by James, Vicki
Without hesitation, I turned and walked out onto the stage in the diluted light. My heart hammered in my chest, not with fear—only excitement. Those three words were out of my chest, out of my mind, out in the world now. I’d set them free, and with it, set myself free in the process. The walls around my heart crumbled, freeing up my voice and everything that meant something inside of me.
I loved her, and she had the ability to be the best decision I’d ever made, or my greatest heartache.
Either way, I fucking loved her.
When I found the spot marked X on the stage, I stood in front of the mic and gripped onto it tightly with one hand while my other clenched the stand.
I didn’t look back at her, and my chin was dipped to my chest when the segment finished, and the studio lights slowly came alive to pin me to my spot.
For a moment, I burned beneath them, my skin ablaze with manufactured warmth while my insides were on fire from that crazy love I was feeling. I could have slayed an army from the power of it. I could take on an entire country and win because of the adrenaline one woman had placed into my veins.
The backing track rose slowly. I hitched in a breath, looked up into the camera in front of me, and I sang.
I sang Hallelujah in a way I’d never sang it before. I sang James Cherry’s version like I’d done every night on tour the whole year before. For the first time in my career, I showed the audience the serious side of who I was. I showed it to myself, too. On that stage, I wasn’t just a rock star. I was a singer: one with credibility, heart, and more passion for music than anyone who’d ever walked out there to sing.
The song built, rising and rising as my emotion rose with it. Emotion for Ma who I suddenly really fucking missed. Emotion for the event, the footage, the audience.
Emotion for Julia.
I sang the words, giving it my all. When the chorus broke, I broke with it, the goosebumps rising on my arms and neck. There were no cocky smirks for the camera that night. No twinkling eyes or bad boy games.
Hallelujah.
It was me without the band. Without the security. I was splitting my insides open and showing the world that Rhett Ryan was more than they’d ever seen.
That guy was a singer.
I was a fucking singer.
This was what I was born to do.
I showed everyone exactly what I was made of.
Hallelujah.
The song finished, and the lights dimmed on the stage.
My breathing was laboured as I dipped my chin back to my chest, ending it how I’d started.
You could have heard a pin drop until the first gasp was released, followed by a hard clap. Then another. And another. And another. The audience rose to their feet and the applause grew. Looking up through hooded eyes, I took them all in as the lights went out on me and turned to another stage where Ariana Grande was waiting to segue into another piece. Even she was staring right at me, a look of stunned surprise on her face.
With a wink and a bow of my head to the live audience, I turned around to leave the stage and go find Jules, feeling more vulnerable than I’d ever felt before.
I was taking on all my demons, no longer afraid.
She was waiting for me in the wings, with a smile on her face, and her eyes twinkling with some kind of unshed emotion. I walked over to her slowly, remaining silent.
She tilted her head to the side as I drew closer. Before long, I was standing in front of her, the two of us staring at one another, waiting for the other to start.
“You just told me you loved me, and you walked away,” she whispered up at me.
“I thought you needed some time.”
Jules held out her hand for me to take, and I did, curling my fingers around hers.
She was battling with herself. I could see it pouring out of her in waves she couldn’t hide, but I’d be damned if I was going to be the one to start this. It needed to come from her now.
I’d done all I could do.
With a gesture of her head, she led us both away from the stage area, and we disappeared behind a black curtain to walk down an isolated corridor where the walls were painted black, and the lighting was barely there. It was the place filled with deserted ladders, fire extinguishers, exit signs, and random ropes and wires left hanging from holes in the ceiling.
After a glance in both directions to make sure the coast was clear, Jules came to a stop and pressed her back against a wall, leaving me to stand in front of her.
She drew in a breath. “I’m scared,” she admitted quietly.
“I know,” I rasped.
“If I say the words you want me to say, I can’t go back from that.”
“Do you want to?”
“You’re not going to want me forever, Rhett.” She gestured to herself. “Look at me. I’m the exact opposite of what you need.”
“Beautiful? Caring? Intelligent? That’s the opposite of what I need?”
“Older. Calmer. Less wild. Less impulsive.”
“That’s exactly what I need.” I stepped back and ran my hands through my hair, tugging at the ends in frustration. “Jules, can’t you see? That’s exactly what I need. I’ve been chasing something more for over three years, and you’re it. You, Julia Speed. Only you. But… fuck, I can’t keep doing this.” My hands fell, slapping against my thighs. “I can’t keep trying to convince you that I want you.”
“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve seen you want something, chase it, then throw it away?”
I closed the gap between us. “And how many times have you heard me tell someone I love them? None. That’s how many. Because no one has ever made me feel a tenth of what you have these last few weeks. But hey, if you’re not feeling it the way I feel you, then I’ll take the hint and get out of—”
Her mouth cut me off. She rose on her toes, clamped a hand around my neck, and she pulled me down onto her lips, silencing me with a kiss.
It was manipulative. It was controlling. She was torturing me with the thing I loved the most; her touch, and I took it like a starved addict because without her, that’s what I’d become. I kissed her back for a few seconds before the irritation rose in me, and I gripped the tops of her arms and pulled her away. She was breathing heavily as she looked up at me—her mouth parted and lips wide.
