Fake Fiancé for the Billionaire Rockstar (Raising Havoc Bandmates #5)

1. Carmen

1

Carmen

I’m seconds away from losing it.

Donny’s at it again. The fifth holiday jingle that’s not on the set list I sent two days ago. Seriously, how hard is it to follow simple instructions? At this rate, I might actually scream.

The rest of the band doesn’t seem to care. Of course, they don’t.

Brent and Evan are all but grinning, throwing their too-perfect smiles over their shoulders at Donny like they’re in on some inside joke. Jace doesn’t even bother to join them—he just stares at me, bored as ever, like I’m the only one noticing this train wreck happening in real-time.

For a split second, I wish the others were more like him—apathetic, sure, but at least he sticks to the plan.

But no. Brent, Mr. Family Man now, should be the one to tell Donny to cut it out. Responsibility and all that. Guess fatherhood hasn’t completely killed his taste for chaos, because he’s egging Donny on like a schoolboy.

Here’s Donny, curls drooping over his eyes, proudly tapping away at his drum. The charity concert’s in a few weeks. You’d think they’d be on top of things.

Static echoes through my earpiece, then a male voice comes through the other end, “The lights on stage left aren’t working. Is there a new set in storage?”

Before I storm up to the room where our stage tech is working, I focus all my energy on the man-child sitting in front of his drums. He starts tapping them with the sticks, oblivious to the death glare I’ve got aimed at him, but at least the other guys make room for me to walk through them — they know what’s good for them.

Unlike Donny. He never knows what’s good for him. Or me.

Donny looks up. That cheeky grin. For a moment, I can’t breathe. Damn him. I hate how his eyes light up, brown irises dotting with yellow. Hate his perpetually relaxed stance.

Hate how much I notice these things.

“Hey there, Carm. Come to tell me how amazing I am?”

I plant my hands on my hips. Tap my foot. “No, Donny. There’s a schedule. Follow it.”

Another moment of static in my ear, then a voice asks, “What are we going to do, Carmen?”

“It’s no big deal. We know all the songs and I can play them with my eyes closed.”

Infuriating.

I grind out, “I don’t care. Do what you’re supposed to, or get out.”

I try not to notice the sweat on his forehead. Or how his shirt clings to his chest.

Inappropriate, Carmen. Focus.

“Either do what you’re supposed to, or get the hell out of my rehearsal.”

His eyebrows jump and he leans forward, his arm resting over one of the drums and giving me a good view of the veins cascading down them.

“ Your rehearsal?”

“Let’s get back on track,” Brent says, suddenly becoming the leader I needed him to be a few moments ago. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Donny stands, ignoring Brent’s words, and he sets his drumsticks down on the set before waving a hand in front of him.

“I’d hate to get in the middle of your rehearsal, Carm.”

There’s a challenge in his eyes that makes my heart jump, but I keep my mouth closed as he says, “Let’s see what you got.”

“Carmen,” the stage tech mutters through the earpiece. “We need to get this figured out, pronto.”

I straighten my spine, then hiss, “I’ll be up in a minute. Can’t you see I’m dealing with something right now?” before taking a couple steps closer to the drums that are now abandoned.

“Unless you can’t,” Donny says, that calmness oozing off him in waves that nearly suffocates me.

“I tell myself not to do it.” He’s only trying to trap you.

He wants to prove that he’s right and I’m not, but there’s a few things no one knows about me and one of those is about to come to light. I’d walk away, if it weren’t the way he’s challenging me in front of the other guys and that cocky smirk lifting at the corners of his mouth.

I roll my eyes, then huff in annoyance before marching behind the drums and sinking onto the stool Donny was just sitting on. The leather is still warm, but I keep all my focus on the drumsticks resting in front of me.

“Oh shit,” Evan mutters ahead of me, which prompts me to look over at Donny with a grin of my own.

Brent is blinking at me in surprise and I nod to him. “Take it from the top,” I say, then cut a glare to Donny, whose smile has since dropped from his face. “The right song this time, please.”

It takes a moment for everyone to finally listen to my request, but as soon as they start their rendition of a Christmas classic and it’s time for the drums to start, I do it without a single pause.

My father would teach me how to play different instruments each day — Thursdays were the drums.He thought knowing how to play the instruments would somehow help us later in life. I can’t say it’s true, but I guess it comes in handy right now.

When the song ends and I place the drumsticks back where I got them from, I rise from the stool and come to a stop in front of Donny. “Now, are we done? Get to the damn rehearsal set list that I sent strict instructions for, got it?”

Donny swallows, his pupils dilating slightly, then he nods. “Uh, yeah, Carmen.”

My brow furrows as he moves around my petite frame and nearly fumbles with the drumsticks, picking them up. In all the time I’ve been here, since he showed up to get his job back, I haven’t seen him flustered.

