RUTHLESS: The Complete Rockstar Romance Series Boxed Set

by Vivian Lux

  "What's that?"

  "You fought back."

  I swallowed hard. "Not hard enough. And not soon enough."

  "No. The exact right time. When you were ready." Pepper blinked for a second, and I swore some kind of realization settled over her eyes. She pursed her lips. "Thanks for that," she finally said, as terse and flippant as always.

  Then she walked away, pulling a cell phone from the back pocket of her tunic.

  Twitch turned and watched her for a moment. "So, I'm gonna go see if my sister is okay..." he said hesitantly. Then bolted after her.

  Balzac looked from Rane, to me, back to Rane. "Yeeeahh," he drawled, and turned to follow Twitch.

  I shoved my hands in my pockets and ducked my head, waiting. The moment stretched out so long that I finally dared to sneak a look at him.

  "You love him?" he demanded.

  Startled, I blurted out the only possible response. "Yes. Yes, I do."

  "You gonna stick around this time?"

  I lifted my chin defiantly. "Yeah. I am. You good with that?"

  "Sure. What the fuck?" He shrugged. "Now go tell him all the shit you told us."

  "But he's resting..."

  "Bullshit. Tell him. Right now. You made him wait five years. Don't make him wait any longer."

  "What happened to your little slogan?" I couldn't help but ask. "Let the past be the past, fuck it and move on and all that?"

  He glowered at me. "If you want some kind of speech from me about the importance of shared memory and all that crap, well, then you're barking up the wrong tree."

  I smiled at him. "Are you going to tell Keir about your change in slogan?"

  "Tell him yourself." He gave me a gentle nudge towards the door of Keir's room. "Now."

  I allowed him to lead me to the closed door. Inside, the man I loved was resting after getting seventy stitches and two liters of blood. He might even be asleep.

  I almost hoped he was. Because suddenly, all the talking I had been doing caught up with me and I couldn't think of a single word to say to him.

  I opened the door and saw him in the hospital bed. He wasn't asleep. He was sitting up in bed, spine straight as an arrow, but he didn't look at me as I walked in the door.

  I went to him and planted myself directly in his line of sight. His head jerked like he wanted to keep staring off into the distance...

  But I wanted him to see me.

  Only me.

  "Hey you," I said, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed. I took his hands into my hands, wanting to feel the warm reassurance of his fingers closing around mine.

  But his hands stayed limp.

  He didn't hold me back.

  "Keir?"

  His mouth worked. I waited, watching him collect his words. Whatever he was going to say, I deserved it, but I wasn't sure I wouldn't crumple beneath the anger in his eyes.

  Of course he was mad. He just found out I was stupid enough to stay with an abusive asshole for four years. He was probably having second thoughts about running away with me.

  I ducked my head, waiting for him to let me go.

  "Five years," he finally said.

  "What?" That was not what I was expecting.

  He shifted in his chair, wincing slightly, then stretched his leg out straight. The bandage was clean, only a little dot of red bleeding through the layer of gauze. But it still made me nauseous to see it.

  "Five. Years," he repeated. "That's how long I waited for you to come to your senses and come to me."

  I slid my hand up his good leg. "I did. I did come back to you, Keir."

  He shook his head. "Yeah, you almost had me fooled, Scarlett."

  "What?" His voice was so low, so sad. I expected him to yell at me. I wanted him to yell at me. He just got fucking stabbed because of me. "Keir, what are you talking about?"

  He shook his head. "I'm an idiot when it comes to you. Got a blind spot a mile wide. And I just keep getting broadsided."

  "I'm so sorry Kevin hurt you..."

  "I don't give a shit about that." He shook his head. "Here I was thinking we had turned over a new leaf. But now I see that you haven't let me in at all. Not even one inch. You opened the door a crack,and like an idiot, I thought I stepped all the way through."

  I was sobbing now, great heaving, ugly sobs that made speech close to impossible. "I didn't... I didn't want to..."

