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“How long was I out?” I ask, my question cut short by a deliciously achy moan.
My muscles are stiffer than my greeter’s snapped reply, “Since you’re meant to be resting, let’s hope a minimum of eight hours.”
When I crack open an eye, the amused watch of my manager startles me more than the brightness of the early morning sun.
“Knox.” While scanning my surroundings to ensure we’re the only two people present on the rooftop, I scoop up the bedding until it sits under my chin, grateful that the high thread count sheets aren’t the only material brushing against my chest.
I’m still wearing a nightie.
After assuring myself my encounter with Laken wasn’t a dream—my body is too deliriously sore for it to have been fictional—I ask, “What are you doing here?”
Knox scrubs at the shadow on his jaw before slowly turning his eyes to me. “I could ask you the same thing.”
He drops his eyes to the teasing curve of my cleavage before he stuffs his hands into his pockets and strolls to the ledge of the rooftop. I realize the coffee I was smelling must have been bounding out of his mouth when his distance returns the scent I was sucking in before I crashed.
The delicious fragrance of raunchy sex.
After a beat, Knox spins to face me. Suspicion is rife on his face, but he also appears amused. “Lesley mentioned there was a room up here, but I wasn’t aware you overheard our conversation.”
“The bellhop gave it away,” I partially lie. He told me about the hidden entrance to the presidential suite but failed to mention that the rooftop had all the equipment needed for a steamy night between the sheets. “I thought it might be a good place for inspiration to strike.”
My smile hurts when Knox asks, “Did it?”
While nodding as enthusiastically as he asked his question, I stretch for the bedside table Laken placed my songbook on when I kissed him.
I have so many lyrics swirling in my head, making me dizzy, it takes my hand slapping the varnished wood three times before I realize the table is empty.
What the?
“It has to be here somewhere.” I slip out of bed before rummaging through the sheets. It could have fallen off the nightstand. We weren’t exactly making love. The bed’s feet are no longer indenting the rug under them. They’re several inches over from their original starting point.
After searching the bed, the sectional sofa, and the bathroom I should have used before falling asleep to stop any nasties, I sling my panicked eyes to Knox. “Have you seen it? I left it right there.” I thrust my hand at the bedside table, its tremor unmissable.
Dirty-blond locks fall across his eye when he shakes his head. “Maybe you left it in your room—”
“I didn’t leave it in my room.” I feel ill, physically sick. “I left it right there. Right next to…” My words trail off when I realize my songbook isn’t the only thing missing. Laken’s bags and the skintight jeans I had to peel off him are also gone.
Even the condoms we diminished from the stash in his pocket are nowhere to be seen.
He wouldn’t have taken my songbook, surely. What benefit would he get taking a book filled with songs consumers will never hear since they’re contracted to a label unwillingly to produce country-pop singles?
I freeze when a disturbing notion fills me.
The song I wrote last night isn’t under contract. It can be sold and performed by anyone because the only witness to its copyright is the person who stole it.
Just the thought of Laken stealing from me makes me the angriest I’ve ever been, but it has nothing on the guilt that rains down on me when I remember the inscription inside the cover of my beloved gift.
I can’t replace that. It is irreplaceable since the person who inscribed it is dead.
“Nik?” Knox murmurs, drawing my focus to him. “Are you okay? You’re not coming down with something, are you? I plan to have you booked out until Christmas.”
“I’m fine. I just…”—feel like a complete and utter idiot—“am excited about the upcoming tour.” When my stomach gurgles, I mutter, “And maybe a little bit nervous.” I step closer to him, my mind off my hurt and back onto the matter that had my songbook sitting empty for half a year. “Are you sure the pop angle is what we should be taking? The lyrics I—”
“I thought you trusted me?” he interrupts with his puppy-dog eyes on display for the world to see.
“I do. I just—”
He interrupts me this time by gathering my hands in his and gently squeezing them. “If it will ease your mind, we will discuss it more during our flight to LA, okay?”
