Diva (Ironclad Bodyguards Book 2) (10 page)

“They think about the money. We think about the person. What happened last night? Your people don’t usually end up in the hospital. Is she salvageable? Are we in over our heads?”

“No, she’s not a junkie. She’s not seeking out the harder stuff. She takes party drugs for fun, like ninety percent of these raver kids. She just happened to buy a batch of ecstasy with stupid levels of meth and mCPP. She hasn’t been using long enough to understand about testing for adulterants.”

“Then you’d better educate her. That’s the thing about these infant superstars. People assume they’re smart because they have money and power, but they’re really just…”

“Kids. She’s a struggling kid, and nobody cares. Those assholes back there don’t care.”

“You care.”

His boss accompanied those blunt words with an assessing gaze. Ransom shrugged, feeling heat rise in his cheeks. “Of course I care. She’s a client. I care about my job, and Ironclad’s reputation—”

“You care about her. You’re torn up about this.”

The stare deepened. Ransom felt the flush spread to his neck. “It was scary last night. I’ve never had a client code on me. I thought she was going to die in front of my eyes, and it would have been…”

Would have been so senseless. So horrific. So soul-destroying.

“It would have been a huge waste of a talent,” he finished, because every other answer seemed to skirt dangerous ground.

They stopped outside her room. The curtains were drawn, but he knew what she looked like in there. Small and defenseless. Innocent, even though she wasn’t innocent. Pathetic, for all her vaunted fame. “On stage, Liam, she’s incredible.”

“Yeah, I gather she’s good at what she does.”

More words burst out, rough with regret. “I hate that I fucked up on the job. I left her alone for ten minutes. I thought she was with the manager.”

“They’re hiring a new manager.” Liam paused. “Shall I have them hire a new bodyguard? There’s nothing wrong with saying a situation isn’t working for you.”

“No.” He didn’t even stop to think about it. “No, I want to finish the job.”

“Are you mentally up to finishing the job? I’ve never seen you rattled like this. You look like hell.”

Another quality Ransom admired in the Ironclad CEO—his directness.

“Not only that,” his boss continued, “but you’re not presenting yourself to the clients with your usual air of capability. It’s natural to hate those fuckers, hell, I abhor them and everything they stand for, but they’re paying for your services and you need to behave professionally. They need to be reassured that you’re competent. If you want to finish this job, you’ve got to pull yourself together. You made a mistake, and both of you survived it. I’m assuming a mistake like that won’t happen again.”

“It won’t.”

Liam watched him for a moment, leaning back against the wall. “How’s everything else? How are the two of you getting along?”

Ransom gave a short, bitter laugh. “She doesn’t like me that much when she’s sober.”

When she was high…well. When she was high, she licked him and begged for sex. But that had no place in this conversation. “We get along well enough for a minder and client.”

“Does she need rehab? Perhaps after the tour?”

“She needs better people around her. She needs to rest and eat well, and regain her equilibrium. Her life is crazy. She’s achieved so much, so fast.” Ransom frowned. “But I don’t think she’s happy.”

Liam looked surprised. “She sold out thirty-five shows in the U.S. last year, and slayed all of them. Twenty more shows in Europe and Asia. Why wouldn’t she be happy?”

“Fifty-five shows in a year, man. That’s a lot for someone her age.”

“She’s what? Twenty-two?”

“Twenty.”

Liam gave a low whistle. “And you’re right, she’s had too many assholes around her. With that said, I have other bodyguards I’d trust to take her on.”

“No.” He wasn’t ready to give up on her yet. She needed help, and he believed he could help her, even if she was crazy and rebellious, and had pink hair. In some way, he understood her.

In some way, he saw his twenty-year-old self in her, which was the scariest thing of all.

