Call Me, Irresistible

by Jess Bryant

  “Shit.” He cursed as he scrolled through his missed calls and noticed they were all from Holly. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  Shane flipped a U-turn and headed towards her house even as he hit redial and put the phone on speaker so he could drive. She answered on the very first ring and she didn’t bother with any pleasantries. His heart nearly stopped in his chest when she spoke in that worried, exasperated, helpless tone that had always twisted him into knots with the urge to fix whatever was wrong.

  “I need you to get to the house as soon as you can.”

  “I’m on my way. What’s wrong? Is it one of the girls?” His throat felt tight as anxiety made his hands sweat.

  “It’s Georgie. I can’t get her to stop crying. She’s so upset and nothing I say will calm her down and I don’t know what to do. I don’t think she’ll talk to anyone but you.”

  Shane’s mind raced with possibilities, “Is she hurt?”

  “Not physically.”

  “Damn it, Hol. What does that mean?”

  “She’s upset, Shane. Heartbroken. She’s been crying for over an hour now and I didn’t know what to do besides call you but you didn’t answer and…”

  “Heartbroken?” He growled as he turned onto a side street, “I just saw that damn boy and he looked fine. What the hell did he do to my daughter?”

  “It isn’t Robbie.” Holly sighed heavily, “It’s… well… Georgie saw something on the television and it upset her.”

  Shane wanted to slam the phone against something hard, “Holly, start making sense. What the hell is going on? From the start, tell me what happened.”

  “I think you should see it for yourself.”

  He growled but from the firm set of her tone now he knew it was no use arguing. Holly could be damn hard-headed when she wanted to be. It was one of the things he’d loved about her. Until he hadn’t. Since he knew she wouldn’t change her mind he simply didn’t bother trying for more information.

  “I’m a few blocks away. Be there soon.” He hung up and tossed the phone into the passenger seat of the truck.

  Son of a bitch, his heart was racing. He was sweating and his chest felt tight. Something was wrong with his daughter. Something had upset her so badly that Holly didn’t even know how to handle it. That was rare. He could admit that when it came to the emotional stuff with the girls Holly was better at it than he was. She was their mom. She could handle their tears better than he ever could. Just the thought of his daughter crying didn’t make him want to comfort. It made him want to kill whoever was responsible.

  At least she wasn’t hurt, his rational brain told him. She wasn’t injured. She wasn’t in trouble. She was just upset. He could fix this. It was something he could fix. That was what he did. He would take care of it, whatever it was.

  Less than five minutes later he pulled into the driveway behind Holly’s SUV and threw the truck into park. He stormed up the walkway and didn’t bother knocking. He let himself in and did a quick perimeter search, easily locating his ex-wife as she came rushing down the hallway to greet him. She looked frazzled and worried and if he wasn’t wrong, as if she too had been crying.

  “Holly, what’s...”

  “There’s something I have to show you.” She cut him off with a wave of her hand and a remorseful look he didn’t understand, “Once I show you, I think you’ll understand why Georgie is so upset. It’s… you’re not going to like it and I hate to be the one to do this but… I love you, okay? Just remember that this isn’t me being jealous or spiteful. I want you to be happy. I really do. I just…”

  When his ex-wife trailed off with an apologetic shrug, Shane scrubbed a hand through his hair. He had no idea what she was talking about. Georgie had seen something on tv that upset her. Holly thought it was going to upset him too. It made no sense. And all the talk about not being jealous and wanting him to be happy…?

  He blew out a frustrated breath, “Holly, just tell me what’s going on. Where are the girls?”

  “Georgie’s in her room. I tried to send Sophie and Rosie to their rooms too but they wanted to stay together so they’re in the kitchen coloring. It seemed like a decent distraction but…” She huffed and moved towards the television that was black since it was turned off, “You should know they all three saw it.”

  “Saw what, Holly?” He grit his teeth.

