by Tara Leigh
If my mother were still alive, I’d be on the phone with her already. Growing up, I’d always been more of a daddy’s girl, but when I left home, I finally realized how much I’d relied on her as a sounding board for all my decisions. Rather than tell me what I should do, she’d helped me drill down to the core of what I really wanted all along. My mother had a way of making answers seem simple, even obvious.
I would have given anything for just one conversation with her right now.
I missed her so much. And I had no one to blame but myself.
A seagull landed on the railing outside my window, its gray beak tapping against the mesh screen.
“Go away,” I mumbled.
It squawked, fluttering its wings. Another bird flew down, and I watched as they preened at each other, making enough noise to have an entire conversation. After a few minutes, they flew off together, soaring and dipping. Free.
Unlike my father.
I couldn’t destroy my only chance of helping the one parent I had left.
With a groan, I flung off the covers. Whatever Shane’s motives, I had a job to do. Wallowing in regrets was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
I picked up my phone from the nightstand. It was dead, but once I plugged it into the charger, it came to life, beeping and buzzing like an epileptic with Tourette’s. I didn’t even have a chance to see what had it so agitated before it started ringing. “Hey, Piper.”
“Oh. My. God. You are fucking brilliant. I can’t believe I ever doubted you!”
I flinched, holding the phone away from my ear. “The pictures turned out okay?” I asked, assuming she was talking about my first experience with the paparazzi in front of the restaurant. Piper had spent nearly an hour teaching me how to stand, how to smile, the angle to tilt my head, what to do with my hands. Getting a good shot was not nearly as effortless as it looked.
“Okay? They are amazing. You in that little, barely there nightie and Shane, bare-chested, with you in his arms. Wow. Ah-may-zing!”
I clutched the phone to my ear, feeling light-headed. “Wait, what? I meant from the restaurant. What photos are you—”
“The ones from the beach. Shane’s publicist must have had someone out there. Fucking brilliant, if you ask me.”
A chill swept over my shoulders, and I gathered the sheet to my chest. I didn’t want to continue this conversation. Truthfully, I never wanted to speak to her or Travis or Shane ever again.
Just another photo op.
We’d been a hair’s breadth away from making love. Was it all just a ploy, a PR stunt? Had Shane let me run to him, roll naked in the sand with him, knowing someone was capturing every passionate moment on film? Had it all been staged to give the tabloids a few steamy photos?
With a sickening lurch, I wondered if Shane had been hoping for a sex tape.
What have I gotten myself into?
Shane
“Nice job, Shane.” Travis’s voice boomed through my car’s Bose speakers. “You two are killing it.”
I winced, grunting out a mangled, “Thanks.”
“No, really. I mean, those shots on the beach. Fucking priceless.”
The blood drained from my head, my vision going gray at the edges. “What shots? We didn’t take any photographs on the beach.”
But I knew.
I knew.
“Ha,” Travis scoffed, thinking I was kidding.
I wasn’t.
“Just when I think you’re getting too comfortable, resting on your laurels, you prove me wrong and remind me that you’re still a hustler at heart.” The pride seeping from his voice slipped into my bloodstream, becoming a curdled mass in the pit of my stomach. Bitterness rose, coating my throat, burning my tongue.
Fuck. How could I have been so stupid? Just because we didn’t see the camera didn’t mean our every move wasn’t being captured on film and sold to the highest bidder. I gripped the steering wheel, knuckles going white as I remembered exactly what we’d been doing on the beach. And how little we’d been wearing.
I swiped at my mouth with the back of my hand, as if I could erase the sour taste. It didn’t help.
I was used to the circus my life had become, but Delaney wasn’t. Should I call her? Warn her? I swore again, out loud this time, but Travis was too busy prattling on about hits and views to notice. I wasn’t listening to him. Eventually he segued to a few new offers that had come in, and plans for a charity concert. I did my best to tune back in, but all I could think about was Delaney.
