Country Love (A Billionaire BWWM Romance) (13 page)

Chapter
Twenty-Six

Tanner

Fitch was right,
the middle of the set dragged. Even though it was the last thing I wanted to
do, I called a rehearsal first thing in the morning.

"It's
fine," Monique said. She was perched on the edge of my bunk, wearing these
short little shorts that made her legs look a mile long. "I need to run some
errands...get some toothpaste." she grimaced, making me laugh, "and
check in with Gil."

"Gil?"
I growled threateningly.

She smacked me. I
loved provoking this girl. Any excuse to have her touch me, I'd take.
"Gil's my boss and he's Jabba the Hut in human form. You don't have to get
all possessive, cowboy."

I grabbed my hat
from where it hung off my bunk and put it on my head expressly for the purpose
of being able to tip it at her. "I don't take too kindly to other men
steppin' in on my territory," I drawled.

"I'm your
territory now?" Monique said testily.

"I think
I've staked a pretty valid claim," I declared, sliding my hand between her
legs. She squealed and smacked me again, squirming away. "Keep it warm for
me, baby," I told her, kissing her again.

I could feel her
eyes following me as I stepped off the bus. When I turned back, she was
watching intently, but when I smiled at her, she didn't smile back. Instead she
looked thoughtful...and then sad.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Monique

I was alone in a
strange city, the only black face in a sea of lily-white.

In other words, everything
was completely normal.

Loneliness should
feel just as normal, but as I pulled my rental car into the pharmacy parking
lot, a heaviness suffused my limbs. It felt like something was missing,
something palpable and necessary, like a limb or possibly a portion of my
heart.

I grabbed my back
off the passenger seat and pulled up Chanel's number on my phone.

"Hey
girl!" she sang out, office noise loud in the background. "I need to
head to a meeting in a moment, but it's good to hear from you! How's the
cowboy?"

"Hey
girl," I said more softly. "Good to hear your voice. Have I missed anything?"

"Yeah,
well," she lowered her voice slightly. "You probably want to know...I
mean, I don't want to gossip and all, but Dayna's kind of pissed."

"Yeah? Why's
that?"

Chanel snorted
into the phone. "Seems like Dennis filled her ear with a few stories about
you."

Dennis, the name
rang a bell. I squeezed my eyes shut and wracked my brain before I finally
remembered. "Finance Guy?"

"The date
she set you up on?"

"Oh
god," I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers. "I probably
should have called her about that."

"Yeah
well..." Chanel let her words hang in the air for a minute. "Might be
a good idea, that. Listen, you didn't hear it from me, okay? I gotta run babe.
Have fun with the cowboy."

She hung up
before I could say goodbye.

Well hell, now I
felt even worse. Reluctantly, I dialed Dayna's number.

"Oh
hey," she answered icily. "I was wondering when I'd hear from
you."

I swallowed hard.
"Yeah, I'm so sorry, I've only just got this moment away from
working."

"Mmmhmm."
Dayna was in a coffee shop or a restaurant or something by the sound of it.
Surrounded by people. Somehow that made me feel even lonelier. "So how did
the date go?"

I started to
answer but my tongue tripped up over the nice little lie I was planning to spin
and suddenly I could only speak the truth. "Dayna, I owe you an
apology."

She made a small
noise of surprise. "Oh yeah? Why's that?"

I took a deep
breath. "I should have been honest with you when you called me to confirm,
but I was lying to myself, pretending I didn't feel how I felt. I should have
called you and told you to cancel the date, but instead I went through with it
and treated your friend badly and I'm sorry."

Dayna made
several strange little squeaking sounds. I could tell this was the last thing
she expected me to say. In fact, judging from my own shocked face staring back
at me in the rearview mirror, I hadn't expected myself to say them either.

"I'm
interested in someone else," I heard myself say. "And it wasn't fair
for me to go out with Dennis when I feel this way."

Dayna let out a
squeal and I instantly knew I was off the hook. "Interested in someone
else?" she squeaked. I could practically hear her fluttering her
eyelashes. "Oh my gosh, spill it, right now. Who's the lucky guy?"

Words bubbled up
in my throat, demanding to be spoken out loud. This was dumb and foolish to
even be admitting I felt this way, but the loneliness forced my hands.
"Dayna, the cowboy and I...."

Dayna's voice
launched itself into the stratosphere. I held the phone away from my ear as she
shrieked and cackled like a madwoman. When I felt safe enough to hold the phone
back up to my head, she was mid-sentence..."hottest guy I ever saw, those
pictures you took of him, holy Christ you can
see
the sex in his eyes. How is he in bed? I bet he is completely
amazing...."

"Wait, back
up, the pictures I took of him?"

She humphed.
"For the magazine? I could tell you know. As soon as I saw them, I figured
out why Dennis said you were a crazy bitch...."

"The
magazine's out?" I pulled my phone away from my ear and stared at it.
"Hang on Dayna, I'm right here at a drugstore, lemme run in and see if
they have it."

Dayna was still
talking over me, "...your best work though, I mean honestly. You're really
good..."

"Thanks,"
I muttered, distracted, as I pushed into the air-conditioned interior of the
drugstore and made a beeline to the magazine rack.

Dayna's voice
fell away as my hand fell to my side. It felt like all the breath in my body
left at once. I was dizzy and ready to fell through the floor, the only thing
that held me in place was the sight of Tanner's eyes peering at me from the
cover of Auteur magazine.

