Off Her Rockers (Loving All Wrong #3.5) (2 page)

“We were in Miami. She, seventeen. Me, twenty-one. She snuck into my hotel room, into my bed. Knew I shouldn’t have. But did it anyway. Took her virginity. Never planned on starting a relationship or anything like that. Just gave her what she came for. I stabbed a groupie the next night, and Jess flipped out. Threatened to tell Benny and get me locked up and kicked outta the band if I didn’t continue stabbing her. So I did. For years. Hid it from everyone. Eventually grew to
care
about her, not love her. She believes otherwise.”

Indolently, his palm smoothed over my ass and back again.

“Two years back when Ice Steam joined us on tour, she came to see me for her fix. She met Davi. Wanted him. Seduced him. Took him. Told her not to fall in love with him. She did.”

“Hang on,” I interjected, “if you’re
not
in love with her,
why
does it matter if she falls in love with someone else?”

He shook his head as if I wasn’t getting it. “Not
someone
else
. Davi. She fell in love with
Davi
.”

“Huh?”

“Chino, when Davi came on tour, dude was a mess. All about this chick—
you
. Everything was about this chick he loved and wanted to go back home to. Didn’t wanna be on tour, and was just doing it for his band-mates. One night he disappeared. For a whole week. When he came back, he was worse off than before. Beaten to a pulp. Caught him bitch-bawling once. Inquired: More sad stories about this chick. Actually started feeling sorry for the guy. Told him if his heart wasn’t into the tour then he should go back to where his heart was.

“After witnessing that, when I saw Jess falling for him, I tried to warn her, not out of
jealousy
, but out of concern. Said she didn’t care. But I cared. Felt responsible for her, guilty most of all for taking her V-card and never committing. Swore to myself that whoever she chose to settle down with, I’d make sure they could give her what I couldn’t. And Davi, even though he claims he loves her, wants to marry her, I knew he’d never love her the way she deserves to be loved.
That’s
why I was against it.”

“And how do
I
play into all that?”

Xavier sighed in a way that said I should be able to put two and two together by now. “Thought if I got you to L.A., and he saw you, with me, he’d leave her to get you back, and she’d see what I was tryna tell her all along. Especially once you told him about the kid…” An emotional pause. “Never banked on falling for you along the way. Plan botched. Utterly and completely. That night I broke up with you, it wasn’t ‘cause you lied about your trust fund. I could give a shit. It was because I realized—looking at the bracelet you bought me and thinking how no one has ever given me anything with no strings attached, always the other way around—that I was falling, and the plan was going south, fast.

“Wanted you for myself. Got jealous over you. Punched Markie in the face ‘cause he said you gave him a boner. Wasn’t acting like myself. Scared the shit outta me. So the first chance I got to pick a fight with you, I did. By the time I got to the club, I realized I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t go through with the plan. Wanted you for
me
. Not Davi. No way was he getting you back.”

“Wow…um…” I searched for the right words but came up with straws. “That’s some pretty convoluted stuff.”

Even my emotions were stomped. Not quite sure how to feel about all he just told me. On the one hand, it rubbed me the wrong way that I’d been a complete game to him in the beginning. On the other hand, I had to remind myself that I wasn’t innocent in the beginning either because I’d one hundred percent been using him to get to Davi. We’d both been using each other. And just like he hadn’t banked on falling for me, I hadn’t banked on falling for him. All this made it hard to figure whether I should be mad at him or not. At the moment, I could feel nothing but love for him, and I had absolutely no problem with that. As long as Jess had no control over him, I was good.

“Yeah,” he agreed, still lazily caressing my ass. “Nothing you read in that email is true.”

“So, she can’t make you leave me like she promised?”

“Chino?”

“Hmm?”

His gray stare penetrated my desolate soul. “Nothing or no one can make me give you up.”

“And you’re absolutely sure about that?”

“Want me to show you how sure I am?”

Biting my lip in anticipation of what
showing
me would entail, I nodded.

Rolling over on top of me, a blood-hot hardness digging into my pelvis, his mouth touched mine, and he, with all soft, hard, and wet body parts, showed me just how
sure
he was.

T
WO
nights later, Xavier was driving me home in my convertible when his phone rang. Sliding me a side-glance, he took care to ignore it. He knew and respected my aversion to drivers handling a cell phone while at the wheel.
Huge
pet peeve of mine.

The ringing didn’t stop, though. It kept going. Nonstop. I could see Xavier was curious and itching to answer it. He didn’t, though, and that’s why I chose this man. He was too good.

It stopped ringing. A full minute of silence. Then
my
phone started blaring.

I glanced down at the screen.

“Xena,” I said aloud.

“Figured,” Xavier muttered. “She’s this insistent, means it’s important. Answer.”

Putting the phone on speaker, I answered, “Hey, Xen—”

“Turn on your TV,” she ordered without preamble.

“I’m not near one. What’s going on?”

“I’ll have to DVR this shit for you then. You guys need to get to the villa. Now. Jess is on Late Nights with Gildene, promising to ‘
open up’
about why
she
broke off their engagement.”

“What?”

“Get here. Pronto!” She hung up.

