by Quinn, Cari
It might not be related—probably wasn’t—but I was a careful woman. Shoving my head in the sand had never been my style.
I tapped Lila’s name in my contacts. I didn’t have to wait more than two rings.
“Lindsey?”
“Hey, Lila.”
“What happened?”
I hated to put that worry in her voice. Even with the icy reserve Lila often affected, any call after nine in the evening rarely meant good news.
Quickly and concisely, I gave her a breakdown of what had happened.
“Officer Jakoby, you said?”
“Yes.” I rattled off his contact information.
Lila repeated it back to me. “You were right to call me. Most of these isolated situations are usually someone acting out, but we both know there have been instances where it got out of hand.”
I swallowed and tried not to picture what had happened to Logan. His stalker had absolutely terrorized him and his now-wife. I’d been on the fringes of some of it and had my own scatter of intense fans who’d tipped over the edge to stalking, but what had occurred with Logan and Bella was beyond.
“Normally, I’m good with most of the sexist pranks. Hell, I’m almost immune to them.” I let out a long breath. “This didn’t feel quite as pervy. The rips on the poster and the burn marks were downright scary.” Enough to make me stumble out of the room.
“I’m sure it was. I’ll contact the officer. There’s probably not much they can do since there wasn’t an overt crime. Defacing a poster definitely won’t get him or her arrested.”
“I figured as much.”
“But this means Donovan will probably want to add a security detail to the tour.”
I sighed. “I’m aware.”
“I know you don’t want it, Lindsey. I understand it, but we have the resources. You’re a major act for Ripper Records, and beyond that, you’re part of the original circle of artists who made Ripper Records what it is now. You’re more than just a number.”
I closed my eyes against the quick rush of tears. “I appreciate that.”
“Handily, you have a couple nights off, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Good. It will give me some time to get things sorted. We’ll have a phone meeting with Darcy to get some new security in place.”
“Please don’t make it a huge deal. I may have overreacted—”
“You didn’t.” Lila’s voice was like iron. “You’re being smart. It’s not just you to worry about, but Warning Sign and a full crew of people. And if it turns out to be nothing, then all we’ve wasted was a little time.”
“And I hate it.”
“Brooklyn Dawn is a million-dollar commodity, Lindsey. Regardless of your personal feelings on using security beyond the ones provided at the venue, it’s time to think about an actual staff.”
“You’re right.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I know you have your own bodyguard. Do you think he can handle this for tonight?”
I winced. George was not going to be happy at all. “Yes.”
“What’s your plan for your days off? I know some of your band likes to travel.”
“Most everyone left to explore DC and Virginia.”
“For now, that’s a good thing. We’ll have a band meeting when everyone meets for the…Richmond show, correct?”
“Yes, Richmond is next.”
“Good. And you?”
I hesitated. I hadn’t made plans, but there was definitely a part of me that had been intending to head to New York. Was it wrong to just want to go home? Maybe I needed my own space for a couple days.
“I was heading to New York actually. It’s a short flight.”
“Donovan’s actually in the New York office this week. Perhaps you can have a face to face with him if time permits.”
“Tell him to call me.”
“Perfect. I’ll be in touch.”
“Thanks, Lila.”
“Of course.” And then she was gone.
I met with Darcy and the officer one more time. By the time everything was said and done, it was well past midnight. I agreed to come back a couple hours early from New York for a band meeting, which meant I’d have to spend tomorrow trying to wrangle everyone via text or phone calls. I was not looking forward to it.
George was waiting for me by the car when I finally exited the venue with Officer Jakoby. Once he was sure I was handed off to my bodyguard, he finally left me alone.
“What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain on the way to the airport. I have thirty minutes to make my flight.”
George’s stony face always put my back up. He didn’t have to say anything and I still defaulted to fidgeting like a sixteen-year-old trying to find a way to get around curfew.
“Please, George. It’s been a long night.” He opened the back door for me. “Thank you.”
Once he got into the car, I gave him the highlights.
“I hope you procured a seat on the flight for me too.”
“You don’t need to come back to Brooklyn. You have plans with your nieces.”
“Had plans. You’re always my priority, Lindsey.”
Again, my eyes stung. “I know.”
“They’ll understand.”
“Dammit.”
He met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “You’ve been my charge since you were a pre-teen. That’s not going to change until I’m unfit to do my job.”
I simply nodded. I didn’t have anything else left in me to argue. I was tired of being strong.
My phone buzzed in my hand. Jamie’s face came up with her tongue out and a devil horn sign blocking half her face.
“Shit.”
“You better answer it.” George braked for the ever-present stream of traffic in DC. It was just as bad as New York City.
I hit FaceTime, because Jamie was a brat and knew I couldn’t hide shit from her in a face to face conversation. “Hey.”
“What the fuck?”
I blew out a breath. “Jamie—”
“Do not ‘Jamie’ me. Why the hell did I have to get a call from Darcy?”
