Hard Rock Unrehearsed (20 page)

Not knowing what to say Jade followed her girls out into the passage where she could hear the rumble of male voices.  All the men were gathered in front of the other dressing room laughing and joking and almost all of them had a beer in the hand.  They still hadn’t seen her and Jade drew a deep breath in through her nose before she spoke.

“Are we ready to leave?”

Laughter stilled and deathly silence descended as Diego stalked towards her, a strange look on his face.  Taking her left hand he pulled her towards him, bent down and kissed her neck.

“You are the most beautiful fuckin’ woman I have ever seen baby and thank fuck you are all mine.”  He whispered in her neck before moving his head away.  Taking her hand in his he pulled her into his side and curved his arm while still holding her hand around her waist and moved her towards the silently watching men.

Trace, RJ, Giv and Jimmy crowded around them.  Trace slid his eyes down and up again and growled frowning heavily.  “You can fuckin’ forget about getting some other band to play with you sweet thing.  You belong to Storm Front now.  We’ve had a talk and we’re going to work something out.  You’re not fuckin’ leaving us.”

“Now’s not the time Trace.”  Diego interrupted.  “Let’s get to that damned after party.” He turned towards Jade with a scowl.  “If one of those fan-boy fuckers lay one hand on you I’m taking it off at the elbow, just a friendly warning sweetheart.”

Jade’s mouth hung open in shock as the guys laughed like damned loons.

As they walked out the back of the stadium towards the Hummer limo waiting for them they were blinded by flashbulbs as the media and paps went wild.  Jade was tucked tight into Diego and she leant into him as he walked her to the limo and loaded her in.  The guys smiled and waved before they joined her.  While walking towards the limo she had seen Steele and his men keeping everyone away from them and Tag, Hanson, Tank and Pete were right with them until they were safe in the limo.  Pete slid into the driver’s seat while Tank took the seat next to him.  Tag and Hanson got into the back with the rest of them.  There were two black SUV’s as well, one in front of them and one behind and it was filled with Steele’s team.

The hotel where the after party was being held wasn’t far from the stadium and in no time they were pulling up in front.  It was packed with fans and the paps and they all stayed put until Steele was happy that his team had the area around the entrance to the hotel secured.  They waited to get out until Tag, Hanson, Tank and Pete were out and in place and then the guys slid out to deafening screams.  Jade gave a nervous glance up at Diego as he let her go and got out then leant in took her hand and helped her out.  Tag stayed tight right behind them.  The screams roared out at her as she faced the crowd and waved while Diego curved his arm around her waist.  As he moved them towards the door a male voice rose up over the screams.

“Is that your boyfriend Jay?”

Jade looked up at Diego with a wide smile before she looked back at the heaving crowd and shouted back.  “Yes!”

Pandemonium broke loose as flashbulbs went crazy when Diego leant over and kissed her softly then shot a self-satisfied grin at the crowd of photographers and led her into the hotel.

The party was in full swing when they entered the room and Diego led her straight to her family.  Whispers followed their progress across the room to where her father stood waiting with her brothers on either side of him.  They did not look pleased.

“What the hell are you wearing?”  Her father growled in a low voice.

“Michael.”  Diego growled warningly before she could say a word.

“Fine, but I will want an explanation later.”  He relented then leant forward and kissed her cheek.  “You did a great job princess, I’m damned proud of you.”

Stepping away from Diego she reached up and gave her Dad and then her brothers each a hug.  “I’m glad you guys are here.”  She stepped back to Diego’s side settling under his enfolding arm.

Chatting to her family her eyes wandered over the people in the room and then widened as she saw Rick making his way over to them with a stunning blonde on his arm.  She was dressed in a tight silver sheath dress that ended a couple of inches above the knee and sky high silver strappy sandals.  It was Astrid!  A damned gorgeous and scorching hot Astrid.  Going onto her tip toes she whispered in Diego’s ear to give him a heads up.  He turned his head slightly and made a strange huffing sound before turning back and raising his eyebrows at her.  She just raised hers right back at him.