“She doesn’t have a lick of fucking sense,” Ransom said, “but I want to see this through.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Liam patted his arm and nodded at Lola’s room. “My assistant is in there. Mem can look after her for the next few hours while I smooth things over with these producer jerks. Go back to the hotel, shower, take a nap, and get yourself back up to speed. When she wakes up, she’s going to need the fucking talk. She needs to understand that choices have repercussions.”

“I know.”

Liam Wilder was aware of Ransom’s history—the darkest parts of his history. He knew that Ransom knew.

*

Lola heard voices,
deep, low voices from far away. Her arm felt sore and her head ached. She couldn’t see anything. She thought,
I’ve gone blind
. She heard a keening sound and realized she was the one making it. A cool hand touched her cheek.

“Shh. It’s okay.” Ransom’s voice.

“I can’t see,” she whispered.

“Open your eyes.”

Oh. She fluttered her lids, and then closed them again. Even the dim light was too much. “Ransom?”

“Yes?”

She cracked her lids. Everything looked white and sterile. A monitor beeped beside her bed. She felt overwhelming relief that he was there with her, that she wasn’t alone. “Where am I?”

“A hospital in Amsterdam. You had a life-threatening drug reaction last night.”

She opened her eyes and stared into his. He stared back, his masculine features stern and sober. Memories flashed through her disordered mind. Ransom standing by the stage stairs, the roar of the festival crowd, Rave Dave and a bag of yellow pills. Hot burning in her chest, thunder in her ears. Ransom holding her, ordering her to breathe. He’d rubbed his hand against her back as she’d struggled to draw air.
Help me. Help me.
She’d been sure she was going to die.

“How do you feel?” he asked. “Are you awake enough to talk?”

She wanted to stay awake so he wouldn’t leave her, but her eyes started to drift closed.

“Lola.” His voice pried them open again. “Try to stay awake until the nurse gets here.”

She didn’t remember anything after that. She woke to muted sunlight and a woman taking her blood pressure. She looked around the room and saw Ransom in a chair by the window. His eyes were closed. He was asleep.

“What time is it?” she asked the nurse in a hushed voice.

“Time for you to sit up and eat something,” she replied in a heavily accented whisper. “It’s four o’clock in the afternoon.”

The nurse seemed pleased with the blood pressure numbers and undid the Velcro cuff with a
rrrip
. The noise woke Ransom and he sat up, his shoulders taut. His intense gaze fixed immediately on her.

She stared back at him, and darker memories assailed her. The worry in his voice, the humid night air, his harsh breaths against her ear.

“You’re awake,” he said, as the nurse bustled out.

She didn’t reply. There were words she knew she should say, but she couldn’t get them out.
I’m sorry. Thank you. Are you pissed at me? Will they fire you for this?

Why are you still wearing a tie?

When she didn’t speak, he stood and walked to the side of her bed. She saw a lot of emotions in his face. Reproach, frustration, relief. He sat on the edge of the thin hospital mattress, nudging the IV tubing out of his way. She felt crowded and a little scared as he peered down at her.

“You look better,” he said.

“I feel awful.”

“You deserve to feel awful.” A muscle ticked in his sculptured jaw, just visible through a few days’ worth of stubble.

“Where’s Greg?” she asked.

“Gone. Fired. There’s a new guy named Don. As far as I can tell, he’s a raging prick.”

She digested this news. “I’m getting everyone fired, aren’t I?”

“Almost everyone.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “The tour guys flew out here, and so did my boss. I wasn’t fired, but they weren’t happy. There was a long, uncomfortable discussion about what happens next, about how to keep this from happening again. Your overdose and hospitalization is all over the news, although some people are being kind and calling it an episode of ‘exhaustion.’”

“I feel exhausted.”

“I do, too.” He brought his hands to his face and rubbed his forehead with unnerving ferocity. “Listen, kid. This can’t happen again, because next time it might not be a hospital. It might be a coroner, and I’m being paid to keep you alive.”

“Will they take that money back if I die?”

“This isn’t funny. Look at me.”

