Drew headed through the crowd toward the exit. He kept his gaze on the door, but people from his label attached themselves to him anyway, all of them wanting a piece of him for something. To take pictures with more people at the party. To sign a hundred more photos for them to send out. To do “just a couple more quick interviews.”
A hundred—maybe even a thousand times—before tonight, Drew had given his label whatever they wanted. But he’d finally found something—someone—more important than his music and career. And if he didn’t get his act together fast, he was going to lose her.
Now, as the group tried to follow him out, he channeled his father—one of the most easygoing guys in the world, someone everyone liked. “Great party, guys. Great shoot today, too.” He made himself smile as genuinely as possible, even though he had a bad feeling that the clock on fixing everything he kept screwing up with Ashley was running out. “Let’s reconnect on those extra interviews tomorrow before I leave town. Thanks again.”
Before they could try to convince him to stay, he made a fast beeline for the front desk. Ashley still hadn’t responded to his text, so he asked the hotel employee, “Did you see a woman in a pink dress leave?”
The woman gaped at him for a few moments before finally saying, “You’re Drew Morrison.”
Drew went out of his way not to be rude to his fans. He got what it was like to meet someone whose songs you listened to on the radio. Every time he met one of his music idols, he had to fight through the same kind of speechlessness. But tonight he didn’t have time to waste.
“I really need to find her. Her name is Ashley.”
Finally, the woman snapped back to his question. “Does she have wavy, light brown hair? Really pretty, but not in a flashy kind of way?”
“That’s her.” Although as far as Drew was concerned, pretty didn’t even begin to describe Ashley’s beauty.
“I was just talking with her. She asked if I could rent her a room.”
Drew bit back a curse. He’d tried to get the model off him at the party, but she’d been so drunk that if he hadn’t put his arms around her when she’d tried to kiss him, she would have fallen. Clearly, Ashley had misinterpreted what had happened. And for good reason—it had looked like he’d been kissing someone else. That would have been bad enough after the past week they’d spent together on the road, but after what had happened between them this afternoon? Kissing someone else would make him the biggest douche bag in the world.
“Did you rent her one?”
“No. We’re all booked up for the night.”
“Did she tell you where she was going?”
The woman shook her head. “She said something about maybe trying to find a B&B, but we were cut off before she told me what her plans were for sure.”
Drew ran through the hotel’s foyer and out toward the back of the building, where his bus was parked. If Ashley planned to stay in a B&B for the night, she’d probably need to grab her computer first, wouldn’t she?
He could barely type in the code next to the door correctly, he was in such a rush, and when it finally clicked open, he nearly tore it from his hinges in his haste to get inside. “Ashley?” he called as he hurried up the steps.
Thank God, she was standing right in the middle of the bus. But she had her hands on the bodice of her dress, and it looked like she was trying to rip the fabric apart.
“Ash?” He quickly moved to take her hands in his. “What are you doing?”
“This dress, I hate it. I want it off. Now.”
“No, it’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”
“Stop!” She shook off his hands and moved away from him. “You don’t have to keep up the act. You can have them, any of those models and actresses. You didn’t have to come here to try to convince me that I’m special, that I’m beautiful, when we both know I’m nothing compared to any of those models or their friends, or even the women in your audiences.”
“You’re usually right about everything, Ash. But right now, you’re wrong. So damned wrong.” He’d come to apologize, but he hated hearing her talk about herself as though she were less than anyone else, and he wasn’t going to back down about this. “How can you not see that you outshine every single one of them?” He moved close again, put his hands around hers. “What you saw at the party, I swear it was innocent. She was drunk and could hardly stand. I only put my arms around her so that she wouldn’t fall. If I could have stopped her from putting her mouth on me, I would have. I swear I didn’t want her, Ash. I only want you.”
He watched as Ashley’s expression slowly changed from angry to surprised. But then, instead of looking happier, she simply looked resigned.
“I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions,” she finally said, “but the two of you just looked so natural together. You don’t understand how I’m not seeing things that seem obvious to you, but how can you not see that someone like her—like any of the women you’ve been with today—are a better fit for you?”