He put his hands on hers, trying to reassure her. “I’m okay. It was just a malfunction. Nothing happened to me!” he said. He worked diligently to loosen her fingers from the tight fist she had made.

She groaned, wiping her tears with one hand. “Good thing it wasn’t a skyscraper you fell off of,” she sniffed. “On another note, I was ambushed by the assistant director. You didn’t tell me people watch me on your set.”

He huffed. “I didn’t know that. At least he is contributing to your ad revenue.”

Katherine smiled a small smile and said no more. She smoothed his hair back, smiling because he looked so vulnerable. Soon, he drifted off to sleep. “Cage?” she whispered. He hummed, even though he didn’t seem to be conscious.

“I love you.” She leaned down to press a kiss on his temple.

“I know,” he murmured and his head turned to the side.

Katherine stifled her laughter.

– – –

“Ever think that you are a fourteen-year-old who needs to be driven to his dates?” Stephen asked without taking his eyes off the road.

Cage snorted and looked over to his manager. “No one was asking me to dates when I was that age,” he replied promptly.

“I mean, I drive you around all the time. How does that make you feel?” Stephen snickered. Despite himself, he knew that teenager Cage was not the finest hunk in school. Puberty had really hit him hard, so who cared.

“The only reason you are driving me is that I knocked myself on the head,” Cage grumbled.

“Well, your mother probably dropped you on your head as a baby to begin with, so I wouldn’t put it past you to worsen your intelligence in the meantime,” Stephen deadpanned. With a pause he began to talk again. “Still feeling out of it?”

“I’ll be okay,” Cage pouted.

“Answer the question.”

“I’m still a little woozy but yeah…” Cage’s voice was low.

“Settle down, then. You’re jumping around too much.” Cage chuckled and closed his eyes as he rested his head against the headrest.

“Reminds me, how is Giselle doing? Her bodyguards are not having issues, right?” Cage asked offhandedly.

“Yeah, I took a look at the letters and they unnerve me. I can’t imagine what it feels like to be in her shoes,” Stephen sighed.

“Don’t make a big production out of her going places, she’ll get scared further.”

“That’s better than her going around as she wishes.” Stephen paused. “We looked over the safety equipment. Both the harness and the mat were old and malfunctioning. The crew is perplexed how it happened.”

“Then we’re thinking in the same direction. Giselle was the one who was supposed to fall. Instead, I got roped into it.” Cage crossed his arms over his chest. They were almost at the restaurant. “I convinced her to remain in the production. She’s walking on eggshells all the time and with what happened today, I don’t know how to reassure her.”

“Don’t fret about this. You have done your best. The production does have a good security team and the bodyguards Giselle has appointed are the best in the industry. That is all you can do in this situation.”

Stephen glanced towards Cage to see him gazing out of the window with a faraway look in his eyes. Cage hadn’t realized that the other had stopped talking. Which was unusual for him.

“What is it?” Stephen asked, his brows furrowed.

“Nothing. It’s just that… I feel like we are missing something obvious.”

“Now that you mention it,” Stephen started thinking. “The person sending those letters is obsessed with you… not Giselle. You are the one who is mentioned over and over again. They put you on a pedestal. It makes me feel like we are protecting the wrong person.”

Cage’s head snapped towards Stephen. “Don’t start with that. I’ll be fine, I don’t need another babysitter.”

“I’ll do a risk assessment. Moreover, you are not the person at most risk here… its Katherine.” That statement shook Cage to his core.

“Fuck.” He banged his head against the headrest.

“Stop that. You hurt your head.” Stephen had a moment of silence as they sat stuck in traffic. “What if we have missed something obvious. We haven’t gone through your fanmail thoroughly and checked for any threats. You haven’t gotten anything threatening, right?”

Cage shook his head. “I get threatening letters all the time. And I haven’t checked through them in the past couple of months. I barely got any time to breathe.” He huffed.

“Then we need to go through everything without fail. I’ll get a team of interns to read through your fanmail or something.” Stephen’s plan was concrete.

“Not that I have any privacy,” Cage sighed. “You tell me every little thing you find, especially if it has something to do with Katherine. Is this person is interested in Giselle because of her association with me, god knows what their opinion of Katherine is.”

“You’re lucky her identity hasn’t been revealed yet. Maybe the creep doesn’t know anything about Katherine to go off of.”

“You’re scaring me.” Cage tried his best to remain calm. In the distance, he could see the sign of the restaurant he had booked.

He pulled out of the car after making sure that nobody that followed him. He peered at Stephen from outside with his final instruction. “Pick me up at ten unless I call you and tell you otherwise,” he told him. Stephen nodded and turned to take out the bouquet of flowers they had bought on the way to the restaurant.

“You almost forgot this,” he commented, half throwing it at Cage. The other protested but smiled. He sniffed the bunch, feeling satisfied with the aesthetic.

He had to pace the floor for a couple of minutes. He had arrived earlier in his anxiety to see her all dolled up for him. While this was for his private viewing. One day soon, the world would see them together, dressed up and matching.