Exposed: A Jaded Regret Novel Read online

  “Give me that.” I snatched the phone from her.

  “You’re going to meet him?” Mac wiggled her eyebrows at me, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Mac.” I shoved her playfully. “It’s not like that. It’s for work.”

  She lifted one sculpted eyebrow in response, calling me out on my bullshit without saying a word.

  “What? It’s true!”

  I neglected to tell her Kai wanted to take me around to see the sights of New York because that didn’t sound like work. At all. And telling her again we were friends wouldn’t make a difference, either, but we were. I looked forward to meeting him because I was so comfortable with him already, no matter what my friends thought his intentions were.

  “When have you ever traveled without the band? Do they know?”

  “No. We just decided, so I haven’t told them yet. We’re going to do some work on the international tour that Kai thinks would be better done in person. He also has some ideas for promotional shoots we can do while overseas, so we’ll work on the proposals for those.” I wasn’t looking forward to telling Beau. He had a tendency to be rather protective of me. It was the nature of our relationship, and I understood. Until April changed his life and put a smile back on his handsome face, I was the only one who got through to him. Not being the only person there for him anymore sometimes stung, but I tried not to dwell on it. Plus, I loved April. Beau wasn’t issue-free, but he was better. A million times better.

  Mac’s mouth split in a wide grin. “Hot damn. Kai is bringing you to New York. Alone. Where are you staying?”

  I opened my mouth but snapped it shut immediately. Kai offered for me to stay with him. He lived in a small Manhattan apartment, but he said he’d give me the bed, and he’d sleep on the couch. I couldn’t tell her that. She would get the wrong idea.

  “A hotel, of course,” I lied.

  “He likes you,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes. “We work together, Mac. Stop trying to fix me up. It’s not going to happen. We’re friends, and that’s all. Please don’t say anything to the band yet. I haven’t told them.”

  She nodded and blew out a breath as we pulled into our favorite local hangout. Everyone left us alone here, which was why we frequented it. In return, the band played here once a month unannounced. It was great business for them, and it gave us a reprieve from the constant limelight.

  “I don’t know why you won’t just open up.” Mac sounded almost…hurt. “When was the last time you let yourself get close to anyone?”

  I nudged her. “You.”

  It was her turn to roll her eyes. “You know what I mean, Nat. What is it that keeps you from wanting to have a relationship?”

  That was not a conversation for right now. I cleared my throat against the sensation of tears. As much as I loved Mac, there were things she didn’t need to know.

  Things no one needed to know.

  Steve killed the engine and walked around to let the two of us out. I watched as he surveyed the surrounding area before indicating for us to get out. Mac wound her arm in mine as we walked, and I couldn’t help but look at her rounded stomach again.

  After Mac and Tanner had their babies, I’d be the only one without a family.

  Just the way you want it. I looked down at my body, instantly disgusted with what I saw. You need more time in the gym. I reminded myself to get a salad without dressing and a diet soda, despite the hunger pains in my stomach.

  “Tell me what the doctor said when you found out it was twins.” Mac and I sat across from each other, and our waitress just sat down our drinks and took our order. Music from a local band echoed throughout the outdoor space, and I found myself tapping my foot to their beat. Steve sat just far enough away from us for it to not seem like he was with us but close enough to keep us safe, nursing a beer. No one had approached us thus far, though that didn’t always mean they wouldn’t.

  Mac grinned and put her hand on her lower stomach. I wondered if she even realized she did that anymore or if it was instinct. I couldn’t imagine what that would feel like. The second the thought crossed my mind, my heart raced. No. You can never have that. You’d be fat. No one would want you. My brain reminded me of how many years I’d been replaying that truth in my head. Every time I thought about the possibility, I had to force myself to remember my reality.

  “Tanner was holding my hand as they stuck this wand thing up there.” Mac’s eyes were bright, and her one hand moved, emphasizing her words. “I thought he might knock the poor technician out; it was pretty funny. He was like, what are you doing sticking that thing there?”