“It’ll end in tears,” she whispered.
“I won’t fucking hurt you,” I promised her quietly.
Fucking promised. Like I was capable of making those kinds of guarantees.
She was a tiny doll in my clumsy hands, and I held onto her, too afraid she’d break if I let go.
“Shit, I shouldn’t even be saying that. I can’t promise you a damn thing, can I? And that’s the real problem here. You know that more than I know it myself. If you need me to be perfect, I can’t be that for you. I’m a little broken, a lot lost, and I don’t know how the hell to love and care for someone the way you deserve to be loved and cared for. Asking me to be perfect is asking me to be something I’m never going to be.” I bent at the knees and grabbed her face with both hands. “But I can make some promises. I can promise to hold you while you fall asleep. I can promise to listen when you’re fucked off. I can promise to sing to you when the world gets too noisy. I can promise to seduce you when you’re feeling shitty. I can promise to always whisper your favourite UB40 or Fleetwood Mac lyrics in your ear when you wake up. I can promise to make you forget about your troubles by fucking you senseless and loving you recklessly. I can guarantee that you’ll never be bored. I can promise to always tell you the truth because I don’t know how to hold back when I have something to say. I can promise you that I’ll always have something to say, and I can promise, if you’ll let me, to try. I’ll try harder. I can try to do better… for you.”
“You silly fool,” she whispered, releasing a sigh as she stared into my eyes. “I don’t need you to be perfect. This is about me. The only thing I need is to find some courage and stop being scared of getting hurt. I don’t h
ave time to waste.”
“You and your time.” I shook my head gently. “We have time, baby. A whole lifetime of it.”
“I hope so.” She tugged me closer again. “Because, yeah, I love you, and I want to spend all of it with you now.”
“Fuck, Jules.” I sighed heavily.
Her smile exploded into a toothy grin, and her cheeks blushed, just the way I loved them. “Now you know.”
“You’ve been killing me slowly here.”
“Don’t die on me yet. We’re only just getting started.”
We kissed each other, and we could have been on a private little island surrounded by nothing and nobody. Julia Speed had somehow become the only thing I could see, hear, feel, and need.
And she loved me.
Thank fuck, she loved me.
Chapter Forty
The after-party was your typical Hollywood bullshit. People praising each other for their efforts to help the real world when they had no idea what that was. They were The Capitol in The Hunger Games, and everyone else was District 13. It bothered me to see the way they stroked their own egos this way, but who was I kidding? I could hardly claim sainthood when I’d spent three years using women to give my own ego a hard-on.
People congratulated me on my performance, and Julia’s phone was ringing off the hook. She’d been scrolling through her emails and messages for the last forty minutes, while also trying to be polite to big-named music, film, and television execs. My face was famous, sure. Julia’s reputation within the industry was even more so. For the first time since knowing her, I saw the attention she got from the men lingering around in their power suits, and the way the women would look at her through narrowed eyes and with pursed lips.
She had no right to be beautiful and intelligent.
I was being distracted by a harem of women I didn’t know, each one singing their praises for my rendition of Hallelujah, but I wasn’t really absorbing their praise. I kept looking through the cracks of human bodies, seeking Jules.
The woman who now loved me.
“That smile,” a lady to my left said, forcing me to blink and focus on her. Her teeth had crossed over into the too-white category, and she cradled her champagne flute with both hands to showcase her perfectly manicured gold nails.
I could not for the life of me remember her name, but I had a feeling she was well-known in America for being on some kind of soap, drama, shit thing.
“You look like a young man with the whole world at his feet. I remember being a young woman with the same ahead of me. Life, love, so many adventures.”
I tried to look around her to see Jules again, but she was busy on the phone, walking in circles.
The woman in front of me craned her neck to see what held my attention. When she turned back, she leaned closer to me.
“Don’t settle down. It’s a trap.”
I frowned, looking at her ageing face hidden behind thick makeup. “Excuse me?”
“The woman in the white blouse. She’s with you, no?”
“She’s my publicist.”
“Do you know how many men I’ve seen swallowed up by their publicists and agents in the last three decades? A lot, honey. They make you think you can’t live without them until you actually can’t. Then they complain about the fame side of life and want to drag you to an isolated little island so they’ll never lose you to a younger model with a pretty face and faker tits.”
With a dismissing laugh, I patted her shoulder. “Sure thing, woman I’ve never met before in my life. I’ll listen to you before my own heart.” With a shake of my head, I walked away, muttering the word idiot under my breath.
A lady with a tray of champagne flutes walked by me, and I grabbed two glasses from it with a nod of thanks in the young girl’s direction. She blushed and tried to bite back her smile, the little cutie. But she—or anyone of them—had nothing on my woman.
When I reached her, she held a finger up in front of me as she held my gaze and spoke into the phone she had pressed to her ear.
