CHAPTER 22

ALICIA

“Tell me, Jared.” Lesley Ann something or other, the reporter who was busy doing an interview with him, said. “You guys are being so coy about the details of your upcoming album. Only little hints and teases on social media, why take such a different approach on this album than you have previously?”

Jared leaned forward in his chair like he was about to let her in on a secret, his elbows on the arms of the chair as he steepled his fingers in front of him. Light shimmered from his silver rings, three on each hand today.

He looked good. Really good.

Since there wasn’t a photo shoot or anything after the interview, I was selecting and sending over a few options from shoots we’d had done after I proofread and okayed the article, he’d opted for casual rock star instead of his full- on Emperor of Rock garb.

Leather pants were traded for dark wash jeans that hugged his ass like a tender caress, as opposed to the flagrant and shameless parade of it the leather pants put on. The black v- neck shirt he wore showed off the beginnings of the tattoos on his chest I’d become so intimately familiar with and exposed the corded muscles of his forearms.

A thin black leather strap was tied around his neck and matched the wide cuff he wore on one wrist while those silver rings drew my attention every time he moved his hands. Freshly shaven, there was only the vaguest hint of a dark show along his jawline that tapered down to his goatee. His intense eyes were fixed on the reporter’s, but I could perfectly picture what she saw. Down to the last golden fleck, his eyes were permanently imprinted on my brain.

As was the rest of him.

The reporter was looking at him like she was dying to rip off his clothes and discover what said rest of him looked like. While I couldn’t blame the woman, seeing her eye him with such obvious lust made white- hot spikes of jealousy stab me in the gut. If I was any less of a professional, I would’ve demanded that she turn around and finish the interview while looking out at the clear blue ocean on the other side of Gerry’s office windows.

Easy there, tiger. He’s not your boyfriend or anything. I hated that I had to give myself the reminder, but I did. It’d been a week since we’d discussed and agreed on exclusivity, but with the heat simmering about their upcoming album I was inundated with interview requests and I was finding it hard to believe that he was going to stick to our agreement with women who looked like this one drooling all over him all day.

I could see why the magazine who’d sent her would someone like her over. She was gorgeous. If Jared was going to candid and open with anyone, it would be with the raven haired beauty sitting across from him now.

She was tall and willowy, with hair that hung to her well- defined waist, perfectly displayed in a dress I would give my right butt cheek to look as good in, but one of my butt cheeks was also probably all that would fit in it. Her boobs were smaller than mine, but her modest cleavage was attracting even my eyes because of the narrow golden chain that hung between her breasts. The whole picture made me want to vomit.

And drag Jared into a cave somewhere to hide him from women who looked like her.

“We’re not being coy,” he said. “We’re simply taking a more seductive approach with this one.”

What? Seductive? I coughed into my hand to keep from making a very unladylike sound of disbelief. Gerry was standing in the doorway beside me, observing the interview. He shot me a sideways look, but his attention went right back to the reporter when she giggled. A tinkling sound I instantly hated.

“That’s a good way to describe it.” She reached out to rest a hand on his knee as the tinkling continued. “Seductive.”

“Thanks.” He smirked.

It was my approach, not some seduction crap they’d thought up. Yet the man of the hour didn’t spare a single glance in my direction. Not that I’d been expecting praise or public credit from the band, but acknowledgment from the man I happened to be exclusively sleeping with would’ve been nice.

Tone it down, Alicia. I ordered myself sternly. Lesley Ann McFlirty Flirt worked for a well- known publication who would be running an article on the band. So far, the interview was going well and while Jared was being his usual arrogant self, he was saying the right things for the fan base. He’s only doing his job.

Too bad he was so damn good at it.

I nearly cheered when he shifted just enough that she had to remove her hand from his leg. Hope skyrocketed in my chest that, despite how casual the move had been, that he’d done it to show me he wasn’t interested in her that way.

It crashed and burned when the shift had him angled so his one leg would be touching hers until one of them moved again.

“Since you mentioned seduction, I have to ask.” She lowered her voice, her amber eyes locked on his and making me feel like I was listening in on an intimate, private conversation instead of an interview. Bile pushed up from my stomach- no matter how hard I tried not to be affected by the sight. “Are you still single? I know you guys are notorious for avoiding relationships, but there haven’t been any pictures of you taken with women recently and the airwaves have been surprisingly quiet. What’s going on?”

