by Love, Kristy
At this, Ethan’s jaw dropped, and he stuttered, clearly recognizing Viv. I smirked at his dumbfounded reaction. I checked on Bianca. Her eyes were averted, staring into her wineglass. I wanted to pull her from the table and tell her that any man that made her feel less than didn’t deserve her time.
And then I realized I was one of those asshat men that made her feel less than.
“Wow,” Ethan said, looking over his shoulder at Bianca, clearly wanting her to be as amazed as he was. “A rock star and a movie star in one night. How in the world do you guys know Bianca?”
I parted my lips to answer something about being the first man inside her, but Viv cut me off, thankfully. “Bianca is helping plan an event for us,” Viv said slyly.
Ethan smiled down at Bianca, his features softening. Affection was clear in his eyes as he gazed at her. I wanted to punch him in the face. My hands fisted. “She’s amazingly talented, isn’t she?” Ethan ran his fingers down the side of Bianca’s face. She smiled at him slightly, just the corner of her lips tipping up. I wanted to rip his hand off her.
“She really is,” Viv gushed. “She’s been more than we could ever imagine.”
“Okay, okay,” Bianca interjected, laughing. “We don’t need to pump my ego up more than it already is.”
“You don’t have an ego, Bianca.” He grabbed her hand and held it. Why did he have to touch her while he stood here with us? Wasn’t he more interested in Viv a minute ago? When had that changed? He kissed her fingers. Bianca’s cheeks actually turned pink.
“Ethan,” she said. Something passed between Ethan and Bianca, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. There was a familiarity between them. I wondered how long they’d been together.
“We don’t want to hold your date up.” Viv’s words pulled their gazes away from each other. “We just wanted to say hi.”
“Thanks for stopping over.” Bianca smiled at Viv, purposefully keeping her eyes away from me. “I hope you have a great dinner.”
“Try the coq au vin,” Ethan chipped in. “It’s the best thing they have.”
“I’m sure they can figure it out themselves,” Bianca quipped. “They’ve been all over the world. Our little hometown place won’t hold a candle to the places they’ve been.”
Ethan sat down across from Bianca, still holding her hand. His thumb ran over her knuckles. Each brush stoked the anger filling my veins until it threatened to boil over. “I just wanted to offer some help.”
“We appreciate it.” Viv tugged on my arm. “We’ll leave you guys to it.” Once we were back at our own table, Viv gave me a scolding look. “I can’t believe you.”
“What’d I do?” I opened my menu and buried my face in it.
“You looked at Ethan like you wanted to rip him limb from limb.” She squinted her eyes at me and tilted her head like she was trying to solve a riddle. “What’s gotten into you?”
“I’m just hungry,” I grumbled.
“Then let’s get you something to eat.”
The rest of our dinner passed in tense silence. Viv kept trying to talk to me, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off Bianca and her date. She laughed freely with him. She didn’t appear guarded with him. In fact, she seemed downright comfortable with him. They shared some kind of pastry for dessert. He held her hand and kissed it a few more times. He was clearly into her, though I couldn’t figure out how into him she was. Jealousy made my food taste bitter. Everything I put in my mouth ended up like a brick in my stomach.
When Bianca and Ethan left, I tracked them with my eyes. I wondered if they’d end the night with a kiss or maybe he’d stay at her place. Maybe she’d stay with him.
“Now that they’re gone, do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Viv asked, suspicion coloring her words.
“Nothing. I just didn’t like that guy. I wanted to make sure he didn’t try anything with her.” My eyes left the door they’d just exited and went back to Viv, who was clearly unhappy.
“He seemed really nice to me. Plus, Bianca is perfectly capable of taking care of herself.” Viv sipped her drink. “Are you sure there isn’t something you aren’t telling me? Something about you and Bianca?”
I shook my head. “We were friends, Viv. That was it. I still feel a little protective of her, you know? Like she was my little sister.” I wanted to swallow my own tongue with the words. Bianca had never felt like my sister.
