They were now in the conference room, and he was seated behind his microphone. Reid was seated a few chairs away with the boys nearest to him. He looked and scanned the room. She wasn’t there. The press people were getting ready with their questions so he poised himself for whatever answer he could offer.
He hated these things. People always got up and were much too personal with their questions. They wanted to know about his past, his present, and his freaking future as if that made a difference in their fracking lives. He shuffled uncomfortably in his chair and then by sheer instinct, he looked up, and she was coming through the doors. Her shoulder was hunched, and she clutched a folder to her chest.
His eyes followed her as she skirted the back and paused for a moment. She seemed to be looking for someone. She caught sight of Reid and scuttled over, placing the file in front of him. His eyes immediately fell to her breast, and he shook his head. He knew he’d seen wrong. She was wearing a loose navy jacket that hung from her shoulders unattractively and hid whatever was beneath it. Still, if she had the racks he saw that morning, there was no way she could hide them so easily.
He was about to look away when someone with a cup of coffee bumped into her. He could hear her shrill cry of pain from where he was sitting. The man apologized and offered her a handkerchief. Reid was beside her in an instant, and Tony stood as if he wanted to go to her.
The entire front of the jacket was soaked. Reid spoke to her, and he wriggled out of the thing. He was only still looking because he had nothing to do, and that was the current point of action.
However, when she took the jacket off, his mouth gaped, much the way hers had hung that very morning. She was wearing a thin white cotton shirt, which the coffee had soaked through as well. With a cry of dismay, she clutched the jacket to her chest and made her way back out of the hall.
Colt blinked and followed her with his eyes. He couldn’t believe what he’d seen. She was now a complete enigma to him. What the hell? How does she hide those so well?
“What’s the matter?” Tony asked. “You okay man?”
“Hmm,” he murmured with a nod.
What he wanted to do was shake the memory of Chelsea’s full mounds from his mind. He knew he had to get rid of the thought. It didn’t make sense. The girl was a nerd, with her large round rimmed glasses. Her schoolmarm bun on top of her head and her straight as arrow plaid skirts completely threw him off.
“So Colt, we heard you wrote a new song,” a man’s voice dragged his mind away from the nerd girl. He looked up and saw a reporter holding his recorder out. “Could you tell us what the song is about?”
Chelsea didn’t know if she should punch the man or thank him. On the one hand, the hot coffee scorched her. Although by the time it soaked her jacket it had cooled somewhat, her breasts were red and burning. On the other hand, she had the excuse of not being in the same room as Colt. She was not ready to face him. Her shame at seeing his nakedness was too much!
Then there were the flashes of memories that made her flush every time. How was she not able to train her mind not to think about him? After a few hours, the girls were a thing of the past, but not Colt. He was the one person she wanted never to think about. Briefly, she wished she hadn’t taken the job.
She changed and waited in her room until the press conference was over. In the meantime, she ordered breakfast, watched television and organized their itinerary. In just one day, she’d have her first concert experience with the band. Her mind ran across Molly and her promise to get her into the concert.
Now that she was on Colt’s bad side, how was she to do that? A light bulb went off. Tony! He was the nice one. Mike, Cory, and Andrew were okay, but she hadn’t officially spoken to them. She’d only seen them in passing. She could ask Reid, but he was just too austere for her taste. He’d probably have her buy her own tickets to come into work. No, Reid was out of the question. Tony was the answer.
By the time she finished contemplating her move, she heard them come back. Someone knocked her door, and she thought it was Reid. The knocking was soft, but he had been nice to her when the coffee drenched her. It was a surprise that he’d spoken to her so calmly. She recalled the conversation.
“Are you alright?” he had asked.
“I-I well,” she’d stuttered.
“Don’t worry, go get changed and wait for us in the room,” he’d said. “This won’t take long.”
She walked to the door and pulled it open. Tony was standing there with concern etched on his face. They stared at each other a moment. When she looked across the hall, her eyes made contact with Colt’s. He looked at her strangely and then went inside the suite, closing the door behind him.
“Are you okay?” Tony asked.
She shook Colt from her mind and replied, “Yes, thank you.”
“Good, I was worried you were hurt,” he said, giving his head a slight shake. “So are you coming to the suit? Reid is waiting for us.”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” she answered quietly.
Tony moved off, and she closed the door. She felt pleased that he’d checked in on her, but that look Colt gave her as he went inside the door, rested on her mind. What was it? She could not figure it out. It seemed the man hated her. Perhaps he was upset that she saw him naked and knew how disgusting his sex life was. She’d heard of these things but never knew anyone who actually slept with two people at the same time.
She paced her room for a while, knowing that Reid must be looking at his watch and wondering where she was. She knew he’d either come get her or soon her phone would ring. She paced for another thirty seconds, inducing all the courage she could muster.
She walked, albeit, on wobbly knees to the main suit. There was a lot of work to do, arranging post-concert press meetings and television appearances. There was one radio show and several charity events Reid wanted them to attend before they left for New Jersey.
