Rock Me: A Billionaire Romance (Billionaires, Brides and Babies Book 1)

by dos Anjos, Maria

  “I hope you looked amazing,” Beth said, winking at me. “Was it Dominic Angelchance?”

  “How did you know?” I stopped stirring. “That must have been the world’s luckiest lucky guess.”

  “Don’t stop,” Beth wailed. “You’ll ruin the batter.”

  “Sorry,” I said, stirring the lumps out of the chocolate batter. “How did you know it was Dom?”

  “Dom? You’re on a first name basis with the biggest rock star in the world now?” Beth tossed her head back, and a puff of flour erupted into the air. “I guess things are really over between him and that horrid bridezilla. Good riddance to bad rubbish, as they say.”

  “I don’t know if he’s the biggest rock star in the world,” I said, remembering his words. “Beth, I’m not going to ask you again. How did you know?”

  “You went to an Angelchance concert last night. Who would you be excited to meet if it wasn’t a member of the band?”

  I tilted my head to the side, thinking about her logic. It wasn’t faulty. “There are five guys in the band; plus there was an opening act. That was still a lucky guess.”

  “Also,” Beth said. “These came for you.” She scurried into her office and returned with a bouquet of flowers that was so large, it obscured her face, shoulders and chest as she carried it into the room.

  It was the kind of flower arrangement that I’d always hoped to get from Jeff but never did. The aroma of orchids and lilies filled the back room of the bakery like an exotic perfume.

  Beth set the flowers on the table and took the wooden spoon from my hand. “Read the card.”

  Dear Jenny,

  These flowers are for the only girl I know who prefers the company of married men over a one-night stand with a rock star. When can I see you again? I think I can make you change your mind. Wear comfortable shoes. I’ll bring the Gatorade.

  Dom

  P.S. Just remember. Sometimes dreams really do come true.

  I scowled. “That wasn’t a very nice thing of him to say. Why did he have to bring up the part about married men?”

  “I’m sure he was just trying to be clever,” Beth said. “Did you tell him about Jeff? That seems like an awful lot of personal information for a meet and greet with a rock star.”

  “Yeah. Obviously, that’s what Dom’s remark was about.” I looked around for something that needed to be kneaded or beaten, but Beth had everything under control. “It wasn’t exactly a meet and greet,” I said.

  “Did you?” Beth asked, trying to appear nonchalant as she greased a muffin tin. She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye.

  “Did I what, Beth?” I asked. Unfortunately, I had a bad feeling that I knew exactly what Beth was getting at.

  She rolled her eyes. “Did you have a one-night stand with him?”

  “No, I didn’t,” I replied. “I turned him down. Not everyone is cut out to have one-night stands with handsome rock stars.” For a brief moment, I wished that I was that kind of girl. Maybe a roll in the hay with the most beautiful man on Earth would take my mind off Jeff for five minutes. Or an hour.

  “Dom is handsome. Isn’t he?” Beth’s face and neck turned pink. “Even when he’s angry, he looks like something out of a magazine.”

  “He is so handsome,” I agreed. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” I turned the card over in my hands. “Is this his cell phone number?”

  “How would I know? I’m not the one who almost had a one-night stand with him,” Beth said. “Why don’t you call it and find out?”

  “Do you think I should?” I grabbed my purse to fetch my cell phone, but I knocked it off the table instead. As it upended and landed on the floor, its contents spilled out onto the fine layer of flour that covered the tiles.

  Beth watched as the debris field spread. Lipsticks, eye pencils and tampons rolled in all directions, and one nearly forgotten item in a sealed plastic bag landed at her feet. She didn’t hesitate. “Is that a pregnancy test?” she asked.

  My mouth opened wide, but no words escaped.

  “It is a pregnancy test,” she said, bending over and picking it up by a corner of the plastic bag. “It’s positive,” she said. “Is it yours?”