  I laughed. Sounded like Tanner.

  “When we finally made him understand that was how we were going to check on the baby, he relaxed. The screen was black and white, and I had no idea what I was looking for, but I started crying the second the tech turned it toward me. I knew it was a life-changing moment.”

  That funny feeling was back, spreading through my chest and stomach. I picked up my soda and sipped, willing it to go back to where it came from.

  “Then she began clicking and stopped talking. I swear I thought I was going to throw up I was so nervous. Finally, Tanner asked her if everything was okay.” Mac giggled, remembering. “That was when the doctor came in and said everything was great, times two.”

  “I would’ve paid money to see Tanner’s face.”

  Mac nodded. “I think he turned as white as my gown. But he recovered fast. He pumped his fist in the air and said, ‘Hell yeah! That’s my boys that did that right there!’ I think the nurse had a crush on him.” Mac shrugged. “Then again, I think most of the world has a crush on him.”

  I thought back to the night I propositioned Tanner. The night he was going to come to my hotel room and have sex with me. The night he met Mac and his life changed forever.

  I’d been so stupid to think Tanner and I ever had a chance at anything, or that I could’ve slept with him and then walked away.

  That wasn’t me.

  At all.

  I never told Mac, and I didn’t think I ever would. It was just…awkward. I didn’t have feelings like that for him anymore, so it seemed a moot point to discuss what he was about to do the night he met her. In a sense, she saved me from making the biggest mistake of my life. I silently thanked her for the thousandth time, even if it was one of the worst nights of her life.

  “Anyway, he’s convinced it’s two girls. He’s told me that from the time we found out we were pregnant. I guess time will tell. I don’t want to find out until they’re born.”

  “Tanner Hart with two girls,” I mused.

  Mac laughed. “Right? Can you imagine? He’ll lock them up until they’re twenty-five.”

  “And he should. If the way he behaved was any indication, he better lock them up.”

  “And if they’re boys? Two Tanner replicas running around? Oh, God. The world will never be the same.”

  “I’m pretty sure whichever way it goes, you better hope they get your DNA and not his. Reformed or not, we all know how wild that man was until you tamed him.”

  I lay in my bed, my phone in my hand. I hadn’t responded to Kai’s text earlier when Mac and I went out, so I just texted him back. It was after midnight, and I wondered if he was still up when my phone rang in my hand.

  I jumped, not expecting the shrill sound.

  “Hello?”

  “Natalie.” Kai’s rich, smooth voice flowed through the speaker like butter. Mac’s smirk popped into my mind, and I tried to tamper the butterflies that spread throughout my body at the sound of his voice.

  It was nothing.

  He wasn’t interested in me like that.

  I wasn’t interested in him like that.

  He was my friend, and that was it.

  “Hey, Kai.” I forced the crazy thoughts from my head. “How are you?”

  “Tired. It was a long day. But it makes it better to talk to you right now.”

  Mac’s lifted eyebrow
s came into my mind again. Do not read anything into his words just because Mac is overreacting.

  “Long day for me, too. Mac just left not too long ago.”

  “Did you guys have a girls’ night?”

  “Yeah, we went to dinner and hung out here. Tanner picked her up, and they went home.”

  “Tanner.” Kai chuckled. He, of course, knew of Tanner’s former reputation. It was hard to envision him as a family man now, but he was. Mac changed him. “Who would’ve ever thought.”

  “I know, right? But just wait until you meet him. You won’t even believe he’s the same playboy you read about all those years. They’re all whipped now.”

  “You’re the only one left.”

  I could’ve been mistaken, but I was sure Kai’s voice had taken on a deep rasp. My fingers and toes tingled as his voice traveled my body.

  You are losing your mind, Natalie. Stop letting Mac’s finagling get into your head.

  “Only one. Just the way I like it.”

  “Why’s that?”

  I froze. “Why’s what?”