  If she’d let them watch some damn movie with a sex scene or an abuse scene, he was going to go off. But even as he thought it, he knew that didn’t make sense. A sex scene wouldn’t have sent Georgie into a fit of tears. She was a teenager. They’d had the talk. She might’ve been embarrassed but not upset. That only left some sort of violence and since Georgie probably knew what sort her boyfriend had suffered at the hands of his biological father he thought maybe it could be that but then he couldn’t explain why Sophie and Rosie would be fine, being younger and more naïve of the evils of the world? Perhaps, but he didn’t think that made any damn sense either.

  “We were watching the pre-show, before the awards.” Holly grabbed the remote and pushed the power button and as it flickered to life she shot him another of those apologetic looks, “The girls wanted to see Lemon on the red carpet.”

  Shane’s eyes instantly went to the screen as it lit up because there she was. His breath caught at how damn beautiful she looked. He’d known she would. She always did. But in that sexy slip of a dress that clung to her curves and glittered like the sun she was radiant. The only flaw he could find was that she wasn’t smiling, not really. Oh, her lips were tilted up but it wasn’t a real smile. It was the fake one that she gave the world and it warmed some part of his heart and healed a bit of his loneliness. She wasn’t happy out there in Nashville. Not in the spotlight. Not without him. He wanted her back here and from the fake smile pasted on her beautiful face, he thought she wanted it just as badly.

  Because he was so focused on taking in the sight of Lemon, even if it was only on a screen, after being denied all day it took him a minute to realize Holly was still talking.

  “The man at her side is Trent Thorne. He opened for her on tour and they’ve been friends ever since. The tabloids… well, they say that it’s more than a friendship.”

  His gaze cut to Holly and he growled, “They’re just friends.”

  “That’s the thing… I’m not sure they are, Shane.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just… watch.” Holly moved aside, sighing as she hit play and the scene of Lemon and the blond-haired man at her side came to life.

  Shane kept his eyes on the woman he loved as she made her way down the red carpet. Some sort of announcer was telling the audience what she was wearing and how beautiful she looked. Shane agreed wholeheartedly. The camera panned to her companion and he barely contained a snarl at the bright smile and the possessive hand the bastard had wrapped around Lemon’s waist.

  “I don’t need to see this, Holly. I knew she was going with him. They’re friends. They…”

  “Keep watching.”

  Shane sighed but refocused on the television just in time to catch the flicker of unease that crossed Lemon’s face. She darted a glance at her friend who had gone stock still and he frowned as they moved even closer. He couldn’t read lips but they cleverly turned their heads enough that nobody could have caught what they were saying to each other. The hand on her waist tightened and Shane’s fists did the same even as confusion and something that felt like dread slithered up his spine.

  Something was wrong. He could see it all over Lemon’s face. Was he the only one that noticed how stiff she was? How worried her blue eyes had gotten? How she kept glancing at her friend as if he were a bomb she expected to explode at any second?

  “What’s going on?” He took a step closer to the television, as if she could answer him, but he stopped suddenly when the pair froze in place.

  His heart seized as he watched the woman he loved be pulled into the embrace of another man. It all happened so fast. If he blink
ed he was certain he would have missed it but he hadn’t blinked because he hadn’t been able to look away for even a split second.

  Shane watched as that bastard slid his hand to Lemon’s ass and dragged her to his chest. He watched as the man slammed his mouth down on top of hers. Hard, too hard, his mind screamed even as his heart shouted that it was wrong, all wrong. He watched as Lemon was kissed by another man, a man that she’d told him was nothing but a friend more than once to reassure his possessive streak before she’d left him. He watched and he felt his anger rise and rise until it threatened to blow him apart.

  The screen froze as the pair pulled apart and then casually smiled at the cameras before turning to continue down the red carpet. Shane heard Holly say his name. He heard her but he couldn’t respond. Because if he opened his mouth he was afraid he would scream.

