Brendan and Ava spent the next week making public appearances, visiting friends of Ava’s and his, and his brother Drew. Tonight, he wanted to show her a little of what he did behind the scenes.

“I’m going to the studio tonight. You wanna come?” Brendan asked.

“I thought you were on vacation?” Ava asked.

“I am, but”—he shrugged—“music flows in my blood, and sometimes it’s hard to stay away. I’m not really working. One of my friends is recording a new song, and I’m just going to check out his sound.”

“Who’s the friend?”

“Ryder.”

“As in Ryder Mason? The rock star?”

He grinned recklessly, glad he was able to impress her. “The one and only.”

Shaking her head, she said, “It’s no wonder you stay in trouble. You love hanging out with riff-raff, huh?” she said, removing any delusions he had of impressing her.

“Riff-raff?”

“Yeah. I know you’ve heard all the stories about him and the trouble he causes everywhere he goes.”

Brendan sighed, resting his hands on his hips. “Fine, continue to make your callous judgments about people you know nothing about.” He turned and left the room. Then, casually calling over his shoulder, he said, “I just might do a little recording of my own while I’m there.”

“On that note, I’d love to go,” she declared, sitting up on her bed and closing the book she had been reading.

It hadn’t been easy, but Brendan had worked hard to get Ava to drop her guard around him and lure the old Ava back.

On the drive over, Brendan and Ava made small talk constantly about her future in teaching, his parents’ latest mission in Somalia, and Kevin and Roxanne’s decision to forge into the land of parenthood.

“Do you ever wonder what that’s like?”

“What?” Brendan asked, as he eased the car onto the highway.

“Being settled down. You know…wife, kids, small house with a white picket fence? Or maybe in your case it might be the mini mansion with the guarded fence,” she teased, smirking at him.

Brendan glanced at her, assessing her thoroughly. He could see that lifestyle for Ava. For some strange reason, looking at her here, in the serenity of his car, her hair tossed casually over one shoulder, her finger idly drawing circles on the thigh of her jeans, she made him feel so comfortable. Ava was like coming home for him.

He quickly jerked his attention back up to the road when she turned those mesmerizing green eyes upon him. He had no business thinking of her in that nature.

“Do you?” she repeated.

So caught up in his own thoughts, he forgot he hadn’t answered her question.

“No. No, I don’t. I mean, I’ll eventually do all that someday, I guess. But for now? Music is my wife and kids. Music is everything to me.”

“And you don’t think you could have both? I mean, there are lots of married musicians and entertainers traveling the world with a successful and fulfilling career. In some of the interviews I’ve read and seen on TV, that’ the one thing that makes all the gruesome work worth it. Coming back home at the end of the day to their family,” Ava explained.

He sighed. “For some, I guess that might be good. But not for me. I don’t think I would want anyone to have to wait for me while I’m on the road for sometimes weeks or months at a time. What kind of life would that be for my family? That’s not fair. Besides, all the groupies and tabloids…there’s too much out there in that world that I wouldn’t want to subject a family to. Rumors about my ‘supposed’ behavior on the road getting back to them through a tabloid? That’s not something that I could see expecting anyone to go through and be okay with it. Not to mention, I’d miss them…a lot. I’m sure they’d miss me, too.”

The silence that thickened the car afterward was almost torturous. He had the feeling he had offended her. She was so quiet, and when he risked a look at her again, she was staring out the passenger side window, chin in hand, with a somber expression on her face.

“What about you, Ava? I could see you in that scene,” he said with a smile on his lips, though his heart felt anything but. There was a constriction that was happening within him, as he tried to picture her with someone else. Every time he tried, he failed miserably, and instead came up with images of her and him together.

“Maybe someday with the right person. I just don’t know that it’s in the cards for me,” she muttered, closing her eyes and resting her head against the window.

He admired the way her long lashes created shadows on her face, almost brushing the top of her cheeks in a delicate way. Ava released a contented sigh, and he wished that he was the one bringing that contentment to her thoughts.

Despite his best efforts not to, he had been dragged into the sound booth to sing a duet with Ryder, and it was about to come out. In a last-minute burst of creativity, Darryl, the producer, had decided to add Brendan’s vocals onto the soundtrack. Ryder had a problem with the other singer and decided he didn’t want to work with him.

Darryl informed Brendan that Ryder had pitched such a fit about the artist that they had quietly asked the other artist to leave. Ryder had decided he didn’t need anyone singing vocals but him…until Brendan had shown up. Both Ryder and Darryl thought Brendan would be the perfect replacement and, they reluctantly admitted, even better than the original artist.

