As if! “I won’t apologize for how I dealt with your uncle. He talks to you like you’re five. It’s bad enough he does it anyway, but he should not talk to you like that in front of your artists.”
Anger flushed across the crest of his cheeks. “My relationship with my uncle is none of your business. You and I . . . we’re not friends. Artist,” he pointed sternly at me and then jerked his thumb towards himself, “label. I’ve done a lot for you and all I expect in return is for you to hold up your end of the bargain with a modicum of professionalism.”
I felt winded again, this time like he’d barreled into me with enough force to expel the breath from my body.
Tears of frustration were desperate to fall, but I curled my fists and fought the emotion. I let my disappointment and resentment flood me. How dare he? How dare he pretend like there was no connection between us? That I’d made it all up in my head.
Or maybe I had. Because I didn’t know this man standing in front of me at all.
Whatever he saw in my expression caused his features to harden.
I couldn’t look at him a second longer.
Turning around, I braced against the cold wind and marched away.
Sounding exasperated, he called, “Where are you going?”
“I can walk back!” I yelled over my shoulder.
“You signed a contract, Skylar.”
The pointed reminder made me stop and whirl around. I hoped he withered under the intensity of my glare. “I did. I did sign a contract. And that’s a promise I intend to keep. But just because you regret your past kindnesses to me—and whatever the hell was about to happen in your office—doesn’t mean I have to stick around so you can erase those moments with cruelty. That wasn’t in the contract.” I walked away before I could see his reaction.
However, I heard the regret in his tone as he called my name. “Skylar.”
I didn’t want his regret. I didn’t want anything from him anymore. I’d spent too many years of my life loving a boy who could be kind one second and cruel the next. No way was I putting myself through that with Killian. Micah had been a boy. Killian was a man. Where Micah’s words were like bee stings, Killian’s were like a knife.
“Skylar!”
I ignored him, turning the corner around the neighboring building and out of sight. I was so lost in my tumultuous thoughts, I reached the apartment having little memory of actually walking there. As I unlocked the building’s main entrance, my phone rang. Pulling it out of the ass pocket of my jeans, my chest squeezed at the sight of Killian’s name on the screen.
I declined the call.
As I got in the elevator, my cell binged, telling me I had a voicemail.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear anything he had to say, but unfortunately the compulsion to ignore it wasn’t as strong as the need to hear it. I hoped what he had to say was cold and unfeeling so I could solidify my hatred for him.
I dumped my stuff on the couch, took a breath, and clicked on the button to listen to my voicemail.
“It’s me.” The mere sound of his voice in my ear caused a sharp ache in my chest. “You’re right. I crossed a line and I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that. My uncle tends to bring out the worst in me. It’s no excuse, I know.” He sighed. “But we also need to remember what we’re doing here, Skylar. This is business. Somewhere along the way, we forgot that. I shouldn’t be defending you unless it’s in direct relation to your career, and you shouldn’t be defending me, full stop. It can’t be that way between us. I think it would do us both well to remember that.”
I slumped on the couch, feeling disappointment and heartache. Companions I knew well. There was something between us. Something completely undeniable, but he was going to try to deny it anyway for the sake of both our careers.
Didn’t that sound familiar? I winced, running my fingers through my hair and groaning. That’s what I’d done to Micah.
Is this how he’d felt?
Rejected, gutted, made to feel like he wasn’t worth the complication?
Guilt I’d already been feeling suddenly magnified.
The truth was although I felt guilty for choosing our band over our relationship, only for me to not want to be in the band, I also blamed Micah. He’d made it easy for me not to choose him by sleeping around and manipulating me and playing all sorts of games. And I still blamed him for that . . . but I realized now that I’d started it.
Micah didn’t have family like the rest of the band. He’d lived with a couple of different foster families in town. At thirteen he eventually moved in with the Ryans, a foster family who had two of their own kids and were caring for two others before Micah arrived. He stayed with them right through high school, but they weren’t a family. They really only had time for the younger kids in their care. Micah was a paycheck and he was allowed to do as he pleased.
I was too young to understand what that did to him. Not having a family to place any kind of worth on him. I knew he had abandonment issues, I just hadn’t realized how much my choosing the band over him must have fucked with his head on top of that.
“Oh, Micah,” I whispered, tears slipping loose. I had so much to apologize for.
It was shitty that it took someone doing the same thing to me for me to truly comprehend how much I’d screwed over my best friend.
Shit.
I pulled out my cell and texted Killian back.
You’re right.
* * *
KILLIAN DIDN’T TEXT BACK.
In fact, I didn’t hear anything from him the next day. Or the one after.
I felt alone again.
And like the apartment was closing in on me. I tried to distract myself with TV and books, but that didn’t work. I attempted to do the one thing that always distracted me: I picked up my damn guitar.
It was too soon.
My wrist throbbed like a motherfucker and I could do nothing but stare at the TV and let the pain settle down. But all that did was lead me to overthink everything. I couldn’t believe I’d compared what Killian was doing to what I’d done to Micah. There was no way I felt for Killian what Micah felt for me.
I wasn’t in love with Killian. I barely knew the guy.
There was some other weird reason why he could hurt my feelings like no other and why finding out he had an unmentioned girlfriend felt like betrayal.
I had a crush.
That was it.
I had a crush because he was an attractive, brooding bastard with a hot accent.
I could get over a crush.
Especially a misplaced crush on a man whose words cut to the quick. A man who pretty much used my issues against me to get me to sign a record deal.
C’mon, let’s face it: Killian O’Dea was the devil, and it was totally messed up to have developed feelings for the guy.
I’d get over it.
But I’d need some distraction to do that.
So I called his sister.
“Ooh, cast-free!” Autumn smiled at the sight of my wrist as she walked into the apartment an hour later. The difference between her and her brother always surprised me. Their childhood had made Killian closed-off and a cold, ambitious dipshit. Yet, Autumn was open and positive and full of light. She hadn’t let the world change her. In a way, she was one of the strongest people I’d ever met. I admired that about her.
That’s why I noticed the way her smile didn’t reach her eyes. Autumn’s smiles always reached her eyes.
I frowned, standing up from the couch as she strode into the kitchen to put the kettle on. “Everything okay?”
She didn’t look at me. “Yes, why?”
“Nothing. You just . . . you seem . . . off?”
Puttering around the kitchen, she chuckled, “I said three words. How can you tell if I’m off?”
“You’re right.” I shrugged. “I’m the one who’s off.”
Autumn whirled around from grabbing milk out of the fridge. “You’re not the only one. I was so glad you called. Killian had me running around doing errands and my God, is that man in a shitty mood.” She shook her head in exasperation as she poured milk into our tea. “I had to have a word with him. If other people want to let him talk to them like that, they can. But no way in hell does he talk to me like that.”
“Good for you.”
“Any idea what’s wrong with him?”