“I said go away, Jack. And I meant go away.”

He banged his head once, twice, three times against the doorframe. It was the fourth time he’d done this, and—who knew?—it really could give a guy a headache. But he wasn’t leaving until she opened the door. He just needed to figure out a way to get her to do it. So far begging, bribing with dinner, and offering to cowrite his next hit song with her hadn’t worked. He’d reached the end of his creativity, and he was out of ideas. Unless a bolt of lightning struck or God himself reached down and zapped him with a sudden burst of inspiration, he would be standing in this hallway all night. And of all the places he could imagine pulling an all-nighter with a pretty girl, a narrow, dimly lit corridor lined with industrial-sized bottles of ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise wasn’t it. He hated mayo; even the sight of it made him nauseous. Jack rolled his eyes toward the ceiling just to have something else to look at.

“I’m not leaving, April. Not until you talk to me.”

“Then you’re going to be standing out there until the rapture hits, because I’m not talking to you before then.”

The rapture? Whatever. The sound of her muffled voice had long since driven him crazy, and not in a good way. He could tell she’d been crying, could hear the wetness in her voice despite the fact that it was laced with the kind of anger that meant she wanted to kill him. The combination managed to soften his attitude toward her, while at the same time it gave him a stronger urge to see her.

“April, there’s a crowd out there. Do you really want to cause a scene in a place like this?”

She made an exasperated noise. Even through the closed door, he could hear the murderous undertones. “Says the man who just created the biggest scene this place has seen all year. Nice try, Jack. Why don’t you go sing some more? Maybe this time do a striptease or two to really drive your female fans wild? Oh! It could be your last chance to get a little crazy.” She laughed at her stupid joke.

And it was stupid for sure. He couldn’t help it if that song had shot to number one overnight. The fans picked the hits, not him.

“I’ve never done a striptease in my life, and I’m sure not going to start now.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “April, open the door.”

“No.”

“Open the door.”

“Again, no.”

“I don’t understand why you’re being so difficult.”

“I don’t understand why you’re still standing out there.”

Jack pressed a fist to his forehead. Women. You couldn’t deal with them, yet you couldn’t kill them either. At least not unless you planned it really well and didn’t get caught. And so far he hadn’t been able to figure out how.

“April, we need to talk. Other than the last ten minutes I’ve been standing in this hallway, I’ve dealt with your silent treatment for three long years now, and frankly I’m getting pretty tired of it.”

He knew that would work. The door flew open with a bang, and before he could say uncle, a wild pair of eyes attached to the same body as a pair of fists emerged—one pair glaring a hole through him as the other pair shoved his chest and knocked him backward. He hit the wall, and a jar of mustard grazed his shoulder on its way toward the floor. Thankfully it didn’t bust open; it did, however, land on his foot. Hard. He stopped himself from letting out a yelp. He would not look like the immature female in this weird situation.

“What the heck was that for?” he yelled.

“Are you kidding me with the three years of silent treatment?” In a complete unsurprise, she managed to yell even louder. She also used three fingers to jab him on the shoulder. Repeatedly. “I left you a million messages, and you ignored all of them. And before that, I seem to remember you snatching up my lyrics, writing yourself a whole little song around them, and never saying another word about it. If you were having to endure a silent treatment from me, you’re the only one who knew it because you disappeared like the coward you are!” She jabbed him again.

He’d had more than enough. Nobody called him a coward and got away with it.

“First of all, I didn’t know they were your lyrics until it was too late to do anything about it. The song was already on the radio, April. Second of all, I called you back, but you ignored my messages. And if you were so angry that you couldn’t even talk to me, why didn’t you sue? Or at least go to the press?” He backed up a step and ran a hand through his hair. “Some people interpret a lack of initiative as a lack of interest. And you did neither, so—”

“I hired a lawyer! I called the newspaper! I did a lot of things back then that I wish I’d followed through with.” Her wild eyes focused a bit, but she still looked slightly rabid—like the foaming-at-the-mouth thing was a real possibility.

“You really called a reporter? Then why didn’t the news break? My career would have fizzled before it even had a chance to start.”

April sighed, long and slow. “I said I called the newspaper, not that I talked to a reporter.” She shook her head, clearly embarrassed by something in her memory. “I accidently got transferred to the classified section, where I remained on hold listening to really bad Muzak for fifteen minutes. Eventually I got sick of it and hung up.”

Jack barely won a battle with a smile struggling to break free. Barely. This wasn’t the time for lightheartedness, and he still had something to tell her. Something he didn’t want to say, but he had to get this girl on his good side somehow.