  “Why do you like being the only one left? You don’t want to settle down someday?”

  Visions of my dad’s body, lying still in the casket with marks around his neck they couldn’t cover, and my mom’s hateful words as she looked at Beau and me with her cold eyes before walking away from us and leaving us at the hospital took hold of my subconscious, swirling around me like the ghosts they were.

  My stomach twisted. People who loved you hurt you. Whenever you let someone get that close to you, you opened yourself up to allowing them to shred your soul from the inside out.

  I couldn’t allow it to happen, no matter what April, Mac, or anyone else said.

  Beau deserved his happiness. April was perfect for him and calmed the demons that surrounded him his whole life.

  Nothing worked for mine because they were still alive and well.

  They never left me, no matter what I did.

  The ghosts lurked around the corner, leering at me.

  Their evil grins told me I would never escape.

  “Natalie?” Kai never called me Nat. He knew the band called me Nat, but he didn’t. He said my name was beautiful, and he didn’t want to call me the equivalent to an annoying bug.

  “Sorry.” I realized I never answered him. “I just don’t think the happily-ever-after thing is going to happen for me, that’s all.”

  “Who was he?” His voice was soft and reassuring, almost lulling me into believing it could be a man who’d hurt me this badly.

  “He?”

  “Yeah.” Kai cleared his throat. “What jerk broke your heart, and whose ass do I have to kick?”

  If only I could tell him the jerk wasn’t what he thought, and kicking their ass wouldn’t do a damn bit of good.

  Chapter Two

  Kai

  She was quiet on the other end of the phone, and I kicked myself for getting too personal. I could hear her breathing, and I wanted to retract what I said and apologize, but I didn’t think it would matter.

  Natalie and I were friends, but she kept me at a distance. I knew this. When I first started talking to her, I knew right away there was something about her. It took me several weeks to break down any of her walls, and I knew she still had a steel cage around her. With a padlock. And the key was buried in a drum full of concrete.

  But we’d made progress.

  I woke up every morning with her on my mind.

  I couldn’t sleep at night until I talked to her.

  I craved hearing her voice or seeing her name on my text screen all day long.

  I acted like I was a sixteen-year-old boy with his first crush.

  I had the job I always dreamed of, and here I was, trying to get a girl’s attention.

  A girl I’d never met.

  But that wouldn’t be the case much longer.

  I totally created the “meeting” Natalie needed to come up here for.

  I just wanted her to come.

  Because if our chemistry in real life was anywhere near how well we got along on the phone, waiting another month would be the longest wait of my life.

  “Hey.” I knew I needed to change the subject. She wasn’t ready to talk to me about her broken heart. I didn’t understand it, but I would accept it. “You know what?”

  “What?” Natalie said immediately.

  “We’ve never sent each other a picture. How will I know what you look like to pick you up from the airport when you get here?”

  Natalie laughed. “Funny you say that. Mac’s been scouring the label’s website for months trying to find a picture of you. They aren’t so good at updating biographies.”

  Mac was doing research on me. That’s good. That meant Natalie had talked to her about me.

  “That would require me to have an hour to go to their photographer and get professional photos. They won’t put my selfie on there. I’m not sure why.”

  We both chuckled, and I closed my eyes at the sound. I pictured the few candid shots I came across of the band where she was somewhere in them. Anything I found was from the side or back. I knew she had long blond hair and a womanly, but very slight, build.

  I wanted to know more. See more. Put a vision of her in my head every time I talked to her.

  “Send me a picture of you.”

  I heard her suck in a breath. “Right now?”

  “Yes.” Please send it to me now.

  “I don’t have any.”

  “You don’t have a single photo of yourself? Not even with the band? Or Mac? Or a selfie? Anything?”

  She sighed. “I—I don’t like pictures of myself, so I don’t usually keep any that have me in them.”

  My brow furrowed. I couldn’t fathom she didn’t take selfies with her friends. Or have a whole camera roll full of pictures from traveling with the band.

