Sweet Temptation: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 3)

I definitely didn’t want to raise her concerns any more than they were already raised. But something wasn’t adding up.
Didn’t she have a bodyguard?
Who was this woman?
“How long have you worked with Brody?” I asked her, trying to connect the dots without outright admitting I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t want to insult her if she really was famous.
“I signed with him just a couple of months ago, actually. But I’ve known him for years. And I work a lot of Dirty events, too. Maybe we’ve crossed paths somewhere?” She studied me as I studied her.
And then it hit me.
“Are you, by any chance, DJ Summer?”
She smiled a little. “I am.”
And it all fell into place. I knew of her, by her stage name, but I didn’t know her.
“We’ve never met,” I told her. “I’ve actually hired out guys to events you’ve played. But I’ve never been at those events myself.”
“Oh. Cool.” She gazed at me, looking… impressed? “So, you’ve been protecting me all this time? And I just didn’t know it?”
“Well—”
I was cut off by a knock at the front door, and Summer jumped to her feet. I put up a hand to stop her.
“Shit,” she breathed. “I’m jumpy.”
“Allow me.” I crossed to the door and took a look through the frosted window alongside. I let Brody in, and shook his hand.
“Ronan. Thank you for coming so quickly.”
“Anytime.”
He toed off his shoes and went straight over to Summer, who gratefully accepted the hug he offered.
“Jesus, why didn’t you just call everyone,” she teased, but I could tell she was relieved to have him here. “Did you get a hold of Ash?”
“He didn’t answer his phone.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed, and as I watched her cling to Brody, it became brutally obvious how shaken she really was.
Brody said something in her ear I couldn’t hear, and I caught his eye. I pointed over my shoulder in the direction of a hallway and he nodded.
I slipped away to take a look through the house.
The main floor sprawled in two directions off the living room. One hall led along the front of the house, to three guest bedrooms and a washroom. On the other side of the house, the other hall led behind the garage, to a music room that was probably originally a bedroom but was now dominated by a set of massive speakers. Beyond that was the door to the basement and a flight of stairs leading upstairs.
The finished basement consisted of a laundry room, what looked like an unfurnished rec room that was mainly used for storage, and a small music studio.
I went upstairs last.
I knew from what Summer had said that her bedroom was up here. And I could tell that the upstairs wasn’t part of the original bungalow-style layout, that it had been added on later. At the top of the stairs, I found one large room, the master bedroom.
This was where she was sleeping when the intruder woke her. When he tried to climb the wall to get to the balcony.
Really, there were easier ways to break into a house. Especially if someone was home, and you didn’t want to run into them. I’d told her all that stuff downstairs about typical break-ins because it was true, but unfortunately, that MO didn’t seem to fit this situation.
This felt personal.
Why climb to the second floor, specifically to get onto the balcony off a woman’s bedroom in the middle of the night, if all you wanted was to rob the place?
I took a walk through the bedroom. The bed was as she’d left it, the covers tossed back. There was a large adjoining bathroom and a huge walk-in closet filled with beautiful clothes. Shoes. Jewelry. It smelled faintly of perfume.
There was a set of clear built-in drawers practically overflowing with lingerie.
And I wondered. Did DJ Summer have herself an obsessed fan or something?
A stalker?
Someone who’d gotten close enough to suss out her lack of security, and tried to take advantage of it?
Along the back wall of the bedroom, there was a set of glass doors covered with filmy curtains, which obviously opened to the balcony. I headed over there… and something moved outside. I stopped, tensing and scanning the area for possible weapons.
It was instinct, and it happened in a fraction of a second.
Then Maddox stepped in through the curtain from the balcony. He saw me and raised his hands. “Don’t shoot,” he said sarcastically.
“You’re lucky I can’t.” I wasn’t armed, though I had no idea if he was. I wouldn’t put it past him to have a weapon on him, or on his bike.
“Just checking out the balcony,” he said, closing the doors behind himself. “Fuckin’ creepy, he tried to come in here.” He glanced around the room, at Summer’s rumpled bed.
For some reason, that rubbed me wrong. I didn’t like him standing in her bedroom, even though he had as much reason to be here as I did. Brody called us both.
“So, you’re Brody’s guy?” he said, stealing the words I was just about to say. “The consultant.”
“He and Jude consult with me pretty regularly.”
“Yeah, I’ve worked events with your guys. They’re good.”
My guys were more than good, but I let that lukewarm compliment slide.
Maddox glanced around. “I’ve never been here before, but nothing really looks out of place or anything. No reason to think he was here earlier tonight, before she got home. She said she was at an event with Brody tonight. Then she came home, had some friends over. I checked the locks on all the doors, the window latches, and everything’s intact, nothing’s been tampered with.” He found me studying him again and added, “My brother owns a home security systems company. I work for him sometimes. Kinda second nature to check that shit.”
“What’s the name of his company?”
“Triple X.”
I knew of Triple X, through the industry. They had a solid reputation, despite the fact that they were run by a known member of the West Coast Kings.
“Plus,” Maddox added, “I’m