  “Yes, Beth. It’s mine. I don’t carry strangers’ pregnancy tests in my purse.” I snatched it from her hand and pushed it to the bottom of my bag before loading the other escaped items on top. “I took it yesterday before the concert. It came out positive, but I’m not so sure it’s accurate.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Those things never give a false positive. Did you—I mean were you always careful?”

  “No, Beth. I was not always careful.” I didn’t like the clipped tone of my voice, but I couldn’t help myself. “We used condoms every time except this one time. The very last time we had sex, he tricked me. I gave him the condom, but he didn’t put it on. I was so caught up in the moment that I didn’t even notice.”

  “Oh, Jenny, what are you going to do?” Beth wailed. “Now, you’ll never get a good job.”

  “Good. So, it will be business as usual then,” I snapped.

  “What did he say when you told him?” Beth asked, wiping her hands on her apron.

  “Why would I tell him?” I asked, thinking of Dom. “We just met.”

  “What? I’m talking about Jeff. You said you took the pregnancy test before the concert. Did he show up? Did you tell him about the baby?”

  I tossed the card that came with my flowers into my purse and carefully zipped the zipper closed. “It isn’t a baby,” I said coldly. “It’s a clump of cells.”

  “Don’t say that, Jenny. It’s a baby. From the moment you and Jeff made love that night, it was a baby.” She started to cry.

  I was the one who should be crying. “It isn’t a baby until I say it’s a baby,” I argued.

  “That’s not how it works,” she sobbed. “I’m going to be an aunt.”

  “For Pete’s sake, I’m getting out of here.” I grabbed my purse, double checking that it was firmly closed and more of my secrets wouldn’t come flying out of it. “When I make my choice, you’ll be the first to know. Until then, you’re not going to be an aunt unless I say you’re going to be an aunt. It’s my decision.”

  “Jenny, I’m sorry. You’re my sister. I love you; I only want what’s best for you and the baby.”

  With her voice ringing in my ears, I stormed out of the back room into the front of the bakery. I was half expecting there to be a crowd of hungry people who’d come for the cupcakes and stayed for the drama, but it was empty.

  I sat in my car with the doors locked and the windows up, taking deep breaths and trying not to vomit. Once I calmed down a bit, I turned the key in the ignition. Nothing happened.

  My eyes widened in surprise. This was just another unexpected drop in the roller coaster ride that had become my life.

  I pounded on the steering wheel and the dashboard in case that helped. Then I tried again. The car made a sickly mewling sound like a dying cat, but it didn’t start.

  You could fill a thimble with everything I knew about car maintenance and repair. I could change a flat tire in record time, but if my car wouldn’t start, I was dead in the water. Part of me thought I should lift the hood and take a look inside the engine compartment just in case there was something really obvious wrong like a boa constrictor wrapped around the fan belt or an elephant sitting on the battery, but those things seemed just as unlikely as me being able to solve this problem on my own.

  As I was screaming and pounding on the steering wheel again, I thought I heard a car horn honking. When I finally looked up, I saw that a black limousine had pulled up alongside me. “What?” I said through the glass, raising my flattened upturned palms. “What?”

  The back window of the limo slid down, and Dom’s handsome face appeared. It was as if the sun had just broken through the clouds after forty days and forty nights of rain. I half expected a rainbow to form in the sky above his limo.

  I couldn’t
open my window. The car was deader than a doornail.

  “You didn’t call me,” he shouted through my closed window. There was no way he failed to notice the tears streaming down my face; I was a mess. “Do you need a ride?”

  I nodded my head; I didn’t have the energy to shout through a layer of safety glass.

  The limo pulled ahead and double parked. A uniformed chauffeur disembarked from the driver’s seat and opened the back door.

  Dom climbed out of the back seat, looking every inch a rock star even in broad daylight. He covered the distance to my car in a few long strides, opened my door and lifted me out like he was rescuing a small child. “I’ve got you,” he said, stroking my hair. “I’ve got you.”