Rick led Astrid straight towards them and she heard a choked off sound from Adam as her father froze.

“Princess you played like a demon tonight and you look like a gazillion bucks, a true rock star.”  Rick let go of Astrid’s hand to bend down and kiss her cheek then enveloped her in a hard hug.  When he let her go Astrid stepped up and hugged her.  “I’m so pleased I could be here to watch you play Jay-Jay, it was amazing, you were amazing.”

“I didn’t do it by myself Astrid, without the guys I wouldn’t be here.”

Astrid nodded and moved away as Rick took her hand and pulled her back to his side.  All the while her father’s eyes never left the woman, they were narrow and pissed off.  Rick however, had a slight sly smile curving his lips as he slid an arm around Astrid’s waist and rested his hand low on her hip.

“We need to circulate.”  Diego said abruptly.  “Dad is looking pissed for some reason.  Two of my friends are here tonight baby and I want to introduce you to them once this shit is done, okay?”

“Okay babe.”  His woman said softly.  Fuck she was fuckin’ amazing!

There followed the usual introductions, talking to people considered influential in the business and making nice to the VIP guests invited to the shindig.  Somehow they got separated in the crush as Luis led her around the room along with Trace.  Jade lasted two hours before she gave up trying to be nice to the assholes who thought they could come on to her and get somewhere and the models with their mile long legs who thought nothing of plastering themselves to Diego, at least he stepped back from them keeping his distance.  There was one now, a tall brunette, who had plastered herself to Diego’s front and had her hand on his chest fluttering her eyelashes and smiling enticingly up at him.  And bloody hell Diego had a hand low on her hip holding her to him and was smiling down at her.  Remembering his words about fan-boys and touching she realised it apparently didn’t include him touching sluts, fury boiled over and erupted.

Stalking over Jade grabbed the model’s barely there dress and pulled her away from Diego.  She ignored the outraged gasp as the slut wobbled on her high heels.

“Just thought you might need a reminder about the touching thing Delgado.”  She said as she turned and motioned to Tag who had followed her across the room to the bar where she got a bottle of champagne, ignoring the glasses the bartender set up for her she lifted and took two healthy slugs.  “Let’s roll.”  She growled at Tag and Tank who had joined them then stalked through the partying crowd looking for the guys.

Diego was suddenly there, furious.  “What the fuck Jade?  She’s a friend of the family.  She’s like my little sister!”

Looking around Jade spotted RJ watching them intently and she grinned at him while pushing Diego away from her.

“Fine, I understand, friends and family.  Friends are allowed to touch and flirt.”  She snarled at him then turned away and sashayed over to RJ and plastered herself against the front of him.  His arms came around her and he held her loosely.

“You’re playing with fire sweet thing.”  He whispered as he looked over her shoulder.

“If he can have friends with touching benefits why can’t I?”  She snarled then grinned up at him.  “You are my friend RJ aren’t you?”

RJ laughed as he shook his head.  “Yeah baby I’m your friend and as your friend I’m telling you not to do this.  He’s not going to like it.”

“Did you see that slut plastered to him and he did not do one effing thing to put distance between them?  Or was that me having hallucinations because I’m over tired and slightly pissed off?  What the fuck, soon I’m going to be very pissed and I won’t give a fuck.”  Jade growled and took another huge slug out of the bottle she had in her hand which was feeling lighter than it had when she had started out.

“Jay-Jay it’s time to go.”  Tag growled at her as he pulled her gently out of RJ’s arms pulled the bottle out of her hand and gave it to a passing waiter.  Jade sighed.

“Fine, let’s get out of here.”  This whole night was a disaster anyway.