Ava loved the song as soon as she heard it and believed in her heart it would be a hit. Yet, she wondered if she was biased in her thinking because of her feelings for Brendan. His soft vocals, pitched with Ryder’s hoarse and edgy tone, was the perfect match. It was a love song about a love gone sour, only to be revived at the hands of the right woman.

She watched as the two artists tirelessly worked side by side until they were in sync with one another. For all the bad things she had heard about Ryder, Brendan seemed to be a source of calm for the tumultuous artist. Her only hope was that they would leave soon after the recording was done. He had a poor reputation about his treatment of women, and she neither wanted to be the victim of that, nor watch him subject someone else to such behavior.

No sooner than Brendan exited the booth, a young lady who was supposed to be the sister of someone at the studio had positioned herself on the couch next to Brendan. She kept brushing up against Brendan in a way that made Ava uncomfortable.

They were supposed to be watching the guys work together. No matter how hard Ava tried to focus on the magic that went on behind the scenes while making a track, it was hard to ignore the woman’s salacious conduct towards Brendan.

She didn’t seem to care that Ava had accompanied Brendan, or that he had casually rested his arm around Ava. With every word she spoke, she had to rub Brendan’s arm or squeeze his knee; each time her hand inching higher up his thigh. Ava wasn’t comfortable with her touchy-feely ways, or her laugh. Oh, that laugh was god-awful! She sounded like a sick mule.

It seemed as if everything Brendan said was the most hilarious joke in the world. She would toss her head back, allowing her long, blonde hair to brush up against Brendan and guffaw loudly. As her laugh reached its crescendo pitch, she would allow it to fall slowly into a sigh and brush against Brendan or lean on him.

Brendan was more gracious than he needed to be in Ava’s opinion. She personally felt like he should have placed some distance between himself and the woman. That would have been the only way to stop her shenanigans. After all, she had seen the large ring on Ava’s finger when he had introduced her around to everyone as his fiancée. Her eyes had instantly gone to the ring on Ava’s finger when they shook hands, and she hadn’t been able to pull her eyes back up to Ava’s until long after they had parted ways.

She guessed this was what he meant when he referred to the groupies.

Hit with a bolt of inspiration and courage, Ava tapped him on the shoulder. “Bren,” she purred, causing him to turn around.

A slight lift of his eyebrow quickly turned into both eyebrows lifting, when she placed one hand on the back of his neck and kissed his lips. Brendan released a soft moan, kissing her back. Ava pulled away abruptly.

“I’ll be back, Bren,” Ava said, standing up.

“Where’re you going?” he asked with a startled expression on his face.

“I just need to use the restroom. I’ll be back,” she said, winking at him and sashaying from the room with a confidence she didn’t feel.

“Do you want me—?”

“She’ll be fine!” the other woman insisted, grabbing Brendan’s hand as he prepared to stand, desperately clamoring for his attention.

Ava left Brendan alone to deal with his problems, while she quickly escaped the studio room, making her way to the restroom.

Standing in the restroom with the door locked, she took in her appearance in the mirror. Cheeks flushed red, a somber expression in her stormy green eyes, and the full lips that generally smiled turned down in a true pout. Anyone looking at her could tell she was flustered, and she knew her expression hadn’t changed much since she had been in the studio with Brendan and his friends.

Thinking back on the kiss, Ava pushed a finger against her lips and released a soft sigh. What was she doing? Setting herself up for failure, that’s what. This wasn’t a real engagement. They weren’t truly in a relationship. Yet, sometimes she couldn’t help that think they were. Taking the privilege of kissing him the way she had, had been nothing more than staking her claim against the other woman.

Why had she been so brash to kiss him? If she were being honest with herself, she wanted to kiss him. But when he asked her about it, and she was certain he would, she would use the excuse she was simply acting her part. That of a jealous fiancée and nothing more.

Sighing at the thought of how that conversation might go, she couldn’t believe she had left him alone with that predatory woman. A part of her knew Brendan would be fine. After all, he was in these situations often. But the reality of the situation was he had not gotten up and chased behind her to pacify the tantrum she was having.

Turning on the water in the sink, she filled her hands up with cold water, splashing it against her face. Grabbing a couple of paper towels, she patted them softly on her cheeks and around her temples, drying the droplets of water that clung to her hair.

“Who am I kidding?” she muttered to her reflection. “Brendan probably thinks I’m crazy now. The rest of the world may not know the truth, but he and I do, and I have no right to be jealous.”

Feeling the pinpricks of tears stinging at the back of her eyes, she once again doused her face in water and repeated the drying process. “Ava, get a grip!” she groaned.