At least there’s some other emotion tucked inside of him.

Everyone else is quiet and staring at me with wide eyes. I tap my foot impatiently on the stage, then shake my head. “What, you’ve never seen a woman play drums before? Just get back to rehearsal. I’ve got another mess to clean up.”

They scramble to restart the song while I make my way through backstage and in the direction of the stage equipment. I knock loudly on the door, in case anyone inside is too occupied, and it only takes a few seconds for the door to be swung open.

Kane, the stage tech whose name I always seem to forget until I see his name tag, blows out a relieved breath and opens the door wider for me to step through to the other side.

He shakes his head with a frown. “No one has found another set of stage lights in the storage rooms. What should we do?”

“I’m sure we can get the priority delivered here,” I say, then turn to face him. “In the meantime, why don’t we see if any other stadiums surrounding us have an extra set we can use?”

“How far away are we talking?”

I arch a brow, then tap a finger against my chin and shrug. “One hundred-mile radius?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good, if no one has anything we can use, then make that emergency purchase and we’ll just have to hope that they’ll get here before the charity concert.”

After all the tours we’ve been through where something has gone wrong, I’m sure the guys are relieved to be doing something a little less stressful this time of year. Brent and Evan didn’t want to go on another tour so close to the holidays, since they have families to spend it with, and this was the next best thing we could do.

“Sounds good, Carmen,” Kane says, then runs a hand through his shaggy hair. “I didn’t mean to get nervous about things.”

As far as I am aware, Kane is one of the newer techs working on the charity concert and it doesn’t surprise me that he’s getting anxious over a slight malfunction. I would’ve been concerned if it didn’t happen at some point.

I give him a small smile and nod. “It’s alright, we’ll get it figured out. Let’s try not to worry too much unless we absolutely need to, yeah?”

He nods, his cheeks turning a shade of pink.

We wave goodbye, then I step out of the room and take a deep breath. It’s not often that Donny and I clash — normally it’s him frustrating me and he keeps that calm and collected personality in check. Seeing the challenge in his eyes set something off inside of me that I have no business having there.

He’s my client.

As if that stopped everyone else from doing what they wanted.

Brent and Jace are the only ones who seem to have a good head on their shoulders, even though Ryker and Evan are about as in love as everyone else is. Despite everything thrown their way, I admire how easily everyone has gotten through their hardships together.

If only I could find that, then my family would stop nagging me to stop being a workaholic and focus on my love life.

I’ve told them enough times that when I meet someone, they will be the first to know, but it doesn’t stop them from constantly checking up on me to see how the dates are going. I don’t have the heart to tell them the truth — that the last date I went on was three years ago and I don’t have a desire to go on another.

I shake my head and my wayward thoughts, then round the corner backstage and come to a stop at the edge of the stage. Donny seems more relaxed than he did earlier, and the others are nodding their heads to the music they’re creating.

At least they aren’t messing up the rehearsal.

When I look back at Donny, he cuts his attention over to me and winks with a smirk that has a shiver running down my spine to the warm place between my thighs. This is why I have to make sure he doesn’t want anything to do with me, because my body can’t seem to understand he’s off-limits.

Off-limits in my mind, anyway. The guys have proven throughout the time I’ve been with them, and even before, that they aren’t as strict about a workplace romance. As if on cue, Mia comes to a stop at my side and darts her attention around the room.

Despite Mack being locked up, Mia always ensures that no one else is going to harm her husband. She’s got the newest addition to their family clinging to her chest in a carrier, and I reach out, gently running my hand over her soft patch of hair. It’s not as loud, so I guess it makes sense that Mia would bring their little girl for a quick visit right now.

The music comes to a halt, and the guys shuffle from the stage, each of them grabbing a cold water bottle from the cooler I placed at the bottom of the steps. Evan’s eyes light up when he sees Mia, and I watch as he immediately takes his daughter out of her carrier with a smile on his face.

My eyes sting, hating that this isn’t something I have by now, and I hurriedly turn my attention to everyone else. Jace is already hurrying past, eager to get to Mallory, and Brent is putting his phone to his ear with a smile on his face—which means he’s talking to his own wife, Julia. Donny is the odd one out, and he’s looking right at me.

I mask my emotions, scowl at him. It’s meant to tame the hunger and insecurity inside me.

It doesn’t work.

Being near him makes me want to do things I’d never normally do. Things I definitely don’t have time for.

Or so I thought.

As I turn to leave, Donny’s voice cuts through the silence. “Carmen, wait.”

The urgency in his tone stops me cold. I turn, my heart in my throat.

His eyes lock onto mine, intense and unreadable.

“There’s something you need to know.”