by Eden Summers
“Ending my search to find you.” Coffee eyes met his. “Apart from a few words in passing, we haven’t formally met.”
He shook her offered hand and then indicated the free space on the booth seat. “Are you joining us?”
“No.” Felicity spoke to Hannah. “We talked about this. You shouldn’t be here.”
“We talked, but we didn’t agree. In fact, I’m pretty sure I argued the hell out of this stupid stunt that puts you in the limelight while the rest of Slicker sits in the dark.”
“Shh.” Felicity’s panicked gaze cut to him. “We really need to leave.”
“Sure.” He shrugged and stood. “Are you still coming back to my room?”
“Your room?” Hannah’s lips parted as she sized him up. “Am I cock blocking?” She switched back to Felicity. “You were about to leave with him?”
“I offered to sleep on the sofa so Flick could get the bed. I didn’t want her traveling to the bus on her own.” And now he didn’t want the two of them leaving together because a drunk beauty in a gorgeous dress like that was bound to draw unwanted attention.
“And you were going to take him up on his offer, weren’t you?” She ignored him. “You should tell Scott. He’d be proud of his little puppet.”
Felicity sighed. “It’s a clean, comfortable bed after weeks of a wafer-thin mattress on a noisy bus with Trent and Carl snoring. You would’ve taken up the offer, too.”
“Would I?” Hannah looked back at him and cocked her head in scrutiny. “He’s not my type.”
“You’re being ridiculous.” Felicity met his gaze and winced. “Ryan, do you mind if she crashes, too? The two of us could share your bed.”
Instantly, two pleading stares were on him. A million hell-yeah thoughts could’ve gone through his mind but he only had one—how the heck was he going to explain to Mason that two beautiful women had slept in his bed and left the next day untouched? Or did he bite the bullet and dive back into the dating pool with a threesome under his belt?
“Sure.” He cleared his throat. “It doesn’t bother me.”
Hannah frowned. “Really? This wasn’t a booty call?”
He stepped forward, summoning enthusiasm he didn’t have, and leaned into her. “If I had plans to sleep with Flick, they would’ve been fulfilled hours ago.” It was a bluff. A shield to hide his lacking skills of seduction and an inability to stop thinking about someone else.
“Aww, you’re such a gentleman.” She patted him on the chest, her eyes turning seductive.
“That’s the consensus,” he muttered. “Now let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Five
There were numerous defining moments in Leah’s life. She was the manager for one of the hottest bands on the planet, for Christ’s sake. She owned defining moments. She had a long list of phenomenal days that shaped her into the professional, hard working woman she was today, and she wouldn’t change a thing. Not a week went by without reminiscing on one of her achievements. At least that was the case until her recently acquired defining moments came with negative effects.
First there was the kiss. A delicious, fantasy-filled brush of lips that sent her spiraling. She’d always known her dreams couldn’t turn into reality. It wasn’t plausible to have Ryan and her career. So the choice to commit to Reckless hadn’t been something she could regret. The band members were all she had, and there was no regret over the decision she made. She wasn’t whimsical or unrealistic. A relationship with Ryan simply wasn’t an option. End of story.
But the kiss had shaken her nonetheless. She’d had to work hard to suppress the remembered taste of scotch on her tongue and the feel of his hard chest against hers. That glimpse in time had changed everything, no matter how hard she tried to believe otherwise.
Then came the images of Ryan and Felicity together. Although somewhat less devastating, she’d had to swallow down an uncomfortable tightening in her throat over the dreamy way they looked at each other.
Even worse was the story behind the pictures.
“These were staged,” Alana had pointed out, tilting the camera viewer in Leah’s direction. “But these…” Her friend’s fingers had scrolled across the screen, increasing the discomfort, making Leah awkward in her own skin. “These ones were captured after I told them I’d taken the final shot.”
Those images were still burned into her retinas. His hands had been on Felicity’s body, his lips so close to her ear. The tightness in her throat had sunk to her chest, then her stomach, squeezing everything inside her until there was no way to deny the reason for her discomfort. Yep, she’d been jealous. But that reckless emotion had quickly been snuffed by her determination to move on from her pathetic infatuation.
Until now.
Turns out, she didn’t snuff much of anything, and the discomfort from those images was merely a taste of displeasure in comparison to the all-encompassing pain currently pushing its way through her bones.
Staying in the lobby, replying to emails and analyzing sales while Ryan had his first official fake date had been a mistake. She’d stupidly told herself she was on standby in case they needed her assistance. If he drank too much, or stalker types slipped through the hotel doors, she’d have to intervene. But as time ticked by without drama, she had to try harder to convince herself of why she remained in place.
Fuck. This had nothing to do with being on standby and everything to do with stalking his new relationship. Years of suppressed emotions were unraveling inside her. Jealousy fought with spite and desire. She should be the one in the bar enjoying his company. She should be the one making him smile and breathing in his familiar aftershave.
Damn it. The tour was messing with her head. Insomnia was turning her into a train wreck. Grow a set and get out of here.
