“I know all that, Maggie,” he said, gently.
He did know. Zane was one of the few friends I’d ever really talked to about my dad.
“Yeah? Well, nothing ever got serious for him until it was far too late, and I see you going down that exact same road, Zane. The partying and the easy pussy and your sweet Maggie May, your number one superfan who’s always there for you. Until ‘always’ turns out to be a fucking drag. My mom didn’t get her heart broken, because she wasn’t in love with my dad. She got a baby at eighteen and a crash course in life as a single parent and a lot of regrets she never thought I knew about, but I knew. If I’m with you, I get all those things, except the baby part, which is the only good thing he ever really gave her anyway, and I lose the job that I get out of bed in the morning for, and I get a broken heart, because I do love you, Zane. I am in love with you. But I’m smart enough, living the life I live, to know not to give you my heart because a man like you doesn’t have the first fucking clue what to do with it.”
Zane stared at me.
I stared right back. “You think you love me because you threw down and married me in Vegas to screw with my dad?” I asked him. “You don’t know what love is. I have worked my fucking ass off loving you and I know what it is to love someone.”
He just stared at me, and for all the things I’d just said to him, he didn’t look angry and he didn’t look hurt.
“You love me,” he said softly, like he was in awe of it or something.
Really?
Out of everything I just said, that was the one thing he really heard?
I got up and started getting dressed.
I just admitted to Zane that I love him.
And I felt raw about it. My heart fucking hurt. It was like the world’s worst case of heartburn.
Having him stare at me like that was not helping. That terrible hope on his face. That softness in his blue eyes…
“Maggie…”
“Don’t.”
“You don’t have to run away.”
I kept getting dressed.
“You don’t have to put up your fucking wall.”
“I just have to… I need a minute. I just… Just leave me alone for a minute.”
Then I ran out of the room.
But I was gone for much longer than a minute.
Chapter Ten
Zane
She loves me.
She admitted it to me…
She fucking loves me.
After Maggie left, I lay in bed in her hotel room for a while. It wasn’t like lying in bed thinking about her was a new experience for me, but this time I definitely had new food for thought.
She.
Loves.
Me.
When she didn’t come back to her room, I called her.
She didn’t answer.
I tried to sort through all the shit she just told me. But all I could really think about was the only thing that really sank in; the only thing that really mattered anyway.
She loves me.
Eventually, I dozed off. When I woke up mid-morning, Maggie still hadn’t come back. I checked my phone. No missed call from her, no message.
I sent her a text, then got up and went to my own room. I lay in bed, wanting to sleep some more. We’d been up all night and I was still tired, but I couldn’t relax.
So I smoked some weed, and I thought about what she said to me again.
She said she loves me.
I thought about all the shit that had gone down between us over the past two years… seeing it in a different light. Reconsidering everything that had gone wrong with the knowledge that Maggie loved me.
That maybe she’d loved me all along.
I thought about how, after we’d gotten married in Vegas, there was that long and difficult nine months of cold war, heated fights, and the occasional angry fuck. Until we screwed the night of Jesse’s wedding, almost a year ago now, and something changed. Maggie seemed to soften toward me, a little.
After that night, I’d tried like hell to get her back into bed, to recapture that feeling between us. To make her give in to me again, the way she did that night.
The way she’d looked at me, for just a moment, when I was inside her.
The way she’d said my name.
The way she’d begged for my cock as she came…
And a few times, I’d succeeded.
But things stayed pretty rough between us anyway.
Over the phone, we argued when she wouldn’t see me. In person, she’d been careful not to be alone with me, to keep conversation professional. Neutral.
Though sometimes, I’d still managed to get her alone.
And when I did… the result was predictable.
Me and Maggie, in bed.
Or on the floor… or whatever surface was available.
Naked and all over each other.
Then Maggie would flip her bitch switch and freeze me out again.
It was like she was two different people. A woman who wanted me so bad she couldn’t resist me… sometimes. And a woman who wanted nothing to do with me, other than our working relationship.
Because anything more than a working relationship was a slippery-ass slope to sex town.
We both knew it.
I loved the fact. Maggie didn’t.
And whenever our working relationship forced us together with other people around, like Brody or anyone in the band, she was all charm, overly-fucking-friendly.
Fake-friendly.
That was what really scared me. How fake-friendly she could be in front of everyone else, then totally ice me out.
I’d always thought I was trying to convince Maggie that we could work. That I was trying to charm her or seduce her or just plain persuade her into feeling something more for me than she did. Or, best case, that I was trying to uncover some deeper feelings she might have for me, that I hoped like hell she had, when I didn’t really know if she did.
And I thought I was failing.
Epically, and over and over.
For a while, during a particularly long cold spell, I thought it was really over between us.
And I didn’t take it so well.
I made some mistakes.
Not Dallas mistakes, but other mistakes.
And as usual, Maggie wasn’t so quick to forgive or forget.
