Chapter 4

four

Wrenlee

I kind of hate how easy Marley watched me go, assuring me that I shouldn’t feel guilty because Cara would have another girl renting my corner of the room by the end of the night. Still, I do feel guilty. I feel guilty for leaving Marley there, alone.

Cash pulls the SUV to the curb, commanding, “Stay,” before he exits, slamming the door behind him.

I take that moment to really take in my surroundings. I officially don’t know where home is, I’m with a man I don’t know at all, and I’m sitting in the passenger seat of his Land Rover Defender. Dad owns a small mechanics shop in the small town where I was born and raised, so I know my cars. And I know this one is very, very expensive. Hell, this car costs more than the average person makes in a year. It’s so expensive, that not a single person in my small hometown owned one.

I never thought I’d have the chance to sit in the passenger seat of one of these, much less know anyone who could afford this kind of luxury.

Pushing my palms into my eyes, I feel the steady thud, thud, thud of my pounding head against the irregular beat of the pulse that thunders so hard in my wrist, I feel it in my palm. I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t think right. I’m exhausted, sleep deprived, and afraid for my future.

I’m emotionally untethered. Unhinged.

My head hurts.

I need coffee.

The door opens and I jump, dropping my palms from my eyes to make sure it’s Cash who slides into the seat next to me. I’ve always considered myself a lucky person. I always felt blessed to have the life I had. Until I moved to New York. The day I landed here was the day my luck ran out.

I’ve been in fight or flight since.

It would be just my batch of unlucky luck to be sitting passenger in a freaking Defender when it was hijacked.

Wait—do I smell coffee?

My eyes drop to the cup Cash holds over the center console toward me. “Coffee. Three creams.”

I think I love him.

I take the cup, my voice trembling. “Thanks.”

He doesn’t reply as he shifts the SUV into drive and merges into the wave of early morning traffic.

Cash’s penthouse is out of this world. Did I say penthouse? The guy who plays in a band at Addy’s Ace is living in a New York City penthouse. I just can’t. My brain—it’s not working to form sense of this. I mean—how?

“This is where you live?”

“Yep.”

I’m dumbstruck. “But you play at Addy’s Ace.”

He turns to me, dark eyes pinning me in place. “The gig isn’t about the money.”

“What’s it about?”

“Experience. Exposure.” He moves through a large living space that is honestly, so frigging amazing I just want to sit and appreciate it, down a wide hall. I follow, feeling hesitant and a little unnerved.

Okay, okay, I’m a lot unnerved.

He passes the first room on the left and mutters, “Studio. It’s professionally sound proofed so you don’t have to worry about being disturbed when the guys come to practice.” I wouldn’t have dreamed of complaining, but I don’t say that. I don’t reply at all.

We pass another door. “Bathroom.” He moves into the next room, placing my boxes on the bed. I do the same with my crate. “This is your room.”

I feel a little like Alice in Wonderland as I glance around the spacious room. I can see through two open doors that there is a walk-in closet and a private bathroom. This is—heaven.

But at what cost?

I turn to him, steeling myself. “What do you want from me, Cash?”

“Performing is what I do. It’s who I am, who I’ve always been and will always be. The band is close to getting signed, and with that comes a kind of exposure I know to expect. My family is in the entertainment industry. Both my parents are well known movie producers, so this life isn’t new to me. I’ve done a good job of keeping my life somewhat private, still, there are the groupies. The ones who really hang on. The obsessed.” He pauses to study me, so I nod my understanding although I’m not sure I understand where he’s going with this. “When I perform on stage, I give myself to the crowd. All of myself. No holds barred. I’m there. One hundred fucking percent present.” He thumbs his lower lip roughly. “But when I’m off stage, my life is my own. I like my privacy. My space. My freedom. We haven’t been signed, and it’s already bad.”

“What’s bad?”

He holds my gaze unflinchingly. “The women.”

I frown. “Sorry?”

“They’re everywhere, pawing and clawing at me. Writing sick fucking letters trying to—” His lip curls. “Entice me. I don’t fucking know.”

He’s getting angry, I can sense it. And, clearly, when Cash is angry, he swears. A lot.

“What kind of letters?”

His jaw hardens. “You don’t want to know.”

“Okay.” I shrug. “I don’t want to know. That doesn’t explain why I’m here.”

“They all want to be my girlfriend. Want to tie me down and ride the easy track to fame. I don’t fucking know.” He swipes at his lip again. “Just know I’m not interested.”

“So, you want me to pretend to be your girlfriend, so they think you’re unavailable and don’t try?”

“Some will still try.”

“Gross.” I wince. He watches me so closely I feel like he can see through me. Into me.

“The guys in the band like the attention. The groupies. They didn’t grow up in this life, so it’s still a novelty to them.” I nod again. “They don’t get why I’m annoyed by it. They take the pussy thrown at them and walk without looking back. That would be all well and good, if that pussy didn’t stir shit after, but it almost always does.” When I flinch at the harshness of his words, he glares unapologetically at me. “You’ll give me a buffer. Space to breathe.”

“Why don’t you just get a real girlfriend?”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Already told you, real girlfriends want to tie a man down. Manipulate him. Cause shit. I’m not interested in that.”

