Chapter Two

Holding her breath, she opened the second message: ‘YOUR RED DRESS MADE YOU LOOK LIKE A FUCKING SLUT. I WANNA RAPE YOU IN IT. I WANNA FUCK YOUR PUSSY TIL YOU BLEED.’

She closed her eyes, afraid to read the last text. What she saw knocked the breath clean out of her chest: ‘COMING TO FUCK YOU WHORE. BE THERE SOON.’

She screamed and dropped the phone, then picked it up again, fumbling with the tiny little buttons. She found Greg Wallace’s number in her phone book and called him. Greg ran the private security company that her manager had hired to protect her, and he was supposed to be handling this fucking stalker situation. It had gone on for almost six months now, and just seemed to get worse all the time. But these messages took it into a whole new realm of threat: it was clear that this guy had actually seen her that night. This was the closest that he’d ever physically gotten to her.

The closest that I know of.

Greg’s phone rang and rang; Liv held her breath and counted the rings. Ten. Eleven. Then it clicked over to voicemail. She cursed, disconnected, redialled. It went straight to voicemail this time and she hung up, furious.

Thanks a lot, Greg. So much for twenty-four-hour protection, huh? Also, wasn’t this fucking stalker supposed to be ‘no big deal’? Those were your words, right? OK, forget about him. Call someone else. The police? No. Dallas. Call Dallas. He’ll help.

He had been at Emma’s party and he had turned off his phone, she knew. But he did have that other phone, the one that he had told her about at the hospital several weeks earlier… the private one for his clients. The one that he never turned off, he had said.

Fuck, fuck. Where did I put that business card?

She jerked open the kitchen drawer, the one where she threw all the business cards she didn’t know what to do with. She scrambled through them, her fingers trembling.

Shit. Where is it? Come on, focus, Olivia…

She found it and yanked it out of the drawer. Solid Security, Dallas Foreman, President and Private Bodyguard. She tried to enter the cell number listed on it, misdialled, cursed, tried again, misdialled again.

OK, Liv. Deep breath. Try again.

She managed it this time and she stood in her living room, staring out the window at her long driveway, listening to the phone ringing at the other end.

Come on, come on. Pick up, Dallas, please. Please.

****

Dallas Foreman was wiped out. He kicked off his shoes and headed over to the fridge to get a beer. He leaned his massive body against the kitchen counter heavily, thinking about nothing more than a long, hot shower and then bed.

His cell phone rang and he groaned out loud. Since he had already switched off his personal phone, he knew that this was the phone, the one that only his most important clients had the number for. The one that he could never ignore and which he never turned off, no matter what.

Oh, God. Who wants me to show up at some sleazy strip club somewhere, and escort him home because he’s drunk and pissed off somebody bigger than him? Whoever said that it’s glamorous to be a private bodyguard for executives is fucking delusional, man.

He grabbed the cell from his coat pocket, and paused when he saw the number flashing up. It looked familiar, but in his tiredness, he couldn’t quite place it.

“Hello?”

“Dallas?”

Olivia. He heard the terror in her voice and he stopped dead in his tracks, his whole body suddenly alert and wide-awake. He knew immediately that it was her stalker, and that something new and disturbing had happened.

Goddammit. I knew he’d escalate, and soon.

“Olivia. What’s wrong?”

“The guy – he – a text – my dress…”

Her panic was coming at him in waves. He lowered his voice, made it as gentle as possible. “OK, sweetheart. Calm down. Deep breath, alright?”

Liv sucked in a breath, then another.

“That’s better,” Dallas said. “Now. You got another text?”

“Yes.”

“What did it say?”

“He said that he hoped that I enjoyed Emma’s party. He said that I looked like a slut in my red dress and it made him want to… to rape me. He said that he’s on his way here now.” She felt a sob rising in her throat and she fought it down. “Dallas, he knows that Emma has cancer, he knows the color of my dress…he – he… oh, God.”

Fuck. OK, keep her calm.