  “Take a selfie and send it to me.”

  “No.” Her answer was immediate.

  I sighed but decided to back off. “Will you do me a favor?”

  “That depends.”

  “Will you have Mac—or someone—take a picture of you tomorrow?”

  “Why do you want to see what I look like? I’m nothing special.”

  I doubt that very much, Natalie Anderson.

  “Please?”

  She was silent for a beat too long, and I almost told her not to worry about it when I heard her quiet answer. “Okay.”

  “Yeah? I’ll send you one of me once you send me one of you.”

  “Do you have dark hair or light?”

  My heart thumped in my chest. Natalie asked about me. In all our conversations, she never once asked what I looked like, but now I knew she wondered since she said Mac had been scoping me out. I just wasn’t sure if it was Mac who was interested in checking up on me, or Natalie.

  “I guess you’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?” I wanted to ask her what her type was. I needed to know if she liked dark hair or light. Or if she had a preference for big and ripped or slim and muscular. She didn’t seem the type to want someone to cover her house with roses or write her love notes—but I was desperate to find out.

  Natalie laughed. “So how’s it going with your new band?” She was the master of changing the subject, and I let her most of the time. I just signed a new band to No Limits Recordings. While Jaded Regret was my biggest account—and the one I spent the most time on—I had some mid-level bands and some newly minted ones.

  Fatal Knockout was an all-girl band, an anomaly in the rock industry. They were, as their name suggested, all knockouts. They hailed from Philadelphia, though they just moved to the city. I contemplated getting them as an opening act for Jaded Regret. The girls would be over the moon about it, as would anyone. Jaded Regret was the band to model yourself after in this industry right now. Not only were they insanely talented, but their story and the way they used their fame to help others put them at the forefront of the industry.

  “I met with them t
oday since they just moved to the city. I’m looking into some possibilities, one being getting them on the stage on America’s Morning News show.”

  “That would be amazing,” Natalie said. “What are their names again?”

  “The lead singer is Ginger, who is ironically a blonde. Then there’s Tyra, who plays drums. Alleigh plays guitar and sings with Ginger, and Harlie plays the keyboard and sings, too.”

  “Do they have the same fan base Jaded Regret does? Would they be a good opener?”

  This was what Natalie was comfortable talking about. For every one minute we talked about our personal lives, she spent five on business. It was my goal to help her see there was more to our friendship than just this industry.

  “I’ve been thinking of that. I’d like you to meet them when you come up. They would die to tour with you guys, especially going overseas. That’s virtually unheard of for a band at their stage in the game. They’re green they’re so new.”

  “But if you’re representing them, you must believe they’re headed for greatness.”

  “Well, of course, with me leading them they’ll top Jaded Regret by next year.”

  Natalie laughed again, the sound more beautiful than the music I surrounded my day with. “That may be hard to do, but you go ahead and try, Big Shot.”

  Big Shot. Damn, that was sexy.

  She was right. Topping Jaded Regret’s popularity would be a feat. Not that I wanted to do that. Between the dynamic music and the reputation the band had with giving back to the community, they were a powerhouse that wouldn’t go away anytime soon. Their rags to riches story was eaten up across the world.

  “So they’re all hot, right?”

  Her question made me choke on the water I sipped. The liquid dribbled down my chin and dripped onto my shirt. I didn’t want to assume she was asking me if I was attracted to them but there was no other way to take that question.

  I’m attracted to you, and I don’t even fully know what you look like.

  For me, it wasn’t all about looks. Of course, I wanted to be attracted to whoever I was with, but many times that attraction came with their personality. It sounded cliché but it was true. I’d dated all types of girls in my lifetime—thin, curvy, tall, short, dark and light haired, dark and light skinned. I didn’t have a “type.” My parents always instilled in my siblings and me the importance of not judging a book by its cover. Way too often, the most outwardly beautiful people were the ugliest inside.