by Cari Quinn
“Daddy, you’re early,” she panted as she struggled with unforgiving cotton.
“No, I’m obviously too late.” Her father scrubbed a hand through his already disordered hair. “Chloe, who is this guy? Who are you?” he demanded, staring at Michael when Chloe was too busy putting on her shirt to reply.
Her bra ended up balled up in her pocket with the straps sticking out.
“Hi, sir, um, I’m Michael Shawcross, Chloe’s—”
“Don’t say it.”
“Chloe’s what? Chloe Bear, you better start talking fast. I want to know who this strange man is and why you’re half naked with him. And why a red Dodge Viper getting towed away is being filmed by a camera crew on the corner.”
“What?” Michael bobbled Chloe in his lap, grabbing her arm to right her as she finally got her shirt back on. “My car is getting towed?”
“That’s your ride?”
“Hell yes, it is. I mean, sir.” He threw a glance at Chloe. “Fuck, I gotta get out there and get my car. I parked in the right spot, dammit.”
“Guess not. Chloe, start talking.”
“This is Michael. He’s in a band. He’s friends with Nicky.”
“Oh, Nicky?” Mr. Adams brightened for a second then his mouth turned down as he studied Michael. “You’re not in his band. What band are you in?”
“Nick isn’t my friend, he’s my kind of stepfather.” Yet another way his life was a Jerry Springer episode in the making. “Anyway, I’m in Warning Sign. I’d love to stay and chat, but my freaking car is going to end up in an impound lot somewhere.” Michael glanced at Chloe’s dad. “Are the paps still on the lawn too or are they all down the street?”
“I don’t know what ‘paps’ are, but if you mean the reporters, yes, they’re still on the lawn. Pushy bastards. They asked me about Chloe’s husband. Imagine them dredging up that Snake business again. Did the lawsuit get brought back up in the papers or something?”
Chloe flashed Michael a pleading look as she shoved up her sleeves. “Daddy, I’ll explain in a few minutes, I promise. Michael has to go now.”
Okay then. Talk about a boot out the door. Yes, his car was being towed and he needed to leave, but she could at least pretend not to want to toss him out on his dick.
Not on his ear, because his ear wasn’t in pain like his cock, that was for sure.
“Yeah, time for me to go. I only have one purpose it seems.” Michael got stiffly to his feet and held out a hand to Mr. Adams. “Sir, nice to meet you. I’m sorry the circumstances weren’t better.”
“You and me both. You’re just lucky you had your pants on or else I would’ve tried my hand at some buckshot. Chloe has a gun over there in that closet.” Mr. Adams jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
“Daddy, stop it. I’m an adult. We’re consenting.”
“We’re hell of a lot more than consenting, we’re goddamn marr—”
Chloe hurtled to her feet and pushed Michael toward the door. “Go save your car. I’ll talk to you soon.”
A moment later, he stepped onto the stoop and stared into the glare from a dozen flashbulbs. Questions were being pelted from every direction.
Normally, he tried to play nice with the paparazzi. Not anymore. He just swung right and left to make himself a path and booked for the street.
He might not be able to save his marriage, but he could save his damn car.
Eighteen
“You’re late, Chloe.”
Chloe scrunched up her shoulders. “I know. I called Wanda.” She tossed her light jacket and purse into her locker, trading it for her apron.
Lou, the owner and her boss, slapped the doorway to the piece of shit back room they called a break room. “Yeah, well, Wanda is shit at drinks. Get behind the bar. Now.”
“The tips are decent, the tips are decent, the tips are decent. Diapers are expensive, Chloe,” she said under her breath as she tucked her black T-shirt into her tight black jeans. She tied her black apron around her hips and grabbed a new towel from their stash in the back. She tucked it into her back pocket as she threaded her way through the tables.
She waved to three of the half-dozen waitresses on for the night. Thursday was always a little crazy at Rafferty’s. People had their paychecks and they wanted to drink. The bar was also a block down from the strip, so they got the overflow when people were out and about for concerts.
