Jasper's head reeled. He sat next to Hailey in the backseat, headed to her work. She was completely unaware of his thoughts as she chatted happily to Carl about the aging security guard she brought lunch to, and about the kids’ charities she was involved in. Jasper's arm was propped up helping ease the pain of the break as he tried not to take large breaths that would jar his ribs.

He couldn't believe that Hailey was moments away from stealing his heart. She was everything the good Jasper wanted in a woman, and more. She was smart, kind, loyal, and surprisingly sexy. He got a hint of how sexy her body was when she wore those jeans, and that tank top after Tara had assaulted him and she set up a press conference. But seeing her in the tight jeans she was wearing now, and her slim shoulder exposed to him, his body couldn't help but want to get a hold of her naked.

“Jasper?” Hailey's concerned voice brought him out of his naughty fantasies. “Do you need another pain pill? You look flushed.”

“No, I'm fine. I just moved the wrong way.” Uncertainty was in his statement.

Hailey fluttered her hands over him like she had been doing at the hospital.

“I'll be fine.” He captured one of her fluttering hands and linked his uninjured hand in hers.

Hailey's face took on a deep shade of red and Jasper couldn't help but think how adorable she was. Tara, or any of the other girls that he dated, never blushed when he linked hands with them. Most of them didn't even blush when he suggested doing dirty things, even when there were people around. Jasper had one girlfriend before he made it big that Hailey reminded him of. She was innocent like Hailey, or at least that's what he thought, until he found out she was lying to him. Jasper pulled himself out of memory lane thinking that the pain drugs were really doing a number on him.

When they pulled up to Big Deal, Hailey told Carl they would talk soon and opened the door to help Jasper out. Sam was sitting in his normal spot at the guard station. He smiled a toothy smile at Hailey as she walked toward him.

“Morning Sam,” Jasper said, walking slowly behind Hailey.

“What happened to you? Did Hailey beat you up?”

Jasper laughed loudly before his ribs reminded him that laughing was not an option.

“Sure did, Sam. I gotta keep him in line.”

Sam laughed too as Hailey handed him his lunch. “If he hurts you, let me know. I know where to hide a body.”

Hailey gasped but smiled when Sam and Jasper smiled at each other. “I'll keep that in mind. I need to check on my other clients. This guy thinks he needs my full attention.”

“If I were him I’d want all your attention too,” Sam told her.

Jasper couldn't help but agree. Hailey shook her head as she walked toward the elevator. Jasper noticed she slowed her pace so he could keep up, and his chest warmed at the little things she did for him. It had been a long time since Jasper had any faith in humanity, and Hailey seemed to be giving it back to him piece by piece.

When she had made Sam's lunch this morning, he had been struck by how amazing she really was, and for a moment, it made him speechless. She’d lost her mother at such an early age that most kids would have rebelled, but not Hailey. She’d listened to her grandma's advice through the adversity of being made fun of by a bunch of stupid kids. She knew they hadn’t known her situation. Just like the kids that hadn’t known his situation had made fun of him. She wore her frumpy clothing not caring what anyone thought of her. Jasper had the urge to wrap her in his arms and tell her that nobody would ever hurt her again. The weird pride he felt when he realized what she had to go through to land such a lucrative job, and do it well, caught him completely off guard.

“Are you coming?” Hailey asked, snapping him out of his thoughts again.

“Yep.” He made his strides longer so he could catch up to her. His ribs protested, but he refused to show any form of pain knowing that she was looking for it.

“We won't be here very long. I need to check on a couple of my clients. I have one that has been MIA for a while and I want to see if I could track her down. I also may have a lead on another charity event. If you're up for it.” She was rambling as they waited for the elevator to carry them up, and Jasper found it endearing. Everything Hailey seemed to do lately, he was finding endearing.

“Hailey, it's fine. Do what you have to do. I feel fine. I'm sore, but if I don't keep moving I'm going to get stiff. If we can do a charity thing today that will be OK.”

