“Ready?” I hold out my hand, and she takes it.
***
“Please, help me,” Violet moans, not even aware it’s me with her. She’d been driving drunk and rammed her car into a tree.
“I don’t know what to do.” I try to pull out the windshield embedded in her stomach, but all it does is make her scream and cut up my hands. She’s crying so hard that her entire body is shaking. More blood runs out from her body.
“Oh God, please don’t move, baby, I’m trying to help you.” I swipe my hands on my jeans, and cradle her head in my lap. The girl I’d grown to love over the past two years is most likely going to die in my lap. “Help is on the way. Just hang on.”
“What the hell are you still doing here?” my dad says, appearing out of nowhere.
Relief rushes through me, making me cry like a baby. “We have to help her, Dad.”
Finally, I hear the sweet sound of a couple of sirens.
“Help her my ass. She drove drunk and crashed into a tree.” He begins to pull me away. “You can’t take this kind of publicity once it gets out about you and Callie.”
I shrug him off. “It’s not true, and you know it. I’m tired of lying for you.”
“They’re almost here. Get up.”
I shake my head in answer.
He lands a punch to my ear, and it starts ringing. “Get up.”
When I don’t move, he hits me again, in the back of my head, where he knows it won’t show.
“No.”
The punches come harder and faster now, until he grabs me by the back of my neck and hauls me away from her. Violet’s head hits the ground, and she whimpers.
“You’re killing her,” I shout, fighting back now. “Let me go.”
“I didn’t want it to come to this, but you’re being a little shit.” His winds back his arm, lets it fly. Pain, hot and searing, bursts from my eye, and then nothing.
Chapter One
Present Day
Jackson
I hate doing the right thing, especially since it means that I’m ensuring my ex-girlfriend and the only woman I’ve ever loved, Violet, will never choose me over Cole Morgan.
Standing in my brother’s bar, I tip up my chin, staring him down, and ignoring our half-brother standing beside him. Honestly, I don’t care about either of them, or how we’re related.
“You look like shit,” Cole says.
“This is what real work looks like,” I say.
“Yeah,” Parker says with a smirk. “Must be real hard counting all that money.”
I start to reply to his oh-so-witty observation, with one of my own, but I stop. I didn’t come here to pick a fight. Instead, I take deep breath and say to Cole, “You need to come to the concert on Sunday.”
“Why?”
“Violet needs you,” I admit.
“So?” Cole says, all casual, and I want to punch him in the throat. He has no idea how much this is costing me to be here, and not in terms of counting all that money.
“What the hell’s your problem? I’m here, offering Violet to you on a silver platter, and all you can say is so?” I run a hand through my hair.
“Rae isn’t a thing. She’s a person, with feelings and—”
I groan, letting my head fall back. Of course, he still calls her Rae, and of course, he’s still concerned with how she’s being a treated. But I’d like for him to be concerned with getting her back, so I can say my piece and leave. “Not you, too.” Can I have at least one reasonable, logical conversation with him?
“Get out.” Cole starts to turn away.
“If I leave, there’s no way you can go. The concert’s been sold out for months. All the last minute tickets are gone.” That makes Cole stop and turn around to face me.
“So you say.”
So I say? God, this is worth less and less of my time, and for damn sure it’s not worth the humiliation. “It’s the truth.”
“Fine,” Cole says, crossing his arms over his chest. “But I want to know why you’re here.”
If I’m honest, it’s because I love Violet enough to let her go, and it’s not just about loving her. I owe it to her, for that night, for leaving her, for putting her through everything, and letting her take the fall. Cole is who she wants, and I’m going to give him to her. Still, I can’t admit all that.
Smirking, I say, “I’m bored and want to see her go ape-shit on you.”
“She doesn’t want you, does she?”
No, you ass, she doesn’t. “What do you think?”
He grins, all at once familiar, because I’ve seen our dad smile exactly like that. My smirk fades.
“I think you’re here because you want to do the right thing by leaving the tour, and Rae, alone,” he says.
Last chance, a voice in my head whispers, leave here and console Violet tonight. She’ll be yours.
An internal battle is taking place inside of me, one I’d thought I’d already fought and won, but it’s hard to give up the one person who’s been the best thing in my life. Violet and I sang with each other for years. She knew my strengths and weaknesses better than anyone. We played to each other and the crowd.
I’ve never felt more alive than when I sang with her onstage. And I never felt more dead than when she’d wrecked her car, and I’d found her in the middle of a field with the windshield embedded in her stomach.
However, the events that had led up to it, and the ones after it, had ruined our relationship permanently.
Only now I know our relationship was orchestrated by Everett, my dad, aka agent, aka producer, aka self-serving asshole.
Besides, I don’t want to be Violet’s consolation prize. I want to be the man she fights for, the one she believes in and takes a chance on. Again. But I know that even if I don’t help her and Cole get back together, she’ll never choose me.
I stare at Cole, long and hard, before reaching into my pocket and holding up a single ticket, with a backstage pass. “Here.”
