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“No.” She shook her head. “I just want us to explore whatever this is in private. When and if it becomes more than just sex, we can discuss the next move.”
“Honey, this is already more than just sex. We’re friends. We’re bandmates. We’re going on tour together soon. That’s a lot of together time. What more do we need?”
“A commitment.”
Oh, hell.
She went right for the jugular.
And that word made me a little uncomfortable.
I didn’t know if I was ready.
This was definitely not just sex, but I didn’t know if I was ready for all that.
“See what I mean?” she asked when I didn’t respond right away. “This is why we need to think on things. Give it some time. Maybe go on a date or something.”
“How are we going to go on dates if you want to keep things secret?”
“We’re on a date now, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, I guess we are.”
“I’m not looking for anything, Kingston. That’s why I want to be careful. You hold my future in your hands. If you get mad and decide this, whatever it is, isn’t worth the headache, you can kick me to the curb. I know you’re going to say you wouldn’t, but you could. And until I’m in a position of equal power, I have to be careful. We both do.”
I wanted to protest, but she was right.
“You’re right,” I said quietly. “We’ll take it slow. One day at a time sound okay?”
“Perfect.”
I really wanted to lean over and kiss her, reassure her, but that kind of trust would take time.
* * *
We spent the day in bed, watching TV and having the best sex I’d had in years. She left around eight-thirty because she didn’t have clothes or anything she needed for tomorrow, and we had a band meeting in the morning. It was hard watching her leave, but I figured it was good for us to spend the night apart. I needed to mull over how I was feeling because she was right that I had way too much power.
I didn’t like that it was this way, but there was no solution short-term.
People counted on us for jobs, we had millions of fans, and there were contracts in place that took multiple lawyers to keep track of. It wasn’t that we had some nefarious plan to use Devyn—or anyone we brought on to replace Carter—but there were things that meant we had to be cautious. For her sake as well as our own. She’d barely had a taste of the fame that we lived with, and it would only get worse. With that in mind, we’d structured the contract to only include things we did between now and the end of the European tour. The plan was to re-evaluate at the end of that time, but she was correct in that I could literally tell the guys I wanted her gone.
And she would be gone.
They would argue, ask me to reconsider, whatever, but at the end of the day, if I really wanted her gone, all I had to do was say so.
Until she was in a position where she had a contract that protected her further than Europe, she had everything to lose.
I needed to talk to someone and the person that came to mind was Z. Now that he was in love and in a committed relationship with a kid, he would have the best perspective. The meeting was at his house and the plan had been to get there early but a call from my mother had delayed me, so when I got there, I realized I wasn’t as early as I’d hoped. I parked behind Tommy’s SUV and Kellan’s Lamborghini, looking around for Devyn’s Toyota. She wasn’t here yet, and I’d just reached for my phone to text her when the gates opened and she pulled in, parking behind me.
I leaned against my Maybach, waiting for her to get out of her car.
“Hey.” She came around from the driver’s side and all I could do was stare.
She was wearing a fucking suit.
A suit that included a tight royal blue skinny skirt that hugged her gorgeous curves and fell just above the knee. She had on a pale pink silky-looking blouse and a bolero style jacket that matched the skirt. Along with high stiletto heels in the same color as the suit. Her hair was down and curled in a way that covered the shaved part of her head, so it looked like a regular haircut, and even her makeup was different. It was lighter, in shades of purple and pink, along with bright pink lipstick on her lush lips. Lips I’d spent most of the last two days thinking about.
“Hi,” I stammered, still staring.