She opened her mouth and her brows furrowed as if she was going to argue with him. The elevator dinged, signaling that they had arrived at her floor, and he talked over whatever argument she was building in her head.

“I will let you know if it gets to be too much and I need to rest. I won't over-do it.”

She nodded her head and walked down the hall toward her office. She hesitated outside the douchebag Matthew's office and his blood pressure rose. Jasper wanted to tell her to forget the asshole. He didn't treat her right and Jasper intended to show her that he was the right guy for her. Hailey was jittery the way she asked him for advice on how to deal with Matthew; he needed to take it slow with her. Just not too slow.

Jasper held his breath but released it when she walked past Matthew's closed door without knocking on it. He dropped into the chair in front of her desk as she booted up her laptop and pulled out her phone and tablet from her ginormous purse.

“It will just be a minute,” she said giving him a pleading look.

“Hailey, I told you, do what you have to do.” Jasper wondered if he was such an asshole to her that she felt the need to keep apologizing to him. He frowned as he thought that maybe he mistreated her as much as Matthew did.

She lost herself in her work and tapped away on all the devices in front of her as if she had more than two hands. Her forehead creased, and she pulled her lip in as she tapped harder on her keyboard.

“What's the matter?” he finally asked, seeing that she was getting more and more aggravated by the second.

“My client. Missy June. She has been ignoring me and I'm starting to worry.”

The name sounded familiar, and he searched his memory to try to think where he knew her from. “Wasn't she the one on The Next Bachelor or some reality show like that?”

“Yes, she was one of the last two to be narrowed down to, but he chose the other girl at the last minute. She broke his nose and became reality TV royalty ever since. Now I haven't heard from her in weeks, which is unusual because Missy is always pretending she is more famous than she actually is, which means bugging me at all hours of the day,” She whispered the last part, as if she was afraid that Missy was going to come out of the walls and yell at her that she was famous.

“I think one of my band mates had a fling with her a while ago. It may have been Liam.”

“That sounds like Missy, she likes to be with the famous people.” Hailey turned her phone around showing him a picture of a tiny little blonde with huge tits straining out of her even smaller black tank top. The picture triggered his memory, and he remembered that it wasn't his drummer, but Dustin.

“I remember her. She dated Dustin for a while. Crazy fuckin' thing. She broke into his hotel room pretending to be a maid and tied Dustin down. She scared the hell out of him.”

Hailey's mouth hung open as she stared at him with horror written all over her face. “What did he do? I can't believe I didn't hear anything about this. I'm her PR person for goodness sakes.”

“We kept it quiet. Dustin dumped her and they went their separate ways.”

“How did he get out of being tied?”

“He fucked her and when she was satisfied, she untied him. He broke up with her the next day.”

“He still had sex with her?”

The way her voice squeaked made Jasper hide his smile. He was afraid she was going to have a stroke the way she acted. It was funny that a PR person for celebrities still seemed shocked by any act of a sexual nature.

“Yes.”

“Ugh, rock stars.”

Jasper felt heat on the back of his neck. He had done nothing but try and show her what a good guy he was. Ok that wasn't true. When she got too close to the truth, that he really was a good guy at heart, he pushed her away, mostly with crude talk about other women. He now realized that was a mistake on his part. If he wanted Hailey to start seeing him as something other than her client, he’d have to stop that. “We aren't all like that.”

Her gaze lifted from her computer screen and looked at him. The whole time they were talking, she was still tapping away at her keyboard. They stayed locked with each other, and he wasn't certain, but he thought he saw her face change with understanding.

“I know,” she whispered.

He opened his mouth, but her boss, Bill, barged in breaking up whatever was happening. Bill went back and forth, looking between Hailey and Jasper, as if trying to figure out what the tension was for. His lips turned down into a frown and Jasper had a bad feeling in his stomach that he wasn't going to like what Bill was about to say.

“I'm glad both of you are here. I need to talk to you both in regards to what happened yesterday and how the firm is going to handle it.” Bill brushed his thinning hair back, most likely something he did in his younger years.

