Elijah was a jerk, but he had been right about Talia not forgetting their shopping plans. Seemingly impervious to hangovers, the woman had shown up at the door of Iris’s hotel suite a little after three ready to roll, the vision of perfection.

“I have the boys, though,” Iris protested. She’d collected them off Talia’s own bus that morning and hustled them grumbling into the hotel where they’d promptly crashed again. They were up now, arguing and cranky, and she’d been trying to wrangle Seger into his math lessons.

“But do you have to? They have a dad. Who is here. I mean, isn’t he?” Talia glanced past Iris as if Eli would materialize in the room behind her.

“Um, no, he isn’t here. I don’t know where he is. In his own room, I guess.”

Talia tugged her cell phone from her Louis Vuitton handbag. Heidi was a handbag junkie, so Iris knew purses, even if she didn’t own any of the posh designs herself. “No problem. I’ll text him and tell him to come get his fucking kids so we girls can do some damage.”

For all Iris knew, Elijah might have taken his new girl into his room. Either she’d left the bus at some point way early this morning, or she’d been asleep in his bed when Iris had spoken to him. “I didn’t really sleep all that great last night, Tal. I was thinking I’d hang out here today.” She’d been walking around in a haze, in some inexplicable funk that had nothing to do with lack of sleep. Or maybe it did. She didn’t know anymore. She only knew that she didn’t feel well. There was a sick, sunken feeling in her chest she couldn’t shake.

“Iris, I’m bored stupid. Please, for the love of fuck, let’s get out of here for a little while. It’ll do us some good, I promise.”

Iris stared at her new friend’s pleading dark eyes and finally sighed. Eli had insisted all this time that he could take care of his own kids, so if he had to kick his groupie out of bed to keep them entertained for a while, so be it. “All right, fine. Text him.”

Talia bounced giddily and swept past Iris into the hotel room, thumbs tapping at her phone. Iris followed her, gnawing her bottom lip and debating how much she could confide in this woman.

“I think he actually, um . . . might be with someone,” she said, lowering her voice.

Talia paused, lifting a brow as she regarded Iris over her phone. “Honey, I doubt it. The man’s been practically celibate since Heidi sucked him dry.”

Those hadn’t been the sounds of celibacy she’d heard last night. Iris shrugged, hoping Talia wouldn’t see through the gesture. “Maybe you’re right.”

“What makes you say that, anyway?”

Her cheeks flamed as she said, “I heard things.”

“You heard him?”

“I heard her.”

“Hmm. Are you okay?”

The question startled Iris, jerking her gaze back to Talia’s concerned expression. “Why would I care what he does?”

“No reason.” Now it was Talia being deliberately nonchalant.

“I’m just saying, he might not want to come get the boys if—”

Talia’s phone chimed with an incoming message. “Then he must have booted her ass, because he’s on his way. He wouldn’t have the boys around that, I promise. Still seems a little weird to me, though.”

“Why?”

“Doesn’t sound like him. Look, he’s taken his share of pussy in his heyday, but since Heidi, and since those boys came along, he cleaned up his act.”

“He’s a man, right? They’re biologically programmed.”

“Oh, horseshit. I’m not saying he became a saint, but banging groupies where you can hear doesn’t sound like him at all. Besides, you said you heard her and not him. Heidi always said he raises the roof when he fucks.”

Great. Because imagining what Elijah Vance sounded like during sex was something she needed to do. “All I know is I heard someone last night on my—on his bus. I’m not sure who else it would be.”

“Honestly? Anyone. Are you ready? He’ll be here any minute and I want to get out of here.”

Iris was grateful for the change of subject. She went to get the boys from their bedroom, gathering all their stuff to send with Eli when he got here, all the while turning over what Talia said in her mind. It made sense, she supposed, but she wasn’t convinced. And never in a thousand years could she come out and ask him about it outright. The thought alone set her face on fire, as it had on the bus when she had to face him this morning. She’d had to run at the mere mention of it.

Besides, as she kept trying to hammer into her own brain, it was none of her business. None of her business. None of her business. Yet she’d gone and told Talia about it, hadn’t she? God, she desperately needed someone to talk to. She needed Sara. In that moment, she missed her best friend so intensely that it almost brought tears to her eyes as she packed the boys’ games into their duffel bags. All these people, they wanted to chew her up and spit her out. Even Talia, who was being super nice to her. What were her motives? Why would she befriend Iris? Was it something Eli had set up, hoping to gather intel on his arch nemesis?

Just do your job, she told herself, making it another mantra. Do your job, mind your business. Don’t get involved. Don’t get attached. Six more weeks and you’re out of here. You’ll be back with Heidi, safe from all these people.

Except she wasn’t doing her job when she was running off shopping with her new friend. What would Heidi have to say about that? Her boss had told her to have fun, but she meant have fun with the boys around. Not when she was dumping them on their dad.

Elijah didn’t seem put out in the least when Iris answered his knock five minutes later. But his green eyes inspected her too closely for her comfort. Talia chatted on about the absolute destruction that was about to go down at the City Creek Center. All the while, Iris felt the steady weight of his gaze lingering on her face. She tried not to look back, but she couldn’t help it.

