Page 44 of Her Ruthless Protector

She sighed. “Paul, I really need you to pull yourself together. I understand this is a blow, but your reputation is on the line. If you don’t care about that, then you have to care about those girls. They’re depending on you. You can fall apart after the show. That’s what show business is all about.”

He closed his eyes. She prayed he wouldn’t cry. Then he nodded and opened his eyes, his gaze steely. “You’re right. They deserve better. I’ll get it together.”

“Good.” She turned to Shelly. “Get him over to the reporters. I have to go talk to Don.”

Shelly nodded.

A.J. pulled on her sunglasses as she left the trailer. One down, eight thousand more to go. She grinned as her right and left shadows appeared.

“Hey guys, how’s it going?”

“I’ve had better days,” Cullen muttered.

A.J. glanced over at the man, it was the first time he didn’t sound chipper. “Has something come up I need to be aware of? I’m going to go see Don so we can discuss the press. If we need to appraise him of any issues with the potential threats, now would be a good time.”

“No, that’s not it.”

“Yes, it is,” Asher said. “Talking about the press is exactly what we need to do.”

“Hey, wait a moment, you’re not in any kind of uniform. You’re wearing jeans and t-shirts, what gives?”

“We have to keep this under wraps. Not just the potential threat, but the fact that we’re SEALs.”

A.J. thought over everything she’d ever read or heard about SEALs, but she came up blank.

“Okay, spell it out for me in very simple words, preferably with two or less syllables.”

“We’re special operations. Part of our effectiveness is that nobody knows who we are. We’re not always in the jungle—sometimes we’re in situations like these where we’re acting in an advisor capacity, but lucky us, we have a bounty on our head.”

“Bounty?” A.J. asked. “What the hell do you mean?”

Cullen shot Asher a pissed-off look.

“Don’t be trying to shut him up, you big lug. I want to know what in the hell this bounty thing is all about.”

“No, you really don’t,” Cullen said kindly.

A.J. stopped short and pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. She pulled up her Google search bar and typed in SEAL and bounty. Cullen gently pulled the phone out of her hands. “Seriously, Aje, it’s just going to upset you.”

“Don’t try to coddle me. Just hit me with it. I worry about you big lugs.”

Cullen gave her the side-eye. Fine, her blood had run cold at the idea of anybody having a bounty out on Kane’s head. Yeah, he put himself in harm’s way for a living, but a bounty?

“The deal is that ISIS and al-Qaeda will pay twenty-five thousand dollars for proof that one of theirs has killed a SEAL. That’s one of the reasons our families and significant others are asked to keep quiet about our designation and whereabouts. It got really dicey for the Midnight Delta team when their pictures got out two years ago.”

“Fine. I get it. You’re in your civvies, and we won’t mention you’re in the Navy and we’ll keep you away from the press. You need to be working with Ed and his team anyway instead of shadowing me. I’m boring.”

Asher laughed. “I wouldn’t call you boring.”

“Give me my phone back,” A.J. held out her hand.

“We wanted to check in with you and see how you were holding up with the sabotage.”

“Gee, guys, I’m doing great. I have a girl who’s going to probably take a year to walk again and the world’s biggest Diva threatening to sue because she missed the rehearsal time that would ensure her glory. I trust you know which one I give a shit about.”

She gave Asher a pointed look, but she saw he was way ahead of her. He looked disgusted by the whole mess. “Somebody should tip off the media about just how big of a bitch she is.”

“They know, but they don’t care,” A.J. sighed.