“What do you mean ‘how the firm is going to handle it’?” Hailey stood from her desk and panic settled in. She blinked, hiding her feelings.

“Well, Hailey. Jasper getting hit by that New York cabbie put him in the spotlight, and if this is spun right, this could be a career changer for him. This is exactly what he needed to get him back in everyone's hearts. Sorry, Jasper.” Bill shrugged as he peered at him but he wasn't sorry at all.

“That is exactly what I was telling Jasper yesterday. I have a lot of plans to keep him in the spotlight as long as we can. We will milk this thing for as much as it’s worth. Right now nobody is thinking Tara when they hear Jasper's name, they are now thinking about him being an injured musician.”

Pride swelled inside Jasper as he watched Hailey stand up for herself.

Bill frowned again, his lips turning into a thin line. “Hailey, I'm going to give Matthew Jasper's account.”

“What?” Her eyes rounded as if physically hit.

“You’ve done an amazing job with the account. In fact, you did a better job than I thought you were going to do. Next time we get another account this large, you will definitely be in contention for landing it. But with this turn of events I feel that Matthew will be able to spin this the way it needs to be spun. He is a more seasoned agent and it will be for the best. I'm sure that Matthew will be happy to let you assist him with the account so you can learn everything you can. You’re always such a fast learner.”

Jasper wanted to stick up for Hailey but when she took a deep breath, he leaned back in his chair waiting for the show. Bill was an idiot and Jasper was now seeing that. Thank God Hailey had been assigned his account. There was no way he would have stayed with Big Deal if his account was handed to Matthew. That guy was a total tool bag, and label or no label, he would have been out as soon as his foot came off the elevator. The fact that Bill was trying to placate Hailey by telling her she could be Matthew’s bitch girl while he got all the glory showed what a stupid ass the owner of the company really was.

“I'm sorry, Bill, but I completely disagree with you. I know exactly what I'm doing with Jasper's account. The whole Tara debacle is pretty much swept under the rug and this is going to erase the whole thing from the public’s memory. I have so many plans in motion that I'm waiting to get traction on. There is no way Matthew will be a better associate on this account. I earned this account and I will not let the company or Jasper down by backing away when I’ve already done so much.”

Jasper folded his good arm under his cast so he wouldn't break out into applause.

“Don't be silly. Let Matthew in on all the things you have planned. He is competent enough to handle whatever you have set up. In fact, the more I hear you talk, the more I know that I need to take the account away from you. When a new PR rep gets their first big account they like to over-do it with too much. It sounds like that is exactly what is happening in this case. And as for you earning this account, if I remember correctly, you picked the correct red solo cup. It's not like you did much to get it. You just got lucky.”

Hailey's bottom lip trembled once before, she got it under control by clenching it between her teeth. Jasper stood up drawing both of their attention to him. Bill's most face went hard, likely forgetting Jasper was there in the first place.

 “If Hailey gets taken off my account I will be finding another PR firm immediately.”

“Jasper,” Hailey said quietly. He wasn't sure if she was trying to stop him, or thank him, but he wasn't taking the time to figure it out.

“Hailey is my PR rep. That is a request from the client.”

“Now Jasper, I understand that Hailey has done a lot for you, but I promise Matthew will do a much better job handling your account. I shouldn't have given Hailey the account in the first place. It was a gamble that has paid off so far, but now I'm protecting my company and your reputation.”

“I will say this one more time. If you remove Hailey from my account, I will remove my whole account from your company. I can do it too. The label is probably shitting their pants at me getting hit by a car. I now have more leverage than I ever had before, so telling them to find me someone else will be no problem. I can call them right now.” Jasper reached in his pocket and pulled out his phone. It wasn't as graceful as he wanted it to be because of the cast, but it must have gotten his point across.

“Jasper, let's not do anything hasty.” Bill had his hands out like he was warding off a gun instead of a cell phone. “Jasper, I just wanted you to know that you have the option to go with an associate with more tenure. We value your faith in our company to keep your reputation where you want it to be.”

