Insider (Exodus End #1) (32 page)

“How so?” she asked, riveted by his every word and recalling that he hadn’t weighed in much on that breakfast conversation.

“They were looking for a guitarist/potential singer. I was actually auditioning just to be their second guitarist. I only sang because it was required. Before that, Logan was singing for them.”

“No shit!” she blurted.

“He has a decent voice,” Max said. “It just didn’t have the unique grittiness they were looking for.”

Toni was going to ask Logan to sing for her the next chance she got. She wondered if he’d indulge her curiosity.

“Does it bother you that Reagan has taken over as guitarist for the tour?” Another question that was very personal. She wasn’t surprised when he paused for a long moment before answering.

“Reagan has a bright future,” he said. “If her personal life doesn’t destroy it.”

Now Toni was the one to pause as she contemplated his response. “Why would her personal life destroy it?” she asked when she couldn’t decide what he meant. She figured it had something to do with Trey Mills. Maybe. And her bodyguard. Likely.

Max shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said that. I usually don’t talk this freely in interviews. Next question.”

Toni smiled. Did that mean he trusted her? She returned to her list. Maybe he wouldn’t notice she wasn’t following her scripted questions if she pretended. She could read a few from the list and then sneak in a few of her own.

She read the first question that Susan had insisted she ask each band member. “If you could spend a day with any musician—living or dead—who would it be and why?”

“I spend every day with musicians, so why would I want to hang out with another one?”

Surprised by his answer, she glanced up from her legal pad and found him grinning. “Are you teasing me, Mr. Richardson?”

“I couldn’t help myself. I’ve been puzzling over what Logan sees in you for days. You aren’t exactly his type, you know?”

She’d been puzzling over it as well, so Max’s criticism didn’t hurt her feelings. Much. “What’s his type?”

“Fast and superficial.”

Her face flamed. Well, she definitely fit in the “fast” category. She’d known Logan all of an hour before she’d succumbed to his charm and tumbled into his bed.

“There’s an uncommon warmth about you,” Max continued.

So he’d noticed her blush, had he?

“A recognizable depth. Thoughtfulness. You seem to care deeply about . . .”

She met his eyes, and his brows lifted.

“ . . .everything?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

He laughed cynically. “No, sweetheart. It’s rare in this dog-eat-dog world.” He leaned forward, his head cocked slightly as he appraised her. “So now I can’t help but puzzle over what
you
see in Logan.”

Flustered by his compliment, Toni pushed her glasses up her nose.

“He’s fun and caring and considerate,” she said.

“Logan Schmidt is caring and considerate?” Max asked, his eyebrows arched high. “Are we talking about the same guy?”

“He is to me. He brought me dinner last night. I didn’t even have to ask.”

“I guess you bring that out in him.” He smiled softly. “John Lennon.”

She blinked at him. “Huh?”

“I’d spend a day with John Lennon.”

“Oh!” She’d forgotten she’d asked him that question. “Why?”

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Because he’s fucking John Lennon. I met the rest of the Beatles at various charity events and award shows. I’d dreamed of meeting the band since childhood and, well, John was murdered before I got the privilege.”

“You couldn’t have been very old when he died.”

“I was in elementary school. I didn’t take the news well. I refused to get out of bed for days. My mom was so worried, she took me to a psychiatrist.” He tilted his head at Toni. “I’m not sure why I’m telling you this. I’ve never told anyone that before.”

“Do you mind if I include it in the book?” This was exactly the kind of thing she wanted to include. Scraps of their lives that had never been shared with the world before.

“You could leave the part about the shrink out.” He worried his wrist brace again, avoiding her gaze.

“I’ll leave it out,” she promised.

She read the next question on her list. “What’s your favorite part of being a rock star?”

“Being interviewed by pretty journalists.”

Of all the amazing things that touched his life on a daily basis,
that
was his favorite? After gawking at him for a moment, Toni realized that he was teasing her. Flirting with her? She dismissed that thought as soon as it occurred. There was no way Maximillian Richardson was flirting with her. The man dated supermodels and A-list actresses.

“I was under the impression that you didn’t like to be interviewed.”

“Depends on who’s doing the interviewing.” The smoldering look he offered would have sent her panties flying across the room under normal circumstances, but she’d given control of her panties to Logan, and she wasn’t about to lose them so easily this time.

She narrowed her eyes at Max. He wasn’t flirting, she realized. He was trying to redirect her questions by being distracting. And the man wrote the book on distraction. She’d have to word her questions cleverly if she wanted to milk real answers out of him.

Her next question was supposed to be:
Where do you see yourself in five years?
She could only imagine how he’d twist his response to that one. But she didn’t want to lead his responses by having her questions be too precise. She wanted her questions to be open-ended. And she wanted his answers to be insightful. She just had to figure out how to keep him talking freely.

So instead of asking Susan’s questions, Toni set the legal pad aside.

“You come across as a man who likes to have things all planned out,” she said.

Max stared at her discarded pad for a long moment. “I do?” he asked, still looking at the bright yellow paper.

“Pretty much Logan’s exact opposite,” she said, grinning indulgently. “If you prefer, I’ll give you the list of questions and you can plan your answers. We can reschedule the rest of this interview for a later time.”

Max released a sigh. “You’d do that?”

“Why not? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“I’d appreciate it,” he said, his shoulders sagging for the first time since he’d sat down beside her. She’d thought he just had really good posture.

Max leaned forward to rise, but Toni placed a hand on his knee. “Could you help me figure out what to ask your bandmates? I’m afraid I botched my first interview pretty badly.”

“Nah, you did fine. It isn’t you, Toni. It’s me.”

