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No one toyed with his daughter’s life, and certainly not when they were on his payroll.
Once he had gone, it was the other security firm’s turn to be seen.
Worried that Kane might have already won the contract with his stunt, Todd Phillips of AAA Security had insisted upon finishing his pitch, the one that had been so rudely interrupted with Kane’s unorthodox stunt.
Kane could have argued back and, in typical fashion would have — the guy was a jerk and needed to be taken down a peg or two. But he decided it might be wiser to pick his battles and forced his ego to take a backseat.
The armchair he sat on was about as comfortable as a rock and must have been chosen for aesthetics more than anything else. The rest of the furniture seemed equally uninviting, which seemed strange given the environment. Weren’t libraries meant to house people who wanted to read for long periods of time? Why would this be the furniture of choice?
Unless this was where they sent guests who displeased them.
He glanced over the spines of the leather-bound books on the shelves. If they weren’t encyclopedias — and who used those when there was Wikipedia? — they had titles like The History of this, The Battle of that, all subjects you couldn’t pay him to read, not unless he was suffering from a bout of insomnia. Then, the books might have come in handy.
By an antique mahogany table, screenplays, with their titles written in the spines in black marker, were stacked in neat piles. Unlike their book counterparts, they were well thumbed-through, having been read many times. Though he wasn’t an ardent theater-goer, even he recognized a few of the titles, several of which were vehicles Mandy had starred in.
Bud sat beside him, still on high alert. He knew they were working and wouldn’t properly relax until they arrived back home on the beach, which was why his sneaky lick of Lexi’s hands had surprised him.
As affectionate as his dog was to him, that affection wasn’t usually directed at others so his apparent affection for her was particularly unusual.
His canvas messenger bag pinged with notification of an email. Checking his iPad, he opened the message. It was the file from Clara he’d been waiting half the day for.
Sorry for the delay, Kane. Here’s the overview of the client I’ve put together for you. If you need anything else, just call me. I’m always around. xoxo
She always signed off his emails with “xoxo” which he’d thought was just a Clara thing. It wasn’t until Wilson explained that he received preferential treatment that he’d realized Wilson’s assistant had a crush on him.
Maybe if she did her job better, he’d take her out for a drink.
Nothing irritated him more than people who didn’t do their jobs properly.
Tapping on the attachment icon, he waited for the file to download. A window opened with a full-screen image of Lexi confronting him with her startling beauty yet again.
Thick chestnut hair fell to her waist in waves. Her big blue eyes, a shade or two lighter than her mom’s, sparkled with warmth, yet seemed to keep all at arm’s distance at the same time. Her beauty was effortlessly timeless, with the gamine quality of Audrey Hepburn mixed with the dangerous body of a Victoria Secret’s model.
He dragged his eyes away from her face and started on her written file.
Lexi grew up in the shadow of her parents’ fame.
Although her childhood had been one glamorous Hollywood event after another, she’d held good grades and healthyhobbies. She loved to read though her greatest joy was riding her thoroughbred horse, Spirit, until he passed away a few years ago. For whatever reason or another, she never replaced him.
Graduating with a degree in English Literature, Lexi surprised everyone when she didn’t move ahead with a career as an author, a direction in which it seemed she’d been heading. Instead, she’d taken a low-level job at her father’s studio, writing coverage for screenplays that were submitted.
He raised a brow at how little the job paid, having expected her to have been made an exception to the rule, considering Stonewall’s role in the company. Having said that, it wasn’t as if she was lacking financially, not from what he could see of her trust fund.
There was more money there than he’d ever see in his lifetime.
He found a handwritten note scribbled in Wilson’s untidy scrawl that had been scanned and added to the file. He had to squint to make out the words.
Wilson had noted that Lexi had recently started fundraising for several local charities. She used the contacts she’d made through her parents to raise financing for Apples, a charity that specialized in saving ex-racehorses from the butchers block, and PAWS, a no-kill shelter that was bursting at the seams. She also volunteered there on the weekends.
“That why you like her?”
In response to the question, Bud cocked his head and chuffed. His dog must have picked up on her love of animals. Dogs — animals in general — seemed to know when a good person was in their midst.
He wasn’t swayed in his initial opinion of her: however nice she might be to animals, she could still be a nightmare as most Hollywood spawn were.
He carried on reading.
She had a few friends that she would hang out with, but their gatherings seemed infrequent. Clara had scoped out her friends’ Instagram feeds and provided a small timeline of who was who. All the posts that featured her seemed to have been from years back. He couldn’t find anything recent about her: there were no pictures of her online past the age of sixteen.
