by Shayla Black
Chapter One
May - Austin, Texas
Wasn’t regret a bitch? In fact, Jesse McCall couldn’t remember another time in his life when it had come off its leash and humped his leg so thoroughly.
As he emerged from the modern, mostly glass hotel, flashbulbs burst in his face, blinding him. He paused as reporters shouted questions his way. Beside him, his shark of a publicist, Candia, barked “no comment” in a nonstop loop as she led him to the waiting limo at the end of the crowded walk.
Jesse glanced at the big blue sky. Late afternoon blistered. Had it already been more than twelve hours since everything had gone so wrong? Why hadn’t he asked more questions or hung around longer? Something that might have prevented this fucking tragedy…
Raking a hand through his hair, he squinted as he dragged his gaze over the surrounding skyscrapers. He was in some downtown area. Austin. Yeah. Half the time he woke up and didn’t know what day it was, what city he’d preformed in, or who the hell he was lying next to. The life of a musician was frenetic and nomadic. Jesse had sold out one stadium tour after another since age sixteen. Twelve years later, he didn’t know any other way to live.
He reached into his pocket and tossed on a pair of Armani shades, thanking god he wasn’t hung over. A year of sobriety had ensured that, but still Candia strode beside him on her usual platforms, tense and waiting to flay him alive with her tongue the second they were alone.
When the limo driver opened the door of the sleek black stretch, Jesse climbed in behind his publicist as she settled into the leather seat and smoothed back the professional twist of her dark hair. Their chauffeur enclosed them together in the back of the car, and Jesse counted down to Candia’s imminent explosion.
“Damn it, we’re still on tour. The album just dropped last week.” She tossed her gray Prada briefcase onto the floorboard and shot him a frustrated stare. “The bad-boy image has always worked for you because you’re young and hot. But the public will view this as over the line. You want to give me the whole story now?”
As if she hadn’t heard every word he’d told the pair of detectives over the last three hours. Did she honestly think he’d held back? The interview had finally ended when they’d realized he knew nothing and hadn’t been in any way involved. Then the paunch-bellied one with the scowl had asked him to sign an autograph for his teenage daughter. With a few strokes of his pen, Jesse had been out the door.
“It’s already public knowledge?” He’d hoped she could keep a lid on this until he could figure out what to do, how to process, what to say.
“TMZ and Perez Hilton are all over this shit. You even made CNN.”
So that was a yes. He sighed. “I swear, I don’t know anything else. After the show last night, Ryan caught me as I was leaving my suite. He said he’d met a girl and asked to borrow my room since he couldn’t find the key to his own. He was in too much of a hurry to get under her miniskirt to fetch another one from the front desk.”
Of course Ryan had invited him to join in, too. Girls and drugs, just like the good ol’ days. Jesse had declined and begged Ryan to come with him. No dice.
“Then you went out for a ride?” Candia asked.
He nodded. “Cruising around on my motorcycle helps clear my head after a show.”
And kept him away from the partying that had nearly ruined him over ten years of his career.
“Did you get a good look at her before you left?”
“You mean, did I know she was only sixteen? No. I barely glanced at her but I would have pegged her at well over twenty-one.” Definitely not a sophomore in high school.
“If you’d made him go to the lobby, maybe someone would have stopped him… Maybe he would have used the head up north.” She pressed her thumb between her eyebrows, obviously fighting off a headache. “Maybe… But it’s done.”
He wanted to be pissed that Candia had put this off on him, but she hadn’t voiced anything he hadn’t already thought. “At the time, I figured if Ryan was screwing some cute blonde, maybe he wasn’t getting high.”
Jesse scoffed at the terrible irony of that.
“Oh, he absolutely was. And he got her high, too.”
Yes, his bandmate and old buddy had overdosed the girl—in Jesse’s room. So naturally, everyone assumed he’d been involved.
“The press is having a field day.” At barely four thirty in the afternoon, Candia already sounded damn tired.
Jesse could guess who they’d cast in the role of scapegoat, even though he hadn’t been in the building when Ryan had pumped his jailbait hookup full of heroin and taken her to bed. Then, once his backup vocalist had realized the girl was unresponsive, he hadn’t called 911 for medical help so she might have lived. No. He’d apparently panicked and shot himself in the head, doubling the tragedy.
Besides being a PR nightmare, Jesse had lost a friend he’d been trying to save. And the staggered, grief-stricken looks on the faces of that girl’s parents when they realized their daughter was gone would haunt him forever.
“So, I guess social media is firing up with condemnation and hate.” He stared out the window at the thick traffic.
“Enough to make me nervous. You’ve got sympathy from the hard-core fans but… We have to cancel the rest of the tour,” she murmured. “The noise is too negative. You look like an insensitive asshat if you continue on as if nothing terrible has happened.”
