Page 57 of A Billionaire Rebel

He shrugged. “I’m only human. She was cute. We fucked, and when I see her a few months later, she’s fat. Tells me it’s mine, and probably is.” His face twisted into something ugly. “If you don’t dump Damon, I’m going to sue for custody of my son, and none of you will ever see him again.”

Thirty-Two

Damon

I finishedwashing up my dinner dishes and wondered how I was going to fill the next day. Yesterday and today, I’d essentially locked myself in my studio and gone through everything I had there.

Each instrument, every piece of sheet music. I found three notebooks I’d forgotten about, all full of random stuff. Some of it was nonsense that was pretty much good for nothing. Some of it was mediocre and might be better with a little tweaking.

And some of it was pretty damn good.

Good enough that I felt the need to find out how they sounded. Picking out a few tunes was what had turned a day-long project into a two-day thing, but it’d been good to take things slow, to get away from myself for a moment. So much of what’d happened to me recently had been based in emotion. I couldn’t make decisions about my future from a purely emotional standpoint. My music came from inside me, but what to do with it had to have at least some practicality to it.

The desire to move forward from a place of logic also made it a good idea to spend the last two days not seeing Jae. We’d texted and talked a bit, but the physical space had been needed. Not because I didn’t want to be physically close with her. Hell, I could spend days in bed with her and not get bored. I just couldn’t think straight when I was around her, and to make good choices, I needed to be able to think.

I’d go see Otis tomorrow, I decided. Kalini had called me this morning to touch base and mentioned that she and Hawk had gone to see Otis yesterday. None of us wanted him to think that just because the band wasn’t together anymore that we were walking away from each other. Otis, out of all of us, needed to know that we wouldn’t abandon him now that things were hard. He’d dealt with that enough.

Maybe I’d get his take on the whole solo idea. As much as I didn’t think I had the talent to do it, I hadn’t been able to get the suggestion out of my mind. Otis would tell me how it was without worrying about offending me.

My phone rang, and I quickly dried off my hands and reached for it, smiling when I saw Jae’s name on the screen.

“Hey, darlin’.” I could always get a smile when I let my accent bleed through. “How’d work go today?”

“I can’t do this anymore.”

Immediately, my heart dropped. Even if her words hadn’t been enough to worry me, her tone would’ve done it. Flat and unemotional, she didn’t sound like her. Something was wrong.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.” Jae seemed to sigh. “Look, the time we spent together was defined by a tragedy. Now that we’re moving past it, it’s becoming clearer that we’re too different for this to be anything real.”

I leaned against the counter. This didn’t make any sense. Things had been fine between us when I’d taken her home Monday night and when we’d talked last night. There had to be some reason for this to have become an issue. If it was even the real issue at all.

“What’s going on, Jae?” I asked, trying to think of anything that could’ve brought about this change. “Are the press bothering you? If they’re harassing you, let me help.”

“They’re leaving me alone,” she said shortly. “It’s just over, Damon. We both knew it was going to end like this. I’m just being the one to pull the plug instead of waiting for you to do it, okay?”

“No, it’s not okay.” I could hear how harsh my words sounded, but I couldn’t soften them. “I thought we were building something real.”

“Look, you’ve got some serious changes in your future, decisions to make.”

I heard a tremor of emotion and tried to cling to that. “Jae, I–”

“You should focus on your career. You don’t need any other distractions. And I have my family to look out for.”

I was losing this. Losingher.

“Jae, please, talk to me.”

“It’s over, Damon,” she said quietly.

And the call ended.

I stared at the phone, too stunned to do anything more than that. For the third time in ten days, my world had been completely upended.

Thirty-Three

Jae

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