I could survive a week stuck in the Catskills with Boyd without losing my shit. I could. All I had to do was not talk to him or look at him. Definitely not touch him. The thought slid into my brain, all sneaky like, and I winced.
Of course there would be no touching. Why would I even think that?
But I knew, didn’t I? Even though I disliked him more than any other human on the planet, there was still something there. Some invisible tether that caused chaos. That lit the electricity or energy or whatever the hell you wanted to call it between us and made it impossible to ignore. It’s true what they say. Love and hate and desire are practically the same thing. They’re differentiated by circumstance, timing, and weakness. It’s the weakness that gets you in the end. Because it’s the weakness that slowly tears you down until you’re like a junkie jonesing for a score.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and inhaled deeply. I was screwed. No one knew where I was or how to get in touch with me. Heck, the driver I’d hired for the trip out didn’t know who I was. I’d paid cash and kept my head down. He was a one-off, some random Uber guy and not part of my regular crew. I had no security. No driver. No nothing. I was stuck here with no way out, and, I’m not going to lie, the thought made my stomach turn.
The old me would have thrown a fit. Maybe broken a few things, like the guitar laid across the coffee table or the ceramic donkey (yeah, you heard me, ceramic donkey) on the table beside the sofa. But I wasn’t a spoiled little bitch anymore. Not really. I’d grown up. Sort of.
It was just…
God, this was going to be hard. Anyone other than Boyd would have been a breeze. But he still pushed every single button I owned, and it would take everything in me to make sure he never found out.
Seriously, this was a disaster. An utter and complete stain on what had to be the most pathetic, most miserable twenty-four hours I’d had since the last time. And he’d been at the center of that shit storm as well.
I snuck a look at Boyd. He was at the counter, huddled over a notebook, sweatpants barely hanging on to his hips, still no shirt, his hair all mussed like he’d just crawled out of bed. His profile hadn’t changed a bit, save for a slight crook to the nose. He’d broken it in a bar fight. Or at least that was what TMZ reported before his handlers managed to squash the story. He looked like a walking billboard for the most fuckable man on the planet.
And I’d had him. All six foot three inches of him. For one crazy summer, he’d belonged to me. Until he didn’t. Until he’d ripped my heart out with one hand, while with the other, he’d patted me on the shoulder and told me it was for the best.
My cheeks grew hot thinking about it. That summer. The summer when everything changed. I’d shared things with Boyd Appleton that I’d never told another soul. Secret things. Intimate things. All the hopes and dreams any sixteen-year-old would carry. Except mine were weighed down by the baggage my parents had given me. My mother had been living in a drug-induced haze at the time, and my father had never been around all that much. Too busy touring the world. Too busy making a career. Too busy getting love from pretty much everyone except his family.
Then he went and got married, and suddenly, I had a new stepmother and stepbrothers.
I’d laid myself bare to Boyd, and he nearly crushed my soul. I learned the hard way never to go there again. Never to trust. Never to be vulnerable. Never to let anyone in. After I picked my heart up off the floor, I squared my shoulders and got on with it. I dated. Sporadically at first, and then things got crazy. There’s something addictive about the power of sexuality, and sexuality was something I had in spades. I used mine with a cold, surgical precision that would make the most jaded man-eater proud.
I even considered myself in the odd relationship. Or two.
But I never gave any of those men anything other than my body. They possessed me because I let them. They held me because I let them. They fucked me because I wanted to fuck. There was no making love. No emotional bond. Nothing more than the physical release I needed, and the fleeting sense of comfort a warm body could give me.
It was enough. I didn’t need anything more.
Hell, the honest-to-God truth is that I wasn’t upset my boyfriend, or rather former boyfriend, Aiden had screwed another girl. Or that I’d been the one to catch them in the back stairwell of the club, Aiden’s pants around his ankles, his hands on her head as she bopped up and down between his legs doing her best to blow him into the New Year.
Nope. It was the fact that the girl had been Samantha Needles, an up-and-coming country singer who my dad had just signed to his label. A girl he’d written songs for. A girl he spent all this time with. A girl touted as the next big thing. A girl Axel was probably screwing. If it had been anyone else, I might have joined in on the fun. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t done a three-way before. But not her. She—
“You have to stop that.” Boyd’s voice cut through the silence.
“Stop what?” Wrapped in a blanket on the sofa, I turned toward him.
“Grinding your teeth.”
“I wasn’t grinding my teeth.” Okay. I was going to ignore the pain settling along my jaw because that would be an admission of guilt.
“Yeah, you were.” He looked up from his notes, irritation and dislike clouding his eyes darker than ever. “Stop it.” He tossed his pen and glared at me.
