Page 40 of How to Catch a Rockstar

“I won’t let Mike fire you.” I realize what I said and backpedal. “I mean the band won’t.”

She grins. “Thank you but you know sooner or later Mike’s going to find an excuse to fire me and there’s nothing the band can do about it.”

“We’ll fire him.” I’m not letting our manager fire Aurora when she’s pregnant with my baby.

My baby? I can’t have a child. I can’t be a parent. I don’t know how to be one. I force those thoughts away. I’ve got other issues to deal with at the moment.

“Where will you go? Will you return to San Diego?”

She rubs her forehead. “So much for figuring this out tomorrow,” she mutters before raising her voice. “I can’t return to San Diego. I sub-let my apartment.”

“You sub-let your apartment?”

“I thought I’d be in Winter Falls for a few months. I can barely afford my rent as it is. I wasn’t about to pay rent for a place I wasn’t living in.”

“What about your parents? Can you live with them?”

Grief flashes in her eyes before she blinks and all emotion is wiped away. I scowl. I don’t want her green eyes empty. I want them twinkling with humor or burning with passion. Passion as I spear her hair with my hands and devour her mouth.

My cock wakes up from its deep slumber. I clear my throat and force thoughts of Aurora naked in my bed tangled up in my sheets out of my mind.

“No, I cannot.”

She whirls around and marches toward the stairs. I stop her with a hand on her wrist.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

She growls at me. “What aren’t I telling you? Am I somehow obligated to reveal all my secrets to you? I’ll be out of your hair in the morning.”

Panic hits me. I can’t let her go. I can’t have her, but I can’t let her go.

“I’m sorry I pushed you. I shouldn’t have asked about your parents. I fucking hate it when people ask about mine.”

She sighs. “It’s not a secret what happened to my family.”

The implication is clear. It is a secret what happened to mine. Mike has worked hard to keep my past out of the headlines. I figured as one of his assistants, Aurora knew about my past but maybe she doesn’t.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“You should probably know since you’re the only family Little Bean will have besides me.”

I swallow. “The only family?”

“My parents died in a motorcycle crash when I was fifteen.”

Tears well in her eyes. She sniffs to stop them but one escapes. I use my thumb to wipe it away.

“I’m sorry, feisty girl.”

“It was a long time ago.”

I cradle her face with my hands. “Time doesn’t matter.”

“I miss them. I miss them every day. But I especially miss my mom now. I have so many questions and she’s not here to answer them.”

The tears she was holding back begin to fall down her face and I haul her into my arms. I rub my hands up and down her back as she sobs.

She’s breaking my heart but there’s nothing I can do. I have no pretty words for her. I have nothing to offer her but my body.

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