“You’re being naive. All those years on the road, but you have no one who really knows you. No one who really cares. No one who loves you.”
Brenda reached for my face, and I captured her wrist just as Jewel opened the door.
Jewel’s eyes rounded, gold pools of misunderstanding. “I’m sorry. I left my hairbrush.” She backed out, turned away, and retraced her steps to my bedroom.
“Cut the bullshit, Brenda.” I tossed her hand back at her. “Stay away from me. Stay away from Jewel. Stop trying to cause trouble.”
As I pushed past her, Brenda huffed and crossed her arms over her chest.
“You’ve already got trouble.”
I paused in the hall, halfway between the woman I wanted, and not far enough away from the woman I was glad was out of my life.
“You’re too nice for your own good,” Brenda said to my back. “Too trusting. She’s taking advantage.”
As I walked away, praying she’d shut the hell up, Brenda raised her voice.
“What do you really know about her? Open your eyes. She is what she is, what she’ll always be. Girls like her never change.”
***
Jewel
Sitting on the edge of his bed with my phone in my hand, I jumped when Rush pushed open the door.
“Hey,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Hey,” I said listlessly, staring down at Cam’s contact on my phone. I missed my best friend and had been about to call her, needing to do something to distract me from the ripping pain inside my chest from seeing Rush with Brenda.
I tossed my cell onto the comforter. He glanced at it, something flitting behind his eyes I couldn’t get a read on before he looked up at me.
“You talking to somebody?” he asked, almost sounding suspicious.
“I was going to call Cam.”
“It’s late.”
“She’s up. She works late.”
“She does, doesn’t she?” His gaze narrowed. “I thought she was taking a break from that. You too.”
“She can’t.” That pain inside my chest became a side-splitting case of guilt.
I’m a selfish, terrible friend.
I ducked my head. “I’ve been gone longer than I expected.”
“You need to get back.”
“Yes,” I whispered. It was dangerous for her to go out alone. But I couldn’t leave Rush, not yet. He still needed me. Worried about the odd note in his tone, I added, “But not yet.”
I stood and went to him, telling myself not to be jealous of Brenda. He didn’t want her. He had just been with me in front of the window.
Holding my breath, I put my hands on his chest, watching my fingers glide over his tanned skin. His muscles were tense, but his breathing grew heavy as my hands dipped lower. He stopped me just before I reached the knot in his towel.
“Not right now. Let’s go to bed. I’m tired.” His fingers tight around my wrists, his eyes searched mine for a long moment.
He looked sad. Of course he was sad. He’d never stopped me before, but his mom’s funeral was tomorrow.
I told myself that’s what it was, but I was afraid it was more.
***
Rush
Reluctantly, I slipped out of bed, leaving Jewel curled up beneath the covers. My mind was too unsettled to sleep.
How much time did I have left with her? Had I made the end come quicker, clinging to her so tightly? Had I declared myself too soon? Even worse . . . was I only seeing in her what I wanted to believe?
Padding softly across the room, I stepped out into the hall with my cell in my hand. At the bottom of the stairs, I called my best friend.
“Rush, what’s going on? Is everything okay? What time is it?” Brad’s voice went from sleepy to alert.
“I don’t know.” About the time, if everything was okay, about anything.
My mom was gone, and I was likely going to lose Jewel. Hell, I might not have ever really had her. The things I wanted, the people I loved, the ones who I thought loved me, they seemed difficult to hold on to. Was there something wrong with me, some fatal deficiency in me that kept people from staying?
“Do you want me to come over?” he asked.
“No,” I told Brad. “Stay at the hotel. Go back to bed. I’m sorry I woke you.”
“It’s all right. Talk to me.”
I tilted my head back, staring at the ceiling. “She’s going to leave me.”
“Jewel?”
“Yes.”
“I was afraid this would happen,” he mumbled. “Did she tell you tonight?”
“Not in so many words.”
I raked a hand through my hair, moving through the living room and stopping in front of the big picture window to stare out into the dark night. The snow had stopped, leaving the front yard dusted in white. It looked pretty now but it would melt, leaving dirty puddles when the temperature rose.
“Do you want her to stay?” he asked.
“Yes. Hell yes.”
“Then tell her.”
“I have.” In all the ways I could think of. “Many times.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not exactly an expert with women.”
“Could you talk to her?” I asked. “Feel her out for me?”
I turned away from the window, glancing around the living room, and I could almost hear their voices, Mom’s and Dad’s. Him yelling at me to get my muddy shoes off the coffee table, and her soothing his reprimand. Voices of the past, now only distant echoes.
If it weren’t for Jewel by my side when I lost my mom, I would have slipped back into my old ways of coping with stress—drinking, disparaging everything, pretending nothing mattered when everything did.
Silence stretched out on the line. I was asking too much. It wasn’t up to Brad to solve my personal problems as well as my professional ones.
I sat on the couch and dropped my head into my free hand. “Maybe I got it wrong with her . . .”
