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“So am I doing it to help the band?”
His eyes pin mine with fury and I’m incapable of words or movement. He stares into me before he shakes his head, his emotions somehow even more volatile than before.
“You know, at one point you were everything I needed. You had my back, you helped me survive, you offered me—” his voice cracks. “—you offered me hope! Do you have any fucking idea what that feels like? When someone offers their hand and then takes it back? I get it. I get it. You think you’re protecting me.” He gets right in my face lowering his voice so the driver can’t hear. “You. Are. Killing. Me.”
Tears sting my eyes then slowly stream down my cheeks. But he’s not affected.
“This is business.” He smirks coldly. “Not personal. Got it, loud and clear.”
He jerks away from me like I’m contagious and I’m left in a state of shock, willing him to talk more. I want to hear more because this is the Sookie I love more than anything. This is the Sookie that’s real, that lets me in… that makes me realize that I’m not alone.
“That’s not what I meant,” I keep my voice as calm as possible. “I have orders too you know. I have a job that I have to do and I want to protect you, I do. That’s all I want. But it seems like this is the direction they’re headed in for the series, you just need to be careful not to go too far. And everything’s going to be okay.”
“Too far?” He tilts his head toward me, then leans in again. Coming closer. So close that I can feel his sweet breath against my skin. Something’s different about him. Something changed in that haunted school of horror.
The scales… the scales that I always thought tipped in my favor in terms of experience and control, seem to have shifted ever so slightly. I know it.
And he knows it.
“Don’t you think,” His hand goes to my thigh and squeezes. “That I’ve already gone too far?”
My breath hitches in my chest. “I, no, I mean tonight was, I get it, I do, it was just,” His hand slides up my thigh resting on my hip, then slowly slides up my stomach, just touching me like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like he’s done it a million times even though I can count the number of times it’s happened.
He’s touching me like he owns me.
And I don’t want him to stop.
“Do you still want me to play by your rules?” His thumb grazes one of my breasts. “Play the women against each other and go on another random date?”
My body is officially on fire. And this moment is torture in so many ways. Tears fill my eyes, stupid tears because I’m so turned on by this guy who’s kind of acting like a jerk, but then, he’s not lying and he’s not wrong. It’s my job. It’s his career. Everything he’s worked for. So I lie because I think it’s the best thing to do, even though I hate the words as I speak them.
“Yes. I need you to play by the rules of the show and right now your career and ratings trump everything.”
His hand drops away from my body and I want to grab it and put it back right where it was. He leans back in his chair then looks out the window. He doesn’t know I see the single tear that falls from his right cheek or that I see the way his hands are clenched.
I keep breaking him.
I keep breaking myself.
And I know one more break might crack the entire thing, but what other choice do I have? He has to survive this not just for himself but for the band, and I have my job too—not that even matters to me if I had to compare the two. But the band matters a lot. And then there’s Rae, who I know now especially is watching every move.
And the world is a fickle place and spinning this is going to be difficult enough, he did sign the damn contract though. But maybe he’s right, maybe I should have stopped them all, everyone in both groups but all I kept getting told from execs was to do my job and that this would be fun for fans.
It isn’t feeling so fun.
I reach across and put a hand on his knee. He shoves it away.
“Don’t.” His head shakes, his voice aloof.
I realize he’s never rejected my touch before and it hurts.
Bad.
And then he drives the knife even deeper.
“I need hope to be dead.”
Chapter Fourteen