She chuckled and pushed her glasses up her nose. “That’s what they all say.”

He sat back against the sofa cushions, making every posture-stickler mama on Earth proud once again.

“I’m interviewing Steve next,” she said, consulting her notepad. “Is there a reason no one calls him Stevie? He seems like a Stevie to me.”

“You should ask him,” Max said.

“Do you think he’ll answer questions about his ex-wife?”

“Which one?”

Toni shifted her gaze to his. “He has more than one?” She hadn’t run across that in any of her research. Maybe Max was messing with her. But if he wasn’t, what a scoop that would be.

“You’ll have to ask him.”

Oh, she definitely would. “After Steve, I’m supposed to interview Dare.”

“Good luck with that,” Max said.

“Please don’t tell me he’s even more tight-lipped than you are.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you.”

Crap. “Did you really get his girlfriend pregnant?” She wasn’t sure where that question had come from. It popped out of her mouth as if she had some sort of journalist Tourette’s syndrome.

Max’s normally tan complexion went pale. “Who told you that?”

“So it’s true?”

“Has Logan been flapping his lips? I’ll beat his fucking teeth in. See how well he talks after that.” Max shot to his feet and stormed toward the door. His expression showed his anger, but it was the tangible look of loss that crumpled his strong features into a mask of desperate longing that had Toni’s heart in a vice.

Whoa. She’d never seen the man display that much passion offstage. She hurried after him and grabbed his arm, thinking Logan looked good with teeth. She wouldn’t want him to get them beaten in just because she’d asked Max the wrong question.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she said. “I should have never asked you that in an interview setting. I should have never asked you period.”

Max stood with his palm flat on the door. His breathing was deep and irregular, but at least he was willing to hear her out.

“I apologize,” she continued. “Don’t make Logan pay for my mistakes.”

“You’re not really sorry,” he said. “You just want to save your boyfriend’s teeth.”

“That’s not true. I am sorry. I’m sorry when anyone feels pain. And I don’t know if you loved her or only shared one night of passion, but her losing your baby, her taking her life, it had to hurt you. There’s no way such losses couldn’t have hurt.” Her heart was twisting so hard in her chest, she could scarcely breathe.

“I did love her,” he said flatly. “And instead of breaking it off with Dare, she convinced me to keep our affair secret so she could spare his feelings. When she got pregnant, she told him I raped her.”

“What? If she was going to lie, why didn’t she just tell Dare the baby was his?”

“Because the two of them weren’t having sex. He thought she was a virgin and wanted her to stay that way until they got married.”

“Did he believe that you raped her?”

“Of course he believed her. Vic meant everything to him. They’d been dating since they were in the ninth grade. When Dare found out about us, he tried to tear me to pieces. Almost killed me. And then he quit the band. He was still going to marry her, because he thought she was the helpless victim and I was a villain. And then a couple of weeks later, Vic lost the baby. She blew her brains out on a rainy Thursday in her old bedroom at her parents’ house. In her suicide note, she told Dare the truth. After several months, Dare and I made amends as best we could, but he’s never been the same since then.
We’ve
never been the same. So do I hurt?” He took a deep shuddering breath. “What do you think, Miss Journalist?”

Toni didn’t bother trying to stop the tears from streaking down her face. She pressed her forehead into the center of his broad back and slid her arms around his waist to hug him from behind. He covered her hands with his, squeezing her right with one strong hand, his wrist brace—reminder of something else he’d lost—pressing against her left.

After a moment, he said, “You’re the first person who doesn’t think I’m a giant ass for sleeping with Vic.”

“You’re mistaken,” she said. “You
are
a giant ass for sleeping with Vic. You should have waited to have sex with her until after she broke it off with Dare.”

He released a breathy laugh. “Fair enough. Then you’re the first person who hasn’t sided with Dare.”

“I’m not siding with either of you. This is really about me,” she said, sniffling. “I can’t stand to see anyone hurting. Please tell me that look on your face is gone.”

“What look?”

“The one that screamed your world had just ended.”

He squeezed her hand even tighter. “You really are a sweetheart.”

“Of the sappiest design, I’m afraid.”

She released her hold on him and pulled a tissue from a box on the end table. She dabbed at her tears and blew her nose.

She stiffened when Max tugged her against him and wrapped his arms around her back. “Is the look gone?” he asked, leaning so close she could feel his breath on her lips.

Her heart thudded so hard against her ribs, she thought it was surely bruising itself. “If you kiss me right now, I’m going to kick you in the nuts.”

He laughed and gave her a squeeze before releasing her. “I can’t say I’m not tempted,” he said, “but I learned my lesson about fooling around with a bandmate’s girl.”

Toni stepped back. The man smelled like heaven, and all the heat coming off his hard-muscled body was suddenly addling her senses. Maximillian Richardson was tempted to kiss
her
? Seriously? He had to be messing with her.

“Just to be clear,” he said, “you are involved with Logan, right?”

She pressed one palm to a hot cheek. Okay, she was definitely feverish. That would explain the sudden weakness in her knees. “Right.”

“Let me know when his boyish charm starts to get old,” he said, the intensity in his hazel gaze sending butterflies flittering through her belly. “I’ll show you how a real man treats his woman.”

“Logan’s a real man,” she blurted.

Max chuckled and slid the door open. “Don’t forget to give me a copy of those questions.”

She was still gaping at his back when he shut the door behind him. It took her several moments to figure out why he wanted a copy of the questions.

Why did these men turn her into a fricking idiot?

Nineteen

Logan was brought to a sudden halt by Steve’s foot in his stomach.

“Stop pacing,” Steve said from his reclined location on the bus’s common area sofa.