Brad let out a long sigh. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Thanks, man. I appreciate you. I don’t tell you enough.”
“You don’t need to. It’s understood.”
“Love you, man.”
“Same here.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
* * *
Jewel
“What do you want?” I frowned as Brenda entered the Sunday-school room where I was waiting for Rush. The service hadn’t started yet, and he thought I’d be more comfortable waiting here rather than sitting in the church pew with her.
We’d all arrived at the church together for the funeral service, inside limos with tinted glass so the press couldn’t take pictures of us. A swarm of them had gathered outside the building, milling around, waiting for a chance for a juicy interview or a heart-wrenching photo. Brad was on the phone, complaining to law enforcement about the press, his voice stern on the other side of the thin wall.
Handsome in his dark suit, but looking more like a lost puppy than a rock star, Rush had just left the room. His ex-fiancée’s popping in so close on his heels put me instantly on alert.
I smoothed the hem of the ill-fitting black taffeta dress his manager had bought for me. Since leaving the hospital, Rush and I had mostly stuck to the farmhouse. The little town of Pendleton was overrun with paparazzi, trying to capture a picture of me, him, his grief.
Brenda should go. She shouldn’t be here.
Somber organ chords made the room vibrate.
“Rush isn’t here,” I said. “He went to greet people, along with your husband.”
“I wasn’t looking for Rush.” Her eyes narrowed like they always did when she looked at me. “Though he does have a habit of disappearing at the most inopportune times.”
“What does that mean?”
“Did he never tell you why we split up?”
My heart pounding, I shook my head.
“He fucked someone else while we were together. He gets bored so easily.”
I b
linked at her, then shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe you just weren’t what he needed.”
Was I still what he needed? After all, he’d been acting differently with me since last night.
Brenda lifted a brow. “And you think you’re what he needs? A whore? A thief?”
I staggered slightly, her blow hitting its mark, and she saw.
She gave me an evil smile. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”
Refusing to respond to that, I took a deep breath and stared at her, scrunching my fear and despair into a little ball and burying it deep inside.
Her grin widened. “Did you think because your grandmother eventually dropped the charges that there wouldn’t be a record?” She clucked her tongue. “What will Rush do when he finds out, I wonder?”
I didn’t know, not for certain. Which was why I hadn’t told him.
Brenda’s smile disappeared. “When you’re with someone like Rush, nothing ever stays secret. I didn’t just find out he cheated on me . . . I got to see the explicit pictures in the tabloids. Everyone got to see the pictures, even my parents and all my friends.”
Did she want me to feel sorry for her?
Wanting nothing more than to curl into a ball and cry, I threw my shoulders back and firmed my voice. “Get out.”
“I’m going,” she said, yet she lingered. Peering around me, she glanced at herself in the mirror and removed a tiny smudge of scarlet from the outer edge of her mouth.
My blood?
She’d certainly gone right for my jugular. With stunning accuracy, she’d zeroed in on my biggest weakness—
My doubt that someone like me could ever have someone like him, even temporarily.
***
Rush
Where was Jewel? And where was Brad? It was time to go in.
Seated in the front pew, Brenda kept turning her head and giving me looks that contributed to my unease. At the front of the church, a glossy ebony box contained my mother’s body. I didn’t need any more stress. I was already reeling, unable to wrap my brain around it.
Grief had stages. Rationally, I knew that I was in shock mixed with a ton of denial. I knew it by the way I avoided looking at that casket. I knew it every time I deflected Jewel when she tried to get me to talk about the good memories of my mother.
But knowing didn’t help me. I felt like I was spinning out of control. Jewel was the only one who stood between me and the whirlwind.
When I went to look for her, I ran smack into Carter Besille in the vestibule.
“How’d you get in here?” I glanced over his head, unable to deal with the sleazy talk-show host right now.
The son of a bitch has a habit of showing up at the worst possible time. Where the hell is my manager?
A bright light blinded me from my left. When my vision cleared, I realized Carter had brought a cameraman along with him.
“Get the fuck out of here before I have you arrested. This is a funeral.”
My throat tightened. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. My mother shouldn’t be gone right after we’d reconciled, right after she met Jewel. We should have been in this church for my wedding, not her funeral.
“I only need a moment of your time,” Carter said. “Just give me a statement. My people have been calling your people. We need a comment on the pictures from the hospital. They’re really quite moving. You with your guitar, your dear sweet mother in her hospital bed.”
“What pictures?” My body tensed.
“The ones Jewel Anderson texted to me. Didn’t you know?”
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“But she did.” He smiled. “For the right price.”
A lump formed in my throat. “How much?”
“Twenty thousand. We started at ten, but she’s a negotiator, that one.” He tilted his frost-tipped blond head. “She drive a hard bargain like that when you picked her up off the street?”
My mind spun. It couldn’t be.
“She looks so sweet, but then again, maybe that’s the attraction. The dichotomy. It must’ve taken half a dozen texts back and forth for us to finally agree on a price.”