“O—kay.”

“I don’t want to be accountable to anyone. I don’t want to have to explain myself when I’ve gotta stay late at a gig. Don’t want the cold shoulder when I want to fuck, and my chick is pissed that some bitch tossed her panties at me on stage. Like I said, I want my freedom. That’s where you come in.”

“Because this isn’t real, I won’t make demands of you?”

“Exactly.”

I nod, rolling my lips in thought. The guy is an asshole, that’s a definite fact. I mean, who talks like he does? Who has so little respect for the sanctity of the relationship between two people, and the emotions that go along with it, that they speak as he does? Propose what he’s proposed?

I look around the room and feel disappointment crush my chest. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“What?” Goodness, the man is shrouded in shadows. Does he ever smile?

“I’m not the girl you’re looking for, Cash.” I pull my bottom lip between my teeth. “I wish I could be because—you’re offering a kind of reprieve I really need but—” I shake my head at the dream that is this bedroom. Then I harden myself against that dream. “My reputation means something to me. When I look in the mirror, I want to see a girl I like and respect. I won’t feel that way if I pretend to be your girlfriend to the world and you make me look like a love-struck fool with no backbone or self-respect. I’m sorry. I should go.”

He steps forward to catch my arm before I can lift the crate. His dark eyes search mine, mining deep for emotions he can pluck and pull to make me do what he wants.

“What do you mean you’d look like a love-struck fool with no backbone or self-respect?”

I lift my shoulders. “You want a docile doormat to sit at home while you mess around doing whatever you want to do with whoever you want to do it with, and not question you. That’s not me. Honestly, you’d have better luck with one of those girls that has her own agenda for fame as your real girlfriend. She wouldn’t care about what you’re doing, because to her you’d be a steppingstone.”

His eyes sweep my face. “Why would you care about what I was doing?”

“Never in a million years would I stand for my boyfriend cheating on me. Not ever. If I’m with someone, I’m with him. Only him. I would demand the same from him, and if he couldn’t do that, I’d walk. It’s that simple. I won’t be the girl the world looks at as that girl.”

“If I agree to drop the women, you’ll do this?”

I raise my brows. “You’d do that? Drop the women for this farce?”

“Farce.” He smirks, a small chuckle spilling between us. “That your only condition?”

I shake my head dumbly. “I mean—I don’t know. How are you…” My face begins to heat to an all-time new hot. “What are you going to…”

“You askin’ me how I’ll get off, Kitten?”

“Oh my God.” I close my eyes, because I cannot look at him.

He laughs, the smoky sound uncomfortably hypnotic. Deliciously rough.

I snap. “I get it. You don’t need that. You’re good going without—um—release.”

He stops laughing, pinning me with that dark glare. “Sex, Kitten. The word you’re looking for is sex. And, no, I’m not good without…release. But I’ve got two hands. I’ll be fine.”

“Wow. Um—okay.”

“Anything else you got a problem with?”

I’m still flushed, and he’s still holding onto my arm. “I won’t have,” I pull in a trembling breath. “Sex with you.”

“You’re not my type. Like I said, I’ve got hands.”

Ouch.That stings, even though it shouldn’t.

I shake it off. Deep breath, Wren. Deep breath. “So, how would we do this then? Fool the world into believing we’re real, I mean.”

“Easy, in public you act like my girl. Show up to a few shows here and there, backstage access pass, shit like that.”

“Uh huh. So, we hold hands and hug in public and I jump up and down all giddy like when you sing a pretty song.” I bob my head. “Got it.”

“Takes more than holding hands and hugs to convince the world we’re dating.” There’s something in his eyes that makes me think he’s silently laughing at me when he teases—or I think he’s teasing, “But you can jump around to your little hearts content.” His voice takes on a rough edge. “And I don’t sing pretty songs, Kitten. Have you ever even listened to my music?”

“Honestly?” I wince.

“If we’re doing this, honesty would be preferred.”

“Then no, I haven’t. Your music isn’t my thing.”

He raises a single brow. “What’s your thing?”

“Well,” I pause. “Books. I like books.”

“You don’t like music at all?”

“Sure, I do. But not the way most people seem to. It just doesn’t bring me the same kind of peace that it brings to everyone else.”

He leans back, eyes narrowing. “You watch serial killer documentaries in bed?”

“What? No.” It’s my turn to eye him. “Why would you even ask that?”

“Just checking.”

“Right.” I give a little shrug before I spin slowly to make a show of appraising the room. Then, I decide it’s my turn to tease him—just to see how he handles it. “I like my serial killer docs with popcorn in the living room with all the lights turned low.”

If I weren’t looking for it, I wouldn’t have seen the slight widening of his eyes. I can’t help when the laugh in my chest bubbles up to fall into the space between us. I double forward, slapping my palm to my thigh. “Your face. So good.”

“So, you like games, Kitten.” The corner of his lip pulls up in an unwilling smirk and there’s a dark glitter to his eyes. “This is going to be fun.”

Then, without another word, he turns and leaves me in my new room, wondering just what I’ve gotten myself into and what kind of games a man like Cash Jagger plays.