Tainted: The Complete Enemies-to-Lovers Rock Star Romance Box Set

by Carmen Jenner

  “So exactly where you are now then?”

  He nods. “Only bigger. You want to manage the world’s top bands? How the hell are you going to do that if you can’t survive one tour?”

  “Not all managers go on the road. In fact, I don’t know of any that do.”

  “Exactly. Think of the knowledge you’ll have. You’ll understand when your artist wants to throw in the towel, cancel the tour and come home, because you’ll have been there.”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “It isn’t an option,” he counters.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I already talked to Vanessa. If you don’t come on the tour, you’ll no longer have a position with Harbour Records.”

  “Dude, what the fuck?” Zed asks. Clearly he’s as blindsided by this information as I am.

  I grit my teeth, take a deep breath and say, “That’s extortion.”

  Coop leans back in his seat, cool and unruffled, but his dark gaze never leaves mine. “No, it’s an opportunity.”

  “Levi, move,” I say, and I must sound like I mean business because both he and Ash vacate the booth to let me out.

  Levi grabs my arm as I pass and jerks me back to him, producing my keys that he’d confiscated earlier from his pocket. He dangles them before me. “Just think about it, Red.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Or you could think about that, too,” Levi says, wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue. I snatch the keys from his hand and turn back to the table.

  “You know what? Fuck all of you. I didn’t sign up for this.” I turn, walking briskly through the bar and out into the temperate May night. For a moment I just stare up at the stars and breathe, and then the door opens behind me and Cooper is on the phone, giving what I assume is the street address of the bar to someone. I have no patience left for this man tonight, so I begin walking away from him. I’m pretty sure I can find my way back to the studio from here. I hope.

  “I called a taxi.”

  “I’m fine walking.”

  He laughs, but there’s no humour to it. “Jesus, are you always this stubborn?”

  “Pretty much, yeah.” I fold my arms over my chest and turn to face him. He pulls a pack of cigarettes from the inside of his jacket, sticks one in his mouth and lights up. Good God. What is it about this man? It’s like he just oozes sex, from his tense yet oddly cool posture, the full lips pursing around his cigarette, to those blue-grey eyes that seem to read me entirely too well. Everything about him makes me want to take my clothes off. He’s cunning and smart, and I don’t trust a man who can make me wet with a single smirk. No good can ever come of that.

  I’m staring too long. Coop flashes his stupid, sexy smirk again, as if he knows what I’m thinking. Damn it.

  He surprises me by saying, “I want you on this tour, Ali.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think I want you in my debt,” he says. “I think you’re going to make one hell of a manager one day, and I want to be able to come to you and ask you to manage us.”

  “Why would you want me in that position? You know nothing about me.”

  “I know enough,” he whispers. “Surely the concept isn’t that unbelievable to you?”

  “I just ... I’m not like Deb or Vanessa. I worked hard to get here, but I’m a blip on the radar. I’m a fucking coffee girl, Cooper.” I shake my head and exhale deeply. “Shouldn’t you want someone more experienced than me?”

  “You’ll have experience.” He grins, sensing my hesitation. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  I open my mouth, but the words fall short, because he’s right. What is the worst that could happen? It’s just a tour. I mean, anything has to be better than where I am right now. And it would be an invaluable experience to see how it all works from the inside.

  I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

  “Where is the angry girl that called me a rock wannabe? The one who stood up to Guidelli?”

  “She learnt to appreciate the idea of a paying job.”

  He tilts his head to the side, studying me as if I’m a damn science project. “Can she learn to appreciate the idea of someone giving her a break?”

  “You think that’s what you’re doing? Giving me a break?” I study him with the same level of curiosity.

  Headlights roll over us from the approaching taxi and Cooper squints, bringing his arm up to shield his eyes. He takes another long pull of his cigarette and drops it to the ground, stubbing it out with his boot. The driver pulls up alongside us and Coop pulls his wallet from his jeans and leans through the window, handing the cabbie a fifty-dollar note. “Take her anywhere she wants to go.”

  “As long as I’m not driving all the way to Timbuktu, you got it, mate.” He smiles and tucks the money in his change pouch.