Viv studied me, then let it drop. I felt little cracks forming within me. I didn’t know what to do with myself or how to fix the ugly feelings inside me. I wanted to go home and drink another beer and crawl into bed. Hopefully, Viv would allow that to happen without too much of a fuss.
Chapter 20
I showed up early to the bar, though that wasn’t difficult since I was staying upstairs. I sipped my whiskey, staring at the entrance to the bar, waiting for Bianca’s frame to appear. I hadn’t been able to erase the bitter jealousy that gripped me after seeing her on what I’d assumed was a date. Every time I thought about it, my jaw clenched until it ached. I couldn’t shake the feeling, even though I had no right to it.
Vivienne had absolutely noticed. Every time she tried to touch me, I’d brush her off. My mind was a tangled web, and I couldn’t find my way free. My feelings were a jumbled mess.
Finally, Bianca strode through the door and stopped, scanning the room. I knew as soon as she saw me because her shoulders squared, and she came toward me, her strides confident and long. It struck me every time I saw her now. She’d changed from the teenage vision I’d always had in my mind, the Bianca that was mine.
She looked much the same, but older, more mature, even sexier. She’d grown another inch, and it was all in her legs. They were so long it was hard for me to tear my eyes from them. Where Viv was thinner, and her body was straight lines and angles, Bianca had curves, dips, and soft lines. Her hips were showcased perfectly in the skirt she was wearing. I clenched my hand into a fist to fight against the urge to touch her.
“Mr. James,” she said as she sat in the chair across from me. She crossed her long legs and looked at me with shielded eyes. “I’m sorry if I kept you waiting.”
“It’s not a problem,” I replied, my eyes traversing her body. Even sitting she was a force to be reckoned with. The buttons of her shirt strained against her breasts, a slight gap between the button holes. Standing, it was fine, but sitting it was unmistakable that she wanted to bust free. I wondered what she’d look like in something other than professional attire, what her hair would look like spread over my pillow. I picked up my glass and swirled the liquid in it, still taking her in. I’d already had a few glasses of whiskey, so I felt loose, relaxed.
“Let’s get this talk over with so we can both go along with our evenings, shall we?” She shifted in her seat a little like she was uncomfortable. “I’m sure we both have things we’d rather be doing.”
“Let me buy you a drink,” I offered. I waved over one of the servers taking drink orders. When the woman stopped by our table and asked for our order, I looked at Bianca. “What would you like?”
“I don’t want a drink.”
“I want to buy you a drink while we catch up,” I persisted. I leaned against the table on my elbow. “What do you want? Something fancy? Cocktail? Beer? Wine?”
“I really don’t want a drink.” The corners of her mouth twitched as she pressed her lips together, clearly unhappy.
I waved away her words. She’d sipped wine at the tasting we’d been to, not a lot, but I could tell by the look on her face that she was a wine connoisseur. She’d zeroed in on the Riesling quickly and savored each sip. “Bring her wine. Riesling.”
“Mr. James,” she said.
“Please, Bianca.” The words were soft and pleading, even to my own ears. “Let me buy you a drink.” She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. A smug smile curled my lips. “Thank you,” I directed at her before turning back to the server. I threw back the rest of my whiskey. “And another whiskey please.�
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“Sure. I’ll be right back.” She turned and left us.
“How much have you had to drink?” she asked me, her gaze studying me.
I tilted my hand back and forth as I debated how to answer. In truth, I wasn’t drunk, but I was pretty tipsy. I was actually firmly in buzzville. “I’m fine. How was your day?”
“Fine. I spent most of it on the phone with Viv,” she said. My heart tripped over itself. What did they have to talk about?
“About?”
An eyebrow raised high on her forehead. “About your wedding.”
“Oh, that.” I shoved the idea away. The wedding didn’t matter. Bianca was in front of me, we were together. There was no Viv to interrupt us, no wedding details to go over, and no other bullshit. It was just Bianca. “That doesn’t matter.”
Her other eyebrow climbed up her forehead until both threatened to disappear into her hairline. She shook her head, probably erasing the wedding from her mind like an Etch-A-Sketch. “What did you want to talk to me about, Mr. James?”
