by Ava Lore
I looked at Sonya, but she didn't meet my eyes. She was instead glaring at Carter, as though it were all Carter's fault that these things would happen instead of my own.
I was an idiot. Who bangs their boyfriend's brother in front of an open window? I'd forgotten what we looked like to the outside world. I'd forgotten what it meant to be here with one of the hottest bands on the planet. I'd forgotten what it meant to have an ex-boyfriend bent on wringing every last drop of usefulness from my desiccated carcass.
I didn't know how he did it—had he really sat in the parking lot after his humiliation, hoping to catch something? I was willing to bet he'd wanted to get pictures of me and Carter in the next room over, take photos and sell them to a tabloid. I'd given him a much juicier story instead.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I took a deep breath. “I think I should probably leave,” I said.
Manny inhaled sharply and Carter shouted, “No!” Kent didn't even move, just stared at the coffee table in front of him, his fingers laced under his chin.
I wished he would turn and look at me. I knew that he wouldn't let a distraction like me hang around. It was better this way, to cut myself off on my own terms rather than wait for actual feelings to develop between us before I had to inevitably leave.
But it would have been nice to see him look even slightly pained at the prospect of my going.
Carter stood up. “I'm not going to let you leave,” he announced. “That's stupid, you shouldn't let bullshit like this get to you. Hell, it happens to me all the fucking time, do you see me getting upset about it?”
I had to shake my head at that. If there was one thing about Carter that I really admired, it was his ability to not give a fuck what other people thought. But he didn't realize that not everyone could do that. “I know,” I said, “but it'll just be a distraction you guys have to deal with and you don't need that right now.”
“What are you talking about?” Carter raked a hand through his hair, his eyes wounded, while Kent still sat stony-faced next to me. Why was it that Carter, the person I didn't have a thing for, wanted to fight for me so badly, while the guy I'd slept with last night seemed ready to accept my departure? That hurt.
Except I sort of knew why. Good lays come and go, but a big sister is hard to find. Who knew the last good female role model Carter had had in his life? He didn't have to tell me that he liked me because I looked after him. Even an idiot could figure that out. What would happen when I wasn't around any longer to help him? I didn't even want to think about it.
I cleared my throat and tried to explain myself. “What I mean is that the band is going to launch its next album soon. You're going to be setting out on your film career. And there's the tour coming up. You really don't need to deal with saving my image or whatever.” I shrugged. “It happens. Besides, I did a pretty good job rehabilitating your image, didn't I?” I tried to smile at him, but Carter scowled and turned away.
“This is bullshit,” he said to Manny and Sonya. “You guys, tell her this is bullshit!”
“It sucks,” Sonya said, “and it's for a bullshit reason. But I think it's the right decision for someone who never asked to be in the spotlight in the first place. It's different for us. We couldn't care less what people see as long as they're looking at us, but Rebecca's a decent person who wouldn't step over her own mother for an interview. She doesn't need this shit.”
Carter turned pleading eyes to Manny, but he just shrugged, looking troubled. “I don't want her to leave either,” he said. “But I think in the end it's Rebecca's decision.”
That's goddamn right, I thought. So why didn't I feel better about it.
Then Kent stood up.
He was so magnetic. All eyes in the room turned to him, and I couldn't suppress the little shiver of desire that raced through my body at seeing his towering, lean frame standing over me.
“I'd like to talk to Rebecca in private,” he said.
For a moment no one said anything. Then Sonya stood up. “Try not to cause any more scandals in the next twenty minutes,” she told Kent. Then she turned and strode toward the door, dragging Manny in her wake. Carter was the last to go. He didn't look at me as he stomped past, only stared at the ground in front of him with a glare so fierce it seemed like he was trying to set the floor in front of him on fire, and when he exited the room he let the door slam behind him like a gunshot.
I winced at the sound. My nerves were frayed and raw, close to the surface. I felt as though I'd been dragged across a gravel road, bruised and a little broken. I didn't feel safe, not even with Kent here in the room next to me. Especially with Kent here in the room next to me. Who knew who was watching, really?
Licking my lips, I stared down at my lap. I still wore my outfit from yesterday. My quick walk of shame hardly even registered with me now when there was so much more to be ashamed of. I couldn't even look Kent in the eye, not with what we'd shared. Knowing that Jason had seen it, knowing that millions of strangers were going to see it... it felt soiled somehow. A tainted experience. It made me sick to think about.
I transferred my eyes to the carpet. It was full of lint, and there were small bits of detritus everywhere from all the time we'd spent outside. Little blades of dry grass, tiny grains of sand. I should pick them up. They bothered me, just sitting there, as though they belonged there. They didn't. This whole place was filthy...
“Rebecca.”
Kent's sweet velvet voice reached through my skin and plucked at my heart. Swallowing hard, I lifted my head and looked up at him.
Intense blue-green eyes stared down at me. The wild halo of dark hair made him look like a devilish angel, and to my chagrin I couldn't look away as he sat down next to me.
Then, to my utter shock, he picked my hands out of my lap—the white hands that had been wringing and twisting each other over and over again—and held them in his large, warm, rough musician's fingers.
