Page 77 of Kiss & Collide
She herded the two women back through the crowd and into the vestibule by the elevators.
“You can have all the cash in his wallet if I’m assured no one will ever hear a word about tonight. No one knows you were here. No one knows about this payment.”
One woman, the dark-haired one, nodded quickly and held out her hand. “Deal.”
“So …” the other one, a petite blond, said uncertainly. “You don’t want us to stay?”
“I want you to go home, change into your pj’s, spend the rest of the night watching Netflix on my dime, and forget this ever happened.”
“You got it,” the brunette said, folding the wad of cash up and stuffing it down her cleavage. “Come on, Brook. We’ll split up the money in the car. Pleasure doing business with you,” she said to Violet.
“But Savannah—” the little blond protested.
Savannah grabbed her arm. “You heard the lady. Let’s go!”
Once Savannah and Brook had been packed into the elevator, Violet took a deep breath. Disaster number one dispatched. She turned back to the bar, where Revenant Saints were just finishing their set.
Now on to disaster number two.
As she made her way toward the stage, she noticed Kiz and Ben over at the bar. For a brief moment, Violet regretted not being able to join them. She missed those two, and hanging out to catch up over beers would have been nice. Instead she had to talk to Ian, who was chugging a beer onstage between sets.
“I need to speak to you,” she said without preamble.
He turned toward her slowly, grinning with that seductive promise she remembered so well. “Hi, Sunshine.”
“I’m going down to the lobby. You have five minutes to join me there, or I come back up here and we have this conversation in a really loud, public, embarrassing way. Your choice.”
Before he could reply, she turned around and stormed back across the club.
In the elevator, she fired off a text to Maisie, directing her to scrub Reece’s social media of any and all evidence of this party, and to double-check team members’ accounts as well. Downstairs in the lobby, there was no sign of Savannah and Brook, and she prayed all evidence of their presence here had disappeared with them. Behind her, the elevator door dinged open to reveal Ian.
He’d arranged his expression into something approximating contrition, although she doubted he’d ever experienced that emotion in his life.
“Over here.” She led him to a dark alcove off the lobby, where there was at least a chance of privacy. “What the hell are you doing here, Ian?”
“I wanted to surprise you,” he said, smiling in that way he thought was charming.
She let out a scoff of laughter. “I sure was surprised. Howdareyou show up at my job like this?”
“But your boss loves us—”
“My boss is an idiot! This is mywork. Putting me on the spot like this is an asshole move, and you know it.”
“I’m trying to show you how important you are to me, Violet. I dragged the band all the way to bloody Vegas to play that wanker’s party, just for a chance to show you—”
“Show me what?”
“That I love you. That I want you back.”
The words sent a shock of clarity through her. “You don’t love me, Ian. You don’t really love anybody besides yourself. And maybe Astrid a little bit. On her good days.”
Her rejection had rattled his confidence, she noted. The seductive smile had vanished as he ran a hand through his sweaty hair in agitation. “Yeah, I know I’m a mess. I’m broken, Sunshine, okay? Is that what you want to hear? I am. My soul is broken. But you …” He reached out and seized her hands, gripping hard. “You could fix me, Sunshine.”
“No one canfixyou, Ian.” She tried freeing her hands, but he held on to her.
“You could, though,” he said. “You can do anything. You’re magic. When you were around, the band was magic. Don’t you remember whenRolling Stonesaid we were the tip of the spear of the next British Invasion? They called us the next Oasis. Don’t you miss being a part of that? I can get there, and you can be with me when I do. You can be a part of the music. A part of the magic.”
She stared into those familiar ice-blue eyes, processing that. Processingeverything. The thing was, she did miss the music. She missed those days when something as simple as a bridge in a song, or a thumping bass line, or a chord progression would burrow into her brain and heart and preoccupy her for weeks.