  He rushed me to the limo and tucked me inside, holding the back of my head so I wouldn’t bang it on the doorframe as I got in. It reminded me of episodes of Cops where the uniformed police officers did the same thing to their prisoners.

  I started laughing through my tears, and suddenly I was crying, laughing, snorting and hyperventilating all at once. This was probably the most absurd moment of my life. I was sitting, sobbing and speechless in the back of a limo with the most desirable rock star on the planet.

  “Shouldn’t you be holed up in a hotel room with a beauty pageant contestant or a swimsuit model?” I asked between sobs.

  Dom just held me, stroking my hair and blotting my tears with a red bandanna like I was a small child who had skinned her knee. If only he could apply antibiotic ointment and a non-stick bandage to my broken heart.

  My tears finally slowed, and then they stopped. “How did you find me?” I asked.

  “Did you think I could forget the bakery that made my wedding cake?” he asked with a straight face. “Sweets for the Sweet. Owners Beth and Jenny Sweet.”

  “I’m just the silent partner,” I reminded him.

  “For a silent partner, you sure make a lot of noise,” he said. “Where can I take you?”

  “I just want to go home.” My nose was stuffy from crying.

  We looked at each other for a few long seconds. “I could just walk,” I offered.

  “Jenny, I need your address,” Dom finally said. “I don’t know where you live. I’m not a creep.”

  “I didn’t say that you were.” I tried to sound defensive, but I couldn’t stop a giggle from bubbling out of my throat.

  Dom rolled down the privacy screen that separated us from the driver, and I gave him my address. He rolled the window back up, and we were alone again.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked. “I’m a really good listener.”

  “That’s probably not a good idea,” I said. “Nothing good could possibly come from spilling all my secrets to a rock star.”

  “Hey,” he protested. “Rock stars are people, too.”

  Chapter Six

  It was strange to pull up to my house in a big, black limousine. From the back seat of a limo, my prized possession seemed shabby and small. Ordinarily, I loved my little house. It was the house where Beth and I had spent our childhood. It was filled with memories.

  When our parents died, we inherited the house, but Beth soon found that she was happier living above the bakery where she could finish a last batch of cookies late at night or fire up the oven first thing in the morning to pre-heat while she took a shower.

  Beth was happier away from the memories; I was happier living among them. Different strokes for different folks. Like my mother always said, my sister and I were as different as butter and butterflies.

  We climbed from the back seat of the limo, and I led Dom to the front door. My neighbors weren’t exactly the rock and roll type. They might wonder about the limo, but I didn’t think that they would recognize Dom. If they did, we would deal with it as it happened.

  I locked the door behind us. “This is it,” I said. “It’s probably not what you’re used to, but it’s my own little slice of heaven.” I looked around, trying to see my home through his eyes and failing. I only saw my family home through the eyes of love.

  All I could see was the place where my mother had kneaded bread and fostered my sister’s love of baking, the chair where my father had smoked his favorite pipe while reading the newspaper and the table where I had sat and done my homework for so many years that I couldn’t even conceive of a time when I’d be out of school.

  “It’s charming,” Dom said. “Just like you.” He wrapped his arms around me and gave me a reassuring hug, and I let him. The heat of his body felt like a sauna.

  I looked up into his eyes, and I saw his expression change. I recognized that expression, and I tried to turn my head, but it was too late.

  Dom planted his lips on mine and kissed me there in the kitchen where I learned to crawl, then walk and then run. His kiss was firm and gentle; his lips were soft.

  I couldn’t breathe. “Dom,” I said directly into his mouth, pushing him away. “No.”

  He released his hold on me immediately. “No problem,” he said. “My bad.” He shuffled from foot to foot, and I could tell he wasn’t accustomed to having his kisses rebuffed.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” I had to take my mind off that kiss.

  “Well, I don’t drink alcohol,” he said.

  “That’s okay. I don’t either,” I replied. “I could make coffee or tea. How about some apple juice? I don’t have any Gatorade, but I’ve been meaning to stock up on some blue flavor.”