“Thanks, but no thanks.” His hands shake, and I blink. “Rae and I are better apart.”
He’s lying. I know he is. “Did Everett threaten you?
Glancing around, he nods.
“He does that a lot.”
“Would you be able to stop him from making good on his threat?”
I pull the flash drive, with the pictures and videos of all those girls he made promises to, all those barely legal girls he’d promised to make stars, and delivered nothing but heartache to instead, out of my other pocket and hold it up. “Maybe.”
“A flash drive?”
“Not just any flash drive, but the flash drive. Click on the folder labeled poetry.”
“He secretly writes poems?”
Kill me now. I resist the urge to smack Cole in the head.
“No, dude, there’s stuff on there Everett doesn’t want to get out,” Parker says, crowding us to get a look.
“You always were the smartest of the three of us.” For the first time, I wonder what it would have been like to grow up with them. To have inside jokes and fights like brothers would.
A pang of something hits me, but I ignore it. Life is what it is.
“Better gene pool,” Parker says, taking the flash drive from me. “Let’s see what’s on this.” Then he tells Jane to close and disappears into the back.
“HOLY SHIT.”
“Looks like he’s found something,” Cole says.
“Use it wisely, bro. But make a copy. Having a backup is always good in life.” I’m in desperate need of a backup plan, or a reset button. I need to get out of this tour, out of my contract, and out on my own.
Freedom. I need to be free.
Tossing the ticket and backstage pass to Cole, I turn and start for the door, but then pause. Everett might not be completely convinced that flash drive will hurt him. So I offer the one thing hardly anyone knows about, the one thing I think will help Cole and Violet. “If Everett tries to pull something, just say the magic phrase: Tara
Flowers, Atlanta, Georgia.”
“I don’t know what that means.” Cole’s brows crash together.
Flashing a smile I don’t feel, I open the door. “But he will.”
***
I take another pull from the bottle of whiskey, hoping I pass out before I start thinking about my grandmother before she passed away.
The stadium roars to life again, and I grunt at the television screen.
Now that I’ve done my good deed of the century, I can leave this music tour and work on getting my life straight. I can finally get out from under Everett’s thumb.
In the end, it didn’t matter if Violet believed me or not. I know the truth, and that’s all that matters.
For now anyway.
“That was nice of you,” Bliss says.
I grimace at the sound of her voice. Just who I need to see in my less-than-flattering state—Bliss Davenport, seamstress to the band and star of my very erotic dreams at night.
Curly, brown hair, green eyes, and a body made for sinning with me, she’s the second girl I’ve ever known in this business to not use those assets to get her way. Her clothes are loose and nondescript. She hides in the shadows, watching everyone and rarely interacting.
Except with me.
Not bothering to get up, I glance over my shoulder just as the door shuts behind her. She drops a duffle bag on the floor.
For some reason she has a tendency to assume the best about me, even while knowing my faults and not giving me a pass on them because I’m famous, rich, and easy on the eyes. She doesn’t need someone like me, and I’d thought I made that clear to her the last time we were together.
“What makes you think I had anything to do with that?” Gesturing at the monitor, I stretch my legs out further along the couch in the dressing room.
“Because you say things like that.” She walks across the room and sits in a folding chair, but not before placing it right beside me.
I’m trying like hell not to notice her, especially not after our conversation the other night. And certainly not after I felt her up on my bus. She needs to leave, mostly because I don’t trust myself to be alone with her.
“What do you want, Bliss?”
“To watch the show. Oh, that’s the sweetest thing.” She sighs, and I roll my eyes, not bothering to see what my brother has done on stage.
“You could do that anywhere,” I point out.
Her profile is still to me, glasses perched on her cute nose, full lips smiling. Her hair flows down her back, and now I know what it feels like, how those curls like to wrap possessively around my fingers when I touch them… I swallow.
“I thought you could use the company,” she says.
“You think I want you for company?”
She smiles in answer, turning to me. Once again, I’m struck by her quiet beauty—it’s deeper than skin deep. It radiates from her, but in a completely unassuming way.
I try again. “You’re thinking we could be friends or something?”
She grabs the remote and clicks off the television. “I don’t think we could be just friends, Jackson.”
There’s she goes with my real name. “I think you’re right.”
Her smile falls. “Oh.”
I crook a finger at her. “Why don’t you join me?”
She stands, little pink tongue darting out to lick her lips. “There’s not enough room.”
“Baby, you have to climb on top.”
She hesitates. “But you said… you said that you didn’t want—”
“Oh, I want you, but someone was standing in the way.”
“Violet.” Not a question but a statement.
I nod.
“So, I’m second place.” She glances at the door. “I think I made a mistake coming here.”
“No mistake. It’s where you’re meant to be at this very moment.”
Before she can walk away, I grab her hand and tug hard, sending her tumbling down on top of me. Her skirt, one I hadn’t seen her wear before, rides up to her thighs, hair falling in my face. I gently push it back. Her hands come between us, pressing against me as she sits up.
