The security guard was too busy gawking at rock stars to notice Toni shift from the wall to the barrier fence. Abandoning her gear and luggage, she hiked up her skirt and climbed the cool metal railing. She dashed toward the bus. Logan drew to a halt as Toni streaked toward him. He turned in her direction. The look of betrayal on his handsome face made her stumble, but no, she couldn’t fall. Not now. She had to reach him. Had to explain. Oh God, don’t look at me like that, Logan. She feared he wouldn’t listen to her or believe her even if she did plead her case.

An arm around her midsection stopped her abruptly, and her feet came off the ground as she was pulled against a large hard body from behind. She struggled, kicking her feet and shoving down on the arm around her waist with both of her hands.

“Let me go!” she demanded.

“Not a chance,” the guard said. He grunted when her heel connected with his shin.

“Logan!” She struggled harder. “Logan, you have to listen to me. I didn’t do it. I swear.”

Logan shook his head at her, turned away, and continued toward the bus.

“Logan!”

He didn’t so much as look at her as she screamed for him. Yet her struggling had finally weakened the guard enough that she slipped from his grasp. Unprepared for freedom, she stumbled forward, catching her fall on her palms, before regaining her footing and racing toward the bus.

“Logan, please hear me out,” she yelled as he stepped onto the bus. He was too far ahead. She wasn’t going to reach him in time, and he refused to look at her, to give her a chance to explain. He was pulling away from her and taking her shattered heart with him.

The door shut behind him, and she slammed into it with both hands. Pain shot through her asphalt-scraped palms, but she didn’t care. Didn’t care about anything but reaching him. She didn’t know if he’d be able to hear her through the closed door, but she had to try.

“Logan, you know I’d never do anything to hurt you or anyone in the band. Remember when I couldn’t find my journal? Someone stole it or found it. I don’t know. But that’s where the information came from. I didn’t give it away. I didn’t sell it. You know I wouldn’t do that. I love you!” Tears overflowed as she pounded on the door. “Please, Logan, listen to me.”

The bus shuddered as it rolled forward. She walked beside it, banging on the door with one hand. And then she was running, trying to keep up. She stumbled through the parking lot, but it was no use. He was gone. Without even speaking to her. Gone.

She didn’t struggle when someone grabbed her and held her still. It was over. Her dreams. Her relationship with Logan. Her life. Over.

Her legs gave out, and she crumpled to the ground, sobbing for all she’d lost against the unforgiving asphalt beneath her quaking body.

Thirty-Two

Logan leaned his forehead against the inside of the bus door and swallowed against the lump of despair strangling him. He couldn’t hear Toni’s words as she tried to yell through the reinforced steel, but he could hear the desperation in her tone. How could she have betrayed them all this way? Had she played him a fool the entire time, like some sort of spy who used sex to get a man to spill his deepest secrets? No, she was too honest. Too sweet. Too gentle to do anything so underhanded.

But the evidence was on the page. Toni was the only person outside of the band who knew all the stories that had been printed. It couldn’t be a coincidence that they’d all been released in the same tabloid at the same time. What he didn’t understand was why she’d do it. She never seemed desperate for cash. Was she trying to earn enough money to get out from under her mother’s thumb?

“She should be glad Butch was the one who kicked her ass off the bus,” Reagan railed. “I probably would have killed her.”

“You might as well settle down,” Max said. “What’s done is done.”

“Does anyone know a good attorney? I’m going to sue her for libel.”

Logan understood that Reagan was upset. Her story was the only one that was current. Everyone else’s was something they’d had years to process. But she was overreacting. Did she really expect to keep her relationship with Trey Mills and Ethan Conner a secret forever?

“You can’t sue for libel unless malicious lies are printed,” Logan said, shoving off the door and climbing the steps. “Everything in that article was true.”

“I can’t believe you’re defending her!” Reagan yelled. “She ratted you out too.”

“I’m not defending her, just saving you time. You’d never win a libel case. You can ask Jessica Chase if you don’t believe me. She’s a lawyer, you know.”

“You don’t want to take this to court,” Dare said. “If you think this little article has exposed your relationship with my brother, imagine the stink a full-blown trial would create.”

Reagan crossed her arms over her chest and flopped into a chair. “What am I going to do?”

“Own up to your relationship,” Dare said. “You’re not doing yourself any favors by trying to hide it.”

“People won’t understand. They’ll think I’m some sort of deviant just because I’m in love with two men.”

“I agree with Dare,” Steve said. “People blow secrets all out of proportion, and then after the truth comes out, the gossip quickly dies down.”

“I can’t out our relationship. My father will kill me.”

“And if he reads the tabloids?” Dare asked.

“I’ll just deny everything.”

Dare shook his head. Logan sat beside him on the sofa, his stomach roiling with so much turmoil, he feared he’d be sick.

“Did Toni say why she did it?” Logan asked. He still couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that she’d sold their souls to the tabloids. It simply didn’t seem like something she would do. Maybe if he knew why she’d stooped to such a low level, he could find a reason to forgive her. Because damn it all, he couldn’t imagine spending the next five minutes, much less the rest of his life, without her.

“Of course she didn’t say why,” Reagan snapped. “The lying little bitch denied everything.”

“She denied it?”

Logan had initially felt too betrayed to even want to hear Toni’s side of the story, but now that the dust had settled, he was wishing he’d taken a moment to hear her out. She’d obviously been upset outside the stadium. He’d assumed it was because she’d been caught and subsequently fired.

“Yeah, she was going on about some journal she’d misplaced,” Steve said, flicking his wrist dismissively.

“Her journal?” Logan’s breath caught. She’d talked about losing her personal journal over a week before. He’d even gotten her a new one to replace it. “She was upset when it went missing. Shit, she didn’t sell any of us out. Someone took or found her journal and they sold us out.” A weight lifted from his heavy heart as he realized he hadn’t misjudged her character. Toni was the woman he’d fallen in love with, not some poser just trying to get the inside scoop on the band.

He had to call her. He slid his hand into the pocket where he usually kept his cellphone, only to find it missing. He checked his other pocket. Not there either. Shit! Of all the times to be without his phone.

“Has anyone seen my phone?” he asked, rising from the sofa to head for his bunk. Maybe he’d left it there when he’d changed before the concert.

“You are not calling her.” Reagan stepped into his path and placed both hands on his chest.

“Yeah, I am. I can’t even imagine how hurt and confused and upset she is right now.” He needed to tell her everything was going to be all right. That he still loved her. That they had to work things out because she was a necessity to his very existence.

“How hurt and upset she is? She betrayed you Logan,” Reagan said. “She betrayed all of us. You’ve known her a couple of weeks. How long have you known the members of your band?”