But then Dirty reunited with Seth, and things seemed to turn a corner—for everyone. We were all pretty damn happy, and Maggie seemed to cheer the fuck up a bit.
She was happy about the band being whole again, about the album, about the upcoming tour; we all were. Maybe she was just caught up in her work and distracted enough to forget how pissed at me she was.
For whatever reason, my charms seemed to be working on her again. I knew we were really on an upswing when she started laughing at my jokes. She even came out on the town a few times with me and the boys, after I’d moved up to Vancouver. She wore sexy shit and semi-flirted with me. Or at least she didn’t immediately shoot me down when I flirted with her.
Progress.
I’d been texting her, calling her, turning up the heat at every opportunity; Maggie didn’t give me many.
But then one night… the night of Jessa’s baby shower, I’d somehow managed to convince Maggie to come over and see me. At my place.
Alone.
You know, just to talk.
And we had talked. About the new album.
And about us.
About how she could never seem to trust me, which was fucked up (my words).
About how I didn’t deserve her trust (her words).
Then, predictably, I got her undressed.
On my couch.
Underneath me.
I was just about to peel off her panties when my phone started ringing. When we realized the number calling was Jessa’s, Maggie freaked out and made me answer it. She was up and getting dressed before I’d even gotten off the phone. By the time I told her Jessa’s water had broke,
she was out the door.
After that, she avoided me even harder.
She didn’t seem as mad. Regretful, maybe. But she clearly didn’t want to be alone with me. I let it slide for a while, because I figured she’d come around again, like she always did.
At least she wasn’t being as cold to me anymore.
But then Christmas happened.
On the eve of Christmas Eve, I threw a party at my place, and Maggie helped me plan it. Neither of us invited Dallas… but Dallas showed up.
That night, Maggie saw Dallas all over me.
And read the situation totally wrong.
Fact was, women were always coming up to me and feeling me up. A lot of the female population just seemed to think they had a right to. Like my cock was public property or something. In the past, it wasn’t like I minded.
These days, I avoided that shit as much as possible.
But chicks could be ruthless.
Wasn’t exactly my fault Dallas walked up to me and grabbed my dick before I could stop her. Wasn’t really Dallas’ fault either; she didn’t exactly know I was married. Thanks to Maggie and her Don’t you dare tell anyone bullshit.
All Maggie saw, though, was Dallas’ hand down the front of my pants.
Really, Maggie had seen it all. Most of the time she seemed to just let it roll off. She definitely saw more shit and put up with more shit than any woman should have to.
Half the reason I loved her, probably—she was strong as hell.
But even though she kept refusing to be my wife, when she saw Dallas grope me like that, I knew it cut her.
Even if I never wanted it to happen.
True, I’d fucked Dallas a few times. But that was before I married Maggie. Since we’d been married, I’d only fucked Dallas once, and that was in the early days, when Maggie was barely speaking to me and kept demanding a divorce.
I was only human, I was a fucking dude, and besides that, I had a heart and Maggie and her insistence that our marriage was a crock of shit did a number on it for a while.
I’d tried to explain all of that to her, again, after the Christmas party. But she wasn’t having it.
Instead, she froze me the fuck out.
And the cold war started all over again.
She pretended like she didn’t give a fuck about me or where I put my dick.
But all those times I’d gotten her alone, gotten her naked, and pounded her defenses right down to the ground…
She cared.
I’d seen it in her eyes. Felt it in her anger. Fucking tasted it all over her when she gave in to me.
She cared a fuck of a lot more than she ever admitted.
She fucking loved me.
She just wouldn’t admit it to me.
Until now.
There were times when I’d seriously doubted Maggie had any real feelings for me beyond friendship and general annoyance.
Times when I wondered… if maybe she really did regret it. All of it.
Marrying me in Vegas.
Staying married to me.
Ever kissing me or touching me or letting me near her at all.
But now I knew.
She kept pushing me away because she loved me.
Which meant that I still had a chance… no matter if she tried to keep pushing me away.
Maggie had real feelings for me she didn’t want to admit, but she’d admitted them to me last night. She thought she could avoid those feelings by avoiding me, but that wasn’t true. The feelings were still there.
And I was still here.
If she thought she could ignore me and make it all go away, she was wrong. Dead wrong.
All I had to do was keep getting her alone. Keep breaking down her wall, brick by fucking brick, until there was nothing left between us but my feelings for her… and her feelings for me.
Fucking love.
I floated around on this dumbass cloud… for not even two days. Not even forty-eight hours, and Maggie Omura sucked the wind right the fuck out of my sails.
It was the night of the San Diego show, and I hadn’t seen her since she told me she loved me and ran the fuck away.
I didn’t even see her backstage at the show. Apparently, she was refusing to show her face to me, any-fucking-where.
As soon I came offstage and she was still nowhere to be seen, I went straight outside. We were supposed to drive back to our L.A. hotel tonight, and I didn’t even know if Maggie had come with us to San Diego. Her Lady Bus was parked two down from mine, but fuck if I knew if Maggie was on there or not.
