As we neared the restaurant, I started feeling nauseous. I hated confrontations, and I honestly didn’t want one. I just had to see. I had to know. I couldn’t stand this waiting anymore, and clearly he was never going to tell me what the hell had been making him all broody and withdrawn.
And I just couldn’t stand to be made a fool of all over again.
That humiliating day at the altar had been more or less put to bed, but I didn’t need to live through that shit again. Once was enough for a lifetime. Not that Jesse was leaving me at the altar; he hadn’t told me he loved me or that he wanted a real relationship with me, much less proposed. But he was supposed to be with me, in the public eye, and if he was with another woman at the restaurant it might even be on the internet already.
I probably could’ve just gone online to find out who he was with. That thought almost made me laugh out loud. If it wasn’t so fucking depressing.
As Flynn spoke with the valet, I went straight into the restaurant. I didn’t wait my turn in line or pause to speak with the hostess. I spotted Jude up at the bar right away, and walked toward him. He started to get up but I didn’t wait for him either. I knew where Jesse would be. Somewhere tucked away in the back, in Jude’s line of sight.
I found him in a booth in the back corner of the restaurant. He was facing me and his companion had her back to me—and yes, it was a woman. Though it wasn’t Elle. Elle was a platinum blonde; this woman had brown hair. It cascaded down her bare back in soft waves, over the low-slung back of her dress. My heart sank through my guts, because she was a knockout. I could tell that much without even seeing her face. Tall, slim and curvy, with mile-long legs.
I stopped dead. Because really, wasn’t that about all I came to see? Did I need to see any more?
I hovered in the middle of the aisle, not sure what to do. On the one hand, Jesse would know I was coming. Flynn would’ve texted Jude, and Jude would’ve told Jesse. On the other hand, maybe I could slip out now and hop in a cab and just get the hell out of here without having to face him and his secret date. I started to seriously consider turning around and doing just that.
Which was when he looked up and saw me.
“Katie.” I barely heard it over the din of the restaurant but I saw his lips move as he said my name. He stood as I approached, and the brunette turned to me.
And yes, she was gorgeous. Like drop-dead gorgeous. She looked like a model. Actually, she looked like—
“Katie, this is my sister,” Jesse said, reaching for my hand, “Jessa.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
* * *
Katie
Jesse pulled me in for a quick kiss, then said, “Jessa, this is Katie.”
Jessa Mayes smiled and stood to greet me. “Katie! So nice to meet you. I’ve heard so many lovely things.”
I wanted to say the same about her, but Jesse rarely said a word about her. All I knew was that he’d wanted to meet up with her in New York, but she’d bailed on him, and he’d hoped to see her again in L.A…. Though when I didn’t hear another word about it I’d just assumed it wasn’t happening.
Which made me the biggest idiot in the world. Because all those tense phone calls… were with his sister.
Not with Elle.
Jesse had wanted to see his sister, really fucking badly, apparently, and here she was. And I was intruding.
“It’s… um… nice to meet you, too,” I stammered, blushing fiercely. “I’m sorry to barge in like this.” I gave Jesse a pointed look that I hoped conveyed an incredibly frustrated, You really could have told me. “We were supposed to have dinner.”
“We’re just having a drink,” Jessa said, pulling me into the booth with her. “You’ll just have to join us. I’ll head out soon and you can have your dinner.”
“You could stay,” Jesse said to her, sitting across from us. “You don’t have to rush off.” And there was something unnerving in his tone, some kind of vulnerability bordering on desperation, that I’d never heard from him before. “We weren’t having dinner until eight or so.”
“Actually,” I put in, “why don’t we just order now? Then Jessa can eat with us.” Because clearly he really wanted her to stay.
After some mild protests on her part, Jessa finally agreed to stay, and over the course of dinner I discovered that Jessa Mayes was not only gorgeous, but sweet, smart, and charming. She might’ve been born with Jesse’s dark hair, but she now had honey-blond highlights, which set off her slight California tan. She had Jesse’s dark eyes and his full lips, and sometimes, his hearty laugh.