In some cruel twist of fate, for no reason she could discern, he looked twice as gorgeous today than he normally did. Dark, loose weathered jeans, a heather gray T-shirt that showed off his lean muscles and impressive ink. He’d pulled a black cap low over his dark hair, casting his green eyes in shadow. Any woman in her right mind would drool all over him. She couldn’t necessarily blame him for taking advantage when he could.

Whether she liked it or not, he drew her in. Even the fine hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end, drawn by some magnetic pull she didn’t understand.

It thrummed under her skin like something alive, something that belonged to him and was struggling to find its way back to him.

She tore herself away and went to retrieve her purse while Talia joked around with him and the boys. Iris was suddenly as eager as she was to get out of here.

“Sorry,” she muttered to Elijah as they were all going out the door, the boys engaging in their usual foot race to the elevator. Talia, hilariously enough, ran with them as they laughed and Dylan squealed at possible impending defeat.

The corner of Eli’s mouth tugged up in a knowing smirk that made him look positively devilish. “Told ya. She never forgets a shopping trip. Don’t worry about it. I was going to come get them and take them up the mountain, anyway.”

That sounded lovely. In keeping with her whiplash emotions, Iris thought hiking through nature would be highly preferable over mindless spending—or watching Talia mindlessly spend. Iris wasn’t much of a shopper herself. “I would love to do that,” she said wistfully, though of course he’d said nothing about her going with them. The thought settled heavily in the pit of her stomach.

“Yeah, I’ll try to tire them out so they’ll go to sleep at a decent hour tonight.”

An awkward silence elapsed. “Well . . . you guys have fun,” she said finally as they joined up with the other three at the elevator—who were all out of breath.

“We will,” he assured her, with no returned sentiment.

When they all went their separate ways in the lobby, Iris watched him and the boys depart with a yearning that nearly tore her in two as she followed Talia to the curb and the waiting car. Talia chatted on, as oblivious to her turmoil as Iris was to whatever she was talking about.

Something was happening in her, something she couldn’t abide. Something she should not even entertain.

For God’s sake. This situation was insufferable enough. If she grew any more attracted to Elijah Vance, it was going to be downright disastrous.

––––––––

ELI BOUNCED HIS LEFT knee, looking out at the majesty of the Wasatch range all around them as he drove, but barely seeing it. “What do you guys think about Iris? For real.”

“She’s nice,” Dylan said with his sweet childish simplicity. “I like her. She makes awesome root beer floats.”

Seger’s answer, with his disgruntled preteen cynicism, would certainly tell him more, but a glance toward the back seat showed him his eldest was staring sullenly out the window. “Seeg?”

“She’s helped me more with math than my teachers,” he said finally. “I can tell you don’t like her, though.”

Shit. He supposed he needed to be a little less transparent. “I never said I don’t like her. I didn’t necessarily want her to come on tour with us, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like her.”

“I don’t mind that she’s here,” Dylan said. “She’s fun. I don’t like that she makes me read, though.”

“Well, you need to read,” Eli said.

“Why didn’t you want her to come with us?”

He met Dylan’s eyes in the mirror. Those innocent dark eyes that made his heart clench up with pain. “Because I know it’s been hard on you guys since me and your mom split up. I wanted it to just be the three of us, I guess.”

“It is now,” Seger pointed out, but Eli couldn’t get a read on his tone. It hurt him to think he was losing the connection they used to have, and just when the boy was reaching that tough age where he would need the guidance. It hurt even worse to think that in a few years, the same might happen with Dylan. If Heidi had her way, it almost certainly would.

“Did you want her here?”

Seger sighed. “I don’t care, Dad. I like her but I think it’s kind of dumb for her to be around all the time. I don’t know why you and Mom can’t get back together.”

It was so sudden, so out of left field, it was like a gut punch. Not out of any longing for his ex-wife. He only wanted his kids to have whatever they desired. He would give them whatever the fuck was in his power to give. But he couldn’t give them that, he couldn’t give them their family back, when it was the one thing they wanted. It shredded him. “That isn’t gonna happen, buddy. I’m sorry. All we can do is move forward from where we are. I’m trying my best to do that. But we three, we have to stick together. Keep communicating. It’s hard for us to do that with someone else around all the time, that’s all. That’s the only reason Iris bothers me. Other than that, I like her fine.”

“I know!” Dylan exclaimed, as if he had the perfect solution. “Why don’t you just marry Iris?”

Seger scoffed and Eli guffawed, rubbing the back of his neck which seemed suddenly overheated. Yeah, that was about as likely as reconciling with their mother. Not that Iris wasn’t beautiful, and sweet with his kids, and she had that adorably obstinate little chin thrust whenever he was pissing her off . . . which was frequently . . .

Charm aside, there wasn’t a single person on fucking earth he had less in common with.

“Nah. I’m never getting married again,” he told his boys. One strikeout was enough for him. That was that.