I told Shady to stay outside and I disappeared onto my bus, alone. I was still drenched, sweaty, didn’t even take a shower along the way. I just tore off my shirt, popped the button on my jeans and grabbed my weed.
I’d barely sat down when someone knocked on the door. It was a soft little knock, and every fibre of my fucking being snapped to attention because I knew it was Maggie.
Then the door opened and Talia poked her head in instead.
“Hey, Zane. Do you have a minute?”
I didn’t answer her, but I also didn’t tell her to fuck off, so she came right on in. She pulled a couple of papers off her little clipboard thing and laid them out on the table for me as I rolled up a joint. She was already talking, going over a bunch of shit I was supposed to care about, rattling off the dates we were filming concert footage for the “Blackout” video. Then something about album sales? Some interviews I had to do tomorrow on the road, some meet-and-greet in Phoenix.
I barely heard it all. Definitely couldn’t make sense of any of it.
Couldn’t think of anything but Maggie, disappearing on my ass.
I lit up the joint, took a drag, and finally cut her off. “What’re you doing here?”
She looked at me, and I let my eyes wander down. She had a deep tan and her tits were hiked up, kinda bursting out of her tank top, which most guys would probably appreciate. She was a hot little thing, and her tits were bigger than Maggie’s.
Fucking annoyed me.
“I’m going over your schedule for tomorrow,” she said. “In Phoenix.” Like I didn’t know where the fuck we were tomorrow.
“I got that. What are you doing here?”
“Um…” She looked around the bus, confused. “What do you mean?”
“Who sent you?”
“Maggie. She told me to—”
“Yeah. Well, tell Maggie I’m gonna fire you if I see your face on my bus again.”
Her brown eyes went wide, and she just stood there in shock.
When I didn’t take it back or say another fucking word, she turned around and got the fuck off my bus.
When she was gone, I threw on some music while I smoked up. Didn’t help my mood at all. First song to play on random was Alice in Chains, “Nutshell.” Gorgeous, depressing shit.
But instead of getting depressed, I got angry. I felt agitated instead of more mellow.
Then I started pacing like a caged animal.
The last two days, anytime I’d messaged Maggie that I wanted to talk to her, she didn’t message back. Ever.
When I texted her about work shit, she replied. Every time.
Or Talia did.
I was starting to actually doubt that things were any better between us now that she’d admitted she loved me. I was realizing, fucking slowly, that maybe they were actually worse.
I was starting to fear another long, fucking painful freeze-out.
And it was pissing me off.
By the time Maggie stormed onto my bus, I was livid. So was she, by the looks of things.
“You said what to Talia?”
At least I knew where she was now.
“I said,” I growled right back at her, “I’ll fire her ass next time I see her on my bus.”
“You can’t fire Talia.”
“Like fuck I can’t.”
She stared at me, her eyes raking over my bare chest and snagging on my unbuttoned jeans. “Don’t make this about h
er because you’re in a bad mood.”
“Bad mood?” I laughed. “I’m in a great mood. Why wouldn’t I be? Two nights ago, my estranged wife told me she loves me. Good times, right?”
“Estranged? I think there has to be some sort of relationship in the first place for one to become ‘estranged,’ Zane.”
“Yeah, maybe. You were always better with the semantics than I was. Had a legal wedding, but we’re not married, right? Said your vows, but they weren’t real, right? But you did say you love me. I mean, we both heard it. You gonna deny it now? Ignore me? Send Talia to do your work for you so you never have to see me again?”
“It’s not my work. It’s Talia’s work. I’ve got my own work to do, and plenty of it, and it doesn’t include holding your hand and spoon-feeding your damn schedule to you all the time. I’m not your personal bitch, Zane.”
“And Talia is?”
“Better her than me,” she snapped right back.
Jesus Christ, where did she get off being so mad at me?
And why did it have to get me so fucking hot?
I stared her down, my blood boiling and my dick standing at attention, rock-hard for her, as fucking always. “You want me to fuck her, is that it?”
“What?”
“She supposed to be bait or something? A test? Send her onto my bus alone enough times and see what happens?”
“That’s fucking ridiculous.”
“See if the same thing happens when I’m alone with her as what happens when I’m alone with you?”
No. Clearly that wasn’t her plan.
I could tell by the look of offense, annoyance, and just plain disgust on her face. I could see it… as she started to wonder what exactly had happened.
“Did you fuck her?” she asked.
“Would it matter if I did?”
“Well, she’s pretty much your employee and she’s my assistant, so yes.”
“How about the fact that I’m your husband? That rate with you at all?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and said nothing. She was wearing a dress, a short lingerie-looking black dress, under her suede jacket, and it was such fucking bullshit that I wasn’t even allowed to touch her.
Dirty Like Zane: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 6) Page 13