There wasn’t a thing about her not to like.
Somehow, by the end of dinner I’d convinced her to come to the club with us afterward, to see Zane’s band. I could tell Jesse was happy she was coming, though it felt like the entire evening the two of them were in some kind of unspoken argument right in front of me; about what, I had no idea. Every time I caught Jesse’s eye, the corner of his mouth curled in a slight smile or he’d wink or squeeze my hand, reassuring me that everything was fine. But it didn’t feel fine.
It felt far from fine.
I didn’t know Jessa to be able to read her, but there was tension in the air. She smiled at me a lot and even seemed to be getting pumped for the show in the ride over to the club, but I didn’t fully buy it.
It seemed to me that for such a beautiful woman, Jessa Mayes was missing a spark.
I doubted many people would notice it. She was so pretty that I was sure a lot of people, especially men, only got that far. But if you looked beyond that, it was there. A kind of flatness in her dark eyes. Something closed off or broken down, meant to keep you the hell out.
I was sure Jesse knew it was there. I was pretty sure, by the time we got to the club and Jude led us in through the back door, that it was the reason for Jesse’s unease.
But I didn’t want to pry and I didn’t want to ruin this night. If they wanted to pretend everything was cool when it so obviously wasn’t, I’d play along. The truth was, I didn’t even care to be at the show; I would’ve much rather gone back to the hotel with Jesse so maybe he’d tell me what the fuck was going on over a beer.
Then we walked into the venue and I actually heard the band.
Judging by the frenzy of the crowd, Wet Blanket was deep into their set. I had no idea how the walls were still standing, because the whole club felt like it was about to blow apart at the seams. The band was rocking out, hard, just reaching the climax of The Kinks’ “Lola,” Zane’s powerful voice belting out the twisted, sexy lyrics.
Okay. Maybe this was just what I needed.
I let out a deep breath, releasing a lot of the built-up tension from the day.
As Jessa followed Jude through the crowded hallway into the VIP area, she reached back and took my hand, lacing her fingers through mine. She flashed me a dazzling smile, so like her brother’s it made me grin. I glanced back at Jesse and took his hand, the three of us forming a chain as a fleet of bouncers filtered us through the crowd.
The VIP area was a raised area at the back of the room like a stage of its own, closed off with velvet rope and a wall of well-built men. Inside were Raf, Letty, Pepper and their wives, Dylan and his friend Ash, and a bunch of other people I knew or at least recognized from Jesse’s crew and various other events we’d been to along the tour. I knew almost everyone here.
It was a far cry from where I began at the beginning of the tour in my first VIP room with Jesse, where I knew hardly a soul.
I liked it. It kind of felt like coming home.
Dylan and Ash gave me a welcoming hug, but they really flipped their shit over Jessa. I got the feeling she didn’t show her face often; everyone was pumped to see her and drinks were shoved our way. Jessa kept hold of my hand half the time and we ended up sharing a love seat vacated for us. Jesse squeezed in next to me. He looked happy, glad to be there with me, I think, but also really proud to be there with his sister. I felt like I had the seat of honor, sitting right there betw
een them.
Happy birthday to me.
As I watched the band, I got goose bumps. Zane’s stage presence was off the charts. His blond hair was shaved almost completely off at the sides, the top grown out like a really long mohawk that refused to stay up and fell over his eye. He wore loose, super low-slung jeans that showed off the V of his groin, and an incredibly small leather vest that was dead sexy. His lean, tight abs were on full display, his chest slick with sweat, his nipple piercing sparking as it caught in the light. He’d also grown a blond beard, and he looked pretty much like what I imagined the devil himself would look like, if the devil climbed on up out of hell to rock out, bent on corrupting the souls of a fuckload of women in the process.
He had every woman in the crowd, not to mention most of the men, dangling, hearts in throats and fists in the air, devouring his every move, every word. I’d never seen him rock out live. I’d only seen him on stage when he and Jesse played together at the VIP show in Vancouver, which was totally different. Unplugged. Chill. And Zane was clearly trying not to upstage Jesse since it was his show.
