When we roll into Dallas, I go straight to my hotel to clean up and get ready for interviews.
I swipe my key by the door and crank the handle. It takes me a minute to notice the man sitting in the armchair in the corner, one ankle crossed over the knee of his suit.
“What are you doing here?”
“Unlike you, I check my voicemails.” Cross sounds amused.
I stalk toward the bathroom, stripping off my shirt, feeling Cross’s presence behind me.
Without looking at him, I kick off my shoes. Yank off my socks. The marble shower is cold under my feet. I crank the water to cold, and it rains on my chest, making the hairs on my neck stand up.
“You know, when I found you, you were living on mac and cheese and trying to keep your sister away from child services. Your mother was in jail. Your father dead. You couldn’t keep a job. I saved you.”
Cross’s gaze never moves from mine as the spray rains down on my face, my chest, my thighs.
“Now apparently I’m here to save you again.” He studies me. “You really hate her so much you’d call me to fix it? Is she bad at her job? Does she disrupt the rest of the crew? Because Jerry has had nothing but glowing comments both times I asked him.”
Discomfort works through me because it’s a resounding no to all of those. “She’s just there. Asking things she shouldn’t ask. Doing things she shouldn’t do.”
Making me feel things I have no desire to feel. Ever again.
Cross doesn’t press me. “Well, I want something too. Extend the tour. Two months.”
Icy cold steals my breath, making my abs flex involuntarily. “And you’ll take Haley back.”
“No. Two months and you’ll keep her.”
I turn, letting the water run down my back as I look at him. Somehow with him, I feel as though I’m eighteen again. “Why did you even send her here. To piss me off?”
I turn off the shower and step out, reaching for a towel.
“You know what it’s like to learn there’s someone in your life you didn’t expect. Someone you can help,” he says.
“You’re not helping me.” I wrap the towel around my waist, not bothering to dry my hair.
“I’m helping her.”
Haley's face flashes in my mind, and it confuses the hell out of me why he dragged her into this. “Some college intern? An orphan, no less. Can’t see why you’d bother. She’s not like me—you can’t make money out of her.”
“She’s not an orphan.”
My heartbeat slows. I’m standing in the middle of the floor, dripping wet, and I can’t move. He shakes his head, and the awful pieces click into place.
“Does she…?”
“She doesn’t know. For a time, I didn’t either. I only recently learned about her mother’s death.” He tugs at the collar of his shirt. The only indication he’s uncomfortable. “She needed a job. What kind of father would I be to leave her out?”
My throat works, and in that moment, I hate her and feel for her at the same time.
The woman I can’t get out of my head came from the man I’ve spent the last decade trying to leave behind.
Now I can see it in his face, in hers. The resemblance.
“Now, let’s talk about how things will play out. If you care at all about her, you won’t tell her and you won’t ask her to leave. I will tell her in my own time.”
“You want me to lie to her.”
“I want time,” he corrects. “You get time too. Another two months of tour stops.”
The tile is cool under my feet as I pass him, crossing onto the red carpet of the living area. “And if I say no?”
“Maybe I’ll decide that trust fund I’ve put together for Haley is better invested elsewhere.”
There’s his play. I should have known he’d have one. “You want me to choose between my family and yours.”
“I want you to make a small concession in your life to open up a world of possibility in hers.”
I can say I hate Haley. That I don’t give a shit what happens to her.
But it’s a lie.
I know what it’s like to be where she’s been, and the way she handles it, the grace, the optimism… I wish I’d been that mature at twenty.
“I won’t give up everything for someone I barely know. Someone who’s your responsibility, not mine.”
With a half smile, Cross strides toward the door, adjusting his cuffs.