“You said rule four. What are the other rules? Again, asking for a friend.”
“You sure you don’t want to sit in back with the rest of your girl band?” Rhett asked, sending her a sidelong glance.
“In your dreams,” Elsie said, holding a box of rubber body parts, her lips pursed as if trying to hold back a smile.
God, she was prickly as a pissed-off porcupine when stressed. And she was stressed. But knowing that all she could have on beneath that prim posturing and skintight Lara Croft–esque leather pants was a thong was a total turn-on.
Elsie had been wise to turn him down. While she took risks in her designs, in her personal life she played things safe, and there was nothing safe about their history or the sparks flying between them. Which was why he was determined to keep his distance. They were both licking their wounds and trying to find themselves and had no business complicating that with a kiss. No matter how badly he wanted a replay.
They were wrong for each other. She was building her life here in Portland, working hard to create stability, and Rhett’s life was chaotic and unpredictable. The only thing that would come from crossing the line would be someone getting hurt, so he’d decided to back off, work on his music and avoid her as much as possible.
Then he’d found her on the losing end of a battle with some sex dolls and there he was reorganizing and reloading her crap into his Range Rover.
“My dreams will include you, leather, and that ax. In case you were wondering.” Leaving him wondering why he was so bad at following his own advice.
Thankfully, she ignored this. “Are you sure you don’t need your car?”
“Nope. I’ve got a ride.” Who was twenty minutes late. Not that he cared, he’d rather listen to Big Pete jackhammer his way through Rhett’s floor than fulfill his obligation.
She gave him a once-over. “Is there an award show I don’t know about?”
“No, Steph is doing a pop-up boutique today and I said I’d be there.” He held his arms out and did a little spin, and when he looked over his shoulder, he caught Elsie staring at his ass. Good to know she was having as hard of a time as he was when it came to their attraction. “It’s a tie-required event.”
“Isn’t that weird? You going to an event with your ex? I mean, the last time I was in a room with Axel had been at our divorce proceedings and I nearly stabbed him with a pencil.”
Not for the first time, Rhett found himself trying to reconcile the picture Axel had painted with Elsie’s story. “I promised her before the divorce was official. Plus, the sponsor said they’d pull out if I didn’t show.”
Elsie handed him three foam signs and he easily slid them into the trunk. “It’s clear she’s using you for your name to bring more people to her event.”
He shrugged. “I agreed to go.”
“Before she left you.”
She hadn’t actually left. She’d been in Tokyo on a shoot, and he’d been in New York when she said she wanted out. They hadn’t seen each other for weeks and he was about to get on a plane to go spend the weekend with her, to tell her he wanted to give it a real go, to fix things. He’d already cut back his tour schedule, canceling several dates and moving around studio time to be with her.
In the end, it hadn’t mattered. She wasn’t willing to make the sacrifices he’d made, then she’d dropped the bomb that she didn’t want kids and that was something he couldn’t sacrifice.
It wasn’t a “later” or “not the right time,” she’d changed her mind completely. He knew she didn’t have the best of childhoods and that her parents’ split had really affected her outlook on marriage, but while they’d been planning their wedding all she could talk about was starting a family with him.
Hell, he wasn’t even sure when it all changed, but it had and it simply confirmed what he’d suspected over the years—that people aren’t always who they say they are.
“I can’t control how she acts, only how I do,” he said. “I made a promise. I don’t go back on them.”
“I forgot that about you.” She held out a box but when he went to take it, she didn’t let go. “I forgot a lot about you.”
“Ouch.”
“All I mean is that we were with other people back then.”
“What happened between you and Axel?”
“Besides the whole ‘Girls marry their fathers’ adage? My dad was pretty absent growing up. Okay, he was fully absent, so I promised myself that if I ever married it would be to someone who loved me enough to stay.” She snorted. “Then I married a guy whose job it was to be gone.”
Rhett went quiet. And problem number two presented itself. He was gone more than her ex. That was the nature of the business. Unfortunately, being wrong for her had never felt so right.
He shoved in the last box and sat on the end of the cargo area. “What’s it like being married to a musician?”
“Lonely.”
