by Harley Wylde
The man was going to be the death of me, but what a way to go!
Chapter Seven
JACE
I’d already spoken to Danny on the phone, and Honey had spoken to her agent, but this was the first time we were meeting to discuss our options. Honey’s agent was based in L.A., so a meeting was easy enough to achieve, even if Danny hadn’t been available for a few days. My delectable wife sat beside me, our fingers twined together, as we faced the two people who were going to either make our lives easier or make them hell. Danny still wasn’t thrilled I’d gotten married without talking to him first, so I knew he would come in swinging.
“Miss Winston, I don’t know what your take is on this marriage, but I think it was reckless. Obviously, your client has more to gain, especially as mine didn’t think to get a prenup. As far as I’m concerned, any publicity your client receives from this can only make her better off than she was before Vegas.”
My temper spiked. “Watch your tone, Danny. You may be my manager, but I can replace you with a snap of my fingers.”
My manager’s jaw tightened and, if looks could kill, I’d be dead. No, I was his meal ticket. Honey would be dead. I knew I wouldn’t be able to muzzle Danny for long, and even though he represented the rest of the band as well, I had a feeling that his days of representing me were over. I wondered what Honey’s agent knew about bands. She seemed nicely put together.
“I can assure you that my client has plenty of her own money,” Honey’s agent said.
“Miss Winston, obviously our wedding was a bit unconventional, but what we need to know is the best way to present our marriage to our fans,” Honey said. “Jace has some groupies who are more than just a little enthusiastic and he’s worried how they’ll react. I’m not as concerned about my readers. Until now, they’ve never taken much of an interest in my personal life, or if they have, it’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
Miss Winston gave her a little smile. “Honey, your readers are always interested in what you’re doing, but you’ve been a pretty private person so far. Marrying someone of Mr. Devayne’s stardom has put a wrench in things. You can’t hide in the shadows anymore. I know you’ve gone to conventions and met with your readers, but now your everyday life will be open for scrutiny and will most likely land in the tabloids.”
“They could get an annulment,” Danny said. “I’ll arrange it right now, have the papers ready by the end of the day.”
“No,” I said. “No annulment. We want to stay married.”
I hadn’t told him that we were remaining married for a year just to see how things went. That was no one’s business but ours. Honey squeezed my hand and I knew she was onboard with me. We’d been married only a week, but we’d found a rhythm that worked for us. She was learning to be more vocal about her needs and desires, which I found adorable considering what she wrote, and I was learning to put someone before myself. We were a work in progress, but if the rest of the year passed as smoothly as this first week, then I had no doubt we’d remain married for the long haul.
Honey’s agent glowered at Danny, who glared right back. The woman was as buttoned up as Honey, but she obviously had a backbone. Guess she would have to have one in order to represent her clients. I still didn’t understand the world of publishing, or what exactly Honey did every day, but I was trying to be supportive. I wanted her to succeed, and if that meant she spent eight hours a day with her nose glued to a laptop, then I’d give her the space she needed.
I’d learned the hard way not to swim laps while she was working on the patio. That teeny tiny bikini made me hard, something I couldn’t exactly hide since I’d gotten into the pool naked. Needless to say, her writing had been disturbed that morning. Not that she’d complained. Once she’d caught her breath, she’d pulled her bikini back on and gotten back to work. I had to admire her dedication.
She didn’t know it, but I’d started reading her books. I’d downloaded all of them to my phone, and when she thought I was playing games, I was really reading. My sexy little writer had some kinky ideas floating around in her head. I’d been trying to figure out how to convince her to try some of those with me. A few questions here and there and I knew she’d never done any of that stuff with Andrew. The guy had been the definition of boring. I had a hard time picturing her with someone like that, she was so vibrant and passionate.
“I don’t know the details of how the two of you came to be married, but I think a love at first sight spin could go really well for both of your careers,” Miss Winston said. “I did a little research on you, Jace, and you’re something of a man-whore. Your fans have come to expect that of you and the consensus is that you’ll either never settle down, or it’s going to take a very special woman to bring you to heel.”
I shrugged. She wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t change my past, and my whorish ways had driven me into Honey’s arms, so I wasn’t going to complain. Asking her to marry me might have been the most impulsive thing I’d ever done, but I thought it was one of the best decisions I’d ever made. Since Danny wasn’t coming up with any ideas, I wanted to hear what Miss Winston had to say.
“No one is going to believe Jace fell head over heels for me,” Honey said. “I mean look at him compared to me.”
I tightened my grip on her hand. “How many times do I have to tell you that you’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever met?”
“Jace, I know I’m ordinary, and that’s fine. My fans love me for my mind and not my body. Your fans love you for your talent with a guitar and for your body. But you’re a stage presence, you’re out in the open. The closest most of my readers get is a headshot on my website and social media pages. It’s not like I have months of venues planned, and when I do go to conventions, I’m hardly the star of the show. There are hundreds if not thousands of people there, both readers and writers.”
I gripped her chin and forced her to look me in the eye. “If I didn’t think you were sexy, didn’t mean what I say, would I be bending you over every available surface at home throughout the day?”
