which I unplug, using the phone jack for one of my wires. I cast a glance around the room. “Can’t guarantee this room was built for safety, though. You always lie low in... style?”

She looks a little indignant at that, but she tucks some hair behind her ear--probably an agitated habit--and brushes the comment off.

“It was short notice for me, too,” she says. “Believe me, I wasn’t planning to have to spend the holidays on my own either.”

“Oh, so am I here to keep you company?” I ask with a mocking grin over my shoulder as I work. “I’ll warn you, sweetheart, I’m no Santa, and this bag of surprises doesn’t have any toys in it. Not the kind actresses like to play with, at least.”

I catch a glimpse of her face screwing up into a scowl behind me.

“No, I was getting more of an ‘abominable snowman’ vibe from that scruff you’ve got going on.”

She’s quick, I’ll give her that.

“Really though, what are we looking at?”

She takes a breath and swallows, composing herself.

“Okay, so I don’t know what you’ve heard in the news about me, but-”

“Nothing at all.”

She blinks, staring at me blankly for a second.

“Wait, seriously?”

“Sorry, my life only started revolving around you about three minutes ago when I walked through that door, and it’ll stop again when I walk back out.”

She wrings her hands a little, pacing around the room behind me as she thinks a moment.

“Well excuse me, I didn’t realize I was hiring a bodyguard who lives under a rock.”

I’ll admit, I had that one coming.

“I guess I should be happy about that. I wanted my lawyer to help keep everything under wraps, so I he must be doing a good job.”

“You seem like you’re a hard person to keep under wraps.”

She ignores that.

“The short version is, you’re here because I’m having trouble with my manager, and it’s gotten serious.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Look, if you think I can intimidate someone into getting you a better contract…”

She sighs and shakes her head quickly.

“No no no, listen. Look, I know this is for work, but if I fill you in on everything, I need you to swear it won’t get out to the public. I mean, I guess I don’t exactly have another contract for that, but…”

I turn around and give her a flat stare, then glance down at my dusty leather jacket, jeans, boots, and rough hands. “Do I look like the kind of guy who gets out and talks?”

She gives me a weary look. “Outside of a saloon in a Clint Eastwood movie? No, not really.”

I cross my arms and lean against the wall by the phone jack.

“Seriously though, I respect my clients’ confidentiality. Nobody will even know I’m here working for you, if I have my way.”

That seems to relax her a little, and she nods.

“Thank you. My manager, Eddie Arnold…” she pauses to compose herself. Actresses. “...is after me. Somehow. It all started a few weeks ago. I’ve known him since I was a little girl, but he made a pass at me that I was absolutely not comfortable with, and he didn’t take the rejection well. But I had signed a contract that he’d gotten me to sign in a hurry, and in short, my career is...it’s totally in his hands.”

There’s exasperation in her voice that I can’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy for, and I frown. She’s an actress, but I can tell when someone’s holding genuine emotion back.

“So he’s twisting the knife until you do something for him you don’t want to do,” I say, and she nods, swallowing.

“That’s not even the half of it. Literally every piece of work that I could get goes through his desk. I don’t even know about anything unless it goes through him. He owns me, and he’s using that against me.”

I’m starting to see where this is going. That kind of behavior strikes a chord with the kind of manipulative shit I saw in the mafia. And frankly, it makes me furious, even if it’s a spoiled girl like Molly Parker getting jerked around.

“I thought that was going to be the worst of it,” she goes on, “but then he threatened me. He said that if I don’t come to him, he’ll...he’ll drag me back. Things got so intense so fast, and I found out my condo was compromised, so I moved here as quickly and quietly as I could. My parents don’t even know I’m here.”

“Slow down,” I say, knitting my eyebrows. “Compromised how? Do you think he’s going to try something drastic?”

“My lawyer thinks someone was heading to my condo,” she says, nodding.

“Do you trust him?” I ask immediately, and her eyes go wide.

“My lawyer? Yes, he’s one of the only people I do trust in all this. Believe me, if he was working for Eddie, he’s had all the chances in the world to turn me over to him. He would have done it by now.”

I nod in agreement, but there’s a frown on my face. “Alright Miss Parker, kidnapping is a lot more serious than what the contract details led me to think. I really should have been briefed on more of this before coming into all this blind.”

“Well, you’re the one who took the job so quickly,” she fires back, a little bite to her voice, and I raise my eyebrows. The next moment, she reins herself back in, breathing deeply. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped. I’m just...on edge after all this. And I’m not used to working with bodyguards, either.”

“Really?” I say. “Here I thought little starlets didn’t leave the house without a full entourage.”

