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“You’ll see,” he whispered back, and he raised a brow.
CHAPTER TWO
Somebody is stalking me.
Maxine Summers sat dazed in her office at Dream Weddings, Inc. Heat shot through her veins and boiled her blood. It hadn’t been six months since she’d taken over the position of CEO of the company from Lucy Shillerton and, ever since, she’d been plagued by a series of hate mail in her inbox.
Trouble was—she didn’t know she even had enemies!
“Well, this one’s new,” Maxine whispered looking at the screen of her laptop on her desk.
“What does it say?” Betty, the new receptionist who took over for the previous secretary, Darla, seemed as anxious as Maxine.
Maxine read the message out loud. “I know where you live. Your apartment is 11C at the Westwood.”
“Wow! That’s crazy! Maxine! You have to call the cops. You will call them, won’t you?” Betty asked; her mouth fell open as she glared at the screen behind Maxine’s desk. There was more to the message Maxine hadn’t read aloud. Much more. And it was explicit to say the least.
“I'd say I have no choice.” The previous emails seemed like pestering and more of a nuisance, so Maxine was hesitant to call the police for what could have been simply spam or a hoax. But now these creepy people, whoever they were, had her personal information. Heck, they had her home address!
How on earth did they manage to track her down like that? She was a nobody. She wasn’t famous or even widely known.
Not like the Romero family!
And thank goodness for that! She’d read the latest scandal surrounding Lucas Romero, whom she’d met at Lucy’s wedding. Lucy was the previous owner of Dream Weddings, Inc. and Maxine's good friend since she worked for Lucy before taking over. Lucas was hot but thank goodness she’d stayed clear away from him! How awful to be in his shoes. She pitied the girl who would be his next arm candy.
Maxine wasn’t a politician, a reality star or an entertainer. Not that those people deserved to be stalked. But who on earth would have that kind of interest in her? Heck, she was barely making ends meet at the moment, so blackmail was out of the question. It was June, the so-called high season month for weddings and yet—business was unusually slow.
Sure, she was the CEO of the small business owned by Annie, the eclectic woman who’d started the Dream Weddings, Inc. agency to grant the most unusual weddings to deserving couples. Only trouble was that most people were scaling down expenses during this period of economic uncertainty.
“Girl, you look exhausted,” Betty commented.
“I am,” Maxine murmured. She was drained. Exhausted, really. This was the last thing she needed. “I was at the nursing home late last night.”
“Oh, no. What happened? Is your mother all right?”
Maxine sighed. “She’d fallen off the bed.”
“But how? Don’t they have rails?”
“She’s confused again. You know how it is with short staffing.”
“Right. I see.”
“Well, sometimes it’s better for family to be there to make sure things are done. I always try to make sure I’m there at meal times to assure she’s fed. Sometimes her meal tray is left untouched. I try to read to her while I’m there, too. When she’s having her good days.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that she doesn’t know who you are?”
“Yeah, but I know who she is and every day I’m going in to be with her. She took care of me since she adopted me when I was a toddler. She’s the only family I have.” The words scorched a hole in her heart. Maxine didn’t want to see anything happen to her mom. She just couldn’t bear it.
And that was why Maxine needed this job like crazy. How else could she afford to keep her mother in the nursing home—as imperfect as it was, if she didn’t have a decent salary? If business ran downhill, where would she be? What would happen to her mother?
That’s why this latest stupid hoax letter didn’t help matters. Could things get any worse?
“Just try to avoid caregiver burnout, Maxine,” Betty offered while scrolling down the screen on her iPad with her finger.