“April, I’m sorry. Really, I am.” There, he’d apologized. She had no choice but to get over it now. “I really don’t know what else to say.”

It was silent so long that he looked up. Her gaze met his with a sad, wary smile. “Thanks, Jack. But honestly, sometimes sorry isn’t enough.”

She didn’t mean to say those last words, except she did. Because even though sorry isn’t enough was in direct contrast to the forgiveness she had been raised to believe in, this time it was just the way she felt. She believed Jack was sorry. Sort of. From her earliest memory, she’d had an unusual talent for reading people—and she could read Jack. The man had remorse invisibly tattooed inside the worry lines on his well-scrunched forehead. He also wore cockiness like a pair of expensive new shoes, and that wasn’t going away anytime soon.

She just didn’t know if she could bring herself to forgive him.

“Did you really not know the lyrics belonged to me?” She didn’t know why, but suddenly she thought his answer might contain the key to this whole forgiveness thing.

Might.

Jack pinched the space between his eyebrows. “I didn’t. Not until I heard your first message. And then . . . I don’t know, I just—”

“Didn’t know how to stop it?”

Jack studied his feet as though searching for a way to disagree. But she knew he couldn’t, just like she knew there wasn’t a way to answer it that would satisfy either of them. April didn’t know if there ever would be. The only thing she knew right then was that her shift had just ended. She tore off her apron and rolled it into a ball, then looked up at Jack with what felt like a weak smile.

“This is it for me. I think I’m going to head home and pretend this day never happened.”

He finally looked up at her. “Come on, it couldn’t have been that bad. You got to see me again, after all.”

She made a face before she could stop it. It just figured that she would be the only woman in America less than thrilled at the chance to talk to Jack Vaughn, especially considering her dream of making it big in Nashville. Oh, the irony.

She sighed. “From what I’ve heard, you talked to my sister the other day. Otherwise known as Bridezilla. Otherwise known as the bane of my existence. Otherwise known as the woman who makes more demands than Paris Hilton at a sample sale. Otherwise known as—”

Jack gave a soft laugh, and something about the sound wreaked a weird sort of havoc on her heart. “You lost me at Paris Hilton, but I did talk to your sister. She seemed a little stressed.”

April didn’t know if she detected sarcasm or not, but she went with it anyway. “Yes, I’m sure she’s stressed. Because what bride wouldn’t be going crazy when she’s busy ordering her sister to call the caterer, take care of decorations, rewrite wedding vows, pick out a negligé for the wedding night, make plans for—”

“Wait—she expects you to write the vows?”

April didn’t consider this the most outlandish item on the to-do list she’d just recited, especially considering the fact that wedding night shopping had forced her into three Victoria’s Secrets, one Fredrick’s of Hollywood, and another store that she would never speak of again, ever. Not even under the threat of the torture chamber or being forced to give up ice cream for a month. Both pretty much equaled the same thing.

She nodded. “Among other things. I think I’ve rewritten those vows a hundred times, and each time she nixes them based on a couple of words. Sometimes only one. I’ve recited them in my head so much that I’m a little afraid I’m accidentally already married to her fiancé.”

This time Jack threw his head back and laughed. He had a nice jawline. Chisled. Slightly unshaven. She liked unshaven.

April hated herself for noticing.

“I don’t think it works that way, but I could be wrong.”

“Let’s hope you aren’t. Sam’s a great guy and all, but he’s a little shorter than I like. Not to mention he’s been dating my sister for three years. I believe in a lot of things, but sharing boyfriends isn’t one of them.”

Jack raised an eyebrow and glanced down at himself. “You like your men tall, do you?”

April wanted to punch herself right in the middle of her big mouth. Of course she would say that out loud. And of course Jack was over six feet tall. “Not super tall, definitely not as tall as you.” She raked her gaze over his features to communicate her displeasure. There. That should do it.

Maybe.

“April, I’m thinking . . .” With a hesitant smile, he dragged in a slow breath and all she could think was please quit thinking, please quit thinking. But as her usual luck would have it, Jack’s mind was in full working order. “You’re off work, I’m finished performing. Do you want to get coffee or something? I’d like to find out more about how you got talked into wedding-night shopping. Interested?”

April gave a little laugh. No, she wasn’t interested. No, she couldn’t care less what he wanted to find out about her. No, she didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t even like coffee.

Which was why she couldn’t believe it when her brain seemed to forget their earlier altercation and her mouth opened completely without any help from her and said, “Sure. Coffee sounds great.”