AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He nodded in agreement as he tapped the lid of his coffee. “Something’s up here,” he said. “Something like…” Then he shook his head, as if dismissing the idea as too out there. “Nah,” he said. “Who’d even do that?”
“Do what?” I was desperately curious.
“I mean,” he said. “If I didn’t know better I’d almost guess you were being blacklisted or something. Like someone’s pulling some strings and not letting one Shania Simms open a shop in LA. But I can’t imagine anyone doing something like that. I mean, your dick ex-boss might try, but surely he doesn’t have real-estate pull like that. Who would it even be?”
I opened my mouth to agree, but before I said a word my blood ran cold.
Someone rich. Someone powerful. Someone who’s got a grudge against me.
I sat back in my chair, one part of me thinking it was crazy, another thinking it was precisely the correct explanation.
Either way, I was going to find out.
Chapter Twenty-Four
SEAN
As I stepped up to the grand, white Ebell of Los Angeles, I could hardly believe that the wedding was actually about to happen.
We were close—very close. Tonight was the rehearsal dinner, then one day off to get everything finalized, and then the big day.
After over a decade of knowing these two guys, playing music with them, touring around the world with them, they were on the verge of settling down and starting the kind of lives that none of us could even imagine back when we were a few dudes playing rock music for the masses.
But it was really happening. And all the décor and the ceremony and the men and women in their finest dress really, honestly, just made me think of Shania.
The buildup to the wedding had been total insanity. Me and the guys had been working overtime to make sure that everything was set to go off without a hitch, and that’s to say nothing of what the women had been doing. One wedding was more than enough to keep a lot of people very busy, and we had two.
It meant that I’d been seeing very little of Shania over the last week or so. Our whole arrangement had been about easing the stress of this whole process, and we’d barely had the chance to do it.
I loved the hell out of my dudes and couldn’t wait to see them get hitched, but man, more and more I’d been finding myself wanting nothing more than to be sitting on some kickass overlook with Shania, a big Styrofoam tray of nachos in front of us, maybe a couple of beers, nothing on our minds but each other.
And there wasn’t only the good stuff to worry about. We still had to get to the bottom of whatever the hell was going on with her and the business. The thing had been weird as hell—why on earth was she having such a hard time renting a place? She had money, and even if her credit wasn’t that hot, I was more than willing to cosign. That should’ve been the start and end of it, but not a place in the city was willing to work with her.
Something was weird about the whole thing. And whatever was going on between the two of us, it was going to have to wait until after the weddings were over.
I stepped up to the long, white building, the lawn emerald green and the sky a cloudless blue above. Guests, all dressed to the nines, streamed in around me. Off in the distance was the press, of course, all of them trying to get shots of the guest list. I couldn’t believe what a circus this thing was turning out to be.
But then again, I should’ve anticipated it—the buzz around the weddings had been getting totally insane over the last few weeks. I could only imagine what the hell it was going to look like during the actual ceremony.
As it had been constantly, my mind went right back to Shania. I started searching the crowd for her, my heart racing at the mere idea of seeing her and saying “hi.”
Damn, how the hell did I get like this? Had a woman ever had a hold on me like this before? Maybe it was the wedding. Didn’t stuff like this have a way of making people think about love and romance and all that?
As soon as the word “love” popped into my head, I stopped in my tracks. Was that what this was? I gave the matter some serious thought, and the more I did, the more it seemed like the only fitting word to describe how I felt.
And it scared the living shit out of me.
A hand clapped down on my shoulder, snapping me out of my ruminating.
“Hey, bud!” Theo stepped up to my side, giving my shoulder a squeeze as he did.