Tag and Hanson led her out the doors taking an elevator to the helipad on top of the building.  Tag was the only one with her in the helicopter on the flight back to the penthouse.  Everyone else had stayed behind to party.  Why wasn’t she surprised!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

At the penthouse she walked away from Tag and locked the bedroom door behind her.  She wasn’t surprised to hear the helicopter leave minutes later and she just knew that Tag was on it, going back to the hotel.  She was truly alone, like she had always been.  It was when she stood under the steaming shower that the tears came and she sat down on the tiles as the water streamed over her.  Eventually the tears ended and she scrubbed herself vigorously, washed her hair and stepped out.  She dressed in her favourite soft sleep pants and t-shirt, brushed her hair and moisturised her face then unlocked the door and made her way to the kitchen.

Making herself a huge mug of hot chocolate she dragged one of the enormous armchairs to the glass wall in the lounge and sat down with her legs curled under her.  She watched the lights of Seattle flickering around her as she sipped.  She must have fallen asleep when the ping of the elevator woke her up and the penthouse was filled with hushed male voices.  Looking out at the city she realised that it was getting light which meant that they had been out all night.  A quick look at her phone informed her that it was four forty six in the morning.  She had left the party at about one thirty and she must have fallen asleep at around two thirty and Diego hadn’t come back to the penthouse.  Peaking around the edge of the armchair she saw that it was the guys and their security escort, not saying a word she watched them all split off to go to their rooms. Of Diego there was still no sign.  Picking up her phone she connected to the internet and checked on the gossip sites and there it was, her next fucking humiliation.  Jade shuddered as she shut her phone down and sat staring out seeing nothing while tears ran silently down her cheeks.  She was so tired it felt as if even her bones were tired but she knew that she wouldn't be able to sleep.

She sat watching the sun rise before she quietly rose went into the room and changed into her work out clothes.  Before she left to go work out she packed her things leaving her bags stacked against the wall next to the door.  She left the silver and the cuff in a pile on the table next to the bed.  Silently she sneaked down to the gym and slid her key card through the lock to open it.  She spent two hours working the previous night, her sorrow and rage out of her system.  Sweating copiously and breathing hard she finished a set of repetitions using the weight machine and groaned as she relaxed her muscles.  Her legs shook as she stepped off and grabbed her towel to dry her sweaty face.  The only sound in the room was the soft soughing noise made by the aircon as she drank deeply from her water bottle.  Straightening her shoulders she took a deep breath and left the gym to go back to her room to face the rest of the day.

A knot of rumpled men were standing arguing in the lounge and Jade watched them for a while before she said a word.

“What’s going on here?”

Everyone swung around to her except Tag who had seen her come in.  He gave her a small nod and crossed his arms over his wide chest as he moved back and away from the men.

“Where the hell have you been princess?”  Her father snapped.

Jade looked down at herself then back up at him with a raised eyebrow.  “I think the sweat and the clothes are self explanatory.”

“We’ve been looking for you.  Why didn’t you answer your phone?”  Mike growled.

Jade looked down at herself again then up at him.  “Maybe it’s because there’s effing nowhere to put a phone in this getup you moron!”  Jade snarled having had enough of anything male to last her a lifetime.  “Until about three hours ago I had been here alone, none of you were here and no one gave my whereabouts a second thought.  Why the hell do you care now?  Where were you?  Or shouldn’t I even ask?”

Rick was the one who answered.  “We stayed over at the hotel princess.”

“All of you?”  Jade asked with deadly quiet in her voice.

“Yes, we all came back early this morning, all that is except Diego, he came in about twenty minutes ago.”  Adam answered just as quietly.

“Jay I can explain.”  Luis said and reached for her but Jade jerked out of his reach.

“Can we have some privacy here please?”  Luis asked and her father looked at her with a raised eyebrow.  Jade nodded sharply.

Her family all filed out followed by the bodyguards, all that is except Rick and Tag.  Rick sat down on the couch and leant back against the cushions while Tag made himself comfortable standing against the glass wall.

