I couldn’t sleep. Who could blame me? I was in an unfamiliar place with a very familiar stranger.

I glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand and noted the time—three thirty in the morning. The noise of the partying had disappeared and been replaced by the hum of the air conditioner echoing through the room. I snuggled closer to Hawke, dimming the chill.

Sighing, I stared, openly gaping at the beautiful man beside me. His long eyelashes fluttered with each soft exhale.

I could pinch myself.

Last night, I had been like every other woman at his concert, one of the twenty thousand people screaming his name. And, last night, I had screamed his name for a totally different reason—glorious, gratifying sex.

I touched his cheek because I could and because I wouldn’t have any other chance to do so. Thoughts of Chloe filtered through my head, and I slowly extracted myself from Hawke’s hold to look for my phone. I snuck out of his bed and walked to the living area.

My feet brushed against the Persian rug underneath the low coffee table, and my eyes stopped on the gossip magazine on the table. Hawke’s mother was on the front cover.

BETRAYED AND HURT BY HER ONLY SON!

Who knew what was real or what was used to sell papers?

I only knew what he’d gone through from the tabloids, that his mother was suing him for money. At one time, his mother had been his manager, but then Hawke had fired her. Hawke had never come out with a statement.

I glanced back at the bed where he was soundly sleeping. I guessed people with money weren’t without their own problems.

I reached for my phone by the television and swiped at the keypad to read Chloe’s texts.

That eased my mind, and I dropped my cell in my purse and slipped back into bed.

Automatically, warm hands encased my waist, bringing my internal temperature to rise.

“Where did you go?” Hawke lifted his head and peered up at me through sleepy, sexy eyes.

“I needed my phone.”

He inched closer and buried his head into my neck, like a big, lean, toned teddy bear, and I couldn’t help but smile.

I could get used to this.

But I shouldn’t get used to this.

He was a rock star, and I was a pastry sous chef. He traveled the world. I’d only ever been to Canada. It would never work.

“Everything good?” His voice was rough, groggy.

“Yeah,” I replied, all the while trying to talk myself down from my princess fairy tales, ones where I married the rock star.

“Good.” His hand trailed lower until he cupped my sex.

I pulled his hand up. “Wow. No lead-up? Just going for the gold there, huh, buddy?”

He shrugged and started to draw kisses up and down my neck, which ignited a flame deep in my belly. There was no shame in his game. A game he knew very well.

“I’m still…I’m still recovering from the first round of aftershocks.” It was hard to formulate a coherent thought in his vicinity.

His lips were silky soft against my skin. He didn’t stop his advances. When his fingers entered my body, I grabbed his wrist, needing a time-out.

“Let’s chat for a bit, shall we?” My husky voice didn’t sound too convincing, but I pulled him up to face me anyway.

He groaned. I knew we had only a few more hours together, and I wanted him again—no doubt. But I also wanted to remember this morning for more than passionate sex. I wanted to talk to him because, soon, this night would only be a memory.

He kissed my mouth and drew back to assess me, the sly, crooked smile heavy on his lips. “We can communicate without words.”

When he pinched my nipple under the blanket, I let out a moan.

“But I like using words. I’m an adult.” I tried to lift the sex fog from my brain, but it was hard when I very much wanted the same thing.

He shook his head and inched closer to me, getting nose-to-nose.

My goodness, he looked glorious while half-asleep and horny.

“What do you want to talk about?” He propped his head on his hand while his other hand made circles across my ass.

“Your songs. Your goals. Your life.” I wanted to know something deeper, something I couldn’t read in the magazines, something no one else knew.

He scrunched his face. “This early in the morning?”

I counted down the hours until sunlight. Before I knew it, our moment together would be gone. “Yes.”

“We play your game, but then you have to play mine.” His devilish smile awakened every nerve in my body.

“Okay,” I said nonchalantly, as though his games consisted of Scrabble and checkers.

“Go. Shoot. What do you want to know?”

“Do you write all your own songs?” I didn’t know why, but I assumed he wrote all his music.

“I did.” He averted his eyes, staring above me. He was masking something that he didn’t want me to see.

“What do you mean, you did?”

“I used to, but I stopped a long time ago. I haven’t written anything in years. Now, Cofi is the writer in our group. He’s insanely talented.”

“‘Beautiful Girl’?”

“That’s Cofi’s.”

“‘Tuned Out’?” I started spitting out songs currently on the radio.

“No.”

Disappointment seeped into my skin, the kind where you found out that the chocolate cake you’d been eating wasn’t made from pure chocolate.

My smile faltered. “Oh.”