This was full-on Zane, and I could see why he was Dirty’s frontman. Jesse could own a stage. Zane owned the whole fucking place.
I’d pretty much died and gone to rock ’n’ roll heaven.
All Wet Blanket played, all night long, were covers. Sizzling-hot, kick-ass covers, mostly of classic rock songs, which spoke to my heart and gave me a total lady boner. Though I wasn’t the only woman in the crowd getting off on the show. When Zane announced they were down to their last few songs of the night, there was a backlash of screams. You’d think they’d just announced they were going to mass-murder the audience.
Then the band kicked into the hardest, hottest version of AC/DC’s “Girls Got Rhythm” I’d ever heard, and all was forgiven. The entire club throbbed with it. The floor shook. I was pretty sure sweat was rolling down the walls. When they rocked out the final chords, I leaned over to Jesse and said, “If it weren’t for our deal and the two hundred grand on the line, I’d say you’ve got competition, sweetie.”
His eyes narrowed at that, but crinkled with amusement at the corners.
“Fucking Zane,” he said.
At that moment, fucking Zane started talking into the mic.
“Recently one of my best friends fell in love.” He looked straight to the back of the room, to the love seat where Jesse sat next to me, and pointed straight at him. “Welcome to the motherfucking show, brother.”
Jesse lifted his drink in salute. At this, there were a bunch of hoots and whistles, and a couple of women on the dance floor screamed, “I love you, Jesse!”
“When you see your friend that happy,” Zane went on, “you want to be happy for him. And you are. But when his girl’s as awesome as his is, you also want to hate him just a bit.” As the white light caught in Zane’s ice-blue eyes, I was pretty sure he looked right at me. “Happy birthday, Katie. This one’s for you.”
I glanced at Jesse. He just shrugged; apparently he hadn’t put Zane up to this. I felt the blush heating my cheeks, like everyone in the place was staring at me, though in reality, their attention was still on Zane. And maybe Jesse.
With the opening notes, and definitely the opening words, I recognized the song.
“Jessie’s Girl.”
I looked at Jesse. A huge grin split his face, his white teeth gleaming in the spotlight that was trained on him as he shook his head at Zane. I laughed and shrank back into the couch, out of the spotlight, hoping to disappear.
No such luck. By the time the chorus kicked in, Jessa had yanked me up off the seat and over to one of the knee-high tables, where she proceeded to pull me up and force me to dance. Which was to say that she started to dance, and I could either stand there like a party pooper and let her dance alone, or join her. I chose the latter.
We danced our asses off. Because why the hell not?
Zane Traynor was singing a song, for me, to a packed house. I was here with Jesse Fucking Mayes and his sister wanted to dance with me, on a table. It was my motherfucking birthday, I was turning twenty-five, and life was pretty fucking good.
I, Katie Bloom, was Jesse’s girl.
More or less.
When the song was over I collapsed back onto the love seat with Jessa, laughing. More drinks were waiting for us. Jesse handed me a glass of bubbly and leaned in, his lips grazing my ear, sending a shiver of sparks down my spine. “Happy birthday, Katie,” he said, brushing my hair back over my shoulder and down my back.
And that’s when I saw her.
Elle.
The one member of Dirty I hadn’t yet met.
Jesse’s gorgeous ex-girlfriend.
She was ensconced in a big leather booth at the other end of the VIP area, surrounded by a bunch of people, including Dylan and Ash. Maybe she’d just arrived. Maybe she’d been there the whole time. I had no idea.
She wasn’t looking at me. Maybe she hadn’t noticed me.
I was pretty sure by now she knew who I was. By now, everyone who knew Jesse knew who I was.
But table dancing aside, it was pretty packed in the club. If she hadn’t noticed I was there, she was definitely about to, since my hand was attached to Jesse’s, and my other hand was intermittently attached to his sister’s.
