21
I don't know how much more expressive you can get than being a rock and roll singer.—Robert Plant
Joints popped and cracked all down his back as Rhys stretched his arms up and out.
It felt so good that he reached even higher, enjoying the pleasurable pull of muscles in his torso.
A satisfied sigh passed his lips as he released the stretch.
The old man still had it, even at forty-nine.
His recent birthday hadn't rendered him decrepit.
If he was being honest with himself, he'd wondered if he'd be able to endure the grueling tour schedule and the exhausting workout every night on stage.
But he was not only enduring it, he was thriving on it, and felt better than he had in years.
He shed the dark blue shirt he put on after the show and stood in front of the mirror on the closet door.
He not only felt good, he looked good, too, and wasn't ashamed to admit it.
The taut, flat muscles of his abdomen moved and rippled as he twisted a bit to the side.
Nice, trim waist, too. With a grin, he flexed his biceps in accepted Muscle Man fashion and was gratified at the cut bulges that appeared in his arms and chest. He ran a hand over the smooth skin over his pecs but stopped when he realized he was looking for chest hairs.
Shit, were there any? Leaning forward, he inspected things with a close eye.
The minute he saw one of those fuckers he'd start having his chest waxed like Drew and Ross did.
A proactive wince creased his face at the thought of someone pouring hot wax on his skin, then ripping it off, taking the hair by the roots.
To his relief, no errant hairs had grown, and his skin was still smooth and taut.
A jaw-breaking yawn reminded him that he had a plane to catch the next morning, and he tossed the shirt on top of the large shoulder bag he kept with him for his solo overnight stay in Chicago to visit his daughter. It was not the visit he'd anticipated, though, and his good mood evaporated.
Instead of the enjoyable meal he anticipated having with Sienna before the show, he ended up buying lunch for his ex-wife as well.
Sure, Sienna was still in high school, so it was understandable that Hayley accompanied her to the concert.
But why the woman thought she had to tag along before that was anyone's guess, horning in on their lunch and hanging off his arm as Sienna dragged them into the kitschy little shops she liked.
Rhys caught himself rubbing his arm in an attempt to erase Hayley's touch, and he made a sound of impatience. He had hoped that once Sienna turned eighteen, he could jettison any contact with her mother for good.
The knock at the door startled him, and he paused with one leg out of his jeans, the other foot lifted. Who the bloody hell would be knocking on his hotel room door at...He checked the clock on the nightstand. One o'clock in the fucking morning.
The knock came again, and he tugged his jeans back on. He strode to the door as he pulled up the zipper, his ire rising. If some fan found out where he was in spite of the fake name under which he checked-in, the hotel staff was going to get a good, old-fashioned Rhys James reaming.
He put his eye to the peephole and was astonished to see Hayley on the other side of the door. As she raised her hand to knock yet again, he unlocked the door and opened it.
"What is it? Is it Sienna?" Even as he voiced the question, he rejected it. If something had happened to one of the kids Hayley would have used the phone to tell him.
"Sienna's fine." She swept past him into the room, the cloying scent of her perfume trailing in her wake like an invisible poisonous cloud. "She's staying overnight with one of her friends."
Rhys closed his eyes and tried to count to ten. He made it to three. "What are you doing here, Hayley?"
"I want to talk to you." The timbre of her voice was one with which he was very familiar. Damn it, he didn't have time for this.
"You could've picked up the phone instead of barging in here." A glance at her confirmed his worst suspicions. Her greedy gaze roamed over his bare chest and settled on the open button of his jeans. Feeling violated, he turned to close the door and closed the button on his pants while he was at it.
"No, I wanted to talk to you face to face. Rhys, I know I made a mistake with Cam, and—"
"A mistake?" Outraged, he whirled to face her. "You call cheating on me a mistake? Lady, you need a dictionary."
"Don't be like that." A hurt pout was accompanied by what she obviously thought was an endearing head tilt. Rhys wasn't moved.
"I know what you're going on about," he told her.
"And it won't work. Tonight's the first time you've been to an Illicit concert since Sienna was born, isn't it?
You watched me on that stage and got turned on, didn't you?
You got sucked into the glamour and the sex and lights and the crowd, all those things you abhorred when we were married. "
"I was never abhorred by any of that, and you know it." In a flash she went from the Endearing Setting to Wronged Woman Mode. Rhys's own internal barometer flipped over to Enraged, and he went with it.
"Give me a break." He raked his hair back with both hands.
"All I heard out of you from the day you had Dax was how much you hated what I did.
