Page 94 of Sweet Temptation

She looked me over, briefly, in my jeans and fitted black T-shirt, and I wondered if she was thinking something similar.

More bad thoughts.

“Good morning,” she half-sang.

“Morning.” I watched her put on coffee. She seemed pretty bright-eyed.

The party seemed to do her good.

I realized it made me feel… pleased… to see her happy. When she smiled at me, I could’ve sworn my cold, dead heart pushed out a single, creaky thump.

Fucking dangerous.

The last time I’d tried to make a woman happy, the result was a painful shit-show of a disaster that played out in a lingering, almost two-decade-long drama that I didn’t care to repeat.

Lesson learned.

I looked down at my laptop. I was sitting at the bar, where I’d been waiting for her. We had a meeting with Brody in a few minutes.

Summer disappeared down to her studio, briefly, returning with a laptop. It looked new, top-of-the-line, but was haphazardly decorated with band stickers, which was strangely cute.

While she got set up, I fixed us both a mug of coffee, and at eleven o’clock sharp, we were in a virtual meeting with Brody. Summer’s assistant, Pam, who lived down in L.A., also joined us. They were reviewing Summer’s schedule for the next few months, basically until the end of the year, and I was sitting in on their chat. I needed to be brought up to speed for my security assessment.

Summer had a number of gigs coming up—about two to three a week. Her final DJ gigs, booked through her former booking agent, Yancy, who also lived in L.A.. Her next event was tonight, here in Vancouver. After that, she was booked regularly right through the beginning of December.

Then she had a generous break scheduled around Christmas.

“You’re sure you don’t want any gigs over the holidays?” Brody asked her. “Replace the ones you lost in New York?”

“Nope. If that’s okay with you. I want to make the mental shift, start the new year with a fresh rock ’n’ roll mindset.”

“That’s fine with me,” he said.

“Next year, I’m a rock star. Let’s make that clear to the world.”

“That’s the plan,” Brody agreed. “I’d like you to make some public appearances with Ash and Xander before Ash heads out on the road with Dirty.” Brody had already brought me up to speed that Ashley Player would be joining the Dirty tour for a few months, starting in December, when Jesse Mayes came off the road. “I’ll make sure he gets his ass out to as many of your events as possible. Xander, too. Not like those two have anything better to do right now.”

Summer grinned, clearly loving that. “I’ll see if I can wrangle them a seat in the VIP section.”

“I’ll be there, too,” Brody said. “As often as I can. With Jessa, whenever she wants to join us.”

“Fabulous.”

“That reminds me,” Pam spoke up. “Yancy’s confirmed that he’ll be coming up for your Montreal show, Summer.”

“That’s great,” Summer said.

“I’ll be booking his travel today. But I’ll let you know exactly when he’ll be seeing you. He’s got a small window for that night, swinging through on his way to New York.”

“Perfect.” Summer glanced at me. “And if you could book travel for Ronan and Andre, too. They’re coming with me.”

“Of course,” Pam said.

“I’ll put you in touch with my office to coordinate,” I told Pam.

Our lunch arrived, and I went to get it. When I came back to the bar and unpacked the food, Summer and Brody were talking about Summer “moving forward” and “going big” next year. She was obviously excited, borderline impatient about it.

While we ate, they went over a bunch of invitations Summer had received for events and appearances—there were a lot of them, way more than one woman could attend. Brody approved or disapproved, Summer sometimes trying to steer him one way or the other. Pam adjusted the schedule in real time, and I weighed in when Brody asked. I was constantly weighing security concerns with budget in my mind, because every time I said, “We’ll need another guy on that,” it would cost Brody, which ultimately cost Summer.

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