I remembered Jewel holding her phone last night when I returned from the bathroom, and my blood ran cold. Wanting nothing more than to slam my knuckles into Carter’s smarmy face, I had to hold my fists at my sides, trying to control myself.
Ignoring the danger he could be in, Carter just kept talking. “The behind-the-scenes exclusive is going to make her a fortune.”
“No.” I shook my head, unable to believe it.
“She agreed. It only takes one consenting party to avoid most sticky legalities, so here I am.”
Carter’s eyes glittered with excitement, much like they did after that debacle with the band. Grooves of glee creased the flesh-colored lipstick around his mouth, which contrasted eerily with his spray-tanned skin.
“Did you think she was something more than she is?” he asked. “You look shocked. You do realize what she does for a living? That she’s not a trustworthy person. That there’s no line she won’t cross. She even stole money from the woman who raised her.”
“No way.” I shook my head. “I don’t believe you.”
“Her arrests are public record. Even the one for theft, though the charges were dropped. I have the texts with her right here.” He turned the screen of his phone around so I could scan his message log.
Blood rushed in my ears. Everything was there, just like he’d said. Emotions slammed through me . . .
Betrayal. Anger. Hurt. Disbelief.
Needing to see Jewel, I pushed past him, turned the corner, and strode down the hall. I knew he followed. The cameraman too. But I didn’t care.
Furious, I shoved open the closed door to the room where I’d last seen her. Last kissed her.
Jewel was inside, but she wasn’t alone. Brad was with her, standing extremely close. When the door slammed against the wall, he dropped his hands from her arms and they jumped apart. Her face was wet. She’d been crying.
It was all very surreal. But one thing I knew for sure.
They both looked guilty.
“What the hell’s going on?” I roared.
“It’s not what you think.” Brad backed away from Jewel, holding up his hands.
I had to give it to my manager, he caught on quickly to my read on the situation. Jewel seemed slower. But she was an actress of a higher caliber than I could have ever guessed.
“Are you two working together? Or is she screwing you too?”
Jewel gasped, but seeing Brad’s hands on her made me snap. I stalked toward my former best friend, grabbed him by the lapels of the expensive suit my money had paid for, and shoved him into the nearest wall.
“Calm down, buddy,” he choked out, his Adam’s apple crushed by his tie and my fists at his throat. “You got this wrong.”
I shoved him away from me. “Should’ve gotten that waiver. I know. You told me. My bad.”
Then I turned to her.
Jewel blinked at me in confusion. The camera’s light was bright on her face, blinding her the way she’d blinded me. It seemed right.
She held her hand above her eyes to shield them. “Please tell me what’s going on, Rush.”
I hit her with the full force of my glare, making her flinch. “I know, Jewel. I know about the pictures and the agreement you made.”
She shook her head, that beautiful mane of coppery-brown hair. “I don’t have an agreement with anyone except you.”
“As if that was worth anything. A promise from a hooker.”
Her face drained of all color. Seeming unsteady, she reached out for the back of the folding chair beside her.
I couldn’t seem to let it go. The doubt. The fact that she was always trying to leave. That she’d never told me she loved me.
“Why didn’t you tell me you stole money from your grandmother?”
“I wanted to.” Jewel didn’t seem surprised that I knew. Instead, she looked resigned. “So many t
imes, I wanted to tell you. But . . .” Her lips quivered. “I was young. Landon was leaving town, and she told me I couldn’t go with him. I loved her, but I hated that town.”
“Excuses.”
“Yes, I know.” She dropped her chin. “I paid her back. Landon hated the way I scraped and saved to pay her back. But it doesn’t matter. Wrong is wrong, right? She’s gone. I’ll never know if I had her forgiveness. Not that having it would negate what I did. Those scales, you know.” Her voice quavered. “There’s no taking the weight of the wrong away.”
“Did you sell photos to Carter Besille?”
Her eyes widened and filled with tears. “What photos?”
“I’m not a fool. I saw the texts.”
“I don’t know what you saw.” Trembling now, she hugged her arms around herself, so tragically beautiful in her black dress.
So seemingly tragic. I hardened my heart. I had to.
I’d been played. Every warning about her replayed through my mind. All of them were right.
“You won’t admit it?” I asked.
A single tear slid down her face. “I didn’t do anything except love you.”
I was such a sucker for her, even now, it was hard not to look at her and believe her.
I made a harsh disbelieving sound. “It’s over, Jewel. You got what you wanted. No more financial worries. Us at the end. And I got what I deserved for being a fool.”
“Brad . . .” She turned to him, and that was the final straw for me.
“Get out.”
“I think you’re making a mistake, Rush.” That came from my manager.
“Yeah, well, you’re the expert at cleaning up mistakes for me.” I barked out a scornful laugh, not sure who I was more pissed at. Him . . . or myself. “So take my latest one, and the two parasites she invited here, off the premises. Make sure they stay away. All of them. And then maybe I won’t add you to today’s list of mistakes.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Rock Star Romance Ultimate Volume 2 Page 134