Her cheeks flushed.
“I want you, Honey. Not some nameless woman I won’t remember in the morning. I want you in my bed every night and in my arms every morning. What will it take to convince you that you’re far from ordinary?”
I could tell by the look in her eyes that she wanted to believe me. I could kick Andrew’s ass for making her doubt herself. The woman who wrote the scorching hot books I’d been reading was confident and sure of herself. The wild child I’d taken back to my hotel room the night we were married had that same confidence, but in the light of day, when she felt like people were judging her, she always seemed to find herself lacking. And I hated that.
“Say it,” I said. “Tell me you’re sexy.”
She smiled faintly. “I’m sexy.”
“I don’t believe you. Say it like you mean it.”
A determined glint entered her eyes. “I’m sexy,” she said with a little more confidence.
“I didn’t quite hear that.”
“I’m sexy,” she shouted, drawing a laugh from her agent.
“Damn right you are.” I slammed my mouth down on hers, claiming her in front of our small audience, and giving her a promise of what would come later. Her. I’d go all day until she was hoarse and so damn sore she couldn’t walk. Never again would she doubt that I found her desirable. Apparently, I needed to step up my game. Fucking her senseless wasn’t enough. It seemed I needed to romance my wife. We’d sort of skipped that part.
Miss Winston cleared her throat and we pulled apart.
“What I’d like to do, with your permission,” Miss Winston said, “is get some pictures of the two of you together. I’m guessing your wedding in Vegas left a lot to be desired. I have connections at a small chapel near Malibu. I could arrange for a short ceremony where we could take pictures that could be leaked to the public. It would show a more romantic side to your relationship. A drunken ceremony in Vegas isn’t going to make y
our fans, or hers, think this is anything serious. They’ll be counting the days until you’re divorced.”
Okay. We’d already gotten married, what was the harm in going through another ceremony? And it would give us pictures we could frame and put on display around the house. I didn’t have a problem with that. Honey looked a little green though.
“What’s wrong, babe? Don’t want to marry me again?”
“I just finished planning a wedding that didn’t go according to plan.”
“Baby, we’re already married. Think of this as playing dress-up. You get to wear a fancy dress, and I get to wear a dashing tux, and we just renew our vows in front of a minister or something. It’s no big deal. The hard part is already over.”
I kissed her hand, noticing the plain band.
“And I’m going to get you a better ring,” I said.
“There’s nothing wrong with my ring.”
“The wife of the lead guitarist of Fierce Seduction should have a rock the size of New York City on her finger.”
Honey rolled her eyes. “Is there anything about my wardrobe, my apartment, or my car that tells you I want something ostentatious?”
She had a point.
“Besides,” she said. “I like my plain band. It was the first thing you gave to me.”
I kissed her softly. Couldn’t argue with that.
“We’ll keep the bands,” I told her. If it meant that much to her, I wasn’t going to force a diamond onto her hand.
“Jace is right,” Miss Winston said. “The fans are going to expect an extravagant gesture, considering his net worth.”
Honey shrugged. “We’ll tell them all I need is Jace’s love. The wedding ring is a symbol of eternity. Who needs diamonds compared to that?”
Wow. Talk of love made me a little queasy, but oddly, an eternity with Honey didn’t. I liked what we had. We didn’t really need to complicate things with the “L” word, did we? The ring on my finger suddenly felt a little heavier, but to me it was a symbol of Honey’s promise to have a future with me, and that’s all that mattered.
“I’ll make an appointment at a bridal shop for you, Honey,” Miss Winston said. “And I’ll take care of the venue as well. If you let me know what kind of flowers or colors you’d like, I can take care of that too. I’ll make this as painless as possible. Once your dress is picked out, all you’ll have to do is show up at the chapel.”
Honey nodded. “I can handle that. It’s not like he’s going to run away.”
“I’ll be there waiting for you to walk down the aisle. We can invite the band and a few friends.” I smiled at her. “This will be fun, you’ll see.”
“All right,” she agreed. “Let’s do it.”
“Don’t I have a say in this?” Danny asked. He’d looked grimmer with every word out of Miss Winston’s mouth, but he’d kept his trap shut until now. If he wrecked what I had with Honey, I was going to shove my foot up his ass before I tossed him off the roof of the building. We’d met at the record label’s office, which meant we were in a high rise.
“As of this moment, you don’t have a say in anything I do,” I told him. “You’re fired, Danny.”
“You can’t fire me. I represent the band, and I don’t see them here telling me to take a hike.”
I pulled out my phone and dialed Roman’s number.
“Shouldn’t you be banging your wife right now?” Roman said as he answered.
Of course, I would have him on speaker. Thankfully, Honey didn’t look pissed about the comment, and her agent blushed a little.
“That’s my wife, jackass. Be nice. I’m at the label’s office talking to Danny and Honey’s agent. We’ve come up with a plan to leak the news of my marriage, but it seems the only thing Danny is on board with is me booting Honey out of my life. And since I don’t plan to do that, I’m booting him out of my life. You have a problem with me firing him?”
Roman snorted. “Fuck no. The asshole’s been breathing down all our necks for months. Even Dash has wanted to get rid of him for a while now.”