If there were lasers in her eyes, I’d be dead. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Bullshit. You didn’t want me to knock some sense into you. And you let me just walk with all that going on?”
“I didn’t know,” I said loudly, raising my voice over her.
When she clamped her mouth shut, I lowered my voice.
“I didn’t know, Jame. It happened after you left. I thought I was meeting some VIP for a signature. Or maybe that it was Nash.” Because it was Jamie, I could own up to that at the very least.
“Where is that jackass? And where are you?”
“I’m heading to New York.”
“To see him?”
“No. I’m going home. I just want to be around my things for a couple days. Sleep in my own damn bed.”
“You’re not seeing Nash?”
“No.”
“Why the hell not? You shouldn’t be alone. I’ll come home.”
“No.” The hurt flashed in her eyes before she banked it. I rushed on. “I just want to chill out. You have a plan and deserve some downtime. You’ll go stir-crazy sitting with me.”
“Not if there’s some fucking psycho trying to hurt you.”
“I’m sure I was overreacting—”
“You don’t overreact. Unless it’s about your goddamn hair or clothes. But this? Yeah, not your style.”
“George is coming with me. I’ll be fine.”
“Call Nash. What’s the point of having a fuck buddy or cock on command if you don’t fucking use it?”
“Because he didn’t hit me back after I told him I had some time off, that’s fucking why.” The anger buried inside me finally exploded. “I will not beg him for his time, no matter how good the sex is. Sorry, George.”
He tapped his ear. “Put my earbuds in the moment you took the call.”
Thank God. The fact that he’d hear
d my apology didn’t really ease my mind, but I’d take the white lie any day.
“George is a grown-ass man, he knows you’re getting some.”
“Jamie.”
“Dudes love this white knight shit.”
“Nash isn’t a white knight. And I’m not fit for company anyway. I just want to go home. I haven’t been home in what feels like forever.”
“You’re being unreasonable.”
“Coming from you, that’s saying something.” I inched down in my seat, the light rocking of the car making me drowsy. Now that the adrenaline was gone, I was going to crash hard. “Don’t argue with me. Just go have fun. It was probably a one-time thing.” Even as I said it, I didn’t really believe it.
Jamie’s furious brown eyes filled my phone screen. “I can’t believe you think I’m that stupid.”
“I don’t. But he’s not going to follow me. He’s a fucking coward. Throwing a tantrum on a photo of the band. It’s not like Logan. I promise.”
“It better not be.”
The lights of the airport came into view. “We’re almost to the parking garage. I’ll text you every day, I swear. It’s just two days. We have to come back a couple hours early for a band meeting about this. Donovan and Lila will be making our lives miserable.”
“This freak doesn’t want me to catch him.”
“Jamie.”
“Seriously. I agree on the coward part. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t stomp his ass.”
I laughed. “My hero.”
“Call him.”
“Nope.” Now it was just pride, but I didn’t give a damn. “I’ll see you in a couple days, chick.” Jamie’s worried expression faded from the screen as I ended the FaceTime call.
And because I was a glutton for punishment even with pride riding my ass, I checked my messages.
Nash still hadn’t texted me back.
Well, fuck him. I’d enjoy a mini-vacation in my own damn house.
Twenty-Five
Dealing with management of any sort fucking sucked.
Even if you paid them.
Especially if you paid them, because then their incompetence became “doing things in your best interest.” Or “working to protect your reputation.”
In this case, that all could be summed up as “jack shit.”
The morning I’d awakened to this shitstorm, I’d had bigger problems to face than a few borrowed phrases. Pretty heavy coincidence my notepad had been stolen from Lo’s too. But it had been hard to focus on all of that after my latest car crash.
I still didn’t know what the fuck had happened. Part of me wondered if I’d skated too close to a breakdown, and that night had sent me physically over the edge.
Except my mental state hadn’t been any worse afterward. It was as if I’d had a crazy blip and when the smoke cleared, I was back to me.
The me I’d been for a decade, better or worse.
But there were still things that didn’t make sense about that night, whether or not I’d had a temporary mental collapse. Like the call I didn’t remember making to Kyle. How he’d been there to help me at the exact right time. That he knew what Lindsey called me in private.
Could be the tabloid photographer was exactly whom I’d hoped it wasn’t.
But before I tried to untwist any of that, I had my manager to deal with.
I leaned a hip against the counter as Sarge peered up at me with one gleaming green eye. He was stationed by his empty food dish. Empty because he’d just licked it clean.
“You’re not getting more until breakfast,” I mouthed to him.
He flounced out of the room with a twitch of his tail.
“Nash, there’s protocol we need to follow,” Don said on the other end of the phone.
“Basically, you’re saying you’ve done nothing to stop this.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. Not even close.”
“Mmm-hmm.” I poured black coffee into my mug. It was my third of the evening. Pretty soon I’d be able to grip the phone with the power of my mind.
“We’ve filed paperwork to halt any further efforts to release the song. Until Angel’s lawyer makes contact—”
“Do we even know she has a lawyer?” That she’s even cognizant enough to realize she needs one. I didn’t add the last part.