  Coop straightens and turns to me, practically wedging me between him and the cab door and I’m finding it incredibly difficult to breathe all of a sudden. “I think we could learn a lot from one another.”

  “And just what do you think I can teach you, Coop?”

  “To forget,” he whispers, so close I can feel the breath on my face. His hand brushes my waist as he walks away and I practically have to tame my vagina with a whip and chair to keep her back.

  “Good night, Ali-Cat,” he calls over his shoulder.

  “Cooper,” I shout, and he stops in his tracks, his arms shoved in his pockets. He doesn’t turn to face me. “If I agree to go on tour, I won’t be your distraction.”

  “We’ll see,” he says, and then he wanders inside. I climb into the cab and shut the door, maybe a little too forcefully.

  Could I survive a tour with Taint? Never mind the tour—could I survive the night without running back in there to have sex with him?

  Arrogant son-of-a-bitch.

  “Where are we headed?” the driver asks.

  “Brewster Street, Decker’s Studios.”

  A few minutes later we pull up in the studio lot. The taxi driver clicks a button on the metre and fiddles with his money before reaching towards the back of the cab with his hand outstretched. “Here’s your change.”

  “Keep it. I’m not going anywhere.” And I might be destitute, but I don’t want the rock star’s money.

  I climb out of the cab and walk back to my car, preparing to spend another night with only the bastard cat to keep me company.

  IN THE MORNING, I TAKE Cat to a nearby shelter. The woman looks at me as if I’m a heartless bitch, and I don’t blame her. I am. Embarrassed and a little sad that my Grams’ cat is more than likely going to be put down—because I don’t know anyone who would take her—I give the woman my sob story. I think she takes pity on me because she says she’ll try her best to rehouse her.

  When I get back to the car, I cry my eyes out because that stupid cat was one of the only things I had left that belonged to my Grams. I still haven’t made a decision as to what I’m going to do, but I know either way I can’t keep her. I’m pretty sure she’s the spawn of Satan, so you’d be excused for thinking that I don’t want to keep her—and it’s true, I don’t—but that doesn’t mean that giving her away was easy.

  I sit on a bench at a park and watch a couple of kids kick a football around the field. Gradually, more and more families arrive and soon there’s a soccer match in full swing. Normally, that many children would make me want to stick pins in my ears. I hate children, almost as much as I hate moths, and I really, really hate moths, what with their freaky powdery wings and those creepy red eyes. I shudder, glancing up at the tree above me, expecting an entire flock of them to descend and attack, because we all know those scary little fuckers are telepathic. Just as I’m preparing to be eaten alive, my phone dings in my pocket. I pull it out and see I have a text from Cooper.

  Coop: Here kitty, kitty, where are you?

  Um, is he psychic?

  Ali: Just left the pound. Surrendered my Grams’ cat today, so that’s kind of appropriate, actually.

&
nbsp; My phone rings immediately. I stare at the number on the screen and after a second I hit the answer button.

  “Ali?” Coop says. “I’m so fucking sorry. I feel like an arsehole.”

  “You are an arsehole.” I chuckle half-heartedly.

  “Why did you surrender her?”

  “Because I’m living out of my car.” For some reason admitting this to him is sort of freeing. “Keeping her in there was cruel.”

  “Where did you take her?”

  “Renbury Farm,” I say. “It’s fine. You know I hated that cat.”

  “Yeah, I figured that, what with you calling her the bitch cat and all.”

  “Right, I just ... She’s probably going to be euthanised and it just, it sucks that the last thing I have of my grandmother is about to be as dead as she is.”

  “You don’t own anything else of hers?”

  “A few pieces of jewellery.” That I had to pawn to feed and clothe myself these last few weeks. “The bank took anything worth any money. It’s not like she had an estate, and everything else was sold or donated. I didn’t think to keep anything else until it was too late.” I pause, letting out a deep breath. “I was going through some stuff.”

  “What stuff?” he asks, his tone low and coaxing. It takes me a little by surprise.

  “Just life stuff. You wouldn’t be interested.” And I don’t really want to tell you. It’s embarrassing enough.