Maybe I was taking the easy way out, but the memory of her all sleepy and sweet…I wanted to believe she’d slipped back under the covers and was temporarily unaware of the bullshit being thrown her way because of me.
Eventually, I pulled into the parking lot of my label’s downtown office and cut off Travis midsentence—the only satisfying moment of our entire conversation. I spent the next few hours going through the motions, agreeing to things I normally would have fought, flicking a dismissive glance over the final list of roadies that had signed on with the tour when I normally lingered over every name. Greenlighting changes to the set list without any consideration. Not that I didn’t care. I just couldn’t focus.
Because my head was back at the beach house. With Delaney.
“Shane!”
I jerked, swiveling my head toward whoever had pelted my name from across the room. Zeroing in on my target. “Landon, what the fuck?”
My bandmate tossed a rueful laugh. “What’s up with you, man? I called your name three times.”
I glanced around at the other guys in the room, their nods confirming Landon’s charge. “Sorry.” We were in a lounge just outside one of our label’s in-house recording studios, going over a few last-minute details for the tour and deciding which single to drop next. I had yet to say a word.
Several couches were scattered around the room, and I’d claimed one of them an hour ago, sprawling across it with my boots hanging off the side, my muddled head flopped on a cushion. Landon was leaning against a wall as if he alone were holding it up, a scowl on his face and what looked like a blond rat’s nest on his head. “What the fuck’s going on? You checked out, or what?”
I heaved myself upright. “No, I’m good.”
He shook his head, looking at everyone but me. “Boy look good to you?” A chorus of no’s echoed from my bandmates, our tour coordinator, and a pair of industry execs. Travis had arrived a few minutes ago, but he was too busy thumb-fucking his phone to pay any attention.
Landon and I went way back, to when I first showed up in L.A., signing up for open-mic nights and looking for anyone with a guitar or a set of drums to jam with. We were the two original members of Nothing but Trouble, had spent more than ten years making ourselves worthy of the name.
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “Just want to get on the road already.”
He knew better than to take me at my word. “This have anything to do with those pics popping up on my phone all morning? The ones of you and the new girl?”
“Yeah, how’s the new girl?” Jett piped up. If he weren’t such a damn good bass player I would have kicked him out a dozen times over. The newest member of Nothing but Trouble, Jett knew just enough about my past to make me a little uncomfortable. Things I’d told him when we’d partied together and I was half out of my mind. Reason number three hundred sixty-eight why I could never go back to my boozing, snorting, whoring ways. I had too damn much to lose to go spilling secrets that needed to stay buried.
But not a single detail had emerged in the press, and I knew they wouldn’t. Jett might be a wiseass with no filter, but he’d never be some gossip hound’s unnamed source. And Dax barely said a word to anyone, even the chicks pawing him at every opportunity. Especially the chicks pawing him at every opportunity.
Nothing but Trouble was a dysfunctional family, but I was damn grateful for every one of them.
“She has a name.” One I didn’t offer. “And she’s fine. Are we done here?”
No one looked in any hurry to leave. Landon jerked his head to the recording studio on the other side of the clear glass. “Wanna dick around for a little bit?”
I sure as hell needed something to do with my dick. “Yeah.”
The four of us strutted out into the next room, one of the execs calling in a producer in case we came up with something worth recording. I reached into my pocket, where I’d stuffed a piece of paper before leaving my house.
Landon eyed the crumpled page, covered in my chicken scratch. “New?”
“Yeah.”
He reached out a hand from behind his drum kit, and I handed it over reluctantly, knowing the mess of emotions I’d laid bare, an alphabetic riot of love and hate and need and want. Of guilt and pain and hope and fear. My heart and head in black ink on a yellow legal pad, buzzing as loudly as any honeybee. Because that was what I was after. Honey. Sweetness. Delaney.