The question sank my stomach as much as Jared’s incredulous answering laughter did. Cocky Emperor out to play in full force, he leaned back in his seat and pointed at his chest. “Me? Am I still single? Hell yeah, of course I am.”

A bitter taste teased the back of my tongue and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Lesley Ann inched forward in her chair, her leg now no longer merely brushing his but pushed up against it. The woman batted her eyelashes, her voice breathy as she leaned in. “Is that a fact? Why no pictures of you out partying then?”

“It’s a fact.” He laughed, arrogance seeping from his pores. This version of him, the Emperor I now knew was little more a face he put on for the world, always made me feel a little sick when he played it up for women. The feeling was multiplied by the factor of at least ten this time as I watched it unfold.

“We’ve just been busy with the album. Nothing more than that going on, I swear.” He crossed his heart and playfully winked at her. Lesley Ann flushed. I felt like I was actually going to be sick right there.

“There’s no special woman in your life right now?” The reporter asked, leaning even more toward him. If she kept it up, she was either going to be on the floor or his lap in the next thirty seconds. I knew which one I preferred.

“Nope.” Jared said, a flirtatious smirk kicking up the corners of his full lips. He popped them on the ‘P’ and sat back, looking smug and satisfied. “I’m single now and I always will be.”

I’d known he thought he would be, of course. But hearing it like that… here… The way he said it to this woman he didn’t even know... I couldn’t.

I just couldn’t stand here and listen to this anymore. Jared was a media trained superstar, he could handle the rest of this interview by himself. Plus, he had Gerry here if she asked a question that was seriously out of line.

I knew it was my job to stay, but I also knew I needed time to think. To calm down. Possibly to scrub the image of Jared and McFlirty Flirt together from my mind for the rest of time.

Just a week ago, I’d been prepared to end things with him because I thought he’d slept with that groupie. I remembered thinking it didn’t feel like my world was ending when I’d heard the woman moaning in his trailer because he’d never been my world, never been at the center of it, yet somehow this felt worse.

Not like my world was ending. Not the glass I’d heard shattering in my mind that day.

Just clarity that was deafening in it’s simplicity.

Jared never led me on, he didn’t make me believe I was more to him than a temporary… What? Co- worker with benefits? I couldn’t be a friend with benefits to him because I’d never been his friend.

What I’d heard that day at the benefit, even though it’d been far more explicit and eventually turned out to have been Nick with the groupie, had hurt less than this.

This felt like someone ripped a blindfold from my eyes in blinding sunlight, one I’d fitted there myself.

Pain shot through my head and inexplicably, right through my heart. And why?

All because he so nonchalantly declared there was no one special in his life and never would be. My eyes were wide open walking into this thing with him, and yet I failed to see it for exactly what it was.

I was a warm body. A wet pussy. Tears jumped to my eyes at the stark realization. I needed to compose myself, to get myself together and then I had to figure out where to go from here.

The sting I was feeling now would be nothing compared to the hurt I was bound to feel sooner or later if I kept this thing up with Jared. But was I ready to end it? For good this time?

It was already affecting my job and that was one thing I couldn’t have, but I also couldn’t hang around and watch them banter back and forth. They were still on the subject of Jared’s relationships.

I turned my wrist to check the time. Fifteen minutes of the interview left. He could handle it, I was sure.

Sidling up to Gerry to tell him I had to run to my office, Jared’s next remark drove the knife that had been leaving those annoying stings on my insides in all the way to the hilt, twisted it and finally opened that gaping wound I hadn’t been expecting so soon.

“In fact, you’re gorgeous.” His voice was low, rough. A tone I’d heard before, when we were... “If we weren’t doing an interview, I would be making a run at you right now.”

That’s it. Game over. Scalding hot tears burned my eyelids. It was only a matter of time before they spilled over. I’m such a freaking idiot.

Without bothering to tell Gerry where or why I was going, I turned on heel and got the hell out of there. I didn’t want to, couldn’t bear hearing anything more from Jared than that.