You didn't like me—what was it? Oh, yeah.
You didn't like me prancing round and shaking my junk, as you put it, in the faces of the girls who came to my shows.
You didn't want me on the road so much. You bitched me out every single time I went on tour, even though you knew damn good and well what you were signing up for when you married me.
And God forbid I go out of town to record a fucking record. "
Hayley spread her hands wide. "I was a kid, Rhys. A twenty-something kid stuck at home with two babies while you—"
"Stuck at home?" he interrupted. "You started anchoring the weekend newscasts when Dax was an infant and barely paused long enough to give birth to Sienna before you started working weeknights. Oh, and let's not forget the time you made to fuck Cam while I was away."
As he watched her expression go from pleading to shock to anger, he had the passing thought that she might still be pretty if she'd lay off the self-righteous frowns.
Her wavy caramel-colored hair was shiny and shimmered over her shoulders, and the placement of her features in her face was that of classical beauty.
Those things along with her elegant air had been what attracted him to her in the first place back when she was eighteen.
Between her sherry brown eyes, though, were two vertical lines.
It was easy to overlook them until she frowned, but he couldn't help but notice they'd grown deeper since the last time he saw her a year ago.
They were on clear display now as she glared at him.
"And I suppose it just thrills you to the tips of your exalted toes that Cam cheated on me."
"Honestly? Yeah, it does," he flung at her.
"I've tried to be the bigger person and feel some sort of sympathy for you, but I can't. You got what you deserved, babe, and if that makes me a horrible person then so be it.
You fucked around on me, and somehow I ended up taking the fall for it.
Yeah, I'm bloody overjoyed that you know what it feels like.
So now that you're alone again you come to one of my shows and got your knickers all wet watching Rhys James strut around.
Too bad for you, though, because Rhys James doesn't want you. At all."
True to form, Hayley changed tactics. She slinked next to him and laid her hand on his chest. "I think that's a bunch of bullshit.
If you didn't want me you wouldn't be so worked up right now.
I'm single, and you're single, and we're here together with all these strong emotions flowing between us. So..."
Revulsion washed through him at her touch, and he batted her hand away.
"Did you just hit me?" Her eyes went wide.
"Did you just touch me without my consent?
" he retorted. "If you want to get litigious then you need to know that I will be a bastard about it.
I won't back down and let you run over me this time, Hayley.
I'll come back at you so hard and so fast your fucking head will spin.
" He took a step back. "And just for the record, I'm not single.
And you know damned good and well that I don't fuck around when I'm involved with someone. "
Hayley crossed her arms over her chest and glowered. "Who is she?"
Rhys barked a humorless laugh. "I can't believe you just said that, like you're the wronged wife or something. It's none of your business who she is."
"I have a right to know." Her voice was shrill and full of puffed up superiority. "Before I let my children interact—”
"Our children, Hayley. Our grown children.
Dax is in California, and he told me last week that he intends to stay there, even when his school is on break.
Sienna's eighteen now, technically an adult, and she'll be off to university as well in the fall.
So don't stand there and act like they're toddlers who'll need to be looked after by my girlfriend. "
"You know what, Rhys?" Hayley flung her hands wide as if the whole discussion disgusted her. "This is what I abhorred, this side of you. This arrogant, cocky, son of a bitch Rhys James."
He permitted a smug smile to curve his lips. "It's part of who I am. You knew it when you married me, so don't act wounded because you got what you saw."
"Fuck you," she breathed. "I don't even know why I came here tonight."
"Oh, I do." He went to the door and opened it. "You thought you could worm your way back into my bed, my life, and my bank account. And now you're pissed off because you've realized I wouldn't want you if you were the last woman alive. Get the fuck out."
Without another word she stomped from the room.
Rhys closed and locked the door and then sagged against it.
The rush of adrenaline and anger that flooded his bloodstream left him weak and bit sick.
As he leaned there taking deep breaths to rid his system of the poison Hayley brought about, some of her words replayed in his head.
This is what I abhorred, this side of you. This arrogant, cocky, son of a bitch Rhys James.
He pushed away from the door and went to the dresser where his cell phone rested, plugged into its charger.
With a swipe of his thumb, he opened the Reminders app and scrolled past the one line note that proclaimed his flight to Cincinnati would leave at ten the next morning.
He added a new reminder for nine o'clock. One word: Rhett.
He'd put it off long enough, but now it was time to see if she could really handle arrogant, cocky, son of a bitch Rhys James.