“We had all sorts of ideas together, good and bad. What’s a few more?” She squeezed his knee and finally let go. She’d almost choked on the words.
Chance had insisted it was no big deal when he’d been photographed getting his hug on with a strange blonde. The headlines had read RIVERS NO LONGER HAS HIS HART? It had been a big deal. A very big-ass big deal that the whole world had thought he’d cheated on her about a hot minute into their relationship. It was embarrassing as hell, and it destroyed the whole persona of them being a romantic team.
She’d called him an insensitive rat bastard.
He’d accused her of using him to boost her image.
And it had only gone south from there.
It was hard to imagine they could produce anything other than bad feelings, but she was determined to try.
If it killed her, at least she’d die on top instead of in the Hall of Has-beens.
She gave him another smile for good measure.
—
Chance didn’t trust that smile on Jolene’s face or the steely-eyed glare Ginny was giving him. He had never truly liked Ginny because she was always right, and after proving it, she took her cut of his earnings smugly to the bank.
The problem with Jolene was altogether different. He had liked her too much from the first minute he’d met her. Against his better judgment. In ways he shouldn’t have. Ways that had started with the sweetness of her singing voice, continued on through her sassy attitude, and ended with the smoking-hot sexy way she’d torn him up in bed.
She couldn’t be looking at him like that. He had no power against that look.
That was the look that had landed him in all sorts of trouble, starting with thinking he was cut out to handle the spotlight of being a performer and ending with a stolen Grammy and his ill-conceived relationship with Dixie the gold digger.
“Maybe we’re just out of ideas,” he told Jolene now, drawling long and slow so she wouldn’t see how rattled he was. A locked door. Pressure from their label. The first time he’d laid eyes on Jolene in person since that last big blowout by her pool in April. Yep. He was a little unnerved.
She looked good. Juicy. Like she’d stopped starving herself for a change and had been letting herself have a little bit of fun. Without him. That was annoying. All those times he’d cooked and she’d refused anything but a nibble. But he had to admit he couldn’t stop sliding his eyes over to check her out. Those jeans were snug in all the right places, and damn if the woman wasn’t treating him to a little side boob. He wanted to lick that sliver of flesh peeking out at him.
He shifted again in his chair, a damn hard wooden thing that he swore Ginny had purchased just to make her clients uncomfortable. Though it wasn’t the chair’s fault he had an erection, which was the real reason for his discomfort.
“I think we could probably come up with one or two,” Jolene said. She kept her blue eyes locked with his. “Ginny, what do you suggest we do here?”
“What do I suggest?” Ginny pushed her reading glasses up onto her mop of silver hair, which reminded Chance of a spray-painted mushroom. “I suggest that you both take your butts somewhere private and you write the hell out of some songs.”
“My house?” Jolene asked.
Chance balked. Going to Jolene’s would be like returning to the scene of the crime. He was ashamed of the way he’d behaved that night. Throwing the guitar had been money out of his own pocket, but stealing the award, hell, that had been childish. But he wasn’t about to admit that out loud. He was never good at admitting much. The only confession Jolene had ever wrenched from him was that he had cared about her. Had. Past tense. After she’d prioritized her media image over her relationship with him, he was pretty sure any concern he’d had for her had evaporated like morning dew. But there had been a time when she had coaxed it out of him and he’d gone downright gushy on her.
Allowing himself to be that vulnerable? Exposing his feelings? He’d made her pay for it during that fight, in spades. Which meant he was an asshole.
“No,” he said. “Not your house.”
He caught a flicker of annoyance on Jolene’s face. “Then where?” she asked.
“I’m not doing this.” It was false bravado, of course. The stubborn last protest of the drowning man. He knew he had to do it or face financial ruin, and they knew it, too.
“You don’t have a choice,” Ginny reminded him.
As if he needed reminding.
He hated not having a choice. But he knew he didn’t, because if he tried to bail, to buy himself out of the contract, he’d go bankrupt. So if he was going to do this, he was going to lay down a few ground rules. “A cabin, that’s what I want. Plus, you bring my dog, Jolene. There wasn’t anything decent about you keeping her.”