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Chapter 1HayleyI blinked my eyes open. What the hell had woken me? Jesus, someone was shouting obscenities outside my hotel room door.
“Get off me. I can manage,” the gruff male voice slurred.
That London accent could only belong to one person.
With a groan, I swung my legs out of the bed and shuffled on a sweatshirt to cover my cami. I padded across the wall-to-wall carpet, opened the door and peered into the corridor.
Pierce Fox, heart-throb drummer for ChiMera, the hottest band on the planet and my employers, had one arm slung around Jake, his manager’s shoulders. He stumbled and cussed as Jake half-led, half-carried him down the hallway.
“Need a hand?” I tilted my chin.
“Thanks,” Jake muttered, Pierce’s drunken movements almost knocking him into the wall.
I stepped forward and looped my arm around the bad boy’s waist.
He bent and rested his head on my shoulder. “Yankee girl.”
His nickname for me.
At least he wasn’t so hammered that he hadn’t recognized me, his stylist. Black curls brushed my cheek and the aroma of his Bourbon scented breath tickled my nostrils.
Even shit-faced, he was drop-dead gorgeous. Not that he affected me. Not even the feel of his toned body slumped against mine disturbed my equilibrium. I’d steeled myself to be unaffected by him since my first gig with ChiMera on the European leg of their ‘Ghost in the Heart’ world tour two years ago. After a break while they’d laid down the tracks for a new album, we’d begun touring again, this time through Latin America. Tonight, they’d played their final concert on the continent in Buenos Aires, and we were due to fly home to LA tomorrow for a few weeks’ R&R before setting off for New Zealand.
Jake slid Pierce’s key card from the back pocket of his jeans and I adjusted his arm on my shoulder while Jake opened the door.
With gritted teeth, I helped him drag Pierce’s drunken ass through the living area of the suite to the bedroom. We stood him by the bed, and he toppled like a felled tree onto the mattress. He looked up at me with puppy dog eyes.
“Stay,” he begged. “I might choke on my vomit.”
Hardly the most appealing of prospects. Call me soft-hearted, but I couldn’t refuse. Not while he was gazing at me with that little boy lost expression. In any case, the risk of him choking was real and I didn’t want his death on my conscience. I liked Pierce, and he appeared so forlorn, lying in the center of the king-sized bed, dressed in thigh-hugging torn black jeans and a ripped white tee.
Jake cleared his throat and shot me a pleading look. He narrowed his cornflower-blue eyes. “Would you stay with him? I’m too exhausted. I’ll make sure there’s a bonus in your pay-check.”
An inebriated snore came from the bed. “No need, I’d have done it anyway,” I smiled.
“Absolutely not. I insist.” Jake shook his head. “This is an important job and monetarizing it will give you the incentive to do it well.”
I nodded. The extra money would come in useful. Most of my pay went to top up the fees for Dad’s care in the nursing home where he’d been living since diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I suppressed a sigh. Last time I visited with him, he mistook me for Mom, who’d passed away after suffering a stroke when I was a senior in high school.
“Don’t put up with any shit from him.” Jake’s English accent was more clipped and swankier than Pierce’s. “Tell him he’ll have me and the rest of the band to answer to if he tries anything…”
I felt my cheeks heat up. Between Pierce and me there’d always been light banter. He jokingly hit on me and I always slapped him down. There was nothing in it, just Foxy, as the band called him, being Foxy. If I’d said yes, he’d have run for the hills. I wasn’t one of his fangirls but a member of staff and ChiMera had a rule about not shitting where they ate.
They weren’t good at sticking to those rules, I reminded myself, remembering the lead singer, Axel’s, secret relationship with Phoenix, his backup girl. They were married now, and she sang with Vanilla Sky, who were also on tour with us.
Jake straightened the sleeve of his dress shirt. “I’ll order some breakfast to be sent up at eight for the two of you.” He glanced at his Rolex. “It’s three a.m. Five hours’ sleep should sober Pierce up. Please deliver him to a band meeting in my suite at nine o’clock.”
“Sure.” He’d made Pierce sound like a package. I rubbed my hands down my pajama pants. “We’re due to leave for the airport late morning, right?”
“Right.”
I could grab some extra shuteye while the band were having that meeting.
Jake lifted his hand and slicked his dark brown hair back from his brow. “If you have any problems, call down to reception and they’ll send someone to get me.”
