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  When we finished the song, he paused, watching me. “So what do you think?”

  I bent forward to reach for the sheet music on the glass coffee table between us, but a sharp pain shooting through my hand made me suck in a hard breath and freeze. I closed my eyes, swallowing down a moan, working to control my breathing through my nose.

  “More cardio training?” he asked, grabbing the sheet music and pencil he’d brought and holding it out to me.

  Gingerly I took the paper and pencil, fighting to hold a smile in place though it felt more like a grimace. “You could say that.”

  Quickly before I could forget, I jotted a reminder on the paper to make a specific note change during the chorus. “I think the song’s starting to come together. And I really like the bluesy direction you took it in. It’s…much better this way, honestly.”

  He watched me set the paper and pencil back on the coffee table, my movements slow and careful this time. “You’re making me awfully glad I stick with the acoustic-style performances, if that’s what you have to go through just to prep for your tours.”

  The truth was it was just my stupid body failing me. But I didn’t want to have to keep lying to him, so I changed the subject, suggesting we do another run through of the song. He waited a beat, studying me from head to toe with a gaze that was more curious than come on. Thankfully he didn’t press the subject, and we did a couple more run throughs of the song, both of us relaxing into the vocals and each other.

  When he really got into the song and started belting out the chorus was when I realized just how he’d managed to hook up with every dancer on Catty Kelly’s tour group. It was his voice. When he really let it loose, it was like whiskey and smoke, a virtual hand sliding along your skin, guiding you through an imaginary dance for two to the song’s beat. He took what I’d thought was a borderline “clingy girl” song and turned it into something so much deeper. Sexier. Full of real need and yearning and…

  Or maybe that was just my crazy imagination reading far too much into a simple song.

  After about an hour, we both felt pretty good about the song. It wasn’t recording level quality yet, but it was good enough to perform on stage.

  As he stowed his guitar back in its case, he said, “Hey, you hungry? We could grab a bite to eat somewhere.”

  My heart leapt, like I was some silly girl in high school being asked out on a date.

  I looked down at my fingers twisted together in my lap while I regained control over my facial expression. Then I risked looking up at him again. “I wish I could, but… It would be a nightmare to get past the paparazzi.”

  He gave a semi-amused frown. “Really? I got through them just fine on my way in here.”

  “Yeah, but that’s because I wasn’t with you.” I realized how that sounded and cringed. “Oh God, sorry, that sounded totally conceited. I just meant they’ve been really on my case lately. Trust me, the misery of dealing with them wouldn’t make it worth the effort just to eat out.”

  He draped his arms over his guitar case across his lap. “I don’t know. Might be more than worth it.” Something in the way those blue eyes held mine made me wonder if he was hinting at a double meaning. His grin slowly spread. “I’ve heard L.A.’s got amazing food.”

  Was he playing with me?

  I found myself watching him as he put up his guitar, my fingertips itching to push all that floppy hair back from his eyes. When he caught me looking, I covered it by standing up.

  And then unintentionally wobbling and nearly falling over as my tight leg muscles refused to react fast enough to keep me balanced.

  He jumped to his feet, his guitar case sliding to the floor with a clatter as he grabbed my elbows to steady me.

  And suddenly we were inches away from each other, his cool hands strong but gentle on my burning bare skin thanks to the short-sleeved top I’d chosen.

  “Stupid heels,” I managed to murmur the lie, unable to look away from those intense blue eyes.

  “You wear those every time you’re relaxing at home?” he muttered, his gaze searching mine.

  “No. Just for business meetings.” A wave of heat flashed over me from head to toe, and I shivered at the sensation.

  “Because this is business.”

  I nodded slowly. And yet that was also starting to feel like a lie.

  I licked my dry lips, and his gaze followed the movement of the tip of my tongue. His head ducked another inch towards mine, and I forgot to breathe, forgot to think, forgot how we’d even gotten here. It didn’t even matter who we were anymore.