Our drinks showed up, and I grabbed mine, taking a healthy gulp. Suddenly, it was hard to think about all the things I wanted to say to her. There were things I could never say, but there was plenty of stuff to clear the air with. “I know you think I’m lying,” I said, gesturing with the whiskey glass. It sloshed inside, and I feared it would spill. When all of it stayed put, I smiled triumphantly. “But I never wanted to break your heart, Bianca. It was the last thing I ever wanted to do.”
She sighed. “I didn’t need to come here on a Thursday night to discuss that. You’ve said that.”
“I don’t think you believe me though and it’s very important you do.” She sat unmoving, and I knew I wasn’t getting my point across. The whiskey made my thoughts a bit more sluggish, and I had trouble wading through them. “I had to do what I did for both of us. It was better that way.”
A tense second of silence surrounded us. “You decided what was best for both of us without even talking to me. That’s where I have the problem.”
I shoved a hand in my hair, hoping if I rubbed my scalp some that it would stimulate the proper brain processes. I needed the words to come out better than they were, and it was all failing me. And I was failing her like I always seemed to do. “I had to, Bianca. I weighed options and was tortured and debated. Felix told me if I talked about it anymore, he’d make me sleep in the bathroom on the bus. Do you know how nasty those buses can get? Or how bad the bathroom stinks when you’re on a long haul? I didn’t want to sleep there.”
For a split second, I swore I saw her fight against a smile. The corners of her lips wanted to tip up, but she cleared her throat and schooled her features. “I can only imagine how unpleasant that would have been.”
“You may think you know Felix, but you don’t have a clue until you had to sit on a bus after he’d just blown up the bathroom.” I pointed a finger at her around my whiskey glass. “For real. I’m amazed I lived. There were times where I thought we were going to have to trash the whole bus, just throw that shit away. Because, my God, I don’t know what that dude eats.” My nose wrinkled at the memory of all those bus trips where I tried very hard to only breathe through my mouth.
A sound pulled me out of my memories. I looked at Bianca and was amazed at what I saw. Her lips were curled into a beautiful smile, slightly parted as she laughed softly. The corners of her brown eyes crinkled, as did her nose, like she was fighting back her own scent memories of the bus. Her face, while always beautiful, was even more gorgeous with the tension and coldness gone. She looked younger, less like the weight of the world was on her shoulders. Her eyes shone, literally sparkled with humor. I wanted to say anything, do anything, to keep that look on her face. If there was any way to keep her walls from shutting me out, I needed to find it. If I had to be disgusting and talk about Felix’s bathroom habits for the next hour, I absolutely would. One of the many knots in my stomach loosened.
“Did you like being on tour?” she asked. It felt like a victory. This wasn’t about Viv or the wedding or about how much she couldn’t stand me. This was about me, my life, my career.
“I love being on tour, though it can get tiresome. It’s better than the interviews for TV shows. I like being out in front of the fans.”
She hummed and took a sip of her wine. Her eyes were pensive as they skated over my face. It was like a touch. I could envision the backs of her fingers running over my cheeks, my jaw, the bridge of my nose. I closed my eyes, swearing I could feel the heat and softness of her as she touched me, feeling me. “Is that your favorite part of it?”
I took another drink of my whiskey as I debated her question. “There’s a lot I love. I love touring. Writing and recording is another part I love.” I finished off my whiskey and ordered another one. I was well on my way to drunk, but I didn’t want to stop this conversation. She was unguarded, and it was feeding my soul. “I love my job. There are parts that can get a bit…tedious, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
“I missed seeing that passion,” she said softly. “I forgot how much you loved music. I’m glad to see you still love it after all this time.”
“There is honestly not a single thing I would prefer to do with my life.” When the whiskey arrived, I drank some of it. My mouth was dry suddenly. The way she was looking at me made me want to kiss her. It was the way she used to look at me with her heart in her eyes. She looked like she loved me, and I didn’t know what to do with that. So, I did the only thing I could. I ignored it, for her sake. She didn’t need to be dragged into my mess, even if I really wanted to drag her underneath me and kiss her senseless. “Do you like event planning?”