When she reached the door, her mouth suddenly felt dry. As she reached to open it, her hand shook and her heart raced like the speedboat she’d seen once at a boat race festival. Tentatively, she pushed the door and entered, keeping her eyes down. Her peripheral view told her there were only two people in the room, and she sighed with relief.
She raised her head, thinking one of the people was Tony and came into contact with hard hazel eyes. She never knew hazel eyes could be so scary. He was looking intensely at her, and she cringed, wanting to run back through the door.
“Chelsea, do you have anything to wear other than those clothes?” Reid bombarded her with the question so fiercely that she jumped.
“What do you mean?” she asked, surprised her voice was so steady.
“You need a cocktail dress. There’s an event tonight, and you need to be there with Colt and Tony. I’ll be with the other boys at the teen splash giving out T-shirts. It’s more important he’s at the event.”
“I’ll take her shopping,” Tony’s voice relaxed her. He entered the room and took a seat on the beige sofa.
Colt was leaning against the wall near his room eyeing her. He hadn’t spoken since she entered, but he wore a grimace that told her he was not pleased with her.
“Good,” Reid was saying. “Now off you two, make sure she gets something nice. And do something with the hair.”
Reid tossed Tony a credit card, and he stood. She chanced a look at Colt, and he was scowling at them both. She came to one conclusion. He hated her. She didn’t mind that since she didn’t like him much either. This new discovery was what she needed to get his physique out of her mind. She forced him out and mentally scrubbed her brain, pretending she was using toothpaste and Listerine to rid the germs from it.
“Good,” she whispered.
“You say something?” Tony asked as they headed to the door.
She shook her head and feigned a smile. “No.”
5. Four
Colt hated these things. He’d rather be at a party where the women were not stuck up rich bi … He caught
himself. No, women were women regardless of their attitudes, he reminded himself. Women born into wealth were different from those who earned their own, with the exception of a few.
Wearing a suit was not his thing; he hated the contraption. The thing made him feel like he was wearing a straightjacket. He wanted to loosen his tie but knew he needed to keep it on a little longer. Keeping up the image, making out to be a good guy, giving away a huge chunk of his money was what he needed to do tonight. He didn’t mind giving the money, it was the pretending to enjoy parties like this one that irked him.
The music was good. Boring as hell, but he respected good music. He wasn’t a big fan of classical, though sometimes his music utilized its influence. He had to appeal to all types, and that’s what he was good at … faking it. He faked himself through the music whenever he sang a ballad or some sappy old country song on stage. His real passion was fusion and metal.
Some old baroness was touching his arm, and he tore himself away from his own thoughts long enough to listen. She was asking him the exact thing he’d been thinking about—his music.
“I’m old school, but I heard a few of your songs. I love your voice,” she said.
He beamed like a good boy and smiled brightly with his reply, “Thank you ma’am.”
At that moment, he noticed his glass was empty. The woman had gone back to babbling about music she knew nothing about. Her three friends were just the same. They all seemed a little tipsier than they would ever admit, and that was the most amusing thing he’d seen all night. Briefly, he wondered when last any of the four had ever had a good time. He was taking another drink as the waiter passed by when he noticed one of the old women staring with her eyes wide and mouth open.
“She must be an actress. She is beautiful.” The baroness’s voice caught his ears.
Curious, he turned, and his drink almost slipped from his hand. Tony had entered the auditorium where the event was taking place. This was a private club, only for the wealthiest and most famous in the State. Membership fees ranged from the hundreds of thousands to over a million dollars per year.
His eyes passed Tony to rest on the woman on his arm. Behind them was Reid. The manager’s eyes darted around the room and then found him. Colt’s eyes went back to the woman. Her long shimmering auburn hair was swept to the side and came to rest on her bare shoulder. Clad in a burgundy spaghetti strapped velvet dress with plunging neckline, his eyes dropped to her enticing cleavage.
He felt his heart jolt in his chest at the scrutiny, and he shuffled uncomfortably. He remembered not the last time his heart moved for a girl. He wanted to look away, but he also wanted to continue his perusal of her. He raised his eyes, and they traveled up her neckline. Her skin glowed in the fluorescent light of the room. Her burgundy lips matched her dress, and her emerald eyes were full and sparkling. He’d never seen anything so sublime in all his travels.
He wondered if maybe it was shock at seeing Chelsea all dressed up. He blinked. He had to prove that his eyes were seeing things. He made himself a bet that the rest of her would betray her lack of sex appeal. His eyes dropped to her hips, and his heart flipped again.
“What the fuck?” he swore. “How is this possible?”
“Are you okay, young man?” the baroness asked.
“Huh,” he grunted, fiddling with his tie.
Her hips, by God. He downed his drink in one gulp. Who the hell is she? Is she some kind of a spy or alien? Dressed all nerdy and country one minute and the next a sexy vixen? Even her face without the damn glasses was sweet … beautiful, actually.
He looked again at her hips. They curved so perfectly, coming out from her small waist and tapering towards her legs. And then he felt it. He swore it was a heart attack when he saw the split running down from her thighs to her ankle. He grabbed another drink from the tray passing by and gulped it down. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he needed it badly.