She did, even though she felt ashamed and sick and frightened. His voice was low, vibrating with an iron warning.

“No more drugs,” he said. “Swear to me. You don’t take a single fucking Advil without notifying me first.”

“I won’t. I don’t want to.” That was the honest truth. She’d thought taking ecstasy was a harmless habit, a way to let off steam and have fun. She didn’t think that anymore.

“Promise me.” His dark brown eyes hardened to fearsome black. “A promise is your fucking word, for what it’s worth.”

“I promise.”

He stood from the bed and walked to the window, then turned to look at her with his hands jammed in his pockets. “The thing is, I don’t believe you. I don’t trust you. I was starting to trust you, but now…”

Lola closed her eyes. She wanted to scream at him to stop staring with that disappointed, accusing gaze, but she felt too weak to scream.

God, she felt
so weak
.

“I don’t care if you trust me,” she said. “None of it matters anyway.” Tears squeezed from under her eyelids. Her face felt out of control, like her emotions. She opened her eyes and then covered them again. “Stop staring at me. Please.”

She didn’t know if she was crying because she was such a mess, or because
he
knew she was a mess. It was getting too hard to maintain the party girl persona everyone cheered for, the Lady Paradise character that wasn’t really her. She missed being Lola Mae and getting hugs from her father. She missed her laid-back circle of friends in Memphis. That was a whole other world, a whole other life that she’d lost.

She blinked, peeking out from between her fingers. He was still watching her with a concerned frown. The more she tried to stifle her sobs, the more gasps and sniffles escaped.

“What can I do?” he asked. “Tell me how to help you.”

“You can’t help me. Just go away.”

Instead of going away, he came closer. He placed a big, strong hand over her hand, over the taped IV tubing. It felt gentle and comforting, but it was
his
hand, and she was confused how she felt about him. Part of her hated him. Part of her wanted to curl up in his arms until this emotional maelstrom calmed.

But he was her bodyguard, not her boyfriend. She couldn’t have boyfriends anymore, because she traveled too much and worked too much, and partied for the sake of partying, and slept with too many guys. She stared at his fingers and felt miserable and needy and stupid.

“My job is to help you,” he said, and then repeated, “What can I do?”

“There’s nothing you can do. I chose this life. I chose this tour.”

“Do you want to quit?”

Yes, sometimes she wanted to quit, but that was spoiled and weak. She turned her face into the covers. “I can’t.”

“You’d lose a lot of money, but you could quit if you wanted to, if the pressure’s too much. We could call the producers today.”

She peered out at him through a haze of tears. He was serious. He would help her quit if she wanted it. She’d seen enough of his fucking face to understand that his expressions never lied. Did she want to quit the tour?

No, not really.

She just wanted to get better at living this life.

“I don’t want to quit. I just don’t know…how to handle it.” Her words whispered out between sobs. “I want all of…this…but sometimes I think…I can’t…handle it.”

“That’s common. That’s normal, Lola.”

Something in his steady tone calmed her down, at least enough to listen to his words.

“Fame’s an adjustment for anyone,” he went on, “and you’re so young. But if you don’t figure out how to handle it, you’ll be dead by twenty-five, and no one wants that.” He paused until she met his gaze. “I can help you learn to handle it, if you’ll let me. We can work together. That’s what I’m here to do. That’s my job.”

His hand still rested over hers.
That’s my job.
He wasn’t her boyfriend, as much as she wanted to curl up in his arms. He was her bodyguard. She hadn’t really admitted until now that he was mainly guarding her from her own immature lack of control. She was drawn to his strength and sincerity, while he saw her as a total fuck up. Ugh.

She pulled her hand from beneath his, feeling the sickly twinge of the IV in her vein. “I need help,” she admitted. “But I don’t know if you can help me. I’m pretty fucked up.”

“I’ll try.” He touched her cheek, a soft, fleeting touch. “We’ll work on life strategies and coping skills. You’ll figure things out.”