There was an internal satisfaction to being an artist and being in charge of everything you produced and sent out into the world. It seemed wrong in a way, as though the songs he sang didn’t really belong to him.

“Why did you stop?” I asked.

He shrugged, as if it didn’t bother him at all. “Because Cofi…he’s better at it, and it’s kind of a habit now.”

“Do you write at all anymore?”

He cocked his head, assessing my reaction. “Is this a deal-breaker for you?”

Deal-breaker for what?

I was afraid for him to elaborate, so I just said, “No, I’m just curious.”

“Yes, I do still write my own songs.” His fingers rested on my hip, the tips drawing circles. “Mostly when I’m depressed and need to let go of my feelings, but those songs will never be published.”

Though his tone was casual, his words caused a pinch in my chest.

Was he depressed often? .

“Why not?” I had always been the annoying little girl who asked, Why? I guessed that part of me hadn’t changed because I was still curious.

“Because I don’t want them to.”

Before I could stop myself, I blurted, “It’s like he’s the brains, and you’re the brawn. It seems unfair that he doesn’t get the credit.” I bit my tongue, wishing I hadn’t just insulted the biggest rock star to ever grace the planet.

Blunt honesty—another fault of mine.

“I’m not just the brawn, Sunshine. I choose not to write the songs. He writes the music, and I choreograph every tour. I approve everything—from the marketing to our clothes to every tiny detail when it comes to our brand. I’m the one who got us together.” He raised his chin a tad, a fatherlike pride heavy in his eyes. “I’m the one who got our first gig. I’m the one who harassed every record company.”

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know their day-to-day. “But I don’t understand why you wouldn’t just release your work.”

His jaw tightened, and he shifted uneasily from my one-too-many questions. “It’s too personal.”

“The stuff you write?” The question of why was on the end of my tongue, but I swallowed it back.

“Yes.” Now, it was his turn to look away. He pulled back, and one hand ruffled through his hair. “I write for release. No one else needs to hear it.”

“Is it about your mom?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I bit my tongue before another question could fly out.

His lips pressed together, his demeanor flipping like a light switch turning off. “Wow, Sunshine. You’ve got balls.” He tipped back his head, his eyes hard. “That’s a bad word around here. Everyone wants me to talk about it, but all I want to do is pretend that she isn’t my mother. She checked out on me. Picked her dealers over her son and never looked back.”

Though his voice was bitter, I sensed the hurt in his eyes, the vulnerability of his younger self. That pinch in my stomach heightened to unbelievable heights.

In that instant, I wanted to hold him, to comfort him, to let him know I knew where he was coming from.

“I’m sorry.” I was. And, of all people, I understood.

“For what? You didn’t do anything wrong. People should stop apologizing for that kind of scum.” Anger seethed from his tone, and he glanced out the window, into the night sky.

“I can imagine.” I knew what it was like to feel the burn from someone who had just checked out on your life.

His mouth slackened, and for a brief second, his eyes were unguarded, exposed again. Then, the moment was gone, fizzled into the air like smoke.

“No, you can’t possibly understand,” he said bitterly, jerking up into a sitting position. “You don’t know how she is. She isn’t a mother. She used me, and I’m still paying her off.” He pushed his legs to the side of the bed, and without glancing in my direction, he said, “I’ll tell Tilton to drop you off. You need to go.”

I stared at the mural on his back, noting the perfection of tribal art that made up the words Def Deception. My face fell, and all of me wanted to wrap my arms around him and tell him I was sorry again, but that would only make things worse. Ultimately, I’d crossed some invisible line that I shouldn’t have.

I stood and retrieved my clothes that were scattered on the floor. “I’m sorry.” The words flew out automatically, and I cringed.

“Stop saying you’re sorry!” he roared, turning toward me. His face pinched with irritation.

I flinched and slipped on my clothes and shoes, reeling in my own feelings because I understood. She’d hurt him. The tabloids made it seem as though his mom was the victim, but he was the injured one.

I was going to say more. I wanted to say that I was sorry he was hurting, that I was sorry I had stuck my nose into something that was none of my business. He was a stranger to me, as much as I was a stranger to him.

It still ached to talk about it, but I found the words coming out of my mouth anyway. I slouched on the bed and murmured, “My father abandoned my mother and I right before I went to college. Upped and left us for another woman. But, before that, he had torn my mother down, bit by bit, and before she…” My voice trailed off. I breathed through my next words, forcing down the ache in the center of my chest, biting back the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry doesn’t make it better; I get it. But maybe coming from someone who knows what it’s like when your parent just leaves you behind…” I shrugged, unable to finish.