I looked at Danny. “You heard the man. You’re history, Danny. Now get the fuck out, and if one word of my marriage leaks to anyone before the wedding, or if a hint of scandal comes out about how I really got married, I will crucify your ass and you’ll never work in this industry again. Hell, you won’t work in this state again even to flip burgers.”
Danny nodded and bolted out the door. He looked pissed as fuck, but I knew he’d keep his mouth shut. I didn’t lose my temper often, but when I did, everyone ran for cover. I meant it, if he screwed this up for me, I would nail his ass to the wall and then play darts with his balls as the target.
“Didn’t you already get married?” Roman asked.
“We’ll discuss it later. Tell the band I’ll have some news for them and I’m going to need a little help. We’re giving Honey the wedding she deserved, and I need you assholes to be there.”
“Done.”
Roman hung up and I knew he was already contacting the others.
“Honey knows how to reach me,” Miss Winston said. “If you have questions before I contact you with details, don’t hesitate to call. And if you need a new band manager, my brother is also in the entertainment business.”
She slid a card across the table toward me. Ben Winston. I hadn’t heard of the guy, but it wouldn’t hurt to hear what he had to say. He couldn’t be worse than Danny. I pocketed the card and we stood as Miss Winston left the conference room. Honey leaned against me, as if all her energy had been drained. I lifted her onto the table and stepped between her legs.
“Here?” she asked.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “No, I wasn’t going to ravish you here, but I could if you wanted me to.”
She smiled a little and shook her head. “I’m not ready to be an exhibitionist just yet. You’ll be the first to know when I’m to that point.”
Normally, that would make hot as fuck, but just the thought of other guys watching Honey as I made her scream was enough to piss me off. No one was touching my woman, and they sure as hell weren’t going to ogle her naked body like they had a right to it. All this sexiness was mine and mine alone. Fuck. When had I become such a cave man?
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go do something fun.”
“Like what?”
I shrugged. “Whatever you want to do. We can go buy out the romance section of a bookstore, go to a movie, head to the beach for the day. You pick something, and we’ll go do it.”
“Never tempt a writer with a trip to the bookstore. Prepare to put a dent in your checking account.”
For her, I would gladly buy the entire store. Anything to see her smile.
Chapter Eight
HONEY
My toes sank into the hot sand as a breeze cooled the sweat coating my skin. Jace lounged beside me reading something on his phone. True to his word, he’d bought me whatever I wanted from the bookstore, then we’d stopped at a little café for a bite to eat before heading home to change into our swimwear. His home had a private strip of beach, but I missed the sounds of kids splashing in the water and teens laughing and having a good time.
“You don’t look like you’re having fun,” he commented, not even looking up from his phone. What the hell was he reading on there? I wasn’t convinced the erection tenting his trunks was from me.
“I like the crowds at the public beach. This is too...quiet.”
“As soon as our wedding pictures go viral, which they will, we can go wherever you want. Until then, it’s probably best if we’re seen as little as possible. Someone is bound to notice the wedding rings we’re wearing and then our plan will be blown all to hell. And I’m not taking off my ring.”
He had a good point. I didn’t have to like it though. I liked having my freedom to go where I wanted when I wanted. Of course, if I went out alone, chances were good I wouldn’t be recognized, but it was hard to go anywhere with Jace and not draw some attention. Even at the café he�
��d had to sign a few autographs.
“Have you talked to your publisher to see if you’ve had a spike in sales since those photos from Vegas started popping up?” he asked.
“No. It’s not really something you call to ask. You just wait for your quarterly report and see if there was a spike or not. I could kind of tell by watching my rankings on some sites though.”
“Have you looked?”
“Nope.”
I wasn’t about to admit that I was curious. After the tweet I’d seen last night, stating someone with a name like Honeysuckle must be a porn star, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go online for a while. I hadn’t mentioned it to Jace because I knew he’d go through the roof. If there was one thing I’d learned about my husband in our short time together, it was that he was very protective of me. It was actually kind of sweet.
“While you were in the bathroom at the café, I called your agent’s brother. He’s going to meet with the band sometime this week. It will be interesting to see if he can help us. I’m not sure if he has the clout we need, but it’s going to be awesome not having to deal with Danny anymore.” Jace set his phone aside and turned toward me.
“If he’s half as good as Amy, you’re going to love him.”
“Amy?”
“Miss Winston.”
He nodded. “I’m hoping he has her spirit and class. We could use a bit of that.”
“I have to figure out who is going to sit on my side during the wedding. It’s going to look funny when everyone is on your side of the church.”
“What about your friends?”
“They’re writers who live all over the world. There’s a small group in San Diego that I met with once a month. I guess I could invite them. It’s not too far of a drive if they decide to come.”
Jace tucked my hair behind my ear. “You know, we haven’t christened the beach yet.”
I smiled and smacked him on the arm. “Is sex all you think about?”
“When you’re around? Pretty much.”
“Keep it in your pants, Romeo. This may be a private beach, but it doesn’t mean people passing in boats can’t see us. I’m not that brave yet.”