Was she there during “Jessie’s Girl”?
I wasn’t sure why I cared. Why I was so nervous to come face-to-face with her. I had as much reason to be here as she did.
So why did I suddenly feel out of place?
“What’s wrong?”
I looked up into beautiful molasses eyes, dark eyebrows that were furled together. And I had no desire to add to the stress of whatever Jesse was going through with his sister with my petty insecurities. So I said, “Nothing. Just going to find the ladies’ room.”
I was kind of hoping to drag Jessa with me as a gorgeous security blanket, but no luck. She was deep in conversation with Jude, so I went by myself, leaving Jesse with what I intended as a quick kiss. Instead, he delved his hand into my hair and held me to him, lip-locked, for a long, breathless moment before letting me go.
I got up a little dazed, straightened my halter dress, and weaved off in the direction of the exit signs at the back of the VIP area.
Moments later, I emerged from the cubicle in the ladies’ room to find a number of women gathered at the sinks. Actually, they were gathered around a striking platinum blonde.
Elle was talking with one of her girlfriends in a hushed voice and fiddling with her long, white-blonde hair, which was teased up into a super-cool fauxhawk, the sides braided back, her slim, tan figure wrapped in an asymmetrical white mini-dress.
Her eye caught mine in the mirror.
I slipped up to the sink next to hers. Her girlfriends finished up and left; Elle stayed put, her eyes on me.
Shit. What was it with club bathrooms and confrontations?
I met her gaze in the mirror again as I dried my hands, thinking I’d say hello. But the look she gave me as she touched up her lipstick couldn’t have been more unwelcoming.
“Jesse’s girl,” she said. But it wasn’t with any trace of the affection or good-natured ribbing with which Zane had sung it.
“Hi,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I started to offer my hand to introduce myself properly.
“You won’t last,” she said. “They never do.”
Then she continued applying her lipstick like I wasn’t even there.
For a moment I just stood there, stunned, my hand frozen in the air. Humiliation, anger and hurt broiling up inside.
Then I dropped my hand. I found my voice. “You mean, because you didn’t.”
I looked at myself in the mirror and touched up my lip gloss the way I would have if she wasn’t there, because no way was I about to go scurrying out of here with my tail between my legs just because Jesse’s ex-girlfriend was a rude, jealous bitch.
I felt the cold prick of her stare, but I ign
ored it as I tucked my lip gloss away.
From the corner of my eye I saw her turn to leave. Then she paused and said, “At least when we were together, it was real.”
Then she walked out, leaving me standing there alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
* * *
Katie
I didn’t see Elle again until hours later, when the club was shutting down. The get-the-fuck-out lights were turned on and we’d gone out back to smoke up with the band and say our goodbyes. I’d managed to avoid her completely in the club, but it wasn’t as crowded outside and she was nearby, talking with Dylan.
Maybe some girls would’ve taken the opportunity to make out with Jesse and rub it in her face.
I wasn’t one of those girls.
Instead I took the high road and just went on with my night, at Jesse’s side, the way I would any other night. But her words had cut me deep.
At least when we were together, it was real.
And she was right. I felt like a fraud hanging out on his arm. Because I was living a total lie.
Not the lie I’d started living at the beginning of the tour, the one that said we were a couple when we weren’t. This was a worse lie. It was a lie to Jesse. It was a lie to myself.
Because I was totally in love with the guy, just like the world thought I was, but pretending to both him and myself that I wasn’t.
I went with him to put his sister in a cab, and after we said our goodbyes and she was gone, I told him, “She’s so beautiful, Jesse.”
I meant it as a legit compliment, but he didn’t smile. He just looked all tense and distracted like he had most of the night and said, “Yeah.”
While he was doing his final rounds I went over to thank Zane for the song. His ice-blue eyes lit up when he saw me coming. I didn’t know what it was, exactly; his drop-dead gorgeous looks, his crazy-cool style, that charismatic smile? But the man had danger written all over him.
Rock Star Romance Ultimate Volume 2 Page 54