“I’m hungry.”
“There’s milk in the fridge. Toast. Cereal. Help yourself.”
“I don’t drink milk.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Why? Not in fashion?”
“Dairy is overrated.”
“Have toast, then.”
“I don’t eat bread or rice or…” He looked as if he was going to throw something at me. “Carbs in general.”
He swore and shrugged. “I don’t care what you eat. Just find something and stop grinding your teeth.”
I was still wearing my workout gear, but I’d doffed the ridiculous heels. On bare feet, I shrugged out of the blanket and padded into the kitchen, shivering as another wave of ice rammed into the window over the sink. I opened the fridge and took a good look, and ignored him completely as I perused the contents.
Three cartons of milk. Yuck.
A loaf of bread. Non-gluten free. Seriously? Not to mention the carbs. That was a no.
Cheese. No again.
Butter. Hell no.
Back bacon. Gross.
Eggs. Onion. Water. Ugh.
My choices were pretty slim, but I couldn’t ignore the rumbling in my stomach because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. I rooted around a bit, hoping to find an avocado or green pepper or broccoli. But there was nothing other than a bottom drawer filled with beer and the other one filled with bottles of water.
I grabbed the eggs and onion and rifled through the drawers until I found a frying pan and spatula. I turned on the front burner, set down my pan, and expertly cracked four eggs, then cut up some onion and tossed it on top. I spied the salt and pepper and, after seasoning, let the food do its thing. When it was ready, I scooped two eggs onto a plate and moved back to my spot on the sofa.
“There’s more there if you’re hungry.” There. I’d been the adult. I’d shown him that I wasn’t going to act the way he expected me to. Smiling to myself, I sank back onto the sofa and grabbed for the blanket.
“I’ve already eaten. Make sure you clean up your mess when you’re done.” He packed up his notebook and headed for the bedroom. I stuck my tongue out at him and settled in to eat. Good. I was glad he was gone. I could eat and grind my teeth and make as much noise as I wanted to.
Except, an hour later, I was bored out of my mind and damn near climbing the walls. I cleaned the kitchen and stared out the window at the ever-swirling snow and ice. It was getting bad out there. Like really bad. Another wave of ice hit the panes, and I backed away, wandering the large main area of the cabin. We used to come up all the time when I was younger, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been. There was a bunk in the loft, and that was where I usually slept. I glanced up, but it was in darkness and didn’t seem all that welcoming.
Beside the stone fireplace was a long table filled with pictures—there had to be at least twenty-five or so. My fingers grazed them as a knot formed at the back of my throat. So many to look at. Me and Dad on the dock. My sisters and me laughing in front of a Christmas tree. A dog we adopted one summer, Blackie, begging for food.
He was a scrawny thing who’d shown up in July and sent all of us girls over the moon. But by the time September rolled around, we had to leave for school and he was gone. I’d cried for at least a week, and when I’d gone back to my mother’s place, I’d begged her for a puppy. She’d refused, of course, said that a dog was too much work. Said it would be like having another child in the house and that she could barely keep track of us three. As if. Our nanny, Matilda, was more of a mother than she ever was.
A black-and-white photo caught my attention, and I grabbed it. For a long time, I stared at the image—so long that my vision began to blur and another damned knot formed in my throat. Taken when I was about three, in it I sat beside my dad and stared up at him, eyes wide, a chubby face filled with adoration and love. He grinned down at me, an old Gibson across his knee, his young face not yet touched by fame and all the demons that chased it.
We’d been happy once.
We’d been a family.
Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, and I set the picture back in place. I couldn’t do this. I didn’t want to remember all that had been lost. What was the point? There was no going back. Not for any of us. I hadn’t talked to my father in six months. He’d been holed up in his recording studio over Thanksgiving with her, Samantha Needles, and hadn’t made the trip back to the plantation house, even though it was his tradition. Hell, I could have stayed in New York City or done the West Coast instead, but I thought he’d be there.
He hadn’t shown for Christmas either. That had been a lovely affair (cue the most sarcastic tone ever) spent with my mom and her new boy toy, who was exactly three days older than me. And then, well, New Year’s Eve had happened.
In that moment, my eyes squeezed shut, my heart racing faster than a locomotive, I realized something. I was lonely. So damn lonely.
The world thought I had everything. They looked at the pictures I posted online and saw a queen. A boss who owned her shit. It couldn’t be further from the truth. The only thing I owned was Fendi, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton.
My stomach was off, and I shivered. I was exhausted in my head, my body, and in my heart. I grabbed up the heavy blanket and headed for the loft. It was probably cold up there, but it was dark. All I wanted to do was sleep. And hide.
Maybe I’d never come back down.