“We had six shows left.” It could have been more, but he wished it had been fewer.
“Yep. That’s well over a hundred thousand disappointed fans. And those are merely the ones who held tickets. It sucks.” She hesitated. “You’ll be thirty in less than eighteen months. I’m starting to think the time has come to tone down your bad-boy-gone-wild image.”
She was right. Jesse didn’t bother asking if his parents would be proud. They’d cashed out on his fame years ago. His dad now played golf with celebrities. His mom trained other stage parents and gave interviews about where they’d gone wrong with their only son. He hadn’t talked to them in forever. But none of that mattered at the moment. Bottom line, Jesse wasn’t proud of himself.
He hadn’t been in a long time.
“We need a distraction,” she told him. “You should start an anti-gun crusade.”
Jesse shook his head. “Too political.”
“What about a series of PSAs about suicide prevention?”
“Ryan didn’t want to take his own life. He was simply too high to realize he shouldn’t. Besides, doing either of those things will look like I know I should have done more.”
Candia gave him a deflated sigh, then began chewing on her bottom lip as if sorting through the problem. “I’ll keep working on solutions.”
“While you think about my public image, find out how we can help the Harris girl’s family, like providing funeral expenses or whatever else they need.” He paused. “Have my lawyers work up a confidential settlement and set these folks up for life.”
“But you had nothing to do with her death.”
“All those parents know is that the last time their daughter walked out the door, she was coming to my concert. She’ll never be home again because of the choices my bandmate made. They will never recover from that loss.”
Candia got quiet. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Great. I appreciate you coming with me to talk to the rest of the band.” They’d all been devastated but not stunned when he’d broken the news. “And when the police contact Ryan’s parents and you get the details of his funeral, let me know.”
She nodded. “Absolutely.”
“Thanks. So…I guess you’re canceling my appearances for a while?” When she nodded, the care
er-driven part of him grimaced. The rest of him exhaled in guilty relief. He hadn’t had a day off in years.
“I’m afraid you won’t be visiting Jimmy Fallon with this album,” she quipped. “I think it’s better if we proactively back out on these appearances for now, citing grief over the loss of your friend. We’ll have an easier time rebooking in a couple of weeks, once this crap has died down.”
“Wait. Maybe I should use those appearances to tell everyone that I had nothing to do with it.” But he couldn’t deny that on plenty of nights in the past, it could have been him—and everyone knew it. The fact that Maddy Harris had died in his hotel room simply splashed another stain on his already bad reputation. And it sure as hell made him feel shitty, too. What a waste of life…
“That’s not what they want to hear. ‘Rock Star Overdoses Underage Fan on Sex and Heroin’ makes for a juicier headline. Until the police finish their investigation and release the details, people will assume you had a hand in the incident.”
He sighed. “So what do you want me to do?”
“I’m going to issue a statement expressing your grief and deepest apologies to the Harris family. You’re going to disappear—way off the radar—until I say otherwise. No swanky resorts. No high-profile outings with Taylor Swift. And absolutely no intoxication. Think sober monk.”
No one would ever believe that.
“I’ve got it.” She snapped her fingers and excitement lit her eyes. “You can go to rehab.”
Jesse scowled. “I’m not an addict.”
“But it would look good. Repentant.”
“It would also be pointless. Everyone goes to rehab and no one cares. No.” He glared her way. “If I hole up, this dies down.”
“All right,” she said grudgingly as the limo stopped in front of the executive airport outside the city. “But I don’t want to see a Twitter or Instagram pic of you for at least the next two weeks. Once we’re back in L.A., hide out in your house. That should work. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come out.”
His ultra-contemporary house was decorated with every luxury and technological delight known to man, not to mention blessed with sick city and ocean views. But it had never felt like home. Despite the place being eight thousand square feet, Jesse couldn’t imagine being cooped up there for the next fourteen days. It would only remind him of everything wrong with his life.
“Paparazzi know where I live. If I get on that plane with you and go to L.A., they’ll figure it out. So will fans.” Even now, he imagined that if he looked at his phone he’d find a full voicemail box and hundreds of text messages. He couldn’t deal with anyone else’s expectations right now when he’d done so poorly at meeting his own. “If you really want me to disappear, we’ll have to come up with another plan.”
“You’re well known on every continent but Antarctica. The press would spot you almost anywhere you travel, especially if you take a security detail. They seem to have eyes and ears at every airport. I…” Candia huffed. “I need to think about this.”
“I’ll give it some brain power too, come up with a few ideas.” Though he had no idea what to suggest, Jesse did know that what he’d done in the past—disappearing into the bottom of a bottle with some recreational blow and a woman under each arm—wasn’t going to do a damn thing to clean up his image.
“Ideas?” She sounded as if that horrified her. “You? No.”
