Page 130 of Play Dirty (Brooklyn Dawn 1)

I hated the shame and bitterness that wound through me. Don had been my manager for a long time, since before the chaos of the night that had nearly destroyed me. I couldn’t say we were friends. That wasn’t what I was looking for from people I employed. A cordial relationship and my business handled the way I wanted it to be were my only requirements.

Don Conway sufficed. Usually. I was beginning to wonder if I needed a different direction. Dissatisfaction was bleeding through my veins on a number of levels, and I couldn’t blame Don for most of them.

“I come up with words all the time.”

“Since when?”

“All a-fucking-long.” Despite the curse, my voice was low and without rancor. “Just because I didn’t offer them up for public consumption most of the time doesn’t mean I didn’t keep writing. I had to. It was the only part of myself I had left. Sometimes only in my head. Sometimes on paper.”

“And you didn’t feel like sharing that with me? Christ, I thought we were friends.”

“Harder to be friends with people who make money off you.”

“That’s your dysfunction, not mine. And we have done well by each other, or at least that’s how I see things. If that’s incorrect, you know where to find me.” He clicked off.

I stared at the phone in resignation. Pushing people away was my number one skill. Didn’t matter how personal of a connection it was. I could shove anyone out the door without a blink.

But in the old days, I’d trained myself not to feel regret. Necessary casualties weren’t worthy of such an emotion. I wasn’t going to change again for anyone. The softer, stupider Nash who’d had to self-medicate to deal with a business all too willing to use him up like chewing gum—he was dead.

I was dead.

So, no, I didn’t really care if Angel took my words and twisted them for her comeback. I should have. Intellectual property was a huge fucking thing, especially in this day and age for musical artists who got ripped off as often as they breathed. But words were like raindrops to me. Sweep these away, more would fall down. Maybe not as good. Maybe I’d be giving up something special.

If I was even capable of producing something special of my own anymore.

Even so, that wasn’t my main concern. How she had gained access to them in the first place was the true question.

She hadn’t been the one I’d thought I heard creeping around in the underbrush at Lo’s. I was willing to stake my life on it. She’d climbed in her car and driven away, ashamed. She wouldn’t have come back to skulk around to take pictures of Lindsey and I in an intimate moment. It just didn’t fit what I knew about the woman.

Someone had, however.

Lo attracted paparazzi of his own. Add in Lindsey’s star power and maybe someone had decided to nose around and see what they could come up with. We certainly hadn’t been circumspect.

As we weren’t circumspect when we went at each other like animals

on the morning I dropped her off at the airport. We’d behaved like lovers before a separation. People in a real relationship. She’d asked to see me in the city, and I’d agreed, but we’d never put labels on anything.

She’d climbed on a plane and I’d gone back in my Jeep, and with every text, I’d wondered why she was prolonging the inevitable.

I didn’t know how to be a boyfriend. God, that damnable word. A lover, I could handle. That was a temporary role. And when I was burying myself inside her, the voices ceased.

Not good enough.

Not right for her.

Just not fucking right.

But I could hear the hurt couched in irritation when I deliberately didn’t answer her. She didn’t get that I was trying to make it easier for her. Not me. I wanted to reply every goddamn time she sent me a word, or a wink, or a picture. I wanted to send some of my own.

I wanted to be a man I’d never been, solely for her. I just didn’t want to make it harder when the crash inevitably came.

This way, she could move on unscathed.

I wouldn’t be moving on. I already knew that and I’d made my peace.

Even so, I wasn’t going to let people take glimpses of us and sell them for profit—or worse, their own sick jollies. The more pictures, the more words molded into weapons, the bigger the chances of mortal wounds.

That wasn’t going to be allowed to stand. I would find out the source. Someone had stolen my notepad. Had taken photos of us at the most private time.

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