But it would take an hour each way, at least, to drive to LA. The flight to Vegas was in less than three.

“Heath please.” I didn’t want to argue the point. Not in front of Colton. My two worlds had just collided and to say there was an awkwardness in the air was like saying Atlantis had sprung a leak.

“I’ll reschedule our flights. We can join the band later,” Heath said, his eyes still fixed firmly on my ex-boyfriend. When he looked at me, his face softened. “Let me do this for you. Let me take you to the hospital.”

“Are you sure?”

He smiled and I fell in love with him all over again. “Whatever you want to do, we’ll do it.”

Colton didn’t argue. He told me Poppy’s room details and after another disapproving appraisal of Heath’s magnificent shirtless form, drove off in his rented Audi Spyder.

While I showered and changed, Heath rang the airline. When I was in the bathroom pulling my hair back into a high ponytail, he walked in with a frown on his face.

“I couldn’t get us on other flights that will get me there in time for this afternoon’s publicity shoot.”

The band was committed to the shoot. Heath had to be there.

“Then you have to go. I will take a later flight.”

“Or you could come with me.”

I swung around to face him.

“I have to see Poppy, Heath. She has done a lot for me over the years. You heard Colton, she is very ill. If I don’t go and something happens -” I tilted my head, suddenly realizing what was behind his frown. My eyes rounded. “My God, you don’t trust me!”

When he didn’t respond, it was like a slap in the face.

Finally, after everything we’d been through—after finally pulling down the walls and letting him in—he still didn’t trust me. Something inside of me snapped.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” I demanded. “Tell me you trust me.”

He had to think about it.

“I trust you. It’s your ex-boyfriend I don’t trust,” he finally said. But it was too late. His mistrust had hit a raw nerve and I’d fallen into a deep well of anger while I waited for him to tell me I was wrong.

“What about all the women who couldn’t care less about you having a girlfriend. I don’t trust them, but do you see me throwing a tantrum like a two year old?”

“They’re strangers. Colton is your ex-boyfriend.”

I gritted my teeth. “Exactly. My EX boyfriend. EX!”

“Something tells me that doesn’t mean a hell of a lot to him.”

“Just because you’re helpless when it comes to keeping your hands off the opposite sex, doesn’t mean we all suffer from the same affliction,” I snapped.

I didn’t mean it, but I was angry. And my mouth couldn’t be trusted to keep itself shut when I was angry.

Heath narrowed his eyes. “If I’m not mistaken you just called me a slut.”

“Well … if the shoe fits …” I raised my arms outwards.

Yep. My mouth just couldn’t help itself.

Heath’s eyes flashed and his jaw flinched as he clenched his teeth. He stepped closer to me as he snapped, “I’m not the one riding off with my ex-boyfriend.”

My hands went to my hips. “Oh, so now I’m a slut?”

Because he was angry at me, he raised his arms outwards just as I had. “Like you said Harlow, if the shoe fits …”

It took approximately three seconds for the brush in my hand to collide with his shoulder. Bad shot. I was aiming for the head.

“Fuck you, Heath. Go to Vegas. I’m staying right here so I can see Poppy. With Colton.”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

I grabbed my denim jacket and stormed through the house. My cell was by the front door. Angry I rang Colton. I wasn’t hanging around to be insulted any further.

“I think I’m going to need that ride to the hospital, after all.”

Pretending not hear the smile in his voice I grabbed my handbag, slamming the door behind me as I left Heath’s house.

This was our first argument as a couple and it had spiraled out of controlled so quickly. Heath felt threatened by Colton. I got it. But just as he had expected me to get over the threat of all the women who wanted to get into his jeans, I expected the same of him. Yet instead of dealing with it, he acted like a jerk.

Riding in the Audi towards Beverly Hills, I tried to calm myself down.

“You care to tell me what happened?” Colton asked in his Southern drawl.

I shook my head and gazed out the window. I wasn’t sharing what I had with Heath, with him.

“You shouldn’t have called yourself my boyfriend. You and I broke up, remember?”

“I apologize.”

Even though I wasn’t looking at him, I knew he was smiling. Colton liked to cause mischief. But when I didn’t reply, the smile left his voice. “I didn’t mean no harm, Harlow. I didn’t mean to upset your summer fling.”

I turned to face him. “It’s not a summer fling, Colton. It’s so much more than that.”

He looked surprised and stared at me a little longer. Then his eyebrows rose and he turned away, shaking his head.

“I sure hope I’m in the room when your daddy meets him,” he said, turning back to the road and grinning. “And when your mama sees those pictures all over him.”

“They will accept him.”

Colton raised his eyebrow.

“You truly believe that?”

Did I? How on earth was I going to explain Heath to my parents?

I raised my chin. They would have no choice but to accept him. Accept us. Just because they had never envisioned their eldest daughter falling in love with a heavily tattooed musician, it didn’t mean it wasn’t in my future. And Heath was my future.

If he stopped being such an ass.

Chapter Thirteen HEATH

Because we had argued I woke up with a big ache in my chest.

Because she wasn’t with me, I felt empty and frustrated.

I lay in my bed and looked up at the ceiling, lost in the lazy rhythm of the ceiling fan. I missed Harlow and wanted to hear her voice. I checked my cell phone on the bedside table in case she’d called or texted, but there was only a text from Devo and Bandit with a picture of them and a couple of showgirls they’d picked up overnight.

I lay back and rested my hands behind my head. It was only 7:09 am. Half of Vegas was only now getting to bed and I was wide fucking awake. I hated that Harlow and I had fought. Hated how I had left. Hated that I had an entire day ahead of me with nothing to do but think about our argument and question myself.

Had I fucked things up between us? Would my jealousy send her back into the arms of her ex-boyfriend?

I rolled onto my side and punched the pillow and replayed our argument.

It reminded me how charming and handsome her ex-boyfriend was. I detested that he’d been with her. That he’d once touched her. Kissed her. Made love to her. I had never known jealousy until he’d walked back into her life.

He was everything I wasn’t. He was from her world; I wasn’t.

Frustrated, I got up and took a shower to clear my head.

Somewhere between LA and Vegas I’d lost my mind. I was obsessing and I knew it.

Was she with him now? Is that why I hadn’t heard from her? Was she sitting across from him somewhere, mentally comparing the two of us?

Oh hell! Was she in his arms?

I paused, breathing hard as I stood under the shower spray, and closed my eyes to brace myself against the image of the two of them together. Him touching her. Kissing her. In bed with her …

I slammed my palms against the tiled wall. I couldn’t take any more of my own self-sabotaging behavior. It was like I was stuck in the middle of a Clapton song. On my knees because my girl had turned my whole world upside down.

Fuck. I’d officially entered crazy town.

Shoving off the faucets I toweled off and went to the bedside table to retrieve my phone. I hit Harlow’s number and waited for her to answer. Ready to beg forgiveness. Plead insanity. Promise her everything she needed to hear. Anything to end this madness I was plagued with. But the call went straight to message bank. I tried a second time but again it went to message bank.