Getting Played (Heart of Fame #7) (21 page)

Chapter Twelve

Nat refused to let him take her out to dinner after the zoo, refused to see him again for the rest of the weekend, in fact.

It didn’t help Carl Holston was waiting for them when they left the zoo by the back staff exit. In typical, obnoxious Holston fashion, the pap threw insults and slurs at them both, hoping for the kind of reaction he could sell for thousands of dollars.

“C’mon, Campbell,” the creep called. “Stick your tongue in her ear. Is she better than your last chick? Fucking hotter, that’s for sure. You knocked her up yet?”

Jax didn’t respond. Nor did Nat. Like a pro, she ignored the man even when he asked her how long she’d been sleeping with Jax, camera firing.

She stood beside Jax, her face composed, her gaze fixed on the distant Sydney skyline across the harbor as if the man didn’t exist.

“You the broad the Minister for the Arts and Culture was out with last night?” Holston asked her, firing away.

Nat ignored him.

“What’s it like juggling two men on the same night, eh?”

She didn’t bat an eye.

“Does the minister know you’re out with Campbell again?”

She studied the view before her, composed. Jax was impressed.

“Do you know Campbell screws women all over the world?”

Jax had never lost his temper with a member of the paparazzi before, but that last one… He turned to glare at Holston just as Bruce arrived. Thank God for good timing, because Jax was one more insulting question away from punching the bastard fucker out.

“In here, sir,” Bruce waved them over to the Aston Martin even as he fixed a stare on the paparazzo. “I’ll deal with this guy.”

“Fucking bodyguards,” Holston sneered, a second before scurrying away.

Bruce grunted. “I’ll run him off,” he said, giving his shoulders a roll. “I could do with the exercise.”

And with that, he followed Holston with a loping stride Jax could only label as gleeful.

Jax let out a wry snort. “I need to pay him more.”

“Probably.”

He turned to Nat, the ambiguous tone in her voice sending an unsettled tension through him. Had the pap freaked her out more than she was letting on? “Everything okay?”

She drew a slow breath, closed her eyes and then gave him a steady look. “I’ve got work to do. Stuff I should have done before now. Would you mind dropping me at home?”

The tension in his gut intensified. “Work?” He forced a mocking grin to his lips. “That sounds boring. How about we go out for dinner instead? You could call up one of your candidates from your list and invite them along, if you want.”

It was, to be honest, a desperate attempt to stave off what he feared was coming. Her leaving him.

He didn’t want that. Not at all.

She studied him for a second, a suspicious gleam in her eyes and then pulled her phone from her bag.

Without a word, she dialed a number, pressed her phone to her ear and waited.

So did Jax, his breath in his throat.

A few seconds later, without uttering a word, she returned her phone to her bag.

Fuck.

“I think it’s best you drop me off at my place, Jax,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve got commitments to attend to while you’re here. The movie premier couldn’t be the only thing your agent lined up for you.”

Jax ground his teeth. She was right, of course. His agent
had
arranged all manner of public appearances for the weekend, appearances Jax had vetoed after his first night with her.

He didn’t want to waste his time fluffing about with anyone else when he could be spending it with Nat.

He opened his mouth to tell her that and closed it again when
his
phone rang.

It was Pepper.

“Any chance you can give me an update, Jax?” Synergy’s manager asked, her New York accent all the more obvious to his ears after so many weeks back in Australia.

“You can’t rush perfection, Peps,” he answered, watching Nat as she once again withdrew her mobile from her bag.

“True,” Pepper conceded. “But I’ll give you the perfect kick up the ass if you take much longer.”

Jax laughed, all the while watching Nat.

Who was she talking to on her phone?

Why was she walking away from him?

Why did she look so tense?

It took a second before Jax realized Pepper was no longer talking to him.

“Pepper?”

The band’s manager laughed in his ear. “Why do I feel like the unflappable Jaxon Campbell is well and truly in a flap right now?”

Jax’s gut clenched. “Me? In a flap?”

Pepper snorted. “Yes, you. Here, Noah wants to talk to you.”

Before Jax could tell Pepper he really had to go, Synergy’s drummer was on the other end of the line. “Jax,” Noah burst out. “What the hell are you doing over there? Oh, and guess who wants to come to the opening of the bar? And did you see…”

Like it always did, the conversation with Noah jumped from topic to topic. Jax loved the drummer too much to shut him down, but damn, it was hard not to. Especially when, ten minutes later, he watched a taxi pull to a halt in the zoo parking area, a few metres away from where he stood next to the Aston Martin.

“Noah, dude,” he finally said, a prickling heat creeping over him as Nat walked toward to the waiting cab. “I’ve gotta go. Tell Pepper not to worry.”

If Noah answered, Jax didn’t hear him.

Ending the call, he tossed his mobile onto the Aston Martin’s front seat and ran after Nat. “Oi,” he called. “What the fuck?”

She grinned at him from the open passenger door. “Don’t get yourself into a tiz, Campbell. I’ve got work to do. A lot of it. I’ll see you Monday. With more names on my list.”

And with that, she closed the door and the taxi drove away.

He stood there in the empty parking area, shocked. And nervous.

When Bruce ambled back, the closest thing to a satisfied smile Jax had ever seen on his face, Jax did his best to not appear…in a flap.

It was tricky though. Because he
was
in a flap. He wanted Nat here with him.

He wanted to spend the weekend with her.

He wanted to spend…

The rest of your life with her?

“Let’s get out of here, Bruce,” he tossed over his shoulder as he dropped into the rental sports car.

He tried to call her numerous times over the weekend, but all he got was her message service, and there was only so many times a guy could ask a woman to call him before he had to admit she wasn’t going to.

