Page 16 of Tattoos and Heartbreak
The one thing I know for certain was that I didn’t want to run into Rivers. I didn’t know what we were supposed to be doing—Taylor hadn’t exactly sent me a set of instructions—and I hadn’t yet managed to get my feelings about the situation under control. Until that happened, I didn’t want to risk seeing him again. My brain was still too full of the secrets we’d told each other, the way he’d laughed as he answered one of my questions.
The memory of whiskey on his breath as he leaned in to kiss me.
The echo of his fingertips brushing down my side.
I gasped involuntarily, confirmed my idea that I didn’t want to see him until after I’d figured out how I felt about the deal I’d made, and turned to my best friend in the world—who only knew half of why this was going to be so complicated.
“Dinner?” I asked breathlessly.
She frowned, obviously noticing my tone, but then shook her head. “Dinner. Somewhere away from the hotel, I think.”
I reached down and took her hand. “That,” I said, “sounds like the best idea you’ve ever had. Let’s get out of here and not come back until it’s quiet enough to sleep.”
* * *
The next morningcame quickly and before I knew it we were caught in the stream of people heading down the stairs and into the lobby, each of them babbling about some plan or other for during the tour, or something they were supposed to be doing today. I’d never been on such a large tour before—certainly not as part of the entourage—and I couldn’t believe how many people were involved. I knew there were three bands on the tour and that they all had people supporting them, but there had to be at least one hundred people milling around in the lobby when we got there, adjusting bags and equipment and visiting with each other. A couple of them seemed to be in charge of everyone else and were shouting out directions for who was going in what bus and where we’d be heading next.
Honestly it was all more than a little bit overwhelming.
When Anna grabbed my hand and started to pull me toward the front doors, I followed her gratefully.
“Thank God we have our own car and don’t have to worry about this lot,” she muttered over her shoulder. “If this is the kind of chaos they deal with on tour, I’m thinking Olivia and Connor might have been right to do it the way they did the first time.”
I laughed. “That first time was mostly a mistake, from what I’ve heard. I don’t think it was their choice.”
“Maybe not. But I’m guessing they might want to go back to it,” a voice said from my right.
I glanced up, wondering who the hell was listening in on my conversation with Anna, and stopped dead when I saw Rivers Shine looking down on me. His mouth was caught in something that was half smirk, half shy smile, and he shrugged.
“Hey, sunshine girl.”
“Hey,” I said faintly. I’d woken up this morning thinking I had a handle on my feelings. Or at least a plan for how I was going to get through this. It was just a business deal, I’d told myself. Just an agreement I’d made in exchange for a shot at a contract.
I wasn’t going to let Rivers Shine get into my heart or even under my skin. Hell, I didn’t even have to like him. I just had to pretend I did.
Easy.
But standing there staring up at him, I couldn’t stop the flood of emotions going through me. They started small. Just a tickle in my throat. But soon they were ballooning inside me like someone had injected pure Rivers into my blood. I was tingling all over and something had happened to my voice.
“Rivers. What are you doing here?” Anna, who evidently hadn’t had Rivers injected into her bloodstream, asked sharply.
He cast her a slightly less shy smile. “My job. I’ve got orders, and they include borrowing your girl for a second.”
“Borrowing my girl?”
“Yep.” He turned back to me and slipped his fingers between mine. “Ready for this?”
“Ready for what?”
Instead of answering, he pulled me through the doors and into the bright, flashing lights of a number of cameras, all the lenses pointed at us as reporters shouted Rivers’ name and a bunch of questions, each of them trying to get his attention.
“Rivers, who’s the girl?” one of them screamed. “Is this one actually something special?”
When he turned to me, his eyes were glinting with mischief. He ducked down and pressed his lips to my ear, the touch both soft and electrifying at the same time. “Just smile,” he whispered. “We need some pictures together but you don’t have to say anything. Just pretend I’m saying something really funny.”
I smiled automatically, already knowing what the cameras would capture of this moment. Rivers’ face buried in my neck, my eyes glazed and a gentle smile on my mouth as if he was whispering sweet nothings to me. These would be the perfect pictures to start us off on this whole scheme, and would definitely make it look like we were an actual item.
We were doing the jobs Taylor had assigned us. And we were doing them perfectly.
