Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1
Four Years Later
This time she would finally crack him.
Ignoring stares from her cellmates, Lita jogged in place, preparing for the confrontation with James, her band manager. This was her ritual before shows, too. It loosened the limbs, shook out the demons. She took her role as drummer for Old News seriously, same way she considered riling up James a form of art. For four freaking years, they’d been repeating this song and dance—and Lita was over it. Today was the day James lost his cool. The way he’d lost it the night they met.
Remembering the state she’d been in when James found her, Lita jogged a little faster. At twenty-three, she wasn’t that scrawny, starving girl now. Not in most ways, anyway. The memory of what took place that night still had the ability to steal her breath, make her restless. But unlike the girl she’d been at nineteen, Lita didn’t wait for fate to wave its magical hand. No. She grabbed fate’s wrist and shook, shook , until the pieces fell into an acceptable pattern. That modus operandi is what had landed her inside a musky, Wilshire division holding cell of LA County’s jail system.
Lita didn’t have a head for numbers, but was pretty damn sure today would mark the twenty-first time James had bailed her out of a jail-type situation. Looking after the interests of Old News’s members was his job. Their relationship, however, fell outside the parameters of a typical musician-manager arrangement. Not that he would ever admit it. No, James simply continued to show up when Lita got into trouble, lecturing her about proper behavior on the way to dropping her off. And leaving. He left every time , that distinguished jaw of his firmly set, sunglasses hiding the guilt she knew lurked in his eyes four years later.
Not this time. Last night, Lita had gone above and beyond to ensure this morning wrought one of two outcomes: James quitting, giving up on her like everyone else did eventually, or his control finally slipped. One way or another, she wouldn’t be in limbo come tonight. She’d been there too long.
Lita stopped jogging when she heard the jingling of the guard’s keys. James was right on time, as usual. Her cellmates craned their necks, some coming to their feet in the hopes they were being released. Lita stowed a pang of sympathy and whipped her hair into a quick ponytail. The guard cast a tired-eyed glance in her direction and unlocked the door. “Lita Regina, your bail has been posted.”
“Sweet, thanks.”
The woman who’d recognized Lita held up a hand for a high-five as she passed through the cell exit. “Aren’t you worried about cameras waiting outside?”
Lita slapped the woman’s palm. “Not as long as they get my good side.” She turned and shook her ass, kicking up snickers around the cell. “Hope everyone gets home for dinner.”
Unenthused good-byes followed Lita down the hallway, at the end of which she knew James would be pacing in the waiting area. She already had a sarcastic comment chambered about the wrinkle-free suit he no doubt wore, how out of place he looked. Although, she held out hope he’d been so pissed off by her antics, he’d thrown on jeans for once in his life. James in jeans. Lita ran fingertips down her belly, imagining the way denim would ride his hips. How the smooth circle of the metal button would rest against his stomach all day, warming with his body temperature. Please, please, let today be the day he stops treating me like a child. If her body’s reaction to thoughts of James were any indication, she was all woman. And she needed the man who’d awakened her needs to tend them.
The guard pushed open the waiting room door, indicating Lita should precede him. When Lita entered the room and saw James, standing with his suited back to her, a smug smile tugged at her lips. God, his tailored glory put their surroundings to shame. Dark hair dusted with salt and pepper at the temples made him more suited to a corporate boardroom than a county jail. The scene reminded Lita of a Marvel Comics movie where the hero tries to blend in among mortals, but is so obviously everyone’s savior. Her savior. If he would only allow himself to be. “Well. If it isn’t my prom date.”
The band manager turned around—and ice formed in Lita’s belly, halting her progress halfway across the room. There was one thing she could count on in life—and that was James being furious with her for fucking up. For placing herself in jeopardy. Hell, for getting him out of bed at the crack of dawn. On rare occasions, James tried a new tactic, such as feigned indifference, but he usually broke before they even reached the parking lot. Once he’d attempted sensitivity, but that had failed with flying colors as well. James was a hard, unbendable man. It was one of the reasons she couldn’t live without him.