I have to give
Gil credit. He's a shit manager, but as an editor there was none better. He
zeroed right in on the best of the shots...the closeup I took of Tanner the
first night I met him.

The picture where
he was staring at me with frank and unbridled lust in his eyes.

All at once,
everything that had happened since fell away and I was right back there on that
dusty drive next to his ranch, pissed off at him for fixing his fence instead
of talking to me. It seemed like a lifetime ago...but it wasn't. It had
been...exactly one month ago today. This man had rocked my world, shaken me to
the very core and I had known him less than a month. What the hell was I doing?

He was on the
cover of a magazine. He was a star, a celebrity, a billionaire several times
over. And in one more week, my stint as his tour photographer was over and it
was all going to end. These feelings I was feeling...they were stupid and
misguided. How could I ever think I could fit into his world?

"Monique?"
Dayna's tinny voice sounded out of the receiver.

 
I held the phone back up to my ear.
"Sorry, I uh, I'm looking at it now."

"You really
did a great job," she said, as bubbly as every, unaware of the shambles I
was in. "I read the article all the way through, but the pictures, they
really make it all come together. That stuff he says about family and home,
honestly I could just cry...."

I barely heard
her. I was walking automatically back to my car, numb to everything except the
loneliness. For one fleeting, stupid moment, I considered calling Tanner,
before I remembered that I would be losing him again.

Nothing ever
lasted. I had my whole life to learn that lesson.
Why had I still not learned it?

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

Tanner

Rehearsal paid
off. That night's set was much tighter. We shortened the setlist by three
songs, but I thought it was for the better. Opening with Everwild was a
mistake...the crowd wanted to end on a high note. And so we moved it to last
and gave it to them.

Back on the bus,
Monique didn't seem much in the mood to talk. I didn't press, instead I just
covered her hand with mine. "Ready to sleep in a hotel tonight?" I
asked her.

The corner of her
mouth lifted slightly, then collapsed back down again. My heart dropped down
with it. "Everything okay, baby?"

"Told you not
to call me baby," she sighed, but there was no fight in her

For the first
time we fell asleep without making love. I held her as tightly as ever, but her
body felt stiff against mine. She didn't relax until I started to feign sleep
with long, slow, even breaths. Only when she thought I was asleep did she relax
enough to fall asleep herself.
 

As much as I
willed it not to, morning came anyway. Monique blinked her eyes open and then
startled away. "Holy shit, have you been watching me?" she laughed.
She seemed her old self for a moment.

"Can you
blame me? I asked. "You ever seen yourself sleep? You're gorgeous."

"No, I've
never seen myself sleep, idiot," she giggled.

I leaned up and
looked at her. "I'm going to set up a video camera so you can watch it yourself."

She touched my
face. "That's sweet...and deeply creepy."

I lunged for her
neck, making her squeal and arch, loving the way she felt against me. Every
single motion she made was erotic, even when she was pummeling me with her
fists. God damn this girl, I was completely fucking gone for her.

I moved from her
neck and up to her lips, kissing her long and slow. She sighed out a small moan
and threaded her fingers into my hair. I felt myself stirring to life down
there.

And then she did
the last thing I ever would have expected. She pushed me away.

I stared at her,
open-mouthed as she slid naked from the bed and padded right to the bathroom. I
considered following her, but she shut the door firmly behind her.

Well...all right
then.

I fell back in
the bed, confused as all hell. My body still hadn't gotten the message and I
was still pitching a ridiculous tent with the sheets.

If this were one
of my songs, I'd go to her and say exactly the right thing and she wouldn't be
angry anymore.

But life ain't a song.
It's messy and complicated, mine moreso than normal. And I hadn't a clue why
Monique was pissed, nor what the hell I could say about it.

So I got out my
guitar. Noodling around with the strings, plucking restlessly, I listened to
the sound of the water falling in the shower and waited. My stomach growled. I could
hear my bandmates starting to emerge from their rooms. Soundcheck was in forty-five
minutes. Then half an hour. Then twenty minutes. And still Monique was
showering.

If I didn't know
better, I'd think she was hiding from me.

Fuck that, she
was definitely hiding from me.

Finally, with
only fifteen minutes to spare, I stood up from the bed and strode across the
room. "Hey Monique?" I called, knocking on the door and trying to
keep the irritation out of my voice. "Soundcheck's in fifteen and I need
to use the john."

There was a
series of crashes, the sound of water shutting off and the scrambling sound of
the shower curtain rings screeching.

She opened the
bathroom door and stared at me, wild-eyed. Billows of steam poured out around
her, making her look like a wizard appearing out of the mists. In spite of the
fact that she had been gloriously naked and laughing in my bed earlier, she now
clutched her tightly knotted towel around her breasts. Like she was trying to
hide them from me.

What the actual
hell?

"Sorry,"
she grunted in that pissed off voice of hers. "It's all yours." She
didn't meet my eye as she squirmed past me.

I watched her
dart to her suitcase, dressing herself under her towel, once more like she was
trying to keep me from seeing her body. A million questions sprang to my lips,
each one crowding out the other, leaving me wordless, my jaw working silently.
I knew enough about her to recognize this mood. If I asked her anything now, she
would only come at me, claws bared, ready for a fight. I could see it in the
grim set of her jaw, the tight set of her shoulders, the tendon standing out,
marring the perfection of her beautiful neck.

"I thought
you had to go to the bathroom," she said tightly, still keeping her back
to me.

"Yeah, guess
I do," I muttered, turning away.