  Keir lunged forward and made to grab my arm, but I shrank away. A flicker of sadness crossed his face. "Don't you say it. Don't you say you didn't want to bother me. If you want me in your life, I'm all the way in your life. You know me. I don't do half measures."

  "I was ready," I said angrily. "I was going to tell you everything, but you...you told me not to!"

  He blinked and his eyes flashed angrily. "You should know me better than that!"

  "That's not fair!'

  He slumped backwards. "No. I guess it's not."

  I exhaled. "I want to tell you. But I don't know where to start."

  He blinked three times in rapid succession, then folded his arms.

  "Why don't you start with the afternoon of August 18, 2011?"

  I swallowed. "What about it?"

  His eyes blazed. "What do you mean, what about it? Why weren't you there? Why didn't you meet me?"

  "I tried to."

  "Well? What the fuck happened?"

  I opened my mouth and then shut it. I opened my mouth again and tried to speak, tried to form the words around the lump in my throat. There was no way to avoid saying the words anymore. They were real.

  "I lost our baby, Keir."

  He slumped like I punched him.

  I knew. I knew exactly how much it would hurt him.

  That's why I never said those words out loud.

  Our baby. Keir's and mine. The one we made the day I turned eighteen.

  "I didn't know you were..."

  I felt the tears starting, and I knew that once I started to cry, the words would never come out. In a rush, in a race again my own sorrow, I told him. "I didn't know either. Until that morning, when the pain started. I was seven weeks along, but then I miscarried."

  The noise that Keir made was like releasing the floodgates. I could no longer hold back the tears, and collapsed against his chest.

  He held me. I could feel his questions, the tension rippling through his muscles like electricity. His uncertainty. Should he be angry? Should he be worried?

  "Stop," Keir murmured into my hair. "I'm fine."

  I looked up at him. He shook his head a fraction of an inch, a tiny shift. But that was all I needed. I knew that right now, what he was thinking didn't matter to him.

  He was more concerned with me.

  My fist closed around the tail of his T-shirt, gripping with all of my strength. I never thought about that day, never wanted to, but now it was coming over me in waves.

  "Clark was the one who found me that morning," I told him. "My brother, you only met him once. But he was my nice brother, the one person in my family who liked me for who I was." Keir held me incrementally tighter as the words came out in a flood. "He'd moved out five months before--when he and Dayna, his college girlfriend, had a baby--and had come over to grab more of his things out of the attic." The fact that he came in the middle of the day, when my parents were certain not to be home,didn't strike me as odd back then. In hindsight, I realized he was avoiding them.

  "Then what happened?"

  I swallowed. "To his credit, he didn't say a word. I was on the toilet, naked from the waist down and bleeding hard, but he didn't..." I took a deep breath. "He didn't embarrass me about it." I felt Keir wince. "But he knew immediately what needed to be done." I looked up at Keir's cheek. A single tear was tracking through the dark stubble. "He needed to get me the hell away from our mother."

  I sat up, cradling my belly, the phantom pains of memory as real as anything. "I had packed my bag already. Because...you know. We were leaving that night. I had everything I needed to start my life
over again." I turned back to him. "I never thanked you for that."

  "No problem," he said gruffly.

  "So it only took a matter of moments to get me cleaned up and bundled into his truck. He had this ugly green Ford pickup. The seats were an awful burgundy color. I was happy about that. It's bad enough bleeding in your brother's truck, much less actually leaving a stain."

  I took another deep breath. "Clark took me to his house and bundled me into my niece's bedroom to lie down while he 'sorted this shit.' That's what he called it. That's all he said. But I saw it. The fear in his eyes, fear for me."

  I spent the rest of the afternoon splayed on his daughter's floor, wracked with guilt and grief in equal measure. Losing the baby. That had to be a punishment. My mother's voice was terrible in my head, raining hellfire and accusations down on me. And I believed every one of them.