  All I could focus on was those lips, wondering what they would taste like, whether he would smile as he kissed me…

  “Right. Business.” His voice was extra gruff. His touch loosened then slipped away as he stepped back then turned and bent over to grab his guitar. His trademark shy smile was nowhere in sight as he flashed me one more look I couldn’t read before he headed for the door. “So, should we have another practice session or…?”

  My lungs remembered how to breathe, and my arms slid up to hug my torso. I cleared my throat, struggling to reorient my scrambled thoughts. “Um, no. I think we’re good until the stage rehearsal. The song will gel the more we perform it on stage.”

  He nodded, and I followed him over to the door, which he opened. He glanced back at me once more over his shoulder on the way out. “Well, then, I guess I’ll see you then?”

  Pressing my lips together, I nodded but couldn’t remember how to force a smile, not even for politeness’s sake. I gripped the edge of the open door, watching him walk down the hall to the elevator. He pushed the call button, then ran his free hand through his hair, leaving his hair a crazy mess as if he’d just been through a tornado.

  Or had just had sex.

  The elevator quickly arrived, and he glanced back at me, briefly lifting a hand in a half-hearted goodbye as he stepped inside.

  Then he was gone.

  I shut the door then leaned my forehead against it, trying to remember how to breathe normally again.

  I would definitely have to be careful not to be alone with him while on the tour. Ever. What that man had working for him was beyond potent.

  A sudden hard series of raps on the door had me jumping away from it with a gasp that was just shy of a seriously undignified squeak.

  Had Jessie returned for some reason?

  If he asked me to dinner again, I seriously doubted I’d have the strength to turn him down this time.

  I took a deep breath, opened the door, and blinked a few times. “Oh. Shane. Hi.”

  I’d completely blanked out on the fact that he and I were also schedule to rehearse today.

  Even taller than Jessie by at least a couple of inches, Shane ducked his head to stare at me. “You were expecting somebody else?”

  “No! Of course not. It’s just…our opening act, Jessie Quinn, just left. And I thought you were him. That he’d left something or…” I was rambling like an idiot.

  Pasting on a smile, I stepped back and opened the door to let Shane in. As he slowly passed me, I caught the tiniest hint of spicy cologne, something that made me want to lean in closer to him.

  Which was ridiculous, because I’d just met the guy in person for the first time. And I didn’t get that attracted to anyone that fast ever. Well, except for Jessie.

  Maybe my hormones were all out of whack due to the steroids the doctor had started me on a month ago? I would have to ask him if this was a side effect of the prednisone.

  I closed the door and led Shane over to the seating area. I was surprised when we moved to opposite ends of the same couch. “Oh, do you… I can sit over here…” Why was I so awkward today of all days?

  One corner of his mouth hitched up for a second. “I don’t bite. The couch is plenty big enough for two.”

  Right. Of course it was. What was I thinking?

  I took in a deep, steadying breath as I eased down onto my end of the couch, turning towards him and trying
to get comfortable. “So. It’s good to finally meet you in person.”

  He nodded, taking a few seconds to look around the suite’s living area. “Nice digs.”

  “Well, it’s the Beverly Wilshire, so…” My laugh trailed off when I realized he wasn’t even smiling at my pathetic attempt at a joke. Maybe he was a more straight-to-business type of guy? “So…I guess we should get started?”

  He stared at me. “Do you have your guitar?”

  Oh. Just now realizing he hadn’t brought one, I made an oops face. “No, I don’t play.”

  “Me neither. Just the drums.”

  “Well, I guess we could have someone stick around on stage to play for us?”

  He hesitated, staring at me, his unusual gray-green gaze trailing over me slowly and deliberately from head to toe then back to my face. “Sure, that works. And for this practice session?”

  I shrugged. “Um, we could just wing it a capella style?”

  “Mind if I keep the beat for us?”

  I nodded while pulling out my phone from my slacks pocket. I quickly searched my files.

