by Livia Grant
“What?” Emma questioned. “Has Jonah talked about it?”
Samantha was frustrated. “No, and that’s what’s so weird. Instead of acting grateful for the help, he seems to hate my dad and uncle. I’ve tried to bring it up a few times, but am so afraid of losing him again, I decided to wait until we were together before I try again. I want to be able to see his eyes.”
Emma agreed, “That sounds like a smart plan. So you’ll have to confront your father first, then.”
“Yep, unfortunately I cannot put it off any longer. I’m dreading it, but while I’m furious that Dad intervened back then, I’m really hoping he won’t continue to hold a grudge. Surely he can see how successful Jonah is and be happy for him now.”
“I hope so. Men. Sometimes they don’t make any sense,” Emma reasoned.
“You should know. You live with two of them.”
Emma grinned, “Don’t tell the guys, but I’m grateful for the power dynamics in our relationship. Sometimes I feel guilty playing the role of a submissive when society has raised me to be a career minded, Type A, always in control professional.” Emma paused to make eye contact. “You know what I mean?”
Boy, do I ever.
“Totally. I’ve had a long time love/hate relationship with control.” Samantha hadn’t been brave enough to share her past history with cutting with her new friend yet.
“Well, if you stick with Jonah, it will continue to be exciting. I’m guessing he won’t be the type to share control, at least not in some of the more intimate parts of your relationship, if you know what I mean.” Both women blushed having witnessed some of those intimacies first hand.
The women enjoyed their visit for another half-hour, talking non-stop, until Samantha had to head out. “I wish I could stay, but I need to see the campus OBGYN before I go home.”
Emma looked concerned so Sam put her mind at ease. “Oh, nothing’s wrong. I just want to get a prescription for birth control and would prefer not to do it with my doctor back home since he goes to Daddy’s country club. I’d like to think he’d be discreet, but Texas, you just never know.”
“But you’re twenty-three. Does your father really think you’re still a virgin?” Emma asked incredulously.
Samantha’s cheeks burned from embarrassment before she reluctantly admitted. “Honestly, I was a virgin until that first night at Runway.”
“What?” Emma’s face registered her shock. Samantha silently gave Jaxson kudos for keeping her secret, even from his lover.
“Hard to believe, I know, but I was.”
Emma whistled. “Wow, and then a few days later you were already at Black Light. You’re making up for lost time pretty quickly.”
Sam chuckled, “How could I not with Jonah as my teacher?”
Emma grabbed the check and put down a ten dollar bill to cover it. “Hey, it’s my treat this time. You save your cash for your prescription. That’s a hundred times more important. As much as I love Jaxson and Chase, I can’t even think about getting pregnant right now. What a nightmare.”
A sliver of anxiety slithered through Samantha. Her and Jonah had already played with fire having unprotected sex multiple times. She had enough stressful things happening in her life. At least handling birth control could be easily fixed.
The ladies hugged goodbye before parting. Emma prodded her friend. “Keep in touch over the holidays. I can’t wait to hear how everything works out.”
As Sam walked the few blocks to the campus medical center, she started to mentally prepare for the coming long weekend with her father. She wasn’t sure which would be harder to break to him: that she and Jonah had been reunited and no amount of money would keep them apart this time or that she had just taken her last class in law school.
* * *
“Cash! Cash! Over here!” Jonah pushed through the throng of fans gathered outside the stadium. They’d be playing to a sold out crowd in less than two hours. The men of the band pressed forward slowly, stopping to sign a few autographs and allow fans to touch their favorite rockers as they moved into the building. The flash of cameras bounced off the falling Colorado snow until they made it into the back hallway, finally free of the rabid crowd.
As soon as the door was closed behind them, he turned around to confront Frank who’d been right behind him as he’d left the limo. Jonah wasn’t happy with his manager.
“What the fuck was that? I told you in Omaha that you needed to tighten up security. It’s getting out of control again.”
Frank was defensive, “Hey, I can’t help it that everyone is going batshit crazy to get a piece of you, worried you’re going to be off the market soon.”
His manager had not hidden the fact that he was against Jonah making his relationship status change become public record. They hadn’t exactly taken an ad out in the newspaper to announce Jonah was in a committed relationship, but the rumor mill was coming unhinged with speculation. So far, the lead singer of the Crushing Stones had neither denied nor confirmed the rumors officially.
Christ, he was tired.
The last two weeks he’d spent apart from Samantha had dragged by at a snail’s pace. They had so much unfinished business. Each day that passed, the pressure to confront all of the bullshit from their past grew until it felt like it was strangling him. The only things getting him through the added stress were his hard workouts that helped burn off his aggression and daily phone calls with Samantha herself.
Those calls, unfortunately, both helped and hurt. Just hearing her voice calmed him in ways nothing else could, yet every day they hung up without talking about why he’d really left her years before added more bricks to the wall that was forming between them.
Having nothing new to say, he eventually turned his back on his manager and continued stalking into the underbelly of the auditorium that doubled as the home to the city’s professional basketball team.