  "He took me to his friend's mom's house," I told Keir, pulling back and dabbing my eyes. "A woman named Maryann." I smiled a little. Keir cocked his head, the whiteness of his knuckles the only betrayal of how he was really feeling. "She took care of me and never asked for a single thing in return. She...she was the first real mother I ever had, and I lived with her for only three weeks."

  He winced. "Three weeks?"

  I swallowed, wanting to lie. But that time had passed. "Yeah,Keir." I grimaced.

  "You didn't call."

  "Clark told me not to. So did Maryann."

  "Why?"

  "To keep you safe."

  "I didn't need to be safe, I needed to be with you!" he exploded in a hoarse, angry shout. "I would have waited for you. I didwait for you. I put everything on hold, and when you didn't come, I went looking for you."

  I swallowed, trying to keep the note of pleading out of my voice. "My mother hated you. She would have blamed you, tried to get the cops involved. I was eighteen, we made sure of that." I slid my hand over his. "But that wouldn't have mattered to her. She would have ruined your life, Keir, don't you see that? I couldn't be responsible for that. She would have done everything in her power to derail your life,and I loved you too much to let that happen. She's poison, Keir. She would have poisoned you just like she poisoned me."

  His jaw worked, a muscle jumping at his temple. I waited, watching him carefully as every emotion rippled across his face. Until he finally, carefully asked, "You got pregnant the first time we had sex?"

  "The very first time I everhad sex," I pointed out.

  Keir made a small, amused sound. "So, you're like, super fertile, huh?" He looked a little worried.

  I laughed into the wet patch on his T-shirt that I had made with my tears. "Only with you, apparently."

  A proud smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "That shouldn't make me feel good, and yet..."

  This time,I laughed out loud. "You always wanted kids. I thought you'd be upset."

  "I am."

  "Oh."

  "I've been upset for five fucking years."

  I looked down. "I know."

  "But now..."

  "What?"

  "Now I understand."

  I looked up. "You do?"

  "You were a kid, Scarlett. I keep forgetting that. You didn't know anything except your parents' house. And your parents' fucked up ways. The condom broke, but I barely thought about it. I was too excited about running away. I should have never put all that on you."

  "I wanted it on me," I told him. It was the truth. "But then..."

  "Then it was too much."

  "It was."

  "That's..." He exhaled, and it was like watching something unspool. Coils of tension I hadn't even noticed he was wrapped in suddenly unraveled. "I've been carrying this a while," he finally said. Even his voice sounded looser. "I'm going to need..."

  "Yeah." I bounced to my feet. "I get it. I'll give you space."

  "No." He reached out and yanked me back down. "You didn't let me finish. I'm going to need you to stick close and help me figure it out. No running away again, okay?

  I leaned forward, careful of jostling him. "I'm not going anywhere. I love you."

  He choked a little, then cleared his throat. "I'm not trying to save you anymore. You are capable of saving yourself. You're strong enough; you don't need me." I started protest, but he held his hands up. "And I'm glad. I am so fucking glad." He settled his huge hand over his chest, pledging his heart. "I get it. I don't need to fix you. I'm not even going to try to fix us anymore. I just want to be with you. That's it. I'm happy just to hang out, so long as I can hang out with you. I don't need anything more than that."

  I ran my hand down his arm, tracing the hills and valleys of his bicep before winding my fingers through his.

  "But what if I do?" I asked, leaning in to brush my lips against his. "What if I need something more?"

  I felt his lips spread into a grin against mine, and I was laughing before he even said it. He didn't need to say it, but he said it anyway. "You know I'm a sucker for you," he sighed. "Whatever you want, Scar. You know I'll always do whatever you want."

  Epilogue

  Scarlett

  Some things can change completely.

  But other things seem never to change at all.

  Mrs. Soule bustled around the circulation desk, her iron-gray hair in exactly the same coiled braid as she wore six years ago, tight to her head with nary a strand out of place. I recognized the purple skirt that swished around her calves, and her glasses swung from the same silvery chain around her neck.