  “Try me.”

  “Okay, well, I found my boyfriend of five years eating out our hot roommate.”

  “Fucker,” he snaps, and the animosity in his tone startles me.

  “He did fuck her, actually. Oh, did I mention she was a stripper?”

  There’s silence from the other end. “You lived with a stripper?”

  “Uh huh, a fact I learned only after he let her move in without consulting me.” I lie back on the table and stare at the grassy field around me, hating that he’s so easy to talk to about this. Processing those events, I find that the memory of Brad’s betrayal doesn’t sting quite as much as it once did. It’s hard to hold onto something that’s already dead. I just wish it hadn’t ended that way. I wasn’t in love with him anymore; he wasn’t in love with me. It had taken a while for me to figure that out, but what we’d had once upon a time deserved better than that. I deserved better.

  “Why weren’t you there to veto that shit?” Coop asks, pulling me from my reverie.

  “Because I spent the weekend at the hospital, seeing my grandmother through chemo.”

  “Jesus Christ, your ex is really a douche.” He exhales loudly, as if he’s blowing out cigarette smoke. “I thought I had shit bad?”

  “Nope, I’m pretty sure my life out-shits yours.” I sigh. Like this day wasn’t depressing enough. “So did you need me or something?”

  “Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I’m starting to see that I do,” he whispers, and then practically shouts into the receiver, “I mean, food! The guys wanted Chinese food.”

  I wait a beat, mostly just to get the hearing back in my ear after he deafened me, but also because I’m not really sure what to make of that. “And you couldn’t just order in?”

  “No, they don’t do delivery.”

  “A Chinese restaurant that doesn’t deliver?”

  “Nope, they don’t. So we want Beef and Black Bean, Chicken and Cashew, Garlic Prawns, Honey Chicken, Spring Rolls.”

  “Wait, let me get a pen.” I jump down off the table and walk back to my car, pulling out a Biro with practically no ink left and jot down the order on the back of an old receipt.

  “Is that Ali?” Zed asks from the background.

  Cooper must cover the phone with his hands because the sound is muffled when he says, “Yes, it’s Ali. Who the fuck else would I be talking to?”

  “Tell her to get me like three boxes of fortune cookies. Oh and Dim Sim.”

  Cooper sighs. “Did you get that?”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  “We need a Sweet and Sour Pork, three orders of Special Fried Rice, and get whatever you want.”

  “Sure, because apparently the list you’ve given me isn’t quite big enough to feed an entire army, but it’ll do four boys in a band.”

  “We’re gonna be here ’til late, so you may as well hang out and have a few drinks with us.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I say, shoving the pen behind my ear and tucking the order into the glove box so I don’t lose it.

  “Oh and, Ali,” Coop says, before I can hang up. “I booked your flight.”

  “You what?” I ask, incredulous.

  “See you in half an hour.”

  “Cooper.” He hangs up the phone and I shout into the receiver. “Motherfucker!” I cringe and smile apologetically when the soccer mums all turn to glare at me.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  PENIS AND PANCAKES

  ALI

  Six hours later, I’m slightly tipsy on account of Zed and I doing shots all afternoon. Okay, so maybe tipsy is an understatement. I’m practically paralytic, and I’m whisked into a cab and headed for Zed’s home with the rest of the boys, Leif included. Though she scares me—more often than not—I kind of wish Deb was around. Most of the time they treat me like one of the boys, which I’m more than happy with, but all this testosterone, tattooed muscle and booze makes me think dangerous thoughts. Very, very dangerous thoughts, especially where Cooper is concerned.

  I follow Zed into his Darlinghurst loft. It’s huge. The ultimate bachelor pad, decked out with a kitchen, matte black appliances, neon signs and a stripper pole in the middle of the lounge room. Deep red couches are arranged in a U shape around the pole, which sits on a glossy black podium lined with little red lights.

  “You have a stripper pole?” I ask, staring at the shiny gold post in the centre of the room. It’s bolted to the ceiling, and it glints like something forbidden in the podium lights.

  “Yup,” Zed says, as he hands me another drink. I don’t even look at what it is before I’ve downed it in one go. I’m sort of numb, so the burn just kind of permeates my chest with warm and fuzzy feelings.