That they would soon be performing for over twelve thousand Crushing Stones fans should make him nervous, but it didn’t. Music, he could handle. Navigating through the tricky relationships in his life was proving to be a bit more difficult.
When they got to their backstage dressing room, Jonah relaxed a little. He and the band would at least have a few minutes of relative privacy to regroup as they ate a light meal and got ready.
The band members were usually quiet before a show, focusing on the mental preparedness required for a successful concert. Jonah took advantage of the subdued environment to collapse into one of the many couches in the space. He took a few minutes to close his eyes, remembering Samantha and how beautiful she’d been their last afternoon together.
Only a few more days and then we’ll be reunited.
He was on edge. He knew he wouldn’t truly relax until she’d returned to him. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t concerned about her traveling to visit her father and uncle for the Christmas holiday. It took all of his self-control to stop from forbidding her to visit the men in Texas. Jonah was almost sure she’d agree to fly to Colorado early if he asked her, but he also knew it would be a gross misuse of his influence over her if he played that card. It was the kind of shit the Stone men would pull and he was determined to be the better man in her life.
The vibration of his cell phone in his front pocket pulled him from his memories. A quick glance at the screen cheered him up in a flash. It was Sami.
“Hello! I was just thinking about you,” he answered with the genuine surprise he was feeling.
“I was hoping to catch you before the show. I miss you so much,” she answered quietly, sounding as conflicted as he had just been.
“Hey, it won’t be long now. How was your last final today?”
“Okay. Not great, but I should be able to hold my B average,” Sami informed him.
“That’s my good girl.” He was so impressed by all she could accomplish.
Sam perked up a bit, adding, “I think I deserve a reward.”
“Really? What did you have in mind?” Jo
nah flirted, expecting her to talk sexy to him like most nights when they talked late into the night.
He wasn’t prepared for her more serious request. “Please, Jonah. Come home with me for Christmas tomorrow.”
He was agitated that she wouldn’t let the topic drop. “We’ve been through this, Samantha. I’ll never go there again.”
“When are you going to tell me what happened between you and Dad before you left?” Tonight’s call was taking a darker turn. One he wasn’t ready to discuss yet.
Agitation grew to anger. He fucking didn’t want to talk about the bastard, especially over the phone. They’d done so well with avoiding the hot button topics. He didn’t understand what had changed to make Samantha want to confront the subject this close to being back together. He let his mind wander, avoiding talking to her.
He’d put enough together to know that she’d been duped as much as he had by the men in her life. She had no idea the Stone men had had him arrested for statutory rape of their under-aged Sam the night of prom. With their extensive legal contacts, they’d literally been able to incarcerate him in a juvenile detention center and throw away the key for what had seemed like an eternity to a teenage Jonah.
Five months to be exact.
Five months behind bars without access to a lawyer that hadn’t been hired by the Stone men themselves. A lawyer interested in only one thing—securing Jonah’s cooperation in leaving Samantha alone.
Five months without access to his mother who’d been frantic with worry for her only son, not knowing what had happened to him and being told lies by the Stone men making her afraid to go to the police for help.
Five months to be worn down until he’d have signed anything to get away from them. Even a piece of paper that would give them the power to arrest him the second he stepped foot in the good ‘ole state of Texas again. Even a paper that had him promising not to contact Samantha again. It had spelled out how she’d been promised in marriage to the wealthy son of one of their cronies from the country club and she didn’t need to have her questionable friend showing up to confuse her.
When he’d balked at signing that last piece of paper, they’d sweetened the deal, throwing in a diploma to show he’d graduated from high school, even though he’d been in his cell the night of the ceremony, along with a sealed envelope that contained a check made out to him in the amount of fifty thousand dollars.
That’s the price the bastards had put on Samantha’s worth. A measly fifty thousand dollars out of their millions. It was a fucking joke.
“Jonah?” He’d zoned out in his little trip down memory lane.
He scrambled to salvage their conversation. “You’re still planning on coming to Vail on the twenty-seventh, right? I’ll meet you there. You’ll see, everything will turn out fine.” He felt slimy promising her that when they had so many big topics still hanging between them. He tacked on, “We’ll get to spend ten whole days together, including New Year’s Eve. It will be great.”
“But that’s almost a whole week away.”
“Baby, we went almost seven years. You don’t think we can make it another five days?” Even as he said it, the precarious wall of confidence he’d been trying to prop up between them felt like it was crumbling. His sixth sense was telling him not to let the Stone men get their hands on Samantha again.
What if they could make her disappear as easily as they’d made him go poof years before?
The stage manager was calling out pre-show orders. Frank was waving at him to wrap up the call and change his clothes for the show. River was giving him the evil eye from across the room, knowing who he was talking to and still not trusting a Stone. Not even Sam.
“Sami, I gotta go, baby. I’m gonna call you later after the show. We’ll talk about this more then, okay?” He waited for her reply that didn’t come. “Sam?”
“Yes,” it was a whisper. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear she was crying.
“What is it? What aren’t you telling me?” He couldn’t shake that something bigger was going on tonight.