Whatever was going on in Nat’s head, she wasn’t sharing it with him. It kind of pissed him off. Truth be known, he felt lost without her.

Lost. Ah, there’s that word Nick had used. Maybe he was right after all?

When the sun rose on Monday, Jax didn’t waste any time getting out of bed. A first for him.
“See you Monday,”
she’d said. Well, it was Monday. And he was going to see her.

Aware he was stupidly excited about getting to the Con ASAP, he forced himself to go to the Hyatt’s private gym and put in a solid forty minutes working out. Then he swam a dozen laps in the hotel’s pool. Then, thanks to his agent’s insistence, he filmed a live breakfast interview with the country’s leading morning news program where he talked about the search for a new lead singer for the band, who was going to be cast as him in the upcoming movie adaption of his autobiography and life after Nick Blackthorne. The whole time, however, his mind was on Nat.

Not sex with Nat. Just Nat. Wondering what she was doing, if she was wearing those boring conservative low heels at work again, if she was thinking about him.

By the time nine o’clock ticked over, he was ready to burst.

Leaving Bruce behind, he damn near ran from the television studio to the Aston Martin and broke more than one speed limit driving to the Con. He probably earned himself more than one red light camera fine, truth be known.

Didn’t matter.

He’d never been so impatient to see someone. He knew he should be impatient to see her because of the possible replacement options for Nick, that’s why he was here after all. But that wasn’t the case. He told himself he was impatient to see her because he wanted to press her against the door in her office and make her come so loudly the whole damn conservatorium heard. That wasn’t the reason either, although it was a damn arousing notion.

No, he was impatient to see her because after a whole twenty-four hours
without
seeing her, he didn’t want to go a minute longer without being in her company. In any capacity.

Fuck, was it possible to miss someone so badly in such a short time after so many years of not seeing them at all?

He didn’t allow himself to ponder that question. There was something unnerving about the answer waiting for him if he did.

Instead, he flung the Aston Martin into an empty space in the visitor’s parking area at the Con and made his way to Nat’s office, aware there was a spring in his step and a grin on his face.

Christ, it felt good.

He was two steps into Nat’s outer office when Dory stopped him.

“She’s in a meeting, Mr. Campbell.”

He came to a halt. “An important one?”

The little cutie with the pixie-like face nodded. “Very. The head of the board. He didn’t seem happy. I really don’t think you should interrupt this one.” A shifty smile pulled at the edges of her mouth. “Especially not like you did the last time you were here.”

Jax’s cock twitched at the memory of bringing Nat to an orgasm while he hid under her desk only two days ago. He shifted on his feet, a strange mix of ego, delight and irritation threading through him. He’d waited since Saturday to see her. Was he really going to let a pretentious wanker in a suit make him wait any longer? Was he? He
was
Jaxon Campbell, after all.

He thought about how Nat would react to him walking in there. How she’d look at him. What she’d think about him.

“I’ll wait,” he said, smiling at the door. Holy crap. He was waiting. Who’da thunk it?

“I fear it’s going to be a long one,” Dory’s voice drew his attention from the door. “She asked me to block out the first two hours of her morning, and she has another meeting after that. With the Minister for the Arts and Culture.” She ran a long, slow gaze over Jax, touching the tip of her tongue to her top lip. “Is there anything
I
can do for you while you wait?”

Jax didn’t miss the suggestive innuendo in her question. Nor the open invitation in her eyes. He’d had a lifetime of such suggestions and invitations, after all. Groupies were, if nothing else, not shy about coming forward.

“Anything at all,” Dory said, stroking her fingertips down the impressive cleft of her very visible cleavage.

Jax watched her, a thick knot twisting in his gut. Dory was a petite bundle of deliciousness, the kind of woman he suspected would go wild in the sack. And yet standing here, with her offer so plainly hanging between them, Jax had no inclination whatsoever to accept it.

None at all.

A soft grunt escaped him, part surprise, part happiness. “I think,” he said, heart fast, body thrumming, “I might go for a wander around the Con.”

And before Dory could offer to come with him, he turned and strode through the door.

He walked the hallways, talking to whoever stopped him. Some recognized him. He signed more than one guitar case, more than one text book. Posed for more than one photo. He laughed when a young woman, possibly eighteen maybe nineteen years old, told him her mum would absolutely die of envy knowing she’d met him. Of course, there was only one thing to do when told something like that. With the girl’s smartphone, he snapped a photo of himself giving her a kiss on the cheek and then told her to send it to her mum. She did, and Jax and her friends—plus a lecturer or two—stood in the hall, grinning like maniacs as they waited for the girl’s mum to respond.

Which she did. With a very succinct
“ARE YOU FOR REAL???”

Laughing, Jax took the girl’s phone and called her mum back. “She is,” he said, when the mum answered it.

After a very animated conversation that mostly involved the mum apologizing for going all gushy—the words gushed into Jax’s ear no less—he’d handed the phone back to the student and continued to explore the Con.

He liked it here. The atmosphere in the place was incredible. The sense of timeless creativity and talent. The walls of the building radiated reverence and peace and serenity. Everywhere he went, the low hum of music danced over his senses, blending from exquisite cello solos, to angelic choir singing, to full classical orchestra performances. His body tingled, awash with a raw energy he hadn’t felt for a long time.

It was powerful. Potent.

Addictive and wonderful.

Damn, he’d forgotten the pure simplicity of playing music just for the love of it. It was incredible.

Inspiring.

Who knows how many minutes had passed when the sound of a guitar playing somewhere nearby caught Jax’s attention. Not just playing any old song, but Nick’s mega hit, “Whispers in the Night”.