  “In your lounge room?” I ask.

  “Yup.”

  “Do you know any strippers?”

  He sits down on the podium, sipping his beer. “No, it’s for me.”

  I blink in surprise. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “It’s how I work out. You wanna see?”

  “Oh god, please no,” Levi says. “Every time we come here I leave with the vision of you mounting your giant gold pole seared into my retinas.”

  “Pole dancing is one of the only sports that incorporates a head to toe work out.”

  “Yeah, which head?” Leif says, licking the flimsy paper of the joint he’s just rolled and then lighting it up.

  “You know, Zed, you could invite any one of our groupies back here to use this thing. You wouldn’t even need to throw money at them, and yet you use it all wrong. You’re using it wrong, man.” Levi accepts the spliff that Leif offers and brings it to his lips, sucking in a deep breath. I watch on, mesmerised at the way the paper burns. “It’s like somewhere along the way you lost your cock and grew a vagina.”

  “I don’t know.” Zed shrugs. “I get plenty of pussy out of it.”

  “How?” Ash asks.

  “Pole dancing classes,” Zed says, as if it’s self-explanatory. The room erupts with laughter, but Zed just grins. “Don’t laugh. I’ve been going to that class every week for a year and I haven’t once come home alone.”

  “Say what?” Levi says.

  “I’m telling you, man, it’s the ultimate place to pick up bendy chicks.”

  “Zed, I wanna see your pole,” I remark, and I may be just a little too drunk to let their ribbing affect me. “Oh shut up, I meant his dancing. Pass me the fucking joint.” I flop down on the long couch beside Cooper. Levi sits on my opposite side and hands me the joint. I haven’t smoked weed since uni—which I guess wasn’t really all that long ago, bu
t I never had premium shit like this.

  When I pull back on the joint, smoke burns my lungs, and my head spins until I exhale. I cough and splutter for a bit and then I hand it to Cooper. I try to ignore the buzz of electricity that shoots straight to my vagina when his fingers touch mine and his eyes meet my gaze. And here’s the dumb thing—I watch his mouth as he puts the joint to his lips. I watch those lips and I imagine what they would feel like on my body, and my stupid traitorous snatch pretty much floods my panties as if it’s trying to purge the earth of all things unholy. When I lift my gaze, I discover Cooper is staring just as intently at me.

  “Jesus Christ, would you two just fuck it out already?” Ash murmurs, snatching the smoke from Cooper. I glance at him, wondering why he seems so mad about Coop and I sharing a ... okay I don’t really even know what the hell we were just sharing. A moment? No. That’s impossible, because we hate one another.

  Zed Jumps up from the floor, where he was apparently doing push-ups. Something I might have enjoyed watching if my whorish Hoo-Hah hadn’t been plotting and scheming ways to get Cooper Ryan’s penis alone. Zed takes off his shirt and tosses it at me before unbuttoning his jeans and sliding them down his hips.

  It’s not wrong that my mouth is hanging open, right?

  “Are you getting naked?” I slur. “Not that I mind, but like, is it necessary to take your clothes—”

  Zed grins, stepping out of his jeans, and suddenly I don’t care that we’re in his lounge room and he’s preparing to wrap his big-arsed body around a pole for me because Zed’s standing on the podium in boxer briefs and his tattoos and nipple rings are on display and—

  “Oh, wow, that’s ... hmm.” I trail off, crossing my legs and squeezing my thighs together. “That’s hot.”

  “Close your mouth, Red,” Levi says, “You’ll only encourage him.”

  “Surprisingly, I’m really okay with that.”

  Zed hits a button on the remote in his hands and the stereo explodes to life. I expect some kind of death metal music, but a song from what sounds like a Russian caravan filters out of the speakers, drowning the room with accordions, percussion, guitars and some gravel voiced singer who sounds like he chews cigarettes for breakfast. Zed tosses the remote onto the couch beside Ash and grabs the pole, starting out slow with a simple turn and then moving into a series of complicated positions that look as though they require a crap tonne of patience, practice and overall body strength.