“I just… need to… see you…” she stumbled through her words, too full of emotion.
“Ten minute warning,” the stage manager yelled out to the crowded room of musicians.
Fuck.
“I’m sorry, baby. They’re calling me. I really do need to go, but I’ll call you later. I promise.”
“It’s okay. I’m just being silly. I have an early flight in the morning and still need to pack. Why don’t we talk tomorrow?” He could tell she was trying to put on a brave face. Jonah wished he had more time to get to the bottom of what was bothering her, but it would have to wait a day.
“Okay. Sleep well.”
He didn’t have time to worry about the heavy shit hanging over them. He had a job to do. Jonah got up and got to work turning himself into Cash Carter.
* * *
Two hours later, Cash Carter’s shirt was soaked through with perspiration from his exertion on stage. Like the consummate professional he was, he’d turned off all of the distractions to focus on delivering a kick-ass concert the fans had paid big bucks to see.
Adrenaline pumped through his veins as they took their final bows, giving the sold-out crowd not one, but two encores. By the time the band headed down the back steps and towards their dressing room, he’d almost forgot about the heavy problems waiting for him.
The back corridor was crowded with groupies and VIPs with backstage passes, all pressing in to touch the band members. He was going to be having another discussion with their head of security. It was bullshit how each night they’d had more and more unauthorized fans to deal with. It was a huge security risk.
He was almost at the end of the gauntlet when he noticed several news cameras rolling. Frank usually warned them when he’d set up interviews. He was exhausted and never would have agreed to do an interview tonight, this close to Christmas. He didn’t need reporters questioning him again about who the woman was in D.C. or where he’d be spending his holidays.
He had just turned to find Frank as the glow of the nearest camera pointed his way. In the glare of the bright lights and the commotion of the pressing crowd, he totally missed the woman throwing herself at him from the right until she was draped all over his sweaty body. Her arms wrapped around his neck in a choke-hold and before he could throw her off, her lips latched onto his in an open mouth kiss.
He was only a second into the kiss when he recognized the body molded against him. Cash reached up to grab her by the forearms and started pushing her away from him, but the pressing crowd was working against him. In the chaos, she managed to rub against him in what would look like an intimate embrace to anyone paying attention.
Jonah wrenched his head away far enough to sound his warning. “Goddammit, Caroline.”
The blonde bombshell who he’d dated months ago for a few weeks flashed her sexiest smile. He’d seen it many times before, just before he’d fucked her brains out. They’d gone their separate ways, and she’d joined the long list of his tossed aside dalliances.
He pressed her for answers, even as the paparazzi moved in closer. “What the fuck are you doing here?” He had to shout over the commotion.
“I missed you,” she purred.
“Since when?”
Jonah tried to move around her, desperate to get out of the throng of groupies groping him as he tried to distance himself from the woman intent on making a scene. Caroline latched onto his arm as he moved past her, acting like she would be tagging along with him. He moved to extricate himself from her clinging as she added confusing words. “I forgive you.”
Jonah stopped in his tracks, turning back to her. “For what?”
She didn’t answer, instead smiling a sexy smile as she leaned in closer. “We aren’t over.”
Jonah lost his temper. “Honey, we never started. Fuck off.”
He succeeded in extricating himself from her clutches and pressed through the remaining crowd to finally make it
to the door to their dressing room. His security detail was there and helped to hold back the crowd who tried to follow him.
Only when he got into the relative quiet of their private sanctuary did Jonah’s pulse finally return to normal, allowing him to think through all that had happened. His gut was screaming at him, and at first, he didn’t figure it out. But with each passing minute, it became more and more clear to him.
“You mother fuckers,” he said to no one in particular.
He needed to find Frank and Ryan.
Chapter 13
“Samantha!”
Sam was standing next to the luggage carousel, waiting for her bag when she heard her father’s voice calling her name. She turned in time to see him striding her way.
“Daddy? Since when do you come pick me up at the airport yourself? I was expecting to see Miguel.” Despite her nervousness about the upcoming difficult discussions she’d be having with her father, she had to admit she felt nothing but relief when he hugged her tight.
“I’ve missed you so much. I didn’t want to miss welcoming you home. Miguel is making laps with the car. I told him I’d text him when we had your luggage.”
His hug was a bit too tight. It was on the verge of hurting, but she reciprocated. When he pulled out of their embrace to look down into her eyes, she was concerned to see bags under his eyes. Her only parent looked exhausted.
“Is everything okay, Daddy? You don’t look so hot.”
“Gee, thanks.” He feigned hurt feelings and she didn’t know how to tell him she’d meant it. He surprised her with his own assessment. “You don’t look so hot yourself, there, missy. You’ve been working too hard out there in D.C. I’m glad to have you home where I can take care of you again.”
Sam didn’t have the heart to break the news to him that she wouldn’t be staying long. He thought she’d be home for five weeks over Georgetown’s winter break. He’d be in for a surprise when he found out she’d be leaving in just a few days to join Jonah.