  His laugh broke the tension in the room. “Apple juice sounds great.” He pulled out a chair at the table and sat down, looking both wildly out of place and right at home.

  I took the juice from the fridge and poured us each a glass before sitting down across from him. “It seems pretty clear that you don’t drink,” I said. “I haven’t even known you for a full day, and you’ve mentioned it at least twice.”

  He sipped his juice. “It doesn’t seem normal for a rock star. Right? When I tell most people that I don’t drink, they assume I’m a recovering alcoholic or something.”

  “That’s quite an assumption,” I said. “I’ll make you a promise. I’ll try not to make any assumptions about you. Maybe you can do the same for me. How does that sound?”

  He finished his glass of apple juice. “It sounds refreshing,” he said. “In my line of business, I see a lot of people on drugs, falling down drunk, vomiting in the corner or passing out on the floor. It’s not attractive. I might have done it a time or two myself, but that’s not the person I want to be.”

  “I don’t want to be that person either,” I said. I remembered the night of the accident. My parents were taking me and Beth out to dinner to celebrate my father’s new job. We never made it. A drunk driver smashed into the family car as we were backing out of the driveway. Our parents had died at the scene. My sister and I were barely eighteen at the time.

  My hands shook as I poured us each another glass of apple juice. “It’s nice to see you,” I said. “But I have to ask. What made you come find me?”

  “You’re different from the other girls I meet,” he said. “The girls who come to my shows try so hard to impress me, but you impress me without even trying.”

  “Oh.” I sipped my juice so I could hide behind the glass. “Thank you,” I mumbled into my apple juice.

  “I’m sorry things didn’t work out with your friend,” Dom said. “I just want to confirm. Does that mean you’re single?”

  “I’m officially single,” I said, thinking of the positive pregnancy test hidden deep within my purse. “I just don’t know if I’m ready to mingle.”

  “As luck would have it, last night was the final stop on our North American tour, and the European tour doesn’t kick off for another month. Maybe we could spend some time together and get to know each other. No pressure.” He emptied his glass again.

  “I don’t know,” I said. Would I be able to hide my pregnancy for a month?

  “Just so you know,” Dom said. “I’m a really great guy once you get to know me
. Give it a chance. If you don’t like me, you can always console yourself with the thought that I’ll be gone in a month.”

  “So, it wouldn’t be like a one-night stand,” I joked.

  “A one-month stand,” Dom said. “With option to renew. What have you got to lose?”

  “My sanity?” I suggested.

  He laughed. “Does anyone even have that anymore? Keeping your sanity is so past tense.”

  “Totally,” I agreed. “It’s definitely an outdated way of thinking.” I raised my empty glass. “Here’s to a month of insanity,” I said.

  Dom clinked his empty glass against mine. “Here’s to a month of second chances.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” I said. “Non-alcoholic, of course.”

  I couldn’t keep myself from staring at him as we sat across from one another at the kitchen table. The way that I was so enraptured by every inch of his body, the way his muscles moved beneath his clothes, each hair on his head and the way that his face changed every time he smiled, it was almost like falling in love.

  If my body was having such an extreme reaction to a complete stranger whose music videos I’d watched only a handful of times just to make Jeff happy, I couldn’t imagine how a fan would react to being in his presence. It was almost easy to feel sorry for the groupies who had managed to land in his bed.

  They probably felt like they won the lottery just for one night. By morning, Dominic was probably ready to move on to the next town, the next stop on the tour, the next one-night stand and the next broken heart.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked, reaching out to take my hand across the wooden table.

  “I was just wondering whether I could trace the trail of broken hearts you leave behind using Google maps to plot the points on your tour schedule,” I replied. Did I just say that out loud?

  “What about my heart?” he asked. “Getting used for my fame and fortune grew old several years ago. Sometimes men have feelings, too.”

  I found that hard to believe, but I vowed to try to give him the benefit of the doubt. “What are you doing here?” I asked.