“I asked for privacy that means you have to leave as well.”  Luis said in a pissed off voice to Rick and Tag.

“Not going to happen.  We let a Delgado fuck her life up once before, not going to happen again.”  Rick bit out between clenched teeth.

Luis hissed angrily but sat down in an armchair as Jade moved across the room and took a chair close to Rick.  It was only then she saw Diego standing in the passage leading to the master bedroom.  He had no expression on his face at all, he just stood there with his hands in his pockets and still wearing the clothes he had worn last night only now they were creased and rumpled to shit.  Rick noticed him as well and swore softly.  Tag was ominously quiet.

“The woman with Diego last night was Maya Ortega.  She’s the youngest daughter of an old family friend, Sandro Ortega.  I invited her to the party when I heard that she was in Seattle on a shoot and that was obviously a mistake.”  Luis went quiet for a few seconds before he continued and Jade could swear she saw him swallow nervously.  “She has been in love with Diego for years and in the beginning Sandro and I were hoping that one day Diego would notice her and they would marry.  That was before I realised how Diego felt about you and once I knew I told my friend that it would never happen, that Diego loved another.”  Luis dropped his eyes to the floor before he looked up again to meet her eyes.  “Maya threatened to commit suicide.  She wanted us to force Diego to marry her.  I of course refused to be a party to that.”

Jade snorted derisively and Luis frowned heavily at her.

“Maya is not strong like you Jade.  Last night I asked Diego to take care of her and stay with her because she threatened to jump from her balcony if he left with you.”  Luis leant forward as he spoke.  “You are a survivor, Maya is not, I could not leave her to her own devices and I take the blame for this fiasco.”

All eyes were on her as Jade sat silently staring at Luis then lifted her eyes to Diego before looking away.

“So you’re going to go out and tell the media that you ordered your son to spend the night with a woman because she threatened to commit suicide if he left the party with his girlfriend.  A girlfriend who apparently is so strong something like this won't make a dent in her self-confidence.  Don’t make me fucking laugh!  You don’t know the first thing about me Luis Delgado, not the first fucking thing.  First I lost my baby and then I lost Val, I lost all will to live and tried to end it.  Tag found me, he called Rick, they kept it quiet.  They only told Adam because they needed him to get me out of your house and to fly me to the private clinic where I spent the next three months rebuilding my life.  You and your family never even realised that I was in trouble, that I was so near the edge I was close to going over.”  Jade spoke in a tight voice which changed to furious anger with her next words.

“You were all fucking clueless, you still are!  Maya Ortega is a self-serving little slut who will use whatever she can to get Diego and that includes threatening to commit suicide if she doesn’t get what she wants.  If she’s so all fired up to end it why don’t you just let her?  Tell her to go for it and then see how quickly she changes her tune.”  Jade took a deep breath continuing before Luis could interrupt.  “When you get to the edge and you start sliding over, you don’t threaten and you don’t warn anyone, you just do it.  Ask me, I know that for a fact.”

“Baby.”  Diego’s voice was raw as he spoke and Jade noticed for the first time that he had moved right into the lounge and was standing behind his father’s chair, his hands no longer in his pockets but clenched into fists at his sides.  “I sat in that fuckin’ hotel room all night worrying about you but I couldn’t leave.  Maya is like a little sister to me and I had to take care of her.”

“Well Diego, you and Luis are, as of last night, free to take care of her, to run to her every time she threatens suicide when she doesn’t get what she wants.  You are both fired effective immediately.  Tag and Steele will take over my security so no worries and right now I don’t need management so I have time to get that sorted out.”

“Baby don’t!”  Diego said softly, there was pain in his eyes but Jade forced herself to ignore it.

Not so Luis.  “I never knew you were so selfish Jade, I never would have expected it from you.  If you went through what Maya is suffering you should be offering your help, not turning your back.”  He snapped out coldly which made Rick jerk up on the couch but he subsided as he looked up at Diego.

