Chapter 4

Colt hated these things. He’d rather be at a party where the women were not stuck up rich bi … He caught himself. No, women were women regardless of their attitudes, he reminded himself. Women born into wealth were different from those who earned their own, with the exception of a few.

Wearing a suit was not his thing; he hated the contraption. The thing made him feel like he was wearing a straightjacket. He wanted to loosen his tie but knew he needed to keep it on a little longer. Keeping up the image, making out to be a good guy, giving away a huge chunk of his money was what he needed to do tonight. He didn’t mind giving the money, it was the pretending to enjoy parties like this one that irked him.

The music was good. Boring as hell, but he respected good music. He wasn’t a big fan of classical, though sometimes his music utilized its influence. He had to appeal to all types, and that’s what he was good at … faking it. He faked himself through the music whenever he sang a ballad or some sappy old country song on stage. His real passion was fusion and metal.

Some old baroness was touching his arm, and he tore himself away from his own thoughts long enough to listen. She was asking him the exact thing he’d been thinking about—his music.

“I’m old school, but I heard a few of your songs. I love your voice,” she said.

He beamed like a good boy and smiled brightly with his reply, “Thank you ma’am.”

At that moment, he noticed his glass was empty. The woman had gone back to babbling about music she knew nothing about. Her three friends were just the same. They all seemed a little tipsier than they would ever admit, and that was the most amusing thing he’d seen all night. Briefly, he wondered when last any of the four had ever had a good time. He was taking another drink as the waiter passed by when he noticed one of the old women staring with her eyes wide and mouth open.

“She must be an actress. She is beautiful.” The baroness’s voice caught his ears.

Curious, he turned, and his drink almost slipped from his hand. Tony had entered the auditorium where the event was taking place. This was a private club, only for the wealthiest and most famous in the State. Membership fees ranged from the hundreds of thousands to over a million dollars per year.

His eyes passed Tony to rest on the woman on his arm. Behind them was Reid. The manager’s eyes darted around the room and then found him. Colt’s eyes went back to the woman. Her long shimmering auburn hair was swept to the side and came to rest on her bare shoulder. Clad in a burgundy spaghetti strapped velvet dress with plunging neckline, his eyes dropped to her enticing cleavage.

He felt his heart jolt in his chest at the scrutiny, and he shuffled uncomfortably. He remembered not the last time his heart moved for a girl. He wanted to look away, but he also wanted to continue his perusal of her. He raised his eyes, and they traveled up her neckline. Her skin glowed in the fluorescent light of the room. Her burgundy lips matched her dress, and her emerald eyes were full and sparkling. He’d never seen anything so sublime in all his travels.

He wondered if maybe it was shock at seeing Chelsea all dressed up. He blinked. He had to prove that his eyes were seeing things. He made himself a bet that the rest of her would betray her lack of sex appeal. His eyes dropped to her hips, and his heart flipped again.

“What the fuck?” he swore. “How is this possible?”

“Are you okay, young man?” the baroness asked.

“Huh,” he grunted, fiddling with his tie.

Her hips, by God. He downed his drink in one gulp. Who the hell is she? Is she some kind of a spy or alien? Dressed all nerdy and country one minute and the next a sexy vixen? Even her face without the damn glasses was sweet … beautiful, actually.

He looked again at her hips. They curved so perfectly, coming out from her small waist and tapering towards her legs. And then he felt it. He swore it was a heart attack when he saw the split running down from her thighs to her ankle. He grabbed another drink from the tray passing by and gulped it down. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he needed it badly.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You look a bit piqued,” the old woman pointed out.

At that moment, Colt caught Chelsea’s eyes, and they locked. He gritted his teeth and willed himself to look away. He placed the empty glass on a passing tray and moved away, finding the nearest exit. He needed the air.

“What the fuck?” he found himself swearing.

Someone had followed him. He turned to see Reid moving in. He needed to be alone and tried to walk away before his manager caught up to him.

“Hey,” Reid caught up to him. “You have got to stop making my job so hard, Colt.”

He stopped and turned, his scowl evident. “What did I do now?”

“Wow, how many words is that, all of five?”

“What do you want?” he asked, ignoring Reid’s sarcasm.

“I know you don’t like to talk much, but Chelsea is a keeper. Don’t treat her like shit the way you did Livi.”

He thought, Oh, that was her name? He’d completely forgotten about the previous assistant. The girl was too prissy. She was pretty but prissy. He hated prissiness.

“Have you seen her, wow! I had no clue she was so … so … feminine,” Reid said.

“Hmm,” he grunted while loosening his tie. He felt stuffy and hot. “Let’s get out of here,” he told Reid.

“The party hasn’t even begun, we can’t leave … well, I can, but not you.”

He knew that was true, but he didn’t see how he was going to survive a whole three hours of boring talk, boring music, and looking at Chelsea. Just thinking about her made his blood boil. How could one woman transform so completely? He decided she was a sly one. She could not be trusted.

“Get rid of her,” he blurted out.

“What? Why?”

“I don’t trust her. She’s up to something,” he replied. “Yesterday, she was this shy little weasel and look at her now. She can’t be trusted.”

“Colt,” Reid placed a hand on his shoulder.

He looked at his manager, “Yeah?”

“You’re an idiot,” he said seriously. “Do you know how we had to trick the poor girl? We had to threaten her to have her wear the dress.”