She couldn’t be accused of falling in love with Brendan. No one could make that accusation against her. Because…she had loved him for as far back as she could recall. The only difference between now and then was that she had effectively built a wall around her heart that would protect her from getting hurt. And she had also categorically compartmentalized her feelings and emotions where Brendan was concerned. Never had she allowed him to see what she was feeling. But these days? Up close and personal, it was harder to maintain that air of indifference.

After not seeing him for a couple of years, then being thrown back together in the same household and in a contrived, but intimate setting, it was no wonder she struggled to rein her emotions in.

Glancing down at her watch, she realized she had been gone for at least five minutes. Not that anyone would miss her absence, but she needed to get back. Not looking forward to returning to the studio to watch the woman’s seductive aspirations, Ava made up her mind that she would go outside for a little while and wait for him. They had already been at the studio for almost three hours. They couldn’t possibly remain there much longer, could they?

Unlocking the bathroom door and pushing it open, she stopped cold when she saw Brendan standing against the wall opposite the bathroom. With one foot planted against the wall and his well-worn ballcap turned backward, it gave him a rakishly handsome look. Seeing him like this brought back to mind the boy she had once known. The one she had fallen in love with all those years ago.

“Hey, what’re you—?”

Reaching for her hand, he pulled her close, staring at her lips and then into her eyes. He softly placed a finger on her lips and traced them before dropping his hand.

Brendan tossed his arm around her shoulders, looking down at her. “Come on, it’s time to go.”

She looked up into his intense gaze, wondering if she had upset him by taking the lead and kissing him the way she had. Neither of them had initiated that in their façade yet. The only time they had kissed was when London encouraged them to.

Instead of aggravation, she saw the corners of his lips turning up into a smile and those brilliant hazel eyes sparkling with warmth and something she couldn’t quite identify.

“Are you sure?”

“Never been surer of anything.”

She allowed him to lead her out of the studio, his arm still draped around her shoulders. It felt good and she basked in the feeling.

“Besides, I’d rather go grab a bite to eat and have a meaningful conversation with my fiancée than be aggressively pursued by a woman who only sees dollar signs when she looks at me,” he said with a teasing smile.

“I thought we were going to have to call out the cavalry for a minute there.”

“Hmm…I was thinking you’d probably left me to fend for myself. I went to check to see if you had jumped in the car and left me all alone.”

Looking up at him, as he removed his arm from around her shoulder to open the car door, she asked, “Are you serious? I’d never leave you, Bren! Never!”

He tugged on a strand of her hair. “I know you wouldn’t, kiddo.”

Folding her arms over her chest, she turned to face him fully. “That’s another thing, Bren. I’m not that little kid anymore. I’m a grown woman, and I wish…I wish…”

Placing an arm on her shoulder, he stared into her eyes, causing her to freeze up. That smoldering gaze he gave had her wanting to reach on her tiptoes to kiss him again, but she refrained.

“What do you wish, Ave?”

“Just that you and Keith wouldn’t continue treating me like a little kid anymore.”

Nodding his head, he looked as if he were going to say something else, but then changed his mind. “Okay. You’ve got it. I’ll respect your wishes. Now Keith, on the other hand, I can’t speak for.”

“I’ll handle my brother,” she said, dropping into her seat and latching her seatbelt as he closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side.

What was wrong with her? She’d been on the edge of saying she wished he would recognize that she was a woman. Yet, that was territory she wasn’t ready to venture into. At least not with Brendan, if ever.

“Do you still love seafood?”

“Yes.”

“There’s an exclusive little restaurant that we can go to that serves the best fried catfish in Georgia. It’s called Seagulls.”

“I’ve heard of that place. But I thought you had to have a reservation like almost a year in advance or something.”

He chuckled, causing her to wonder what was so funny. “Well, you do unless you’re a celebrity. They’re very careful about accepting reservations, and there are certain celebrities that can shut the place down when they come there. The entire purpose is to give us a place to enjoy a meal with family, friends, or a special someone without being mauled or gawked at by the public.”

“And do you go there often?”

Shaking his head from side to side as if he were weighing something on scales, he said, “Not that often, but often enough. I don’t need a reservation if that’s what you’re asking.”

That wasn’t what she was asking. What she really wanted to know was if he ever went there with someone special, but she couldn’t work up the nerve to ask. It seemed to Ava that, at some point, he would have broached the topic of her kissing him…but it seemed to be the furthest thing from his mind. Either that or they were locked in a game. And if that’s what he wanted to do, she could do that, too. The one thing Brendan obviously had forgotten about Ava was that she wasn’t only intellectual, but she was also very competitive. And now…the game was on.