Page 13 of Finding Emotion

She had come close the one time, during the car accident that had changed everything for her family and launched her into the life she truly wanted… until her own stupidity and fucking Jack had almost ruined it.

The anger that finally rose mixed with a strange sense of relief. She dragged her notebook closer, jotting down random words that came to mind. She had to be careful. The label wouldn’t back a song that came too close to outing what they wanted to keep secret.

The words stopped flowing and her pen hovered, crossing through some and circling others. She rewrote the ones circled together in a verse, deciding to flip-flop a couple of the words before she wrote it out yet again. A quick hum, and it wasn’t too bad, but it was still missing something. She dropped the pen, then lay down with her hands cushioning her face like a pillow.

Mandy’s voice came from the doorway, as if she was waiting for just that moment to interrupt. “Why don’t you take a break? I’ve already got your things situated at the hotel.” She held up one of the key cards.

Skylar pushed to her feet. Her body had that floaty feeling that meant sleep might actually come. “Sounds good.”

Mandy helped her collect her things in silence. She had an efficiency that Skylar found soothing. After she had gotten the first four candidates for her manager fired, the label had been close to giving up. The expense to rerecord the few songs she’d finished for the next album with Winter Dust Storm hadn’t helped matters. Skylar had had every intention of sending the newest manager they saddled her with back, too, but Mandy had been difficult to ruffle despite her stick-up-the-ass vibe. They’d been together for the last two years. While Mandy had learned all her quirks, Skylar wasn’t any closer to understanding her manager at all. The woman reminded her a little of how her sister, Jami, had been before she’d lost herself to the hell she wouldn’t give up.

Skylar looked out at the street, wondering if the limo ride would be quick. Maybe they could walk to the college if she had another urge to create. The limo made things bearable, but she still preferred not to be in a vehicle at all.

“Your sister called last night to see how the flight went,” Mandy said. “I told her you should be available this evening.”

Skylar tapped her fingers against her leather pants before digging out her phone. As she suspected, a missed call and a couple of texts showed Jami had tried her first. Her sister had gotten better about checking in with Mandy when she couldn’t reach Skylar.

Skylar had made an effort to call Jami more regularly after she found out what had been going on with her. Survivor’s guilt had twisted something inside her sister. Instead of sticking around to help, Skylar had taken off as soon as she could. She should have felt guilty, but Jami had always seemed to have things together. Hell, no longer taking care of a teenaged Skylar should have helped. Instead, she’d fallen prey to that prick Andrew Raneer.

Skylar had thought her sister was smarter than that. Smarter than her.

She’d never thought her broken, waste-of-space father would live over a decade after the accident. Skylar had done her part to try to convince her sister to put him in a facility, but there was no convincing Jami about what was right. Instead she’d made sure she kept her own problems from being a burden on her sister, downplaying the breakup with Jack as much as she could and ignoring some of the rehab steps. Apologizing to Jami was the last thing her sister needed, not when she had taken everything onto her shoulders already.

No, Skylar didn’t feel any guilt over leaving. She only wished she’d made fucking Drew a eunuch from her own encounter with him as a teenager before their parents passed away. If she’d at least warned her sister, things might have been different for both of them.

“I said, we’re here, Skylar,” Mandy repeated.

Skylar blinked as she stared out the window at the hotel. A group of paparazzi was already snapping pictures of the limo as they rushed forward. Skylar scowled at them. After her stint in rehab, she’d taken quite a few jabs from the paparazzi and had treated them about the same.

“Shit, are they expecting me to arrive with Mr. Sweetface?” Skylar asked.

“Damon Lynch’s fans continue to escalate the story on social media,” Mandy admitted, “but our social media liaison posted the picture I took of you at the studio last night. Your fans are more excited by the new album you’re working on.”

“But my numbers are nothing compared to his.” Skylar sighed, already regretting her spontaneity. “Whatever. Waiting won’t make it better.” She shoved the door open, expecting to be blinded but still irritated when it happened.

“There he is!” someone shouted, and the cameras gave her a moment to breathe as they mobbed a smiling Damon.

Of course he would smile for the cameras in the early hours of the morning. Her eyes narrowed as they took in the fact that he was also wearing the same thing as the night before. So he had booked it off the plane in order to go from her mouth onto some local girl. She should have figured that.

“I ran into his manager here,” Mandy murmured. “We thought you both staying at the same hotel might be the best response for the rumor mill.”

Skylar gritted her teeth as she took in Damon’s more than pleasant demeanor as he signed some autographs for the fans. “The same room would be even better,” she muttered, stalking toward him. She shoved past those in her way until her arms curled around him from behind. “There you are!” she said for the cameras, her lips moving closer to his ear. “Fancy us doing our walks of shame at the same time.”

Her laughter shifted into something real when he turned in surprise with those adorable cheeks of his red like apples.

Chapter 8

Damon picked up her scent right away. Despite it not seeming like her, Skylar had a faint scent of something floral. It was slightly sweet like honey, but with a dash of what might have been lemon. When the hands that grabbed him included that unique smell, he knew who it was, but he still didn’t quite know how to face her.

Remembering the way he’d exploded in, like, two seconds brought on his stupid blush. Her mention of a walk of shame didn’t help. He might have been with the guys, but he was coming back in the morning wearing the same thing he’d had on the day before. Still, it couldn’t have been thoughts of him with another woman that put that pinched look around her eyes, not when she was also coming back after a night out.

He reached out, smoothing the wrinkles at the edge of her brow with his thumb, causing some of the tension in her eyes to fade as she blinked at him. “So you got little sleep, too?” he asked. Her grip on him felt too tight. He linked their hands together instead and tugged her toward the hotel. “Come on, you must be spent.” He raised a hand in a wave for his fans and thought they escaped into the hotel pretty well.

“I haven’t checked in with Jimmy for a while,” he murmured for Skylar’s ears only. “I take it the buzz got worse?” He scanned the lobby, but his manager wasn’t in sight. That made sense. It was way too early for their lifestyle.

“Why’d you touch my face like that?” Skylar muttered, but she pressed her chest against his arm as she clung to him. “At least grab my ass or something.”

It was for the cameras, Damon reminded himself, but his cheeks weren’t getting any cooler at the feel of her breasts against him. “I can’t go that far.”

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