And right there Jade had enough.  “I didn’t realise that it was selfish to want the man who a few hours earlier professed his undying love to you, to choose you when asked to choose.  To want a man who wouldn’t cave when his father uses emotional blackmail to put him in an untenable position and get him to do what he wants.  To want a man who would care enough to call to let you know where the hell he was.”  Leaning forward she snarled softly at Luis.  “Don’t think I don’t know why Carina left you, Val told me everything, and when I say everything I mean everything.  I sympathised with you then but I see now that I was wrong, horribly wrong.  She did what she had to do as she had no other fucking option left to her.  Just as I don't.”

Luis’s mouth dropped open as he jerked back in the armchair.  The anger and everything associated with it suddenly dropped from her as she looked at the man who she had seen as a second father to her and sadness enveloped her.

Pushing up out of the chair she spoke softly.  “I love you Diego but I will be damned if I will stand back and let some slut who you consider to be your little sister fuck up my life, it’s been done to me one time too many.  I’d rather walk away.  It hurts like hell but I will get over you and I will carry on with my life.  I will carry on and build a career and someday I will find someone who will love me enough to take on the world for me.  Someone who will put me first every single time regardless of the cost.”

With that she tried to walk past Diego but he stepped in front of her.

“What if you’re pregnant baby?”  He asked softly.

You could have heard a pin drop it was suddenly so quiet.

“If I’m pregnant, and that’s a big fucking if, I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.  I have a great support system, having a baby wouldn’t be that big of a deal.”  Looking up at him hurt her heart and she tried again to move around him again.

Diego suddenly snatched her tight against him holding her so tight she couldn’t get away from him.

“I don’t give a shit about your support system and I will kill anyone who dares to lay a hand on you.  You are mine and I’m never going to let you go.  I warned you baby, I told you I’m possessive.”  He grated in a rough voice.

“Yes, and you also promised me that you would never hurt me and that you would never make me feel the way Val did.  Epic fail.”  His body jerked against hers as it hit home.  “You promised me you would never let it happen again and that you would never disrespect me like that again.  What do you think what you did last night was?  To add insult to injury you did it in front of the media!  When not even two hours before I told them we were together!  There are pictures all over the internet of her plastered up against you, your arm around her right next to the one of you kissing me outside the hotel.  They have photos of you going into a hotel room with your arms around each other.  The media are speculating about where the hell I was when my boyfriend took a gorgeous model to his hotel room.”  Jade snorted.  “Yeah I know you booked a room Diego and under your own name as well.  How fucking stupid are you?”

“I booked the room.”  Luis said softly.

“Now why doesn’t that surprise me Luis, and you fucked up!  Now I have the media after me not only because they know I’ve got a sick stalker but also because apparently I have a cheating bastard for a boyfriend, make that ex-boyfriend.”  Twisting herself out of Diego’s arms she stepped back as tears rolled down her cheeks.  “You got pissed when Marcella posted pictures of your bare ass on the internet, I suggest you have a look at what your darling little sister posted.  You cheated Diego, you were in bed with her, and your little sister posted pictures of the two of you all over social media.”

Diego jerked her back against him.  “I did not fuckin’ sleep with her!  I never took my clothes off and I spent the night in the chair while the bitch cried, sniffled and moaned away in the bed.  Fuck baby I would never do that to you.  I love you, and only you, you know that.”

“THEN HOW THE FUCK DID SHE GET THOSE PICTURES?”  Jade screamed at him.  She was done, so done!

That’s when Rick stepped up to them and clasped a hand around Jade’s shoulder.  “Princess calm down.  I hate to say this but I believe Diego, and if those pictures are out there you can bet your ass it’s been photoshopped.  Don’t let a spoilt little bitch come between the two of you and damage you both so badly that it can never be fixed again.  Give me an hour to sort this out and you will never have to hear the name Maya Ortega ever again, she will be gone.”