I heard the squeak of a sneaker and waited. They were going to come running soon, all of them. Greg and Bash and Diggs and all of those guys that were always staying over here, surrounding my mother like a flock of pothead butlers. Bash would mostly likely get here first and get pissed at me, possibly even take a halfhearted swing. That was what I needed, a fucking fight.

"Fuck you!" I shouted into the house.

"Oh, what the fuck, Jaxson?" Bash was indeed the first person to see me standing there with a broken, jagged chair leg in my hand.

"What the hell did you do?" Greg drawled, stoned as ever.

Then my mother pushed her way between them.

"I broke the chair," I announced. "You need to buy some new ones anyway. This bullshit, boho poverty chic is pretty pathetic when you consider how much your net worth is."

My mother just looked at me, nostrils pinched. I wanted her to lay into me. I itched for a fight so I could tell her exactly how stupid this whole wedding idea was.

She shook her head once. "What?" I challenged her. I sounded like a petulant teenager, which only pissed me off more.

"Diggs, can you grab one of the contractor bags? I think they're on the porch," she said, as calm as I was angry. She turned back to me. "Don't worry, Jax. Mommy will clean up your mess. Again."

As soon as my mother spoke, that was the end of that. They all turned away, done with me.

All except for Lily.

She was so little, I hadn't seen her there, staring with her wide, brown eyes.

"Lily?" I didn't give a fuck what the others thought of me, but the thought of Liliana staring at me with contempt nearly sent me into another round of chair breaking.

"You okay?" she said. Softly, so softly I would have missed it if I weren't focused completely on her lips.

I had forgotten. The desire—fuck, the love—was still there, but I had forgotten this part. When the world narrowed down to a pinpoint and she was the only thing I could see.

When I was with her, everything quieted down, both on the outside and inside of my head. When I was with her, things got clearer.

The answer to her question was clearest. "Am I okay?" I shook my head. "No. No, Bit. I'm not."

Chapter Eleven

Liliana

Jax broke a chair, and everyone just went about their business like it was nothing. Just swooped in and took care of it for him. So he didn't even have to clean up his own mess.

That should have made me angry. I fully expected to be seething over it the whole ride to dinner.

But the look in his eyes, utterly hopeless and defeated when he told me that no, he wasn't okay, haunted me instead.

I sat in the back of the limo with my fingers knotted together, resisting the urge to take his hand in mine. Let him lean his head against my shoulder, just for a bit.

It didn't have to mean anything. Just a friend comforting a friend.

But just as I got up the nerve to touch him, the car stopped and the doors opened to reveal that the paparazzi had gotten wind of our location.

"Dammit," Nails seethed. "Why won't these vultures leave you alone?" He stepped protectively in front of Annie, shielding her with his bulk.

"They're not after me," Annie chuckled.

It was true. All of the lenses were pointed right at Jax. "Mr. Blue! Over here! Mr. Blue!" came the shouts.

He looked startled for a moment, a deer caught in the headlights. I bit my lip, watching as he recovered. It was like watching him put on a mask, slipping a bright, beguiling smile on over his despondent features. It gave me the chills.

I hung back by the car, watching him handle the crowd like a pro. The maître’d came flapping up to Annie, mouthing apologies, but I couldn't take my eyes off of Jax.

The tightness around his eyes was a tell that only I could discern. He was ready to blow at any second.

My heart gave an involuntary lurch, propelling me into the fray. "I'm sorry, guys, Mr. Blue is done for today," I called, doing my best impression of a bustling personal assistant. "Thank you, thank you, we really appreciate it." I wrapped my arm around Jax's shoulder and made to hustle him into the relative safety of the restaurant.

"What are you doing?" he hissed.

"Getting you out of there."

He made a noise, but allowed himself to be ferried. I gave one last wave to the paparazzi who, if anything, were snapping even more furiously, then I ducked us both into the restaurant.

"You okay?" I asked him.

He looked me up and down. "Remind me to hire you onto my team."

I squared my shoulders. "You couldn't afford me."

He laughed. "You're right about that, Bit. You're fucking priceless."

A slow heat spread from my blushing cheeks, warm and sliding down my spine. The part of me that hated him was dissolving like a lump of sugar on my tongue.

We moved to the corner table, away from the windows—the maître’d had made sure—and took our seats.

As I looked at the menu, my eyes bugged. This was definitely not my chosen New York lifestyle of poverty and ramen. For one brief second, I felt like I was fifteen again, tossed into the world of touring. My wide-eyed reaction to the wild scene I found myself thrown into left me vulnerable to the point of gullibility. Back then I was looking for any way to make sense of my new surroundings and looking for someone who could show me the ropes.

And the best person to do that was Jax.

Jax grew up in the madness of touring. His mother dragged him along on every single one, and he spent his childhood listening to the foul mouths of roadies and sneaking cigarettes behind the bus. He was a man before he ever had a chance of being a boy. It was a good thing the guy never had a true awkward phase, because his life in the limelight left him constantly under scrutiny. And his good looks made him a target.

"Holy shit, it's true!" Bash crowed. The rest of his words were drowned out in a chorus of hoots and hollers. Jax was being showered in high-fives and I couldn't see what it was they were cheering about.

"Shove over!" I shouted, elbowing Jax in the ribs. Too late he must have realized how this would look and tried to put his hand on my shoulder. But I already saw what it was.

"Jaxson Blue: Countdown." The website was just one huge stopwatch lined with shirtless pictures of Jax. I was about to ask what the heck it was when it hit me. "Your birthday?" I asked.

"Ladies are waitin' for our Jaxy boy!" Bash declared, clapping Jaxson on the back.

I felt nauseous. A whole website devoted to when he turned eighteen. Jaxson met my eyes for a second, looking pained, then turned around and shouted, "Hey, look, it's almost midnight!" "

I should have known then. I should have hardened my heart and realized he could never belong to me.

"Aren't you going to say anything at all, Liliana?" Annie leaned back in her chair. "It's been forever since we last saw you. How are you?"

I looked up from my plate, embarrassed at being caught out in my reverie. "Jetlagged," I told her, truthfully. I looked down at the menu. "And hungry."

"Mmhm." Annie had already lost interest. "I'm glad you're here."

"Me too," I sighed. "I'm so happy for you and Dad."

Annie's right hand was weighed down with heavy silver rings embedded with chunks of uncut gemstones and hunks of turquoise, but her left hand was bare. The better to show off the sparkler on her ring finger. She flicked her long, layered hair over her shoulder and my eye went right to it. She smiled and extended her hand. "He did good, didn't he?"