Except Delaney wasn’t a dainty sprinkle of pollen. No. She was an iceberg lurking beneath a smooth sea, her long legs and lush curves and guileless face hiding a danger that would gouge the most vulnerable parts of me. Especially the parts I’d long considered invulnerable.
Landon’s eyes, as black as pitch, took everything in, eyebrows lifting as he deciphered the words I’d bled onto each line.
I shouldn’t have looked in on her this morning. Should have left a note or sent a text and headed out to deal with whatever shit I needed to deal with. Because everything I’d written last night, everything Landon was skimming, his head nodding to a beat only he could hear right now but that soon would emerge fully formed from his drums, was about me. And Delaney. And how Delaney affected me.
This morning, just once glance at her still sleepy eyes, mounds of dark hair glinting against pale wrists as she batted wayward strands off her face, and I realized it wasn’t only about me anymore. Delaney was real. And no matter how strong my armor, there was a weak spot just her size. A hole she’d already found, slipping inside with her wide-eyed, fish-out-of-water eyes. I scared her, obviously, but there was a pulse of desire that hummed beneath her skin whenever she came near me, the same pulse that hammered in my ears at the sound of her voice.
Desire she was determined to not give in to. Knowing her reasons, I couldn’t blame her.
Landon handed back the single sheet. “This is deep, man.”
“Worth putting down on tracks?” There was a thread of insecurity woven through my words, and I wanted to rip it out. Music was my constant, the one thing I could count on. And somehow Delaney was making me doubt even that.
But Landon was already distracted by the thrill of a new song. “Fuck, yeah. You haven’t written lyrics like these since—”
Shoulda been me.
I interrupted, not needing the confirmation. “Yeah, I know.”
He held my gaze a beat longer than was necessary, then picked up his custom-made, white oak drumsticks. “Let’s do it.”
Last night was in the past. Exactly where it belonged.
But my song would bring it to life, keep it in the present.
Maybe not today, but eventually we would record it. Release it. Anyone would be able to listen to it anytime they wanted. Sure, the details were obscured behind soulful lyrics, melodic verses. But if they listened closely enough, they would know. I was an asshole. Damaged as hell and a danger to anyone crazy enough to get too close to me. Delaney was already close, and bound by a contemptible contract. I might ruin her, climb high with her in my arms, not even realizing we were on a pyre until it was raging all around us.
I would destroy her.
But maybe, just maybe…she could save me.
It had been done before, right? I mean, billions of people believed they were saved.
I’d sat right beside my father in church for more Sundays than I could count, reading the prayer book he would hold open for me with one hand while his other curled paternally around my small shoulder. And then we’d go home and those hands would do other things. Punching, slapping. He’d happily beat the shit out of me, my brother, and especially my mother, invoking the Lord with each bone-crushing blow.
I wasn’t looking for some invisible force to save my soul.
But Delaney…I’d be damned if I didn’t feel salvation every time I looked in her eyes.
Chapter Eleven
Delaney
Stay close to me,” Shane ordered as the door to the limousine was pulled open from the outside. It was one of the few sentences that had passed his lips since he’d left me alone in his beach house two days ago. We’d barely spent any time together, at least not alone, since then. During press events I merely had to smile and look adoringly at Shane as he fielded questions. And apparently my presence wasn’t needed when Shane was in the recording studio, which was where he’d spent most of the past forty-eight hours, working on a new song. Or at least that’s what he’d told me. I’d even called Travis to be sure, worried that I wasn’t holding up my end of the deal by reading romance novels on Shane’s deck. He’d said Shane was well taken care of and that I could go back to my books.
Truthfully, I’d been glad. My feelings about him, about what we’d almost done, and those intimate pictures were so conflicted. But my brief break was over. The Nothing but Trouble world tour was kicking off tonight, and getting from the limo into the arena had been an eye-opening experience. By the time we pulled into the underground parking garage, the venue was already overflowing with reporters, paparazzi, overzealous fans, and not enough security to effectively control them all.