Chloe ducked under the little crawl-space at the end of the bar.
“Thank God. If one more person gave me shit for how I build a Guinness, I was going to start swinging.”
Chloe took the Guinness glass from Wanda. “Yeah, it’s a pain in the butt. Thanks for covering.”
Wanda grabbed a bottle of whiskey and splashed some in a glass before unhooking the soda tap. “What happened with your super?” She set the Jack and Coke in front of another one of their regulars with a smile and scooped up the five for the register.
Chloe sighed and held the glass at the perfect 45 degree angle then stopped to let it settle. “He’s gotten a few complaints from the other tenants.”
“Your kid is the sweetest on the planet.”
Chloe laughed. She wished it was just from Axl being too loud. “Not about my kid. Just some stuff I have to deal with.” Oh, just a hoard of reporters shuffling in zombie packs like they were trying out for The Walking Dead. Her life was the suck.
“Did I see you on TV, Chloe?”
She winced. The usual programming at the bar ran to ball games of all different types, not the lifestyle channels. As far as she knew, they’d only been mentioned on Entertainment Tonight once today. Didn’t they have anything else to report on?
“US Weekly had a spread on hot rockstars. I saw you in my email.” Amber slapped the bar and bounced with a giddy smile. “Michael Shawcross? No way.” She waggled her brows. “He’s a rockstar in bed too, right? I mean, wow, he’s got to be. Those jeans he wears? It’s not right.”
“Who?” Wanda whirled around and put her hands on her hips.
Chloe widened her eyes at Amber. “Can we not talk about it, please?”
“Hmm. Too late.” Amber flipped her blond ponytail over her shoulder. “There was some guy outside asking questions. I didn’t know it was a secret.”
Chloe sighed. “You have got to be kidding.” How the hell did they find her? She’d taken three different buses to get to work.
“Can I have my beer?” A guy at the bar drummed his fingers.
“Crap.” Chloe backed up to the tap and finished off the pour. She cleaned up the glass and set it in front of one of her regulars with a distracted smile before going back to Amber. “Look, people might start asking—”
“Start? Girl, that’s the third person that’s come in here asking about you two. The first one was a reporter from Music Life. I mean, wow.” Amber tugged on the perfect curl at the end of her ponytail. “You and another rockstar? Do you have a special pheromone or something?”
“No,” Chloe said stiffly.
“Well, come on, that’s two now. No, three. You were with that Nick guy from Oblivion too, right?”
Chloe blew her bangs out of her eyes. “No—well, yes. But that was high school. He was just Nick back then.”
“Still. Man,” Amber’s voice lowered. “You have that magic pussy, huh?” She snapped her gum.
“Oh my God.” Chloe’s eyebrows snapped down. “Amber, what the hell?”
The blond shrugged. “Own it, girl. Now you’re married to that guitar guy…man, smoking hot. Talk about upgrade.”
“I’m not talking about this.”
If only they knew just how little action her…well, that she got. And she’d almost gotten some earlier in the week and had been interrupted by her father.
Her cheeks heated. Her dad. She’d been having sex since she was fourteen-years-old, for God’s sake and it took until she was twenty-three to get caught by her dad. The levels of unfair were creeping in on epic proportions here.
She’d acted l
ike a teen girl getting seduced by her first boyfriend. Foot massage then all of a sudden, she was on his freaking lap. Her defenses had been somewhere south of her belt thanks to his sweet mouth. Compliments given in a way that didn’t sound like a line. No, they’d been coated in wonder and a purring low voice.
Then there’d been his mouth and his hands.
Lord, his hands.
Wanda bumped her out of the way as she grabbed a beer from the cooler. “Wake up, girl.”
“Right.” Chloe turned to the rack of glasses that needed to go into the washer and swapped them out for the cleans. The monotonous chores that came with running the bar evened her out.
Something had to. She’d tossed and turned all night half from the insanity of her life and half from the mind-bending orgasm that was eating at the edges of her brain. She’d gone so long without and now this stupid man had jumpstarted her freaking libido with jet fuel.