But this? This man waiting for her looked…blank. His arms were at his sides, eyes devoid of feeling as he gave her his typical once-over to determine she’d survived in one piece. A hamster ran on a wheel inside Lita’s stomach, faster and faster, when James said nothing. Just existing across the room without any of his usual bark or bite.
“James?”
His slate gray eyes lit on the guard, a silent command to leave. Although he held no authority in the jail, the guard turned and lumbered back into the hallway, keys clanking as he went. “Let’s go.”
She couldn’t move. “What’s wrong?”
A muscle ticced in his cheek. “We’ll need to go out the back exit to avoid the cameras.” He left the sentence hanging in the air, turning on a heel to stride from the room. Lita commanded her feet to move, to follow, but catching up to him was like wading through chilled molasses. Maybe this was just a new tactic James had thought up to frighten her. If so, it was working. So much dread had settled in her midsection, it was an effort to walk straight.
At the end of a brightly lit corridor, James stopped at the back entrance and pried open the metal door. He placed one shiny wingtip just outside and checked both directions, presumably for cameras, before gesturing her forward. “All clear.”
She started to pass him in the doorway and stopped, craning her neck to meet his stony gaze. “Why won’t you talk to me? Why aren’t you lecturing me?”
There. It was only a flash, but her proximity affected him, as always. Shoulders tensing, Adam’s apple sliding up and down. Yet his tone was dull when he answered. “When has lecturing you ever done any good, Lita?”
“Stop being so cryptic,” she whispered. “You’re scaring me.”
Another tick in his expression, so fleeting she might have imagined it. He stared over her head, though, not directly at her. “Are you hurt in any way?”
“I’m fine.”
He gave a single nod and left her in the doorway to unlock the passenger side door. Lita had no choice but to climb inside and engage her seatbelt, as if in a daydream. One from which she desperately needed to wake up. Granted, she hadn’t known exactly how James would break—what it would look like—but gut instinct told her this reaction wasn’t what she’d been after. She’d wanted James so angry that he’d have no choice but to stop hiding. Stop pretending they weren’t denying themselves something vital. Something they both needed.
The hotel she’d been living in since their international tour ended was a fifteen-minute drive from the jail. Silence filled the car, growing denser by the mile until a scream clawed at Lita’s throat. “James?—”
“You could have been killed.”
Finally, a reaction. Disapproval. Lita soaked it in like a sponge, sounding breathless when she said, “I’ve never seen you this mad.” Was this the breaking point? Please, please let this be it.
“I don’t know what mad is supposed to feel like anymore.” His deep voice reached out and smothered her from across the car. “Admit why you did it.”
“What do you mean?”
They pulled to a stop at a red light. “You stole a police car last night.” His eyes closed, then opened to reveal more nothing. Nothing . Just emptiness. “You could have gotten in an accident. Or been shot by the responding officers. And I want to hear you admit why you did it. No more games, Lita.”
“I’m not the only one playing games,” she whispered.
James was silent for too long. “So you admit it. This is my fault.”
“ Yes .” Hearing herself confess to such recklessness out loud brought home the reality of what she’d done, forcing redness to spread up from her neck. “I don’t know how else to get through to you.” Lita’s voice vibrated, her mind scrambling for the right words to make him understand. “This is what it takes just to get a crumb of what I need. The rest of the time you’re a statue just watching and watching and watching me. At least when you’re angry, I can feel a tiny part of what I felt that night.”
Gray eyes grew even more shuttered, and his hands flexed on the steering wheel at the forbidden mention of the night they’d met. They pulled into the valet driveway outside her hotel, but James held up a finger to the attendant who stood outside the driver’s side window. “I can’t give you what you need, Lita.” His hand paused on the door handle, his voice grave as she’d ever heard it. “And I will not stay around knowing I’m the reason you continually put yourself at risk.”
Lita’s reality slowed down, every tick of the imaginary clock sounding like a gong in her ears. Denial expanded, pushing to the furthest edges of her insides, leaving no room for air. “What d-does that mean?”
James stared straight forward as he delivered words that stalled her heart mid-beat. “I’ve found my replacement. One week from today, I’ll no longer be managing Old News.”