She shoots me a dirty look, and I raise my hands inoffensively and turn around to keep working on the phone jack.

“What are you doing, anyway?” she asks, moving closer to hover over me while I work. “I forgot your job is more than taking shots at my lifestyle.”

“I’m tapping into the hotel’s CCTV feed,” I say gruffly, moving to the laptop to start checking my connection and setting up the stream. “If we’re going to be bunkering up in a hotel room, I want to have eyes outside.”

Her long eyelashes flutter in surprise.

“Oh. Is...is that legal?”

“I won’t tell if you don’t.”

She doesn’t find that as funny as I do.

I spend the next few minutes getting everything rigged up, including a little camera at the peephole in the door to give us a better, centralized feed for everything, and all the while, Molly is on my heels like a puppy, prodding me with questions about what’s what. It’s annoying, but I’ve dealt with worse.

By the time I finally get a visual on the CCTV security cameras and sit down, I hear a buzzing sound across the room.

“Oh--that’s my phone,” Molly says, moving to pick up her phone and answer it.

“You shouldn’t be taking calls right now,” I say without looking away from the screen.

“It’s my lawyer,” she says, “he’s the only person I can talk to right now!”

I roll my eyes as she answers the phone.

“Hello?” I hear her say, and I keep my attention on the camera feed, but I can’t help but hear her words. “Yeah, he’s here getting set up and--what?” A pause. “You’re kidding me,” she says, her voice starting to shake a little. “Arthur, I’m backed into a hole here, I-”

I turn around, and I see her eyes rimmed with shining tears, a hand to her mouth.

“O-okay, but what do I-”

I snap my fingers at her, standing up and approaching her. She nearly jumps, but puts her hand over the phone and asks “What?”

“Something I need to know?” I ask quickly.

“Eddie knows I’m here,” she says, her voice thin and squeaking. It’s the voice of someone truly backed into a corner. “Arthur says he has men on the way--we need to get out of here!”

“Give me the phone,” I order, and she looks dumbstruck, but she’s too shocked to protest when I take it from her hands.

I can hear a man’s voice asking questions from the line, but I ignore it as I pry the phone open, to her horror. “What are you doing?!”

I see a little device under the phone’s cover that confirms my suspicions, and I show it to Molly. “Your phone’s bugged. That’ll be how they tracked you.”

Her face goes pale, and without another moment to spare, I put the phone on the ground and stomp my heel into it, shattering the thing.

Molly gasps, looking between me and it in shock. “Oh my god!”

“You need to be checking your phone for this kind of thing, if you’re being chased,” I say simply, keeping my voice calm.

“I just got that phone!” she exclaims.

I raise my eyebrow, and it dawns on her why that would explain the bug. She sits down on the couch, looking terrified.

“Oh my god, how many people does Eddie have coming after me?”

“If they had you bugged, they were likely tracking you,” I say crossing back to my laptop and flipping through the channels on the security, and my heart starts to pick up at what I see.

This job just got a lot more interesting.

“What?” she asks, looking over at me, distressed.

“Your manager must have deep pockets,” I say, my eyes focusing on some of the faces I see moving around the hotel. “And he must want you very badly.”

“What are you talking about?” she snaps, hurrying over to my side, and I point to some of the men in each feed of the security.

“See these men here?” I point out a few of the people that have caught my attention in the cameras. “Bulky jackets, wide frames, look like they’ve seen combat? They aren’t the types of people who stay in five-star hotels. I recognize them. They’re ‘security’ who work for a company called North Sonoran Security. They’re mercenaries, more or less. All veterans, all of their officers formerly involved in black ops. These are the kind of men drug lords hire.”

It occurs to me that what I’m saying isn’t exactly reassuring. I look over to see utter terror written on her face, and I add, “They don’t know we can see them, though. But it does mean this is more serious than you could have known.”

I expect her to break down, but instead, I watch her carefully compose herself, breathing deeply and stifling her fear to show a still, unreadable face. “Okay. Okay, there are military mercenaries here. For me. No problem.”

Well, mostly composed.

I can’t blame her, either. This is the big leagues.

“Stay calm,” I say. “We know two things we didn’t know a moment ago.”

“What’s that?”

“One: we know what lengths your friend Eddie is willing to go to, so he’s going to have a hard time surprising us again,” I say, my voice even. The next part is more complicated though, and my mind is already churning, going through the blueprints of the hotel I studied on the way over here, thinking about our options. I wasn’t expecting to have to outwit special ops, but after all, the excitement is part of why I like this job.

“Two,” I say, turning to look her in those sparkling amber eyes, “this hotel room is no longer safe.”