I groan at the feel of her softness against my really inconvenient erection.
“You smell like whiskey,” she says.
“That’s because I’m drunk.” My fingers go to the buttons of her shirt, undoing them slowly. She might think I’m being seductive, but it’s really because I can’t see straight, and my hands are shaking.
“And that’s the only way you’ll be with me?” She shrugs out of her shirt and takes a deep breath, the plain white bra hiding what I want to see.
Her breasts look to be a handful, but I have whiskey vision. I cup them, feeling her nipples harden against my palms.
“A bit bigger than a handful,” I murmur, squeezing a little.
“Do that again,” she gasps, her hips rocking, and I have to close my eyes against the pleasure that racks through my body.
Gritting my teeth, I open my eyes. “Why are you here, Bliss? Just to get your cherry popped by someone famous?” A low blow, even for me.
“No.” She tries to scramble off my lap, but I stop her, digging my hands into her waist and keeping her in one spot. “Let me go.”
“Hey, hey, stay with me.” I gently cup her face, making her look at me. “Ignore my less-than-flattering questions, beautiful girl. That’s just the whiskey talking.”
She glances around again, and then fixes her gaze on me as my hands travel back to her breasts, covering them. “Okay.”
“Now tell me why you’re here.”
“Because tonight’s the last stop on the tour.” She takes off her glasses and rubs her nose, then puts them back on. It’s a familiar habit of hers. One I find very cute. Everything she does is cute, and everything she does turns me on.
Never in my life have I been turned on by cute.
The breasts that bounce against my hands remind me that not everything about the female on top of me is cute. She’s downright sexy.
“And?”
A frown appears and I sit up, maneuvering us so that she’s straddling my lap and my feet are on the floor. Her breasts are in my face, and I press my forehead to the center of them and breathe in her scent. She smells like lemons, and her heart is beating like crazy.
Her hand goes to my neck, playing with the chain around it.
I lean back, removing my mouth from that very dangerous part of her body, and she lets go.
“It’s my last night too.” She reaches behind her and before I know it, the material of her bra falls over the tops of my hands. “I thought we could spend it together.”
Oh God, she’s offering me no-strings, never-see-you again, good-bye sex, and my damn conscience is making me hesitate. “I don’t want you to go, yet. I can’t imagine my life right now, without you in it.” The truth, it’s all true for me. Or it’s bottle number two of the whiskey I’m half-finished drinking.
“Where would I stay? What would I do? My… internship is over, and a new person will be going on the world tour.”
“There won’t be a world tour.”
“Don’t ruin your career, Jackson.”
“You could stay with me, be my assistant or something.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, the tiniest part of my brain is shouting at me, telling me to take it back.
“I don’t want to work for you.” She leans closer and takes hold of my wrists. “Like I said, I don’t screw my employer.”
At this moment, I have two choices.
One—I can help her back into her clothes and send her on her way.
Two—I can ignore my conscience, screw her senseless, and watch her leave tomorrow.
I don’t like either of my choices, so I go with a third one.
“Do you have anywhere else to go?”
She slowly shakes her head.
“You’re not a college intern, are you?” I ask, voicing the suspicion I’ve kept to myself for months.
; A slight hesitation, and then, “No.”
“Please tell me you’re over eighteen, and your real name is Bliss Davenport.”
“I’m over eighteen, and Bliss Davenport is my real name.”
Thank God for small favors. “Wanna get out of here?”
Her eyes search my face, then she leans in and brushes the lightest of kisses on my cheek. “Yes.”
I set her on her feet, turning my back so she can get dressed and grab her bag. I grab my wallet, the half-empty bottle of whiskey, and the keys to Everett’s car. He’s here tonight, and I know he’s raising cain over Violet’s impromptu set change, so that gives me time I normally wouldn’t have.
“Let’s go.” We sneak out into the hallway, walking fast, with her hand tightly gripped in mine. “Can you drive a stick?” I ask once we’re outside.
“Yes.”
“Don’t you need a purse or something?”
“Everything I own is in this bag.”
That’s going to have to change. “Get in.”
She drives, and I drink. By some miracle, we make it through all the security detail without incident. Once on I-85, she glances at me.
“Where to?”
I point the bottle at the sign that reads: Charleston, next two exits. “Know a real good bar down there. Place we can stay too. Right on the beach.”
“You sure?” she asks, as if she’s having second thoughts.
“Completely.” I close my eyes and smile as she changes lane. “Wake me up when we hit the city limits.”
Chapter Two
Jackson
My head feels as though it did battle with a jackhammer and lost.
I have to blink a couple of times before my vision properly focuses. I recognize the room, pale blue walls, lots of window, all of which are wide open and letting in a cool ocean breeze. There’s a club chair near the set of French doors that lead out onto a private balcony, complete with its own pool.
At least I know we made it to Charleston, South Carolina. At least we’re in my beach house. Beyond that, I have no clue how we got here, to my private island.
True For You (Boys of the South) Page 2