My head slowly swiveled to Xavier, who was already doing a U-turn in the direction of the villa. “She wouldn’t, would she?”

“She’s sweet, Chino, but Jess is also sweetly cruel,” he said. “Told you she blackmailed me in the past, didn’t I?”

“Oh God,” I groaned, dropping my face in my hands. “This is how he’s gonna find out?”

“You had a lotta chances to tell him. Nobody’s fault he’s gonna find out like this but yours.”

“Shut up,” I snapped.

“’Kay.”

I kept my face buried in my hands for the entire journey to Ninety Miles Villa.

The second Xavier swung into a parking space outside Beach Rock, I was out of the convertible and running toward the house. But Xavier caught up with me, tagged me around the waist and hauled me to him. “Hey, you need to calm down. Freaking out won’t make a difference.”

“Easy for you to say,” I snapped out. “Do you have any idea how horrible I feel? I
made
him leave her! Then I chose you! And now…”

Xavier’s arms abruptly dropped from around me as if my skin had strands of blazing flames instead of hairs. “Tryna tell me something, Chino? You regret it? You regret choosing me?”

“What? Listen, I can’t do this with you right now. You had all week to pick a fight with me. Now is not the time. Shit’s about to hit the fan and I’ve got to brace myself for it. I don’t even know how to face Davi after this.”

Spinning on my heels, I raced up the steps and into the house.

Upstairs, in the entertainment lounge, were both bands—Ice Steam and Ninety Miles—including Benny, the manager and Jessica’s father.

Davi was missing, and Xena was pacing back and forth with a remote in her hand. In the midst of everyone, was a shattered vase and an overturned sofa chair.

As I approached, Xavier behind me—I could always feel him, his heat at my back—all heads whipped to us, eyes following us as if we were strangers. No one said a word, and I felt Xavier move away from me to the opposite direction.

He was mad. I could always tell when he was unhappy with me. His whole energy, attitude, changed in the most palpable way. In a way that made me want to give him all my attention, all my focus, kiss him, touch him, and make things good again between us.

But at the moment, I couldn’t pay attention to his feelings. He needed to get over it, because the fact was, I had a child with another man, I hid it from him, then I forced him to leave his fiancée,
and then
I left him out in the cold. Whether Xavier wanted to acknowledge it or not, this wasn’t
all me
. He played a giant part in it when he sought me out and lured me here. He knew the truth, the whole truth, from day one, and he continued the game.

The thing with games, though, is that there can only be
one
winner. And just because he won the game did it mean I was going to spit and shit on the loser, who, to some extent, had no idea he was even in a game to begin with?

Ignoring Benny’s blatant glower, I jerked my head at Xena.

She pointed the remote at the flat-screen on the wall and it came to life, starting smack in the middle of an interview with Jessica and Gildene Matthews.

For the first couple of minutes, they merely spoke about what was new and upcoming with Jessica Stucco, what we should look out for, yada yada.

Then Gildene sobered and got down to the nitty-gritty:

“So, the broken engagement…I can honestly say this news knocked me off my feet. I—and I daresay Hollywood as a whole—did
not
see that one coming. We have all witnessed how much Davian Hamilton adores you. Some might have even envied you—I know
I
have!” She laughed here. “We have all been waiting with bated breath for the juicy wedding details, photos, honeymoon…now this, this is both shocking and disheartening, to say the least.”

Jessica’s face suddenly went all sad and drab. “It’s true, Davi does love and adore me…probably more than I deserve. So breaking off the engagement has been a hard decision for me, you know. I mean, how do you give up on the man you’re convinced is the love of your life without shattering?”

Gildene nodded sympathetically. “So, tell me, what exactly made you put your foot down and walk away from this relationship? If there is still love, still that soul to soul connection, what could be
so bad
to make you give him up?”

Jessica paused for a torturously long moment, her green eyes watering. “He…he just wasn’t the man I thought he was. I gave him a chance…to be there for his son…and he refused.”

Gildene’s eyebrows met her hairline. “Hold on, did you just say his
son
?”

Jessica nodded, her chin wobbling, fake tears rolling down her face. She held up a finger, asking for a minute. “I’m sorry. It just…
hurts
…so much.”

“Oh, honey, take all the time you need,” Gildene said, reaching across the small table between them to pat her on her thigh.

I rolled my eyes.

After a few fake ass minutes of sniffling and tear drying, Jessica continued, “It was a few months ago when Xavier Xander’s girlfriend and I became close friends…”

Gildene sat up straighter. “Just to be clear for the audience: this girlfriend you speak of is our new and upcoming high-fashion model, Alina O’Hara, who everyone’s been buzzing about recently, right?”

Jessica nodded, smiling fondly. “Yes. She’s the one. Gorgeous, isn’t she? Trust me; she is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever come across. You’ll love her.”

What the what
? Someone in the room snorted. I ignored it.

“And how does O’Hara play into this?” prodded Gildene.

“Well, as I said, since she moved to Los Angeles, we’ve grown extremely close. She needed a friend, you know, someone she could trust, confide in. I guess she found that in me. One day while we were out shopping, she just…broke down. She was a mess. I didn’t understand what was wrong with her. Then, she just blurted it out. Told me the truth. The real reason she came to Los Angeles.”