“Do you really think running away is going to solve your problem?” he asked me.
I stared at him. “What?” I said. “I'm not running away...”
“Yes you are,” he said. “You ran from your parents' house, you ran from your shitbag of an ex-boyfriend, and now you are going to run from me.” His hands tightened. “But I don't let go easily.”
His handsome, brooding face was like an open book to me. He regarded me serenely with no pretense. He meant exactly what he was saying.
I tried to tug my hands back from him. “You don't understand,” I said. For some reason my eyes were stinging, as if I were about to cry. Which was stupid. “You don't get it. I can't stay. It would be awful for the band, it would be awful for you...”
“But that's what he wants you to do,” Kent said. “He wants you to run away from us. He wants to isolate you. If he thinks there is anything you can get him, he is going to run you down and keep you running until you drop dead, and then he'll move on to some other poor woman who's too good for him and who doesn't understand that she's worth more than he'd ever deserve.”
My heart pounded in my head. “What... what are you talking about?” I almost whispered. “You guys need to focus on your music, on your careers... not on cleaning up my PR disaster.”
To my shock, Kent threw back his head and laughed. “Disaster?” he said. “PR? You've been in the industry a month, Rebecca, but you don't understand a thing about the business. Disaster was Carter unable to go more than twenty-four hours without trying to snort Comet cleaner up his nose. This? This is peanuts. This is scandal. This is ripe for us to exploit, once we calm down and think about it.”
Then his eyes darkened. “But it's still an attack on you. I won't let you run away from it. I won't.”
Anger sparked in me. “Who are you to tell me what I can and can't run away from?” I said. I tugged on my hands again, and this time he let them go. “You were so scared of feeling something for another person that you had to throw me into a fake relationship with your brother so you wouldn't tr
ip and fall and accidentally put your dick in me!” My cheeks were burning as I spoke. I hadn't known that I had felt that way until this moment, but I did. I was mad at Kent. If he hadn't had the dumb idea in the first place, we could have had a discrete boss-employee affair. Now it looked weird and incestuous and it was all his fault. It took two to tango, but only one to come up with a real dumbass idea.
His lips thinned, but after a moment he nodded. “Touche, Rebecca,” he said. “I get that. But that doesn't mean what I'm saying isn't right.”
I scowled at him. “Yeah, well,” I said.
There was a silence.
“Well what?” he asked.
I sighed. “That's all I've got. But I don't think I can stand up and face this or whatever it is you're asking me to do. I just can't.”
“But if you don't, what then?”
I bit my lip. I didn't know. Would the whole world know my name? Would I ever be able to stick my head out in public again?
Then Kent said something that made my blood run cold: “And what if he's not done with you yet?”
I inhaled sharply. “What do you mean?”
His face darkened again. “I mean he thinks he can get something from you. A leg up in the industry. If he thinks he can still get that this may only be the opening shot. You said he told lies about you and none of your friends believed that you were innocent? What do you think a bunch of people who are already inclined to believe bad things about you are going to think when he shows up doing a tell-all interview in People?”
My breath hissed between my teeth. “Do you really think that could happen?” I said. My voice was small, just a whisper. The thought that everyone would believe those lies about me was horrible. I hadn't even thought that this could only be the beginning...
“I've known his type,” Kent said. “My father was just like him. He used and used until there was nothing left. Or until you fought back.” His shadowed face was haunted. “I'd be willing to bet the profit of our entire next album that his next move will be to threaten you with lies. You can't let that happen. No matter how many rooms you clean, you won't keep him away.”
The ferocity and intensity of his feeling shocked me and warmed me. “Then what should we do?” I said. “If I'm not leaving... what happens next?”
He leaned back, running his hand over the stubble on his chin as he contemplated the coffee table again. “It's too late to get out in front of the story. So we just let it run. Give the paparazzi something to photograph—all three of us together, laughing, whatever. Carter will give a statement if asked. We'll come up with some story that sounds plausible. And then we'll give him what he wants.”
I shook my head. “I still don't understand. How is that going to keep him from harassing me?”
A small, mysterious smile spread over Kent's lips, making me think of all the other things he could do with those lips besides smile. Concentrate! I told myself. Focus on one thing at a time, here...
“You don't need to worry about that,” Kent said, dragging my attention back to the matter at hand. “For a person like Jason, there is nothing that will be more brutal than giving him exactly what he thinks he wants. With a little manipulation for insurance.”
I didn't get it, but at this point I was too frayed and too frazzled to even try to think about it. “I still don't understand,” I told him. “That doesn't make any sense, if he gets what he wants then isn't that a good thing?”
“I'll make sure it's not a good thing.”
“But how can you make sure it won't be a good—” I started to say, but Kent, apparently fed up with my naysaying, reached out and pulled me to him in a sudden startling kiss.
I gasped, falling into him. My hands found his shoulders, our legs pressed together intimately as his mouth descended upon mine. Slow and sweet, he nibbled at my lips with his, sending jolts of lightning through my body, the heady feeling of flying zipping through my brain. His hands in my hair curled possessively as he coaxed my mouth open and slipped his tongue between his lips to caress mine with gentle, teasing flicks.