  “You regularly text while singing?”

  I looked up at him in surprise and confusion. “No, I’m not texting. I’m pulling up the sheet music your manager sent.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  I found the files and pulled them up, then looked at him. “So, there’s notes on here to indicate you wanted to go first?”

  He gave a short, terse nod, closed his eyes, and began to tap out the beat with his palms, one on his right thigh, the other on the arm of the couch, using the two different sounds to mimic the different sounds a drum set might make. He also nodded in time with the beat and tapped his toes. I felt my eyebrows shoot up as I watched him “play” the song’s intro. Though he didn’t play the drums for the Vision Drakes, clearly he knew how to play the drums pretty well. He was way too coordinated.

  Then he started singing, and all other thoughts were wiped out of my head, replaced by one thought, Holy shit, he’s good.

  He kept his eyes closed while he sang the first verse, allowing me to stare at him. With his hairstyle, it was like watching a modern-day Viking singing. I could easily imagine him dressed in head to toe leather, a sword leaned against his hip as he sang around a fire with his fellow marauders.

  Then his eyes flashed open at me. “Any time now, Princess.”

  I’d missed my intro. Shit!

  “Sorry. Give me that intro count again?” I focused on my phone screen and the lyrics and notes as I quietly tried to find my way into the song. But when my verse ended and we were supposed to sing the chorus together, he froze. I stumbled to a stop and looked up at him with raised eyebrows.

  “Did you even practice the song at all before now?”

  I winced then schooled my face into a neutral expression. “Actually, I didn’t get a chance to. I’m sorry. The rehearsals and wardrobe fittings and everything have been crazy—”

  His eyebrows pinched together. “Listen, maybe you’re used to lip syncing and prancing your way through a song, but that’s not how I work.”

  Lip syncing and prancing?

  I had to consciously hold in my snap response while I breathed deeply.

  When I felt in control of myself, I murmured, “First, I never lip sync. Ever. And secondly, I did say I was sorry. Just give me a few run throughs. I’m a quick study.”

  He sat there in silence while I hurried through my half of the song a few times just barely above a whisper, feeling his glare on me the entire time. Part of me wanted so badly to call Roz and tell her I’d changed my mind, that there was no way I could work with this jerk.

  But he was also right. I should have put in the practice time. He’d come here expecting to work with a pro, not someone who hadn’t even gone over the song yet. It wasn’t his fault that I’d collapsed in utter exhaustion every evening from the grueling, humiliating rehearsals, too tired to even look at the sheet music his manager had sent.

  Finally, I was ready to try again with him. This time, I didn’t look at him, relying on the beat supplied—albeit a bit more sharply than before—by his hands to cue me in. I was almost as nervous as the day I’d first met with Roz, hoping to meet with her approval so she’d represent me.

  In fact, this might have been worse because he was a peer. And there was nothing worse than to feel judged and come up not good enough in the eyes of a fellow artist.

  Unlike Jessie, he didn’t wait until the end of the song to make changes. Instead, he stopped me right in the middle of words even to correct me.

  Several times, it was right there on the tip of my tongue to call a halt to the whole thing. He might have been a few years older than me, but I was the more experienced artist in the industry. And I was doing him a favor asking him and his band to perform with me.

  But this close to the tour, we’d never find a replacement closing act. And he was amazing on stage. And now that my performing abilities had proven to be so limited, we needed the Vision Drakes more than ever.

  So I vowed to be a professional and just get through the session.

  Gradually he corrected me less and less as we went over the song over and over and over again. While with Jessie it had felt like two equals learning to dance together, singing with Shane was proving to be more like a student being instructed by an exacting dance instructor. All he needed was a cane to rap me with when I got something wrong.

  Perversely, the anger drove me to push myself harder and harder. So much so that I didn’t even realize the sun had set outside the windows, leaving us in near darkness with only the soft light spilling over from the bar’s under-cabinet lighting to outline us. The slant of the dim light lit only half his face, throwing the lines of his chiseled jaw into stark relief.