  "Scarlett Sawyer." She smiled, kind eyes crinkling, and I swore there were no new wrinkles on her face. "It is absolutely lovely to see you again."

  I returned her hug, emotion welling up in my throat, rendering me speechless. "It's so good to see you too," I finally managed to choke out. "Where do you want me to set up?"

  "We've had an overflow crowd, dear," she clucked. "We are going to have to put you in the community room downstairs. It's not where I wanted to have you..."

  "It's absolutely fine," I reassured her. "I'm ready whenever you want to start."

  "I'm just going to say a few words, introduce you, thank you for your generous donation to the library." She winked at me, and I blushed. "Are you certain you are ready to go?" I swallowed and nodded.

  When Kelly floated the idea of turning my piece on Ruthless into a full-blown memoir, I initially scoffed. Never would I have thought that someone would be interested in my story.

  Turns out millions of people were interested, including a standing room only crowd at Kenmore Public Library, just down the street from the house where I grew up.

  Mrs. Soule led me into the community room with her head held high. There were a few whispers, then a smattering of applause that turned thunderous. I felt myself standing up straighter and even managed a few waves. So this is how Keir feels, I thought. No wonder he loves playing in front of a crowd.

  The famous author lifts her chin....

  I startled for a second, closing my fists tightly. The old tic of watching and narrating my life caught me by surprise. I hadn't done that since...

  Since I left to go on tour with Keir fourteen months ago.

  Ever since then, I hadn't needed to watch myself from the outside. The careful cautiousness had fallen away and left just...

  Me.

  I kind of liked being me, now.

  I sat down and flipped through the pages of my manuscript until I landed on the portion I had highlighted to read tonight. Mrs. Soule introduced me as one of her favorite patrons, then bragged about being the one to teach me shorthand, which made the crowd give an appreciative chuckle.

  And then it was time for me to begin.

  I cleared my throat.

  "Music saved my life," I began. "Those four words have been said so often that they could almost turn into a cliché, but for me,they are the absolute truth. Music saved me, music gave me life, and music taught me the true meaning of what it is to be loved." I blinked several times, willing the tears not to fall. "It was pure luck that
let me grow up next door to one of the greatest musicians of my generation. But it was music and love...and love of music that brought us together."

  I looked up and out into the crowd. "My name is Scarlett Sawyer. I don't expect you to know me. If you saw me on the street, you would probably glance at me then keep going. I'm not famous, but my story--this story--makes me special. And I would have never known that until Keir made me believe it."

  As I looked out over the crowd, I saw the smiling faces and nodding heads, and I began to smile. I looked down at my page, tracing my finger past the few paragraphs I wanted to skip before picking up at the end of the chapter. A hushed, expectant silence fell over the crowd.

  Just then,a voice rang out, cold, clear, and terrifyingly familiar. "It's all lies, you know," she called.

  I stiffened. I knew that voice.

  Whispered questions buzzed through the audience, and several heads turned to find the source of the interruption.

  But I didn't look at her.

  Maybe she thought I would agree? That was probably her expectation. Maybe she thought I would duck my head, mumble apologies and allow the attention of the room to go to her. That's what she wanted, of course. To make a scene. To tear my triumph away from me and make it about her. Her. It was always about her.

  Except today, it wasn't.

  "Caleb?" I called.

  He stepped forward smoothly.

  "Caleb, would you please show my mother the door?"

  The whispers rose to a hum. My mother stood up, and for one terrible moment, we locked eyes, her eyes so much like mine it was like looking into a mirror, except mine could never be filled with so much hate. "You selfish, ungrateful little..."

  "Okay, ma'am. Time to go," Caleb said smoothly, grasping her by the arm.

  I saw her eyes narrow. She was debating. Should she make a scene? But wouldn't that be letting me win?

  She couldn't have that.

  "I'll go," she said, smoothing her hands down her front. She lifted her head and raised an accusing finger in my direction. "My own daughter doesn't want me here--you see it. I come out to support her, and this is how she treats me."