“Are you sure you’re okay? You look a bit piqued,” the old woman pointed out.
At that moment, Colt caught Chelsea’s eyes, and they locked. He gritted his teeth and willed himself to look away. He placed the empty glass on a passing tray and moved away, finding the nearest exit. He needed the air.
“What the fuck?” he found himself swearing.
Someone had followed him. He turned to see Reid moving in. He needed to be alone and tried to walk away before his manager caught up to him.
“Hey,” Reid caught up to him. “You have got to stop making my job so hard, Colt.”
He stopped and turned, his scowl evident. “What did I do now?”
“Wow, how many words is that, all of five?”
“What do you want?” he asked, ignoring Reid’s sarcasm.
“I know you don’t like to talk much, but Chelsea is a keeper. Don’t treat her like shit the way you did Livi.”
He thought, Oh, that was her name? He’d completely forgotten about the previous assistant. The girl was too prissy. She was pretty but prissy. He hated prissiness.
“Have you seen her, wow! I had no clue she was so … so … feminine,” Reid said.
“Hmm,” he grunted while loosening his tie. He felt stuffy and hot. “Let’s get out of here,” he told Reid.
“The party hasn’t even begun, we can’t leave … well, I can, but not you.”
He knew that was true, but he didn’t see how he was going to survive a whole three hours of boring talk, boring music, and looking at Chelsea. Just thinking about her made his blood boil. How could one woman transform so completely? He decided she was a sly one. She could not be trusted.
“Get rid of her,” he blurted out.
“What? Why?”
“I don’t trust her. She’s up to something,” he replied. “Yesterday, she was this shy little weasel and look at her now. She can’t be trusted.”
“Colt,” Reid placed a hand on his shoulder.
He looked at his manager, “Yeah?”
“You’re an idiot,” he said seriously. “Do you know how we had to trick the poor girl? We had to threaten her to have her wear the dress.”
“Oh,” he frowned. “That’s beside the point. I still don’t trust her.”
“Does this have anything to do with her seeing your cock? Every woman has seen it, so what difference does it make.”
“She told you?”
“I heard your female friends making fun of her in the lobby as they left the hotel. ‘The poor girl’ they said. ‘She looked like she was going to have a heart attack’, they said.”
Colt chuckled. He could see the surprise on Reid’s face. It wasn’t often his manager saw him smile or heard his laugh. “They were right. She did look like she was going to have an aneurysm.”
“Be good to her; I’m off to hand out those T-shirts with the guys. They’re already on their way, so I’ll just be catching up with them.” Reid pulled his tie and yanked it from around his neck. “She’s a good girl. Don’t scare her, okay.”
He watched Reid move around the corner of the large building. He was standing on the pavement near the building that was the auditorium. Directly in front of him was a large expanse of neatly cut grass. It wasn’t exactly a garden, but it was properly lit with flickering lights. There was another building, which he assumed was the club building.
He straightened his tie and decided to behave as Reid ordered. Chelsea, he would put her from his mind. Avoid was his middle name and he intended to do just that. He couldn’t scare her if he wasn’t talking to her. He went back inside and looked for a waiter, took a drink and tried to look interested.
Chelsea felt naked. There were eyes on her. Eyes from men she’d never met. There were eyes of old men, the eyes of young men, rich men and … she wanted to run and hide. The dress! If her parents could see her, they’d faint on the spot. They were conservative old fashion Christians. They believed in covering the body from prying eyes. They thought that women should keep themselves hidden and should only reveal to their husbands. Even then, sh
e’d never seem her mother naked. She had seen her uncle in his undershirt once.
Her family was closely related to the Amish. She knew that her grandfather had abandoned his clan when he met her grandmother. Still, they kept up their rites and customs to a point. But Molly, she’d seen men naked in magazines which she’d shared with Chelsea. Well, they weren’t exactly naked, they were dressed in boxers.
She seethed inside at the memory of Colt’s eyes as they bore into her. She could see his abhorrence of her etched in them from his piercing stare. He hated her, and it showed tonight. She didn’t like him either, but somehow, she wished he’d actually seen her. She guessed she didn’t measure up to his type of women.
“You look amazing, stop being so nervous,” Tony said, leaning in close.
Blushing and beaming, she replied unsteadily, “Thank you.”
He handed her a drink, which she took for want of something better to do. She wasn’t sure drinking was such a good idea. Alcohol was something that was of limited supply in her house, except for moonshine. Moonshine was reserved for the adults on special occasions. Her Uncle Jeb had a ‘special’ place in the bushes where he made the stuff.
She was homesick. She’d be going to the country fair or fishing at the lake if she was home. She wouldn’t be worrying about a brooding rock star who disliked her very existence.
Tony moved off to talk to a group of people, and she was left alone to her own devices. She knew no one and felt disoriented. Someone came up to her, and she smiled, thinking that Tony had returned.
USED by Him: A Billionaire Bad Boy Romance Box Set Page 3