“Oh,” he frowned. “That’s beside the point. I still don’t trust her.”

“Does this have anything to do with her seeing your cock? Every woman has seen it, so what difference does it make.”

“She told you?”

“I heard your female friends making fun of her in the lobby as they left the hotel. ‘The poor girl’ they said. ‘She looked like she was going to have a heart attack’, they said.”

Colt chuckled. He could see the surprise on Reid’s face. It wasn’t often his manager saw him smile or heard his laugh. “They were right. She did look like she was going to have an aneurysm.”

“Be good to her; I’m off to hand out those T-shirts with the guys. They’re already on their way, so I’ll just be catching up with them.” Reid pulled his tie and yanked it from around his neck. “She’s a good girl. Don’t scare her, okay.”

He watched Reid move around the corner of the large building. He was standing on the pavement near the building that was the auditorium. Directly in front of him was a large expanse of neatly cut grass. It wasn’t exactly a garden, but it was properly lit with flickering lights. There was another building, which he assumed was the club building.

He straightened his tie and decided to behave as Reid ordered. Chelsea, he would put her from his mind. Avoid was his middle name and he intended to do just that. He couldn’t scare her if he wasn’t talking to her. He went back inside and looked for a waiter, took a drink and tried to look interested.

Chelsea felt naked. There were eyes on her. Eyes from men she’d never met. There were eyes of old men, the eyes of young men, rich men and … she wanted to run and hide. The dress! If her parents could see her, they’d faint on the spot. They were conservative old fashion Christians. They believed in covering the body from prying eyes. They thought that women should keep themselves hidden and should only reveal to their husbands. Even then, she’d never seem her mother naked. She had seen her uncle in his undershirt once.

Her family was closely related to the Amish. She knew that her grandfather had abandoned his clan when he met her grandmother. Still, they kept up their rites and customs to a point. But Molly, she’d seen men naked in magazines which she’d shared with Chelsea. Well, they weren’t exactly naked, they were dressed in boxers.

She seethed inside at the memory of Colt’s eyes as they bore into her. She could see his abhorrence of her etched in them from his piercing stare. He hated her, and it showed tonight. She didn’t like him either, but somehow, she wished he’d actually seen her. She guessed she didn’t measure up to his type of women.

“You look amazing, stop being so nervous,” Tony said, leaning in close.

Blushing and beaming, she replied unsteadily, “Thank you.”

He handed her a drink, which she took for want of something better to do. She wasn’t sure drinking was such a good idea. Alcohol was something that was of limited supply in her house, except for moonshine. Moonshine was reserved for the adults on special occasions. Her Uncle Jeb had a ‘special’ place in the bushes where he made the stuff.

She was homesick. She’d be going to the country fair or fishing at the lake if she was home. She wouldn’t be worrying about a brooding rock star who disliked her very existence.

Tony moved off to talk to a group of people, and she was left alone to her own devices. She knew no one and felt disoriented. Someone came up to her, and she smiled, thinking that Tony had returned.

“Hi, my name is Milton.” A man, perhaps in his mid-forties with a thin mustache and blue-gray eyes was standing next to her. He wasn’t much taller than her, and their eyes almost leveled.

“H-hi,” she replied, her smile fading.

“I just had to come over and introduce myself,” he said. “What movie are you in?”

Her mind went blank. Was he asking her if she was an actress? She wasn’t sure what he was asking. “Excuse me?”

“Your movie, I heard someone mention that you were an actress,” he replied.

“N-n-no, I-I am not.”

She sipped the wine and almost gagged. It tasted weird. She had been expecting something sweet like her grandmother’s port that she used for baking. Her mother’s sherry was also sweet. She tasted both on special occasions, mostly Christmas time.

“Ahem,” Tony cleared his throat and stepped to her side.

She inwardly breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. Milton nodded and moved away. Was it some sort of silent code between men? What was it that made him move away so quickly? She wanted to ask Tony but refrained. She was grateful he was there as a buffer. She was comfortable with him, and he made her feel safe.

“These places are a bore,” he said.

She liked him. He was wearing a dark suit. He looked like an executive rather than a musician. His sandy hair didn’t quite reach his shoulder, and he was clean shaven. His eyes were soft when he looked at her, and that made her feel relaxed. She smiled once more and took the elbow he offered.

“I’ll shield you, don’t worry,” he said.

It was close to morning when the party ended. There were millions of dollars in donations collected. At times, she caught Colt’s cold stare, which gave her goose bumps. God, he was intimidating. She tried to avoid him as much as possible, but when the time came for them to leave, it was inevitable for them to share the same vehicle, his limousine.

The driver brought the vehicle around to the front of the auditorium. The other guests were also leaving. By her time check, it was a few minutes to four, and she was exhausted. Her feet ached from wearing three-inch heels all night.

Tony seated her first then slipped in beside her. Colt placed himself on the seat facing them. There was a newspaper on the seat, and he picked it up. She knew he was pretending to read it to avoid her, and she was glad.

“What the fuck?”

His voice echoed through the cabin as the vehicle rolled out of the club grounds. Both she and Tony looked at each other and then at Colt. There was a dark look on his face as he scowled at the paper. His lips pursed tightly as he flung the paper on the seat next to him.

Tony reached for it, staring at the headline and large photo sprawled on the front. “Reid ain’t gonna like this, tsk, tsk, tsk,” Tony shook his head slowly. “You’re in big trouble, Colt.”