She stood, grabbed her laptop and notepad, then froze at the sight of him at the bar doors. On instinct, her body reacted like it always did—hunger and anticipation mingling in her blood to create a lethal combination she always ignored. His hair was tangled, the shoulder-length waves brushed back from a face that housed a wickedly sexy grin.
It took a moment to realize what created his happiness. The briefest pause in time to grasp that his mirth wasn’t for her and instead came from the women at his sides. Not one, but two sickeningly seductive females who seemed intent on a plan she couldn’t determine.
With naïve relief, she began counting down the seconds until the end of the charade when the threesome would part ways. She even moved forward, focused on meeting him at the elevator doors to get the inside scoop on what they’d been doing for the past two hours.
But their charade didn’t end.
They didn’t part ways.
In sadistic fascination, she watched them walk toward the elevator, the unmistakable promise of sex following along behind them.
“No.” The plea whispered from her mouth as she shook her head. “Don’t do it, Ryan.”
With each progressive step, her heart clenched a little harder, pumped a little faster. She tried clinging to her band manager role, attempting to disguise her heartache as professional intuition, and failed miserably.
This was personal.
It was about intimacy she craved and feelings she could no longer suppress.
The man who had always been unobtainable due to marriage was now single. He was within reach. An unlikely possibility, however, a possibility nonetheless, and she’d just thrown away the opportunity without a backward glance. Hell, she’d facilitated the transition into a new relationship by bowing to Grander’s heavy hand.
“Ryan, wait.” She wasn’t sure where the words came from, the sound shooting across the empty lobby like a reverberating gunshot.
The trio paused, all of them turning to face her from the elevator doors.
She clutched tight to her belongings—her laptop, notepad, and elusive sanity—then shuffled quickly on her toes to make her way toward them.
“What are you still doing awake?” His tone was fi
lled with a comforting concern.
“I’ve got work to do and I needed more breathing space than my tiny hotel room.” Lies, lies, lies. “Are you calling it a night? Do you want me to organize a driver?”
“No, we’re good.” He had the sense to look guilty. “I’m, umm…”
“Too modest to admit you’re a gentleman who won’t let us travel to the sleeper bus on our own.” The newest member to the fake relationship patted Ryan on the chest, her long red nails scratching into the fabric. “He offered to let us crash in his room.”
“Yeah. Such a gentleman.” Leah swallowed over the bile coating the back of her tongue. “I’m sorry, I know we’ve met before but I can’t place the name.” It was another lie. She knew exactly who the femme fatale was as she offered her hand to shake. The ploy was a last ditch effort to dint the woman’s perfect smile.
“Hannah.” The woman’s grip was strong.
“She’s with Slicker,” Felicity offered. “My bass guitarist.”
Yep. Hannah Olsen. A woman with absolutely everything in common with Ryan.
The elevator doors opened, helping to increase the bile production and the painful pound beneath her ribs. There was nothing she could say to stop him from moving on. There was nothing she could do to make these women leave.
Not without her humiliation playing a major role.
“I’ll…ahh…let you get on with it, then.” She stepped back—from him, from her feelings, from an unobtainable future. How had she slipped so far? She was stronger than this. More realistic and practical, too.
Shark week must be approaching. Yeah, that had to be it. She was being undeniably psychotic because the lining of her uterus was instigating a mass evacuation.
“Enjoy the rest of your night.” She waved them away, a merry little cheerio she wanted to end in a middle-finger salute.
“I’ll catch you tomorrow?” Ryan’s gaze held a plea. Maybe even an apology.
She ignored both, pretending this was another booty call like all the others she’d witnessed from Mitch, Blake, Sean, and Mason. “Yeah. Of course.” She nodded and jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “I’ll get the next elevator. I think I left my pen on the coffee table.”
She held his focus as the heavy doors closed, sealing his fate. Sealing hers, too.
“Whoa.” She exhaled a shaky breath. “That was intense.” An out of body experience. One minute she was working like a good little band manager, the next she was trying to throw her career under a bus. A big bus. Huge bus.
“Fuck you, uterus.”
Her legs moved without thought as she maintained the pretense and headed back to the sofa. For some reason her chest was still aching like a mofo and her limbs were increasingly heavy. Maybe she was having a heart attack. It would explain a lot.
She sank into the squeaky leather cushions and tried to laugh off the brain fade. Tried and tried and failed. This was a good thing. The obtainable was now back to being beyond the bounds of possibility. There was no more temptation. No more bait to lure in her nonexistent sex life. No more snare to entrap her curiosity.
Ryan was officially back to being out of reach.
Fanfuckingtastic.
So why wasn’t she celebrating? Why wasn’t she doing a happy dance to rival all previous happy dances? Why?
Probably because she felt like she’d just let any chance of happiness slip right through her fingers into the waiting hands of someone more willing to appreciate the prize.
Chapter Six
Washington, DC
Shark week had been a bitch. It had also been a thankful explanation for losing her mind over something she should’ve had under control.
But just to be safe, Leah had kept her distance from Ryan, and the band in general, for eight days. Choosing instead to communicate via email and text message while she focused on online sales reports and securing more promo opportunities.