“I’m a grown-ass man. And I’ve learned a few things over the years.” He lowered his sunglasses and stared at her over the rims. “Go. You handle the press. I think I might know how to disappear.”
When the driver opened the limo door, Candia grabbed her bag and turned to him. “You sure? Can I really trust you not to fuck this up?”
“Yeah. I know how much is on the line. Call me when the coast is clear.”
* * * *
Jesse wiped his palms down the front of his jeans, then rang the doorbell. Hell, he didn’t even know if Kimber was home. And that scary bastard she’d married—had it really been almost five years ago?—wouldn’t be thrilled to see his wife’s ex-fiancé, especially this late at night. If he was lucky, Deke Trenton would slam the door in his face. More likely, the big operative would try to beat the shit out of him.
After a gut-tightening moment, the porch light flipped on and the door swept open.
Deke towered in the doorway, a beefy forearm braced against the jamb, blue eyes raking him with a scathing glare. Then Kimber’s husband sighed and looked over his shoulder, back into the living room. “Kitten, your personal Bieber has decided to drop in.”
“Jesse?” He heard her familiar voice.
Deke stepped back, and she appeared in the doorway a moment later. Well, her pregnant belly edged into view. The rest of her followed an instant later. He hadn’t talked to her in so long, he hadn’t even known she was pregnant again. Didn’t that make him feel even more like a shit?
Deke wrapped an arm around her—both a reminder and a warning. Jesse was relieved that seeing the man’s hands on her no longer made him twenty kinds of jealous.
“Oh my gosh!” Kimber’s hazel eyes widened as she pulled him into a quick hug. “You really are here.”
Jesse held her in return for something slightly longer than a moment.
“Yeah. Sorry to drop by without calling.” Clearly, he was intruding on their happy domestic scene.
“Not at all. Come in.” She opened the door wider and stepped back.
He could have sworn he heard Deke growl. But the guy let Jesse enter. Now that he’d interrupted their evening, he’d talk fast, thank them, and be gone.
As he cleared the foyer, flashes of light told him the TV was on, but he suspected it had been muted because he didn’t hear a sound coming from the box. Children’s toys filled baskets and shelves around the room—balls, books, trucks, stuffed animals. Kimber had given birth to a son almost four years ago and was obviously about to be a mother again.
“Sit.” She waved him over to the couch. “Can I get you something? Water? Coffee?”
Reluctantly, he sank into a chair, leaving the couch for the two of them. “No thanks. How are you?”
“Pregnant. It’s a girl this time.” She smoothed her hand over her distended belly with a serene smile. “I’m due at the end of next month. Otherwise, I’m fine.”
“And you’re on bed rest until then so you don’t go into premature labor again. Feet up.” Deke hustled her back to the sofa and lifted her lower legs and placed her heels on a pillow strategically positioned on top of the coffee table. Then the man pinned Jesse with a stare, shaking his head. “So I’m guessing this isn’t a social call. Your buddy Ryan fucked up and bit it last night.”
Kimber gasped, then elbowed her husband. “Deke!”
“Am I wrong?” Deke looked his way.
Jesse raked at his hair. He hated wearing it to his shoulders and filled with “product.” The stylist he paid a small fortune for insisted it looked both cool and hot. Same with the scruff on his face. Sometimes he just wanted it all gone. “Nope. I wasn’t there.”
“Access Hollywood suggested something similar about an hour ago,” she said.
“Which I don’t watch,” Deke cut in. “You came here for a reason. What do you need?”
Tugging at his ear, Jesse grimaced. These damn earrings weren’t him, either. Crap, he shouldn’t have come here. He didn’t want to risk bringing the press down on them, especially if Kimber was having a difficult pregnancy. She didn’t need the stress.
“Nothing.” He stood. “You’ve got your hands full. I assume your son is in bed. And I… I’ll figure it out.”
“You need a place to go?” Deke barked.
Jesse opened his mouth to admit that’s why he’d come, then he snapped it shut again. Deke’s buddy Jack had some isolated cabin deep in a swamp, and it sure would come in handy about now. But Jesse hadn’t done anything for himself since fame had hit—not kept his schedule, answered his calls, or styled his hair. Hell, he
’d barely wiped his own ass. Simply rehabbing his image wouldn’t cut it. As Candia had suggested, the time had come for him to change everything.
He was too damn unhappy to spend the rest of his life this way.
“No. I’ve got a place in mind,” he lied. “Before I headed that way, I wanted to spend time with someone who…” Knows I’m not the sort of man to corrupt and overdose a teenager. But one of the last times he’d seen Kimber, she’d walked in to find him balls deep in an intoxicated, barely legal girl while chugging a fifth of bourbon. Deke must know that. “Someone who wouldn’t bullshit me. Someone with a solid word of advice.”
“Well…” Kimber wrinkled her brow in thought. “I’ve always told you that you have to decide what you want your life to be and make it happen.”