“What’s this about you being married?” Diane came up to the bar and set her tray down.
“Not you too.”
“How could you not tell us? Tell me especially.”
“There’s nothing to tell.” Chloe wiped down the bar and put out coasters automatically.
“Really? Because from what I’ve heard, you’re now married to a cheating bastard. You’re better than that.”
Chloe’s gaze snapped to Diane’s. “What?”
“Not even a week ago, this guy was climbing out of Senator Dinkles’ fiancée’s bed.”
Her brain literally whirled. Her hearing fuzzed for a moment before everything came back into sharp focus. Her pocket buzzed. She pulled out her phone and saw Michael’s name there. Definitely not reading that one, thank you very much.
“Girls, these tables aren’t going to bus themselves!” Lou growled from the back.
Chloe stuffed her phone back into her pocket. “Later, Di.”
Diane clamped a hand around Chloe’s wrist. “Are you sure about this?”
Of course she wasn’t sure of anything. She had a wedding night she didn’t remember, a couch orgasm—wait. She’d had two.
The blast of memory and Michael’s voice in her head made her entire body tingle.
If we were alone, I’d drag you up and over my face right now.
Why the hell had she remembered that now?
A couch in the corner of the club. Him and those freaking fingers. In a room full of strangers? Had she truly allowed him to do that?
“Oh, honey. From the look on your face—you’re in trouble.”
“What?” Chloe shook her head. “What? No, I’m fine.”
“No, that’s a face of a woman in the deepest of shit.” Diane tucked her tray under her arm. “I recognize that face. It’s how I ended up married to my second husband.”
Chloe pulled her hand away. “You hated your second husband.”
“I know. But holy hell, he was a beast in bed. Why I kept going back for more.”
Chloe crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not like that.”
Diane’s eyebrow rose.
“Okay, so some of it is that.” Couch orgasms—plural—at her house. She so couldn’t think about that right now. “But that’s not the whole story.” She snuck a look over her shoulder. Lou was staring at them. Her boss was mercurial at best and she needed this job, dammit.
Diane tapped her tray against her thigh. “I’ll buy you a Diet Coke and you can tell me the rest later.”
Chloe blew out a breath. She hadn’t had anyone to talk to since this stupid thing had happened. Jinx and Ivy were still MIA, though Jinx had finally texted her again this morning. She’d been light on the details, of course, but at least she wasn’t dead.
But she couldn’t exactly text—hey, guess what? I’m married.
Definitely one of those face to face conversations. But hell, if either of them had actually come up for air, they probably already knew. The whole freaking world knew. She hadn’t realized Michael’s band was so famous.
Oblivion, sure. There were a half dozen number one singles in their box of tricks. Warning Sign just had the one so far. And they couldn’t be past one-hit-wonder status yet. That was a rule…or something.
“Diane, quit your gossiping. Table four needs a refill of pitchers.”
“Yeah, yeah. Hold your ass.” Diane leaned across the bar. “We will be discussing this.”
Chloe tipped her head back. How was this her life?
The next hour was a flurry of activity. She tried not to focus on the crowd growing outside. Amber kept primping as she went by the door. She was one of the tens of thousands of model wannabes in Los Angeles. She was forever throwing herself at men, hoping to find the one who would take her away from this thrilling life they were leading. The Strip would give her an STD faster than a ring on her finger.
Then again, Chloe had gone to Vegas and ended up with a sapphire and diamond ring on hers. She immediately traced the curve of the ring at the bottom of the deepest pocket of her jeans.
She didn’t trust to leave it at her house. Her small neighborhood was relatively safe for Carson, but getting robbed wasn’t out of the question. She’d had two different break-ins before she had Axl. After the baby, even the crackheads knew she didn’t have anything worth stealing. Babies were damn expensive.
Still didn’t mean she was going to leave a ring like that in her little jewelry chest.
She absently toyed with her tiny diamond on her right hand. She couldn’t quite come to terms with taking that one off.