  “Shane, I’m so sorry.”

  He took a deep, gulping breath and closed his eyes, praying for the calm that he had always found so easily in his life until Lemon had come in and knocked everything askew, “Play it again.”

  “What?”

  “Play it again.” He growled.

  “I don’t think…”

  “Play it again right fucking now, Holly.” He turned to scowl at her and watched the worried expression on her face morph to something that closely resembled pity.

  Dutifully, she hit rewind and replayed the scene for him. He watched all over again as the woman he loved walked down the red carpet with that fake smile on her face. He watched as she shot concerned looks at the man holding her tight. He watched as she was dragged into an embrace and kissed harshly, almost punishingly, and he watched as her hands came up, fisted, to rest against the other man’s chest. And with the confirmation of what he’d thought he had seen, he managed to find a tone of voice that wasn’t pure fury.

  “She didn’t kiss him.”

  Holly blinked at him in confusion, “What?”

  “She didn’t kiss him back. He mauled her, Holly. Something happened, I don’t know what but he clearly grabs her and kisses her. Not the other way around.”

  “Shane…”

  “Don’t use that tone of voice on me.” He snapped at the consoling tone she used with the children.

  Holly’s brows furrowed, “She didn’t exactly push him away.”

  “Of course not. He’s her friend. They’re in front of a hundred cameras. There’s no way she’d risk humiliating him like that or hurting either of their careers. But she didn’t kiss him back. I know what I saw.”

  “Shane…”

  “I know her, Holly.” He stressed firmly and far more rationally than he was feeling because if he could have wrapped his hands around Trent Thorne’s throat at that moment, he would have strangled him to death for daring to touch Lemon like that. But he couldn’t commit murder so he forced himself to breathe and try to calm down, “I know her and I know what I saw. Play it again. I’ll show you.”

  Holly stared at him for a long moment and some of the pain left her eyes, “You love her.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t hesitate.

  His ex-wife nodded, as if he’d only confirmed something she already knew. Hell, maybe she had. Holly had always been smarter than him. She’d always picked up on emotions long before he had. It was one of the reasons they hadn’t worked out in the end. He hadn’t been in tune with her enough to know she was unhappy, to read her.

  But he was with Lemon.

  He knew what she was thinking before she did. He knew when she’d try to argue with him and when she’d try to seduce him into getting her way. He knew her fake smiles from her real ones and he knew what it meant when her eyes went soft or hard or up or down and a hundred other things in between.

  It was fast and it was crazy and Shane didn’t do either of those things, not anymore. He was steady. He was rational. He was not irresponsible. But he was in love with Lemon Kelly and it didn’t matter if it had taken him twenty years or two days to fall, from the moment she’d walked back into his life he’d felt it.

  The girl was irresistible and he hadn’t bothered resisting all that much. He’d given in to his lust and kissed her. He’d given in to his want and taken her to bed. He’d given in to his heart and fallen impossibly and irrevocably in love with her.

  “Does she love you?”

  Shane swallowed hard, “I think so… I hope so because I don’t think I can go back to living without her.”

  Holly smiled softly, “She’s good for you. I told you that. I meant it.”

  “So you believe me?” He pointed to the screen, “She didn’t kiss him, not willingly, and I’m not going to jump to conclusions until I talk to her and hear her out. Play it again and I’ll show you that it wasn’t her.”

  “It’s your relationship, Shane. If you say she didn’t. I believe you.”

  He swallowed past the knot in his throat, “Thank you.”

  “But… I don’t think our daughter is going to be quite so easy to convince.”

  Shane winced as the reason for his visit slammed back in on him. His daughters had seen this. He’d happily included Lemon in their lives, made her a part of their family in every way he could, and told them that she was his and would be staying for a long time if he had any say in it. And then they’d watched as the woman they too loved had been kissed by a man that wasn’t their father on national television. He scrubbed a hand over his face and wondered how it was possible that only Georgie was freaking out about this.