Our eyes locked, and I read the ache and torment and memories in his eyes, a pain so familiar to mine that I had to tear my gaze away.

I slid my mini purse over my shoulder and walked to the door.

When my hand went for the knob, Hawke was already beside me, his eyes torn and hands at my waist. “Don’t go,” he said, whisper soft.

“Why?” My voice cracked with emotion, and I searched his face for an answer.

He could have picked anyone. I was sure women were camped outside the hotel, even in the wee hours of this morning.

His eyes broke right before he said, “Because…I’m lonely.”

And then my heart cracked, split in two by his words. He was adored by millions around the world, admired by all those in his industry, yet he was lonely. It made no sense.

Nothing was ever as it seemed, was it?

His fingers found mine, warm and soft and pleading. “Stay.” He let out a jagged long breath. “Tell me about him.” There was a need in his eyes that told me how badly he wanted to hear my story.

I’d spoken to numerous counselors, but talking it out with people I could relate to had always helped the most. It was the best kind of therapy.

“I’ll tell you about my scum if you tell me about yours.” I threw him a weak smile.

His lips pressed together in a rigid grimace, and for a second, I thought he’d deny my offer, but he nodded and led us back into the room.

My stomach tightened in a double knot because I knew I’d have to recall memories I’d been pushing down for so long. I bit my thumbnail and sat on the edge of the bed, watching him as he went through the dresser. He threw one of his T-shirts in my direction, and I caught it midair.

When he went to the bathroom, I slipped out of my clothes, into his shirt, and under the covers to get comfortable.

He hopped back into bed beside me, and although we were both in the room, in the same bed, where I could feel the warmth from his body radiating against my skin, a familiar icy sensation spread through my heart. The chill formed every time I thought about my childhood. The distance between Hawke and me was palpable, like I could taste it, feel it, touch it.

If he was lonely before, I doubted I was making it better because I felt the same.

I held my breath and was the first to break the silence because I needed to get the words out. “He was verbally abusive over the years—not toward me, but toward my mom. When he lost his job, it got worse. I remember times…” I swallowed and paused but needed the next sentence to come out. “He’d be so out of it that I’d walk into a room, and he wouldn’t even see me. So out of it, he couldn’t even answer her when she asked what he wanted for dinner. He drank himself to oblivion every night. Every. Single. Night.”

Anger filled his eyes. Eyes that held pain and rage behind his fame. “Why didn’t you just leave, the both of you? Get up and walk out on him?”

My stomach hurt, physically hurt, but I knew this kind of ache would never go away. “Because I loved him; we both did.” I tore my gaze away from his. My voice was soft as I whispered, barely audible, as if the words were only for me to hear, “And because…because she wouldn’t leave. She didn’t want to give up on him, and I didn’t want to give up on her.”

I’d seen my father destroy her until he’d left her in a pile of ashes, unrecognizable. She hadn’t left him because she couldn’t. Because her love was deep. Her love was unconditional. Her love was strong. But not strong enough to keep him from leaving.

I clenched my jaw. Good God, it had been years. Years since it had happened, yet the pain was still so fresh, like an open wound. And reliving the past forced me to rip the Band-Aid off, causing the hurt to surface, forcing me to see the blood.

It was only when I heard the hardness in Hawke’s tone that I turned back to face him. “Everyone knows I emancipated from my mother when I was sixteen. That’s no news. No one knows what she’s like in real life.” He ran one hand through his hair, sighing up at the ceiling, unable to look me in the eye. “She’s sold her sob story to every tabloid outlet that’d pay her. The good mother who helped Def Deception rise to greatness.” He clenched his hands together, his knuckles white from the tension.

“She’s telling everyone we had practiced in her garage, and when we hit it big, we kicked her to the curb.” The distant look in his eyes had the hair on the back of my neck standing at full attention, like needles on a porcupine’s back. “Did I ever tell my side? Like how, when we rose to fame and she had access to everything, she lived in excess. How she liked to shoot up in front of us and then beat me because I was her kid and she had the right. How about when she cut herself and almost committed suicide in front of me?” His voice shook with rage, the type of anger that could not be contained.

“Hell no, I didn’t. Because it’s none of anyone’s fucking business. They all think they know my story…me.” He pounded his chest. “But they don’t. They don’t! I don’t owe anyone anything. Not one fucking—”

I threw my arms around him, needing him to stop, needing him to calm down, needing him to forget, because I knew what anger could do. It could choke the life out of you and keep you from living and moving on. Even though it still hurt, I’d stopped being angry with my father a long time ago. What was left in his wake was only the raw pain and sadness. He had hurt my mother, and my mother had wronged me in ways she didn’t even realize.