Her life was the definition of a hot mess.
“Grape soda, please.”
Her heart slammed against her chest. That lazy, sexy voice was going to be the death of her yet. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Michael climbed onto the bar stool in front of her. “Well, you weren’t answering my texts—for days—so here I am.”
“Because I’m working.”
He tucked his aviator sunglasses into the neck of his button down shirt. It was open at least two more buttons than made her comfortable. The little bit of chest hair made her fingertips tingle. “I’ll wait for your break.”
“Too late, already had my break.” Liar, liar, panties on fire. Which, of course, was the problem. Her panties were forever on fire around this idiot.
He shrugged. “I’ll wait for your dinner break.”
A murmur started to circulate around the bar. Chloe’s shoulders stiffened as Wanda came up beside her. “This guy hassling you?”
Michael grinned. “It’s actually my favorite pastime. She generally likes it, even if she growls about it first.” He held his hand out. “Michael.”
Wanda shook his hand aggressively. Chloe had to hand it to him, he didn’t wince or look away from her friend. In fact, his smile widened.
“You should meet my brother. You two could arm wrestle.”
Wanda snickered briefly before dropping his hand. “You mess with my girl and we’re going to have words, yeah?”
Michael shook out his fingers. “I like that she has people looking out for her.”
“We do.” Wanda leaned forward a little. “And I know how to hide a body.”
“And that’s a very handy skill. I’ll remember that.”
“I shouldn’t like this one if the rumors are true, but I like him.” Wanda bumped Chloe’s shoulder. “I’m holding off judgment.” Wanda tipped her head and squinted at him. “For now.”
Michael’s eyebrow shot up and the little green gem in his eyebrow ring winked in the low light. “Does the threat come with my drink or is it extra?”
“I don’t have grape soda. Go fish.”
He shrugged. “Okay, you pick for me. I hate Coke and Pepsi though.”
Figures he’d be fussy. “Why are you here?”
“I’m checking in on you since you won’t answer a text. I know you’re getting them.”
She sighed. “Look, I appreciate your situation. Actually, you know what? No, I really don’t. We don’t mesh. You
and your fancy car can go back to Malibu where you belong, okay? Just send me the paperwork for a divorce or whatever and we’ll both be happier.”
He grinned at her. “You checked up on me?”
She flushed. Okay, so she may have Googled him. And she may have found pictures of his stupid apartment when she’d been browsing on her phone. Everything about him was so far out of her stratosphere, she couldn’t find the two of them on the same map. “That’s what you got out of that sentence?”
He spread his fingers out on the bar, taking up as much space as humanly possible. And he was still wearing his damn ring. Why?
God, this was so crazy.
Another murmur twined its way to the bar. She frowned as two men in rumpled suit jackets took a seat at the end.
“You can’t deny there’s something here between us.” Michael covered her hand.
She tried to pull away. Her gaze strayed to the two guys at the end of the bar again. “One sec,” she said to Michael.
“Chloe—fuck.” He raked his fingers through his hair.
She couldn’t worry about him right then. She had people to serve. And busy bodies to move along. At least if her instincts proved at all on point. She flicked two coasters at the men. “Can I get you gentlemen something?”
The one on the right had the good grace to look down, but the asshat on the left stared right at her. “You’re Chloe Adams, right?” His smarmy smile widened. “Or is that Shawcross?”
“I’m just a bartender. And if you’re not looking for a drink, then I need those seats for paying customers.”
“Two Miller Lites.”
Of course, two of the cheapest beers on the planet. “Coming right up.” She moved to the cooler and popped two tops before setting the sweating bottles on the bar. “Glasses?”
“No, this is fine.” Smarmy dude slid a five on the bar. “Keep the change.”
“Aww, can I really? That whole no cents.” She gave him her fuck-off-you-cheap-bastard smile.
“Well, if you’d answer a few questions, we’d definitely give you a tip.”
“Have a good night.” She passed Wanda. “Reporters. Make sure they pay for every drink.”
“You got it.”