  “I’ll talk to her.” He sighed.

  “Good. Maybe she’s calmed down enough for that by now.”

  “I want to see Soph and Rosie first. Make sure they’re okay too.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about them.” Holly smirked slightly when he furrowed his brows, “Rosie tried to tell Georgie that Lemon was acting for the cameras. She thinks it’s fake. Like a movie.”

  “And Sophie?” He worried about his quiet, sensitive daughter most of all because he knew that she didn’t see the world through the same rose-colored glasses her little sister did. She was young but she wasn’t naïve. She must have felt hurt and betrayed at the very least.

  “She didn’t say much but what she did say… well, she takes after you.” Holly smiled again, “She said Lemon didn’t really kiss that guy, not like she kisses you so Rosie must be right and they faked it for the cameras.”

  Shane’s heart lurched in his chest again. God, he loved that girl. How she could be so mature for her age, he didn’t know. But he loved that she understood enough about him and about Lemon to see the same things he had seen when he watched that kiss. He only wished Sophie could’ve convinced Georgie of the same thing.

  He headed down the hallway and paused in the doorway to his oldest daughter’s room. Georgie was curled up in her bed, the blanket tucked all around her. There were tissues everywhere and he winced when he saw the ripped up photos of Lemon she’d clipped out of magazines over the years. Georgie had idolized Lemon as a kid. The doting, crazy aunt figure that was a huge star and sent her expensive presents and made all the other kids jealous because she was Georgie’s friend. He’d somehow forgotten just how close they’d been before his little girl turned into this emotional, dramatic, nothing can touch me teenager. But as he looked at her swollen and tear streaked face he knew that the hurt and betrayal went way past just being upset for him.

  “Honey…”

  Her eyes fluttered open at the sound of his voice and her lips instantly trembled, “Daddy…”

  He was on the bed next to her in an instant. She hadn’t called him Daddy in years. She was too old for it, too mature. She sat up and he wrapped her in his arms. He felt her crying and held her tight, stroking her hair and telling her that it was all going to be okay.

  He didn’t tell her that she was wrong about Lemon, that she hadn’t seen what she thought she’d seen. Her feelings were her own and she was entitled to them. But once she calmed down he would tell her the truth and then hope and pray that h
e was right.

  He loved Lemon and she loved him and she was coming home to him. She had to. She’d promised.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lemon was soaked to the bone but she couldn’t force herself to move from this spot. She was here. She’d come home. She’d gotten back to Fate as fast as she could and she couldn’t bring herself to leave again.

  Not until she saw Shane. Not until she explained things to him. Not until she was certain that she could either fix things, or that she’d ruined them completely.

  She’d caught the first flight out that Millie could get her on. There had been a hired driver waiting for her at the airport to take her to Fate. When she’d asked him to drop her off and leave her here he’d looked skeptical but eventually gave in and left her even though the house was dark and empty.

  Shane wasn’t home. She didn’t know where he was. She’d tried calling him again but the phone kept going to voicemail. She thought he might just be at work but it was late, far later than he usually came home and that worried her.

  What if he was out somewhere drinking off her betrayal? What if he’d run into the arms of another woman for comfort? She felt nauseous even thinking it but it was possible he’d gone to Holly. Wasn’t it?

  Lemon shivered in her ridiculously overpriced and completely ruined evening gown. She hadn’t even bothered to change her clothes before she’d gotten on the plane. She was sitting on Shane’s front porch in a strapless Zac Posen, her jeweled stilettos beside her hip where she’d tossed them after banging on the door and realizing nobody was home. But no matter how wet or cold or lonely she was, she couldn’t force herself to get up and go inside.

  She could. Shane had given her a key. She could go inside and wait for him to come home. But going inside that house when she wasn’t certain she was still welcome felt… wrong. And she hated that almost as much as she hated that wherever he was, Shane was probably hurting and it was all her fault.