“She has a management team, so I’m sure she’ll take the required steps. The bigger question is how she obtained access to those lyrics of yours in the first place.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Let the legal team handle it.”
“Oh, you mean let the legal team sit around on their asses while the clock ticks? No, thanks. I’ve worked with Angel in the past. I’ll ask the goddamn question about where they came from.”
“If you do something that throws a wrench in the case, you’ll regret it.”
“What I need is answers.”
About far more than a few phrases, but it was a start.
“She took your words, Nash. We both know how precious they are now.”
I hated the shame and bitterness that wound through me. Don had been my manager for a long time, since before the chaos of the night that had nearly destroyed me. I couldn’t say we were friends. That wasn’t what I was looking for from people I employed. A cordial relationship and my business handled the way I wanted it to be were my only requirements.
Don Conway sufficed. Usually. I was beginning to wonder if I needed a different direction. Dissatisfaction was bleeding through my veins on a number of levels, and I couldn’t blame Don for most of them.
“I come up with words all the time.”
“Since when?”
“All a-fucking-long.” Despite the curse, my voice was low and without rancor. “Just because I didn’t offer them up for public consumption most of the time doesn’t mean I didn’t keep writing. I had to. It was the only part of myself I had left. Sometimes only in my head. Sometimes on paper.”
“And you didn’t feel like sharing that with me? Christ, I thought we were friends.”
“Harder to be friends with people who make money off you.”
“That’s your dysfunction, not mine. And we have done well by each other, or at least that’s how I see things. If that’s incorrect, you know where to find me.” He clicked off.
I stared at the phone in resignation. Pushing people away was my number one skill. Didn’t matter how personal of a connection it was. I could shove anyone out the door without a blink.
But in the old days, I’d trained myself not to feel regret. Necessary casualties weren’t worthy of such an emotion. I wasn’t going to change again for anyone. The softer, stupider Nash who’d had to self-medicate to deal with a business all too willing to use him up like chewing gum—he was dead.
I was dead.
So, no, I didn’t really care if Angel took my words and twisted them for her comeback. I should have. Intellectual property was a huge fucking thing, especially in this day and age for musical artists who got ripped off as often as they breathed. But words were like raindrops to me. Sweep these away, more would fall down. Maybe not as good. Maybe I’d be giving up something special.
If I was even capable of producing something special of my own anymore.
Even so, that wasn’t my main concern. How she had gained access to them in the first place was the true question.
She hadn’t been the one I’d thought I heard creeping around in the underbrush at Lo’s. I was willing to stake my life on it. She’d climbed in her car and driven away, ashamed. She wouldn’t have come back to skulk around to take pictures of Lindsey and I in an intimate moment. It just didn’t fit what I knew about the woman.
Someone had, however.
Lo attracted paparazzi of his own. Add in Lindsey’s star power and maybe someone had decided to nose around and see what they could come up with. We certainly hadn’t been circumspect.
As we weren’t circumspect when we went at each other like animals
on the morning I dropped her off at the airport. We’d behaved like lovers before a separation. People in a real relationship. She’d asked to see me in the city, and I’d agreed, but we’d never put labels on anything.
She’d climbed on a plane and I’d gone back in my Jeep, and with every text, I’d wondered why she was prolonging the inevitable.
I didn’t know how to be a boyfriend. God, that damnable word. A lover, I could handle. That was a temporary role. And when I was burying myself inside her, the voices ceased.
Not good enough.
Not right for her.
Just not fucking right.
But I could hear the hurt couched in irritation when I deliberately didn’t answer her. She didn’t get that I was trying to make it easier for her. Not me. I wanted to reply every goddamn time she sent me a word, or a wink, or a picture. I wanted to send some of my own.
I wanted to be a man I’d never been, solely for her. I just didn’t want to make it harder when the crash inevitably came.
This way, she could move on unscathed.
I wouldn’t be moving on. I already knew that and I’d made my peace.
Even so, I wasn’t going to let people take glimpses of us and sell them for profit—or worse, their own sick jollies. The more pictures, the more words molded into weapons, the bigger the chances of mortal wounds.
That wasn’t going to be allowed to stand. I would find out the source. Someone had stolen my notepad. Had taken photos of us at the most private time.
I would face the reality of whom exactly that was. After I spoke to Angel.
Rolling my shoulders, I walked to the sofa and sat down to dig through my contacts for Angel’s number. Before I could, the phone rang in my hand.
I stared at the unknown number for a moment, then clicked to accept the call. “Nash.”
“Yeah, Nash, this is DuCaine.”
It took me a minute. I heard her name often from Lindsey, but her first name, not her last. “Jamie?”
“Let’s stick with DuCaine for now. You haven’t earned the right yet. So, what are your intentions toward my best friend?”
“Intentions?” I wasn’t reduced to sputtering, but it was damn close. “Why are you calling me?” Even before she answered, I was on my feet. “What is it? What’s wrong with Lindsey?”