“I appreciate that. But let me make this clear. I. Do. Not. Want. Matthew.” Jasper had to force himself to unclench his jaw. He couldn't understand how someone like Hailey, who had such a big heart, worked in an environment where she wasn't appreciated. This was bullshit.

“Hailey will stay on your account,” Bill said, just as Matthew stepped into her office.

Jasper smirked at Matthew knowing that he had overheard Bill's decision to keep Hailey on his account.

“What is going on here?” Matthew asked closing Hailey's door. That made Jasper smile even wider.

“I've decided to keep Hailey on Mr. Daly's account.” Bill looked at Jasper as if to show him that he was still the boss of the company.

Jasper didn't contest as long as Hailey remained his PR person; Bill could do whatever the fuck he wanted to.

“I thought we discussed that I would take over the account.”

Matthew sounded whiny and Jasper put his hand over his mouth as if to wipe his face off to hide how big his smile was. He glanced at Hailey and his smile disappeared. She was wringing her hands and her eyes were bouncing around not knowing where to stay.

“This is unbelievable. Hailey is not equipped to handle the Daly account. She had her fun, now it's my turn to take over.”

“Really? Matthew, I am fully capable of handling Jasper's account. I don't see how you can tell anyone that I'm not able to do this.” Hailey's whole body shook. Jasper walked over to her and stood next to her, putting his arm over her shoulder. He winked at Matthew just to rub it in even more.

Matthew narrowed his eyes at the pair of them before storming out of the office and slamming the door. Hailey shrugged out of Jasper's arm and left the office. Jasper wanted to follow her, to tell her that she needed to leave that douchebag alone to cry, but the spark in Bill's eyes stopped him. Bill wasn't done with him and he needed to stay to see what the weasel wanted to tell him. Jasper ground his teeth hoping that Hailey was smart enough to realize that Matthew was a super dick and that she could do so much better.

“I don't know if you are familiar with PR firms and the rules the associates have to follow in order to stay in the firm,” Bill said, moving around and leaning on the side of Hailey's desk.

Jasper crossed his good arm over his cast trying to look as intimidating as he could with only two functioning limbs. “Being that I'm a rock star and not a PR person, the answer to your question would be a resounding no. But with the cast I may be in line for a new profession, so please enlighten me.”

“Well, when a new associate comes onto a PR firm, let’s use Hailey for example.”

“Yes, let's do that,” Jasper said, his eyes narrowing already sure of what was going to be revealed to him.

“They have to sign many agreements. A non-disclosure agreement of course but also they have to sign an agreement that says they will stay away from the clients in any other form besides a professional manner.”

“I don't know what you are implying, but Hailey has been nothing but professional with me.”

Bill cracked a smile, his bright white teeth showing as if he was a predator. “I'm sure she has. Hailey begged me to hire her on at the firm. She promised she would never do anything to damage the firm’s reputation. When her grandma passed away, she left Hailey with quite a few medical bills she is still paying off. Also, the school loans she had to take out since her scholarship didn't cover everything. I'm sure you would agree that Hailey has had her fair share of bad luck in life and she has worked hard to get where she is, wouldn't you agree?”

Jasper nodded his head, his jaw too tight for words to escape.

“Good. Then I will allow her to stay on your account per your request, but remember, it isn't you that has everything to lose. It was nice seeing you, Mr. Daly.” Bill patted Jasper on the back before leaving Hailey's office, closing the door with a soft click.

Jasper sat down in Hailey's chair and stared blankly at the door.

Bill was right. Hailey didn't deserve to lose her job because Jasper wanted her to be in his life. In the end, she would resent him and he couldn't do that to her. He wanted her in his life because she made him a better person. He wanted her purely for selfish reasons and that was something he was going to have to change. Bad Jasper was the personality he was going to have to adopt, even if it was to ensure that Hailey didn't get hurt. The thing that sucked was that he was sure she was going to hate him by the end of their relationship.