I pushed those memories down. All the way down to the pits of hell because that was where I had to go when I recalled those memories.

His body was tense, but I held him in silence because, sometimes, that was all anyone needed. Slowly, his shoulders relaxed, and he ducked down to rest his chin against my shoulder.

When his lips touched my skin, I peered up at him. He lifted his head and kissed me, slow and sensual at first but building into a roughness that scorched my insides.

When he guided me onto my back, I didn’t resist because I knew this was what he needed. And maybe I needed this, too. We both needed to forget.

* * *

I stopped in front of my apartment and let out a huge breath. Hawke’s bodyguard, Tilton, had dropped me off. With the limo gone, I took in my five-story apartment building.

Last night almost seemed like a crazy dream, but I knew it wasn’t because every single one of my muscles hurt from exhaustion—or what I’d like to say was sexhaustion.

With a tired but happy sigh, I walked through the door, took the elevator to our floor and strolled to our unit. When I opened the door to our place, Chloe stood from the couch, eyes wide and questioning. Voices from the television played in the background.

“And? So?” Her eyes gleamed with the kind of excitement seen in the eyes of a child, full of questions and wonder.

But what I had to tell her was not for children to hear.

I threw my purse on the counter and tried to bite back my grin, but failed. “We had mind-blowing, spine-tingling sex, and I’m glad you convinced me to give the no-attachment experience a try.”

She squealed and tightly gripped my hand like a vise. That was what best friends were for, after all. She tugged my hand toward the couch with such force that I almost tripped.

“Everything. I want to hear everything—from what he smelled like to what you two talked about. Every single thing!”

I pulled my knees up, hugging them against my chest. There were some things I couldn’t tell her, of course. The intimate details that Hawke had revealed were not meant to be repeated. “He was sweet and rough and talented and, O-M-goodness, so unbelievably hot. I still can’t believe last night happened.”

If Chloe had not been there to witness it—well, the before-sex part—I doubted anyone would believe me.

She shook her head and straightened. “The sex! I want to know about the sex.”

I shifted with unease and bounced on the cushions of our gray microfiber couch. Usually, I was always on the receiving end, hearing about Chloe’s great adventures in the sack. Now that it was my turn to share, my cheeks warmed.

“I don’t have a lot of experience in this field, but yes”—I nodded profusely—“he made me come multiple times.” I wasn’t an easy comer either. I had faked it one too many times with my ex-boyfriends, but Hawke…I knew he was experienced because sex with him had not disappointed.

“Is he going to call you?” she asked, breaking me from my sex-filled thoughts.

I chewed on my bottom lip and let out a low sigh. “He has my number, but I’m not going to hold my breath.” I sounded confident, but it broke my heart to hear myself say those words out loud.

I shouldn’t pretend that it was more than it had been, and I shouldn’t hope for more, but I was me. Because of my broken home and messed up childhood, hope was all I had. Marrying Hawke Calvin and sailing into the sunset would never happen, so I needed to stop believing that it would.

Changing the subject, I tilted my head and asked, “Hey, what happened with Cofi?”

She reeled back, her eyes narrowing, her smile disappearing. “That asshole invited another girl to play, and sorry”—she screwed her face and wrinkled her nose, as though there were garbage nearby—“I don’t share.”

Apparently, Cofi was a player, big and bad and without apology. I’d known guys like him in high school. Those were the type Chloe had always been attracted to, not me. I preferred the good boys who ended up breaking my heart.

“What a jerk.”

Cofi was a cocky jackass. Cliché as it seemed, all rock stars were probably the same, but I’d like to believe Hawke was different.

“Yeah, he is, but forget Cofi. We’re talking about Hot Hawkey.” She pinched my side so hard, it made me yelp. “I’m pinching you, so you know it actually happened. You, my best friend, slept with the lead singer of Def Deception.” She lifted her hands in the air. “Touchdown, girl! If this is the last thing you do on earth, you have it made! Ah!”

I chuckled. “I highly doubt I have made it quite yet.” As great as last night had been, I had higher hopes than banging an über-hot rock star. “But, yes, it’s definitely something I am going to tell my grandkids someday.” I squeed, my knees bouncing with excitement.

“Their ears will bleed!”

“That’s the goal.” I laughed, and we high-fived. “And, now, real life hits. I have to get to work in a few hours.”

She groaned, and I scrunched my face and then dragged my butt into the shower.

Back to reality.