Apart from poking her head into the dressing room or catching up with Mason, Mitch, Blake, or Sean when they were apart from their rhythm guitarist, she’d spent most of her time sulking in numerous hotel rooms, gorging on chocolate and coffee. Even the crew on the sleeper bus had been smart enough to keep their distance. Nobody dared to poke the bear. Not when her head was always stuck firmly in her laptop or her cell was plastered to her ear.
The alone time had given her a chance to regroup and beat herself into a bloody pulp over her stupidity. Now she was fighting fit and ready for battle.
“Nice of you to join us,” Mason drawled, his unimpressed glower eating up her approach.
“I thought it was time to stop working myself to the bone and see if you guys are actually pulling your weight.” She approached the portable table near the front of the empty stadium, Mitch, Sean, and Blake turning their focus from Ryan on stage to greet her with various non-verbal responses. “Do you have any news for me?”
“Nope. We’re all good.”
She quirked a brow. “That’s not what I’m told.” The end of shark week wasn’t her only reason to come back into the land of the living. “Some of the crew have messaged me with concerns over Ryan’s performance.”
Mason glared. “He’s hitting home runs at every show.”
“I’m told he’s late to every sound check, which would explain why he’s the only one on stage at the moment.”
One message she could ignore. Two was something she took on board and held in consideration. But three, four, and five meant she had to start asking questions.
She chanced a look at the man of the moment and suppressed the pang in her chest with Olympic gold precision. There were heavy bags under his eyes, his usually warm skin pale beneath his beard, his adored guitar almost seeming like an unwanted weight in his hands.
“He’s struggling.” She hadn’t wanted to believe it. If he needed nurturing, she’d have to be the one to give it because the men surrounding her didn’t bear an ounce of emotional intuition.
“Yeah.” Mason snickered. “Struggling to keep up with a healthy sex life.”
She winced, immediately regretting her journey out of hibernation. “I’m not joking.” She turned her back to the stage and crossed her arms over her chest. “Why didn’t you tell me he’s been late to the last three sound checks? Clearly, his mind isn’t on the tour.”
“Maybe because you’ve been MIA.”
She gave a derisive laugh and pinned him with her trademark scowl. Men with smaller egos had withered under that look. “Have you not seen me every day? Have you not received email updates on an ongoing basis? Have I ever rejected any of your calls or made myself unavailable?” She raised her brow, waiting for a lie or an apology.
It wasn’t surprising he gave neither.
“Moving on,” she purred. “Has he spoken to any of you about how he’s handling his private life?”
A myriad of non-committal gestures were made—a shake of a head, a shrug, a mutter.
“Not one of you has had the sense to check up on him? Not even once?” Her stomach dived under the weight of guilt.
“This isn’t happy hour at the shrink society, Leah.” Blake rolled his eyes. “Not all of us like to share the shit that drags us down.”
Mitch whacked his best friend in the arm and then met her gaze with regret. “Alana said he’s spending a lot of time with Felicity and Hannah. They seem to be tight.”
Sean snorted.
“I meant their relationship,” Mitch grated. “Not the women.”
Leah didn’t appreciate the humor. Nor did she enjoy the mental image. “So I guess the fake relationship has inspired polygamy.”
“The media hasn’t latched onto Hannah yet, but they’re certainly eating up his time with Felicity.” Mason grinned at her, the expression taunting. “And that’s all that matters, right?”
“Yep.” She nodded, determined not to bite.
Unless Ryan’s private life started interfering with the band in a more detrimental manner, who he slept with wasn’t any of her busin
ess. Just like it hadn’t been her business throughout his marriage to Julie. And just like it wouldn’t be if he was single and sleeping his way through the millions of groupies wishing to get laid.
Ryan—his heart and cock included—wasn’t her concern.
“Don’t worry. I’ll mention something to him.” Sean moved close and gave her a hip check. “I don’t want his drinking to get out of hand either.”
“Drinking?” She should’ve shut her mouth and walked from the stadium like a manager on a mission to get more exposure. But no, she had to ask. She had to open her damn mouth.
“He’s not drinking that much.” Mason scoffed. “We all need to cut him a break.”
Sean nodded. “I agree. But drinking while on stage or during practice has always been a no-go.”
The look on her face must’ve said it all.
“I said don’t worry.” Sean gave her a half-hearted smile. “He’s not drunk. I think he’s merely taking the edge off a little more than usual.”
She looked at Mitch, Blake, and Sean in turn, noticing the concern she hadn’t seen before. “Has he taken the edge off this morning? Do you know if he’s been drinking today?”
It was already after lunch. Mid-afternoon was an acceptable drinking hour for most, but not when your days started at noon and ended after midnight. This was early morning for them, and the fact they weren’t meeting her gaze meant they knew how concerning it was.
“Let it go, Leah,” Mason warned. “He’s earned his stripes. He deserves to fuck up every now and then. We’ll pull him into line if we need to.”
That wasn’t good enough. She wasn’t going to entrust Ryan’s safety into the hands of Mr. Manwhore and his posse of merry men. “Why doesn’t your leadership fill me with comfort?”
“Maybe because you’ve got more of an invested interest in Ryan than you should.”
Fuck. Me. Where the hell had that bitch slap come from? “Excuse me?”