I moaned and shifted on the couch, rising up on my knees, and Kent made a pleased sound, his voice echoing in my mouth as he slid his hands down to my ass and scooped me up and into his lap, spreading my legs until I straddled him. The kiss grew hungry, seeking, robbing me of breath, and I almost forgot my protests in a hypoxia-induced haze, but then Kent drew back and looked me straight in the eye.
“Rebecca,” he said, “when I first met you, you proved you were the sort of person I could rely on by taking charge of a situation that most people wouldn't have known where to begin with. Then you proved you were the sort of person I could trust when you stuck around and stuck it out when the going got tough.” One hand left my hip and drifted up to my face, running his thumb over my cheek and sending little shivers out across my skin. “Can you trust me? Will you let yourself rely on me this time?”
I stared into his eyes, seeing only sincerity there. Well, sincerity and lust. The hard mound of his cock nudged me between my legs, trying to persuade me to just give in. Just... give in...
Well, why not? If Kent wanted to help me, if he wanted to protect me, I could let him. It had been so long since I felt safe. I felt safe with Kent.
Tentatively, I nodded my head. “Okay,” I said. “I trust you.”
“Good,” he said, and kissed me again.
We were in danger of tumbling back into bed together when a harsh pounding on the door to Kent's room jerked us out of our whirlwind of desire.
“Come on!” Carter shouted from the other side of the door. “Stop sucking face, there's only free breakfast for another fifteen minutes!”
I couldn't help but laugh, burying my face in Kent's shoulder as he gave me one more nudge with his hips, promising more, later.
“We'll come back to this,” he said.
I could only hope so.
*
We went to breakfast. Only Carter was eating anything. Sonya and Manny were nursing hangovers with thick black coffee, and I nervously sipped some water. Kent had nothing but a notepad in front of him that he stared at for a few minutes while everyone got settled in. Occasionally he would scrawl something on the paper in what seemed to be an unbreakable code. After about five minutes of this, he put the pen down, tucked the little notepad in his back pocket, and leaned back in his chair.
“Item one,” he said. “We are staying in San Diego for at least the next few days.”
“Ugh, why?” Sonya asked. “I'm out of clean clothes.”
I had no idea why we were staying here, but I felt guilty for being the reason for her forced exile from LA. “I'll wash your clothes,” I said quickly. “Don't worry, I'm good with laundry.”
Sonya rolled her eyes. “I'm sure you are. But I don't want to stay in San Diego.”
“We are staying in San Diego and that's final,” Kent said. “And we are going to hold a concert.”
That got everyone's attention. “Seriously?” Manny said. “Where? When? How?”
“Wherever will have us,” Kent replied. He reached out, grabbed Manny's coffee, and took a sip. There was a serene air about him, though underneath his words an undercurrent of menace flowed. “And,” he added, “we will be featuring Jason's band as the opener.”
Carter choked on his waffle. “What?” he half-yelled after he managed to get it down his throat. “What the fuck are you playing at? You can't give him free publicity like that, not after what he's done to Rebecca!”
“I can and I will,” Kent told him, cutting off his protests. “This is the only way to get him to go away for good. You want Rebecca to stick around? You have to get rid of this parasite following her. He'll only suck her dry and drag her down with him if he's allowed to walk around thinking he can get away with shit like this.”
“But isn't that the definition of getting away with shit like this?” Sonya asked. “I mean, I'm not an evil mastermind like you or anything, but this seems...counterproductive.”
“I can almost assure you it will not be,” Kent replied, which was slightly less than totally reassuring.
But Sonya just shrugged, apparently capitulating. “I don't have to apologize to him, do I?” she asked. “He was a total creep.”
A faint smile crossed Kent's face. “No,” he said. “As far as I'm concerned, that was all between you and him. I don't want any part of your misanthropic crusade.”
Sonya heaved an enormous sigh. “Fine,” she said. “I'll do it.”
Kent looked to Manny, who shrugged. “Hey,” he said, “whatever. If there'll be beer, I'm there.”
“There will be beer.”
“I'm in.”
Kent turned to Carter, who was frowning, but he didn't protest. He only said, “I hope you know what you're doing, man.”
“I do,” Kent told him. Finally, he turned to me. “Rebecca?” he said.
I swallowed hard and nodded. “I'm in,” I said. “I don't know what I'll be doing, but I'm in.”
He smiled at me, gentle and almost proud, and I thought I would melt right into the chair.
Then my cell phone rang. Jason's ringtone.
My whole body tensed and a spike of adrenaline went straight through me, causing my heart to skip about twenty beats before picking up a rhythm that would have caused any doctor to frown and go, Hmmm, before casually paging the nurse and bouncing me to the ICU.
My messenger bag was slung over the back of my chair, but I didn't reach for it. I still hadn't spoken to Jason since our break up and I wanted to keep it that way.
Kent had other ideas.
Reaching behind me, he flipped my bag open, dipped his hand inside, and pulled the phone out. “Would you like to answer it, Rebecca?” he asked me.
Um, what the fuck, hell no, I thought. Vigorously I shook my head.