She took another conservative sip of her wine. I noticed how much she was pacing herself, making sure to not drink much at all. “I do. People think it’s much easier than it is, but I have so many things to juggle. I have to keep the clients happy while also keeping expectations realistic. Weddings can be trickier because brides want what they want. It’s hard to reason with them.”
I didn’t want to talk about weddings. That was too close to all the things I wanted to avoid at the moment. “It’s perfect for you. There’s finally an outlet for your obsessiveness. You can nitpick over details and make sure everything goes well.” I raised my glass, liquid sloshing again. “Control! You can have all the control you want!”
“Mr. James,” she hissed, looking around us. There were a few faces looking our way, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered but the way she was with me right now. I didn’t want this night to end. “I do have control, but only as much as the clients want me to have. I really like the little details, making plans fall into place,” she said when she’d finally decided no one was paying attention.
“Bianca!” a man’s voice called from the corner of the bar. She turned and smiled, standing up.
“I’ll be right back.” She walked over to the table, and I scowled, finishing off yet another whiskey and motioning for another one while not taking my eyes off the way Bianca’s ass swayed as she moved farther away from me.
At the table, she talked with two men, both big and burly. They were built like football players. Real scary looking fuckers. They could probably pick me up and break me in two with just their hands. Bianca threw her head back, her neck calling for me to press my lips against them. One of the guys put his hand on Bianca’s hip, and my stomach soured. All the liquor I’d had mixed in my gut and threatened to make me sick. I glared at his hand, wishing I could light it on fire with my vision. After a few minutes, she patted the shoulder of the guy who had his hand on her hip and walked back toward me. I had already finished the whiskey the server set in front of me and I was still staring holes into the guy who’d touched her.
She wasn’t his. He had no business touching her. She was mine. I wanted my hands on those hips.
“Fuck,” I said out loud, mostly to myself. She wasn’t mine. She was Ethan’s. I scrubbed my palm around my chin, wondering if I wa
s really that drunk.
“Sorry about that,” Bianca said when she rejoined me. “They’re previous clients. I just wanted to say hi.”
“He touched you.” I jerked my chin toward him but kept my eyes on Bianca.
She shrugged. “He’s a friend. We’ve been friends for years. He plays for the Steelers.”
“Then what’s he doing in a hotel bar?”
“Meeting with a friend.” She finished her wine off in long pulls, and the way her throat worked under her skin was unbelievably sexy. Her lips wrapped around the rim of the glass and her eyes were closed like she couldn’t help but enjoy every drop of it. I groaned. Her eyes popped open. “Are you okay, Mr. James?”
“It’s okay,” I slurred. Those last couple whiskeys had gone straight to my head. I squinted at her, trying to make the sight of her not fuzzy anymore.
“I think you’re drunk,” she accused.
“Psshhh. I’m fine.”
“Can you make it back to your room okay?”
“I didn’t get to say what I needed to say to you.”
“We can talk later. Now isn’t the time.” She stood and slung her purse over her shoulder. She stood, waiting for me to stand with her.
“I’m not getting up. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get you to listen to me again.” I crossed my arms over my chest like an obstinate teenager who didn’t get to stay out after curfew.
She sighed. “You’re drunk. It’s not the time to talk. You’re swaying as you’re sitting there. Get up.” She grabbed my arm and hauled me up. I didn’t have time to relish the feel of her touch. The floor threatened to pull me down to it. I stumbled. “Woah. Okay. Can you tell me your room number? I’ll help you to your door.”
“5407.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and walked with her. She smelled delicious. Fruity and slightly floral. I wanted to bite her and see if she tasted as good as she smelled.
“Bear with me. We’ll get you up there.” She walked, and I went with her, stumbling and staggering along. I had to bend slightly at the waist since she was a few inches shorter than me, but I loved the feel of her against my side.