I followed Shane out of the car, blinded by camera flashes and hemmed in on all sides. People were touching me, shouting at me. “Shane!” I yelled, as someone came between us. His grip was tight on my hand, not letting go as he pushed the interloper out of our way. A panicked, claustrophobic feeling compressed my chest, and I could barely breathe until we were safely out of the public corridor and ensconced in a private suite.
Shane’s arm wrapped around me as Lynne, the Nothing but Trouble tour coordinator, shut the door behind her and immediately began spewing details of the meet-and-greet Shane was expected at in a few minutes. She’d been waiting in the limo when it arrived to pick us up from Shane’s house and had barely glanced at me since being introduced. No doubt Lynne knew I was just one in a long line of many.
“Delaney?” Shane’s voice cut through the noise cluttering my mind.
“Hmm?” I looked up, surprised to see we were actually alone.
His eyes searched mine, a worried frown twisting his brow. “Sorry about almost losing you back there.”
Every pore in my body was clogged with anxiety. “That was scary, Shane. I didn’t like it.”
Shane’s shoulders lifted in an unrepentant shrug. “Unfortunately, it comes with the territory. You’ll get used to it eventually.”
I shook my head, thinking of everything that came with being thrust into Shane Hawthorne’s world. Sleazy lawyers bearing ridiculous contracts, chasing photo ops yet running from the paparazzi. Private moments exposed for all the world to see. “No,” I snapped. “I don’t want to.”
He curled a hand around my neck, strong fingers kneading the tense sinews connecting my shoulder blades. “Later, I’ll give you a few lessons on dealing with the crowds, teach you some self-defense moves.”
Despite the massage, I pressed my lips together, skepticism rising inside me like an overfilled pot on high heat. “I’m beginning to think you’re the one I need to defend myself against.”
One look at Shane’s face and I wanted to race after my thoughtless words and stuff them back into my mouth, swallow them down like the toxic pills they were. Hurt trekked across his perfect features before he could rearrange his expression into the nonchalant, too-cool rock-star facade he wore too well. “Crap. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
I was being honest. I’d known what I was getting into when I signed on the dotted line. The basics, at least. And I was being well compensated for any inconveniences. My
discomfort wasn’t Shane’s fault.
His mouth was a hard line. “You should.”
“I…What?” Was Shane talking about the photos from the beach? We had yet to discuss them. I considered it, but telling Shane how I felt—used, embarrassed, disillusioned—seemed pointless. That’s what I was here for, after all. Public displays of affection.
Those mysterious eyes of his were a roiling sea of turmoil, but the expression on his face was guarded, like he was trying to distance himself but couldn’t quite manage it. “Defend yourself. From me.” Shane’s words were gruff, forced. A warning.
I stepped to the side, frowning up at him. Did he mean physically?
Why would I need to defend myself from a man who hadn’t had sex with me even when I’d begged him to? A man who’d offered to sing me a lullaby, who had tended my cut with the same care my mother had when I was in kindergarten, who had barely touched me since he’d carried me into my own room and walked out the door. What nonexistent attack did I have to guard myself against?
But I knew. The very real danger emanating from Shane wasn’t physical. He had my mind so scattered I risked forgetting why I was here, with him. Forgetting about what I’d done, and the restitution I still owed. I had to keep my wits about me, and not just for my own sake.
I didn’t want to talk about the photos right now, didn’t even want to think about them.
I met Shane’s stare, my lungs tripping over a breath as I sucked in air. There was nothing normal about my life since the accident three years ago, and being with Shane had only compounded my strange reality. He rolled his neck, swallowed hard. That fierce self-confidence of his slipping just a bit. Maybe just for me.
On a sigh, I poked my hand between Shane’s rib cage and the crook of his elbow, sliding against him like it was where I belonged. Breathing him in and remembering the way he’d inserted himself into a situation that could have ended so badly. Feeling safe. “I think I’ll take my chances.”
The tension coiling in his muscles didn’t ease up in the slightest. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”