“Yeah, set the meeting up,” she said, her face serious. “I’ll confirm it when I’m at my laptop tomorrow. No, I don’t need anything else. I’ll make sure the guys are covered.” She paused, staring right at me. “I’m not making any promises here. There’s a lot to consider. Okay, thanks.”
Jules ended the call abruptly and slipped her mobile into the back pocket of her jeans.
I held out a champagne glass. “You looked like you needed saving.”
Her cheeks flamed, and she took the drink. “Just doing my job. Earning my pay.”
“Anything exciting?” I asked, eyeing her as she came to my side and pressed her tits against my chest.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?” I raised a brow.
“Never mix business with pleasure. Which are we about tonight?” She had that naughty twinkle in her eyes I loved so fucking much. It was the one she had every time we got naked together.
“You know I’m always going to choose pleasure over business.”
“Then just… trust me. Everything’s being taken care of.”
I glanced around us, a little confused and a lot aroused by Julia’s desire to be intimate with me in public. It backed up her declaration of love, and I couldn’t get enough.
“Kinda hard to believe it’s finally happened for me.”
“What has?”
“The void has gone. Everything feels… complete now.”
Jules held on tight, and her chest hammered against mine. “Stop being cute.”
“Fucking cute?” I squeezed her arse hard.
She rose on her toes. “Yeah. I don’t know who you are some days when I look at you now.”
“This version of me is just for you. Don’t mock it. I’m liking the way it feels to be this guy.”
“How does it feel?”
“Like there’s a reason for everything now.”
“Sorry it took me so long to get you here.”
“You should be. Think of all the crazy, wild sex we could have been having.” I kissed her, right in the middle of that room, not caring who saw, who had an issue with it, or who thought I was stupid for falling in love with this woman. She’d seen every ugly part of me and still wanted the rough version of the guy in her arms. Once this high phase fizzled out, I could return to my old, cynical self if I needed to. She’d still be there at the foot of my bed, raising her eyebrows and shaking her head with a smile on her face.
“Holy. Shit!” someone screeched.
My eyes fluttered open the same time as Jules’s did, and the two of us turned to see JJ Jones standing beside us with her hands held up in the air and her mouth hanging open.
“Are you kidding me, Rhett?” JJ glared at me like I’d just shot a puppy. “Her? Really?” She turned her devil eyes onto Julia, and I instantly moved her to my side to protect her. “Beige Betty over here!”
“What the fuck did you say?” I snarled.
JJ folded her arms over her chest and cocked her hip. “I thought we were hooking up. We always do when we’re in town together.”
“We’ve fucked twice, JJ. Twice.”
She took a step closer, acting as though Julia wasn’t even there. “On two occasions, Rhett. We fucked way more times than that.” Her mouth kicked up at the corner, smug and victorious.
We were gathering some spectators; groups of women and men turning their heads to eavesdrop on a bit of scandal they, thankfully, weren’t a part of.
Letting go of Julia’s hand, I ran mine through my hair.
“What can I say? You were forgettable.”
“What did you just say?” JJ gasped.
“I said you were forgettable.”
“How dare—”
“No.” I cut her off and took a step closer. “How dare you?” My face creased with all the shitty anger I had for her. “Who the hell do you think you are, coming over here and parading that shit in front of my girlfriend?”
“Girlfriend?” JJ
’s eyes popped as she stared up at me.
“Yeah. My girlfriend. You think you get a free pass to make people feel like shit because you’re pretty and used to getting your own way, JJ. Nuh-huh. Not on my watch. It doesn’t work like that.”
“Rhett,” she said, much softer.
“Save it. I don’t want to hear it. The best thing you can do is turn around and leave.”
JJ’s eyes searched mine for some kind of softness she could break through. I knew her type. Hell, I’d been her type before. I could see when someone was looking for the weak spot on a hard face. She could keep looking all night. She’d find nothing but disdain.
“I’m… sorry for troubling you,” she eventually muttered.
“Your apology belongs to the woman behind me.” I took a step back, reaching out for Julia’s hand without looking at her. She took it, too—her cool fingers tangling with mine as I stepped back in line beside her.
JJ kept glancing between the two of us before she eventually rolled her eyes and settled them on Julia.
“Whatever,” she muttered pathetically. “Have a nice life together.”
Julia waved a flippant hand in the air, dismissing her, before JJ turned on her heels and began to walk away.
A few of the spectators continued to stare, but not for long as I made a point to give each and every one of them a pointed look until they turned their backs on us again.
“You really didn’t need to do that for me.” Jules said with obvious pride shining from her eyes.
I drained my glass, dropping it to a nearby high table before I cupped her neck. “That shit was for me. I can’t stand how entitled that woman is.”
“Yet you slept with her how many times?”
“She was nothing but a trophy screw. Something to brag about. I thought it would make me feel good.” I scrunched my nose up. “How wrong was I?”
“That bad, huh?”
I smirked. “They’re all bad compared to you.”
“You’re doing it again. Being cute.”
“I’ll show you cute.” I growled and nuzzled my face into her neck, bringing her skin out in goosebumps, not caring where we were.