  “One more time?” he murmured, and I stared at him, confused and completely thrown off track by the unexpected softness now in his tone.

  This time he only softly tapped one index finger on the arm of the sofa to keep the beat for us as we went over the song one last time together. And for the first time since his arrival, it wasn’t a battle or a challenge to prove myself or try to impress him.

  It just…flowed.

  And it was beautiful.

  When we finished, he waited a second in silence, then murmured, “Want to hear a secret? That song just got picked up for an upcoming romance movie starring that guy from those last three Hunger Games movies. You know, the pretty boy actor?”

  Pretty boy actor? I couldn’t stop one eyebrow from arching. Shane and that actor could almost be brothers with their similar carved jawlines. I smirked. “And is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “You tell me, Princess.”

  It was interesting how differently he could make that nickname sound. The media used it like an insult. Jessie turned it into an inside joke against the media. But Shane...

  Shane used the nickname like a challenge, as if asking me if that was really all I was.

  There was just enough lingering anger inside me to give me the courage to blatantly check him out from head to toe and back again. “Depends on what you want for your career, I guess.”

  One corner of his mouth twitched, and I wondered what it would take to make him fully smile.

  He stared at me for a long minute. Just when I was about to try to find something to talk about, he beat me to it. “It got dark in here.”

  “Yeah. There’s a remote somewhere around here for the wall lights.” I looked around and found the remote on a side table. But when I hit one of the buttons, it lit up the LED pillar candles that filled the fireplace opposite Shane instead. “Oh. Sorry. Not what I was aiming for—”

  “It’s fine.” He sat there watching me, and I wondered what he was thinking. Was he regretting agreeing to do the tour with the princess of pop? “Mind if I grab a glass of water?”

  “Oh. Sure. There’s bottled water in the mini fridge or…” I started to wave a hand in the direction of the bar but had to
stop myself when my arm muscles screamed. But he was already up on his feet and grabbing a glass from the open shelving above the bar.

  He poured a glass straight from the tap, started to take a sip then stopped and turned to face me. “Thirsty?”

  I nodded, wondering why I felt so uncertain in my own home. It had to be his unwavering confidence. This guy took decisiveness to a totally different level. I couldn’t decide if it was cocky arrogance, or something else. A kind of surety and comfort in his own skin that I’d never known, maybe.

  He looked inside the mini fridge, grabbed a bottle of water and held it out, forcing me to get up.

  When I did, my knees cracked loudly in the silence, making me cringe in embarrassment. God, it really was like I’d turned into an old lady overnight. And my muscles were so stiff that I honestly wasn’t sure I could make it across even the two yards of distance between us.

  Wrapping my arms around my torso, I forced a smile and sat back down. “On second thought, I’m not really that thirsty after all. But thanks anyway.”

  He gave me an are you serious? look and crossed the space between us with two long-legged strides, all but stuffing the cold bottle of water into my hand.

  Then he stood there, looking down at me, and I felt strangely small and breakable. Or maybe it was just my aching, exhausted body and soul that were making me feel that way. I focused on opening the bottle of water and was mortified to find my cramping hands weren’t strong enough to twist the top off.

  “Wow. You really are pampered, aren’t you?” He took the bottle from me and twisted the lid off with a hard jerk, then held it out to me again as if I were an annoyingly helpless toddler.

  I stared at that bottle of water, suddenly sure that I wouldn’t take it from him if I were dying of thirst in the desert. “We should call it a night.” Now, before I found something to murder him with.

  Or broke down into tears right in front of him. Which would surely only make him even more disgusted with me.

  He set the bottle on the side table by my hand, his fingers drumming on the glass he held. He stared down at me. “I can’t figure you out. You live alone in this place?” At my hesitant nod, he said, “So then…what. You call a butler to open your bottled water for you?”