Love Song (Rocked by Love #2) (14 page)

"He rearranged
things that were said. You held yourself in control the whole time. He's making
up seventy-five percent of this story."

He nodded. "Irisa is
already on it. I'm sure she sent it to our legal team, just in case. Not
everyone realizes Donnie's true M.O., so when the fans read the article, they
might not react well."

"Might not react
well is an understatement." Audrey lifted her gaze from the screen.
"I'm not sure if I want to see the comments."

He didn't want anything
to further dull the sparkle in her eyes. "I'll look. Why don't you make
sure you have everything packed?"

She kissed him then, long
and deep, and wrapped herself around him. When his head was completely mixed
up, she pulled away. "Thank you."

He scrolled to the
comments when she left the room.

They weren't good. Harsh
and unnecessary were more like it, and the ones on his page were even worse.

Fury_Fan_4ever: BUSTED!
Ha Ha! Good luck explaining this one to him, whore. Who else are you going to
scam into helping you next?

01_Fury_Fan: She's
cheating on Luke. Rob's cheating on his girl. Both of them deserve each other.
Ew.

Mikala_Mason: See??? She
is a USER! Luke will be crushed. I hope that SLUT falls over and DIES! BITCH!

The forcefulness of the
hate disturbed and saddened him, but Mikala's comment pushed anger to the
forefront. Goddamn it, why couldn't they leave her alone? He took a screen shot
of the comments and sent it to Irisa. Then, he deleted the post and changed the
settings so no one but him could post or share anything.

But that didn't seem like
enough. He wanted to throttle each and every person who'd hurt her.

He needed to hit
something. But more than that, he needed to hold her.

He closed the computer
and went in search of her.

Two weeks to go until
Jett's show. Hopefully things would calm down by the time they landed in New
York. Until then, he intended to make their time in California the best two
weeks of Audrey's life.

In between working with
Hugh and overseeing Wild Intentions practice sessions, Luke did his best to
convince Audrey that life in California was better than life in New York,
packing their days with wine tasting at vineyards, hiking, shopping, an
undersea boat tour, lots of time on the beach, and lots of time in his bed.

She kept remarking about
all the extra space in his house, the size of the rooms, the amount of natural
light. And he kept picturing different scenarios where she'd want to stay
permanently.

She fit perfectly in his
life, whether they were working on the set design for Wild Intention's
performance on Jett's show, or she was accompanying him to practice sessions at
Zander's house, or they were spending time with his band mates. Jayne and Irisa
remarked on how much they liked having her there, too. And Luke knew he'd never
tire of seeing her in his bed or sharing morning coffee or glasses of wine in
the evening on the bedroom balcony.

Pride had shot through
him when he'd accompanied her to meet with the regional director of the anti-bullying
program. He'd held her hand while she told her story and asked the director how
she could help others. They'd left the meeting with a commitment for Audrey and
Luke to sign on as celebrity ambassadors, and a promise from Audrey to donate
proceeds of special, anti-bullying designs to the program.

He knew he was sunk when
he brought her to see the community center where he and the other guys would be
spending the next few months volunteering their time teaching music to kids.
She charmed the kids there, and he could see her getting involved there, too.

The last morning of their
stay in L.A., he found her in the lower level of his home, sketchbook in hand,
staring out the patio window. "You okay?"

"Sure." She set
her sketchbook aside and rose to wrap her arms around his waist. "I'm just
working on design ideas for the anti-bullying campaign."

He kissed the top of her
head. "You know, this space down here would make a good studio for
you."

She tilted her head and
gazed around the room and then smiled. "It is a great space."

Her answer was more
noncommittal that he wanted to hear, but he didn't want to push her too hard.

She still had some time
left on her lease. He'd use their time in New York to continue convincing her
that L.A.—and with him—was where she needed to be.

On
Tuesday morning, her first full day back in the city, Audrey sat with Luke on
the couch in her apartment, finishing up her second cup of coffee. They had two
days to themselves until the rest of The Fury and Wild Intention would arrive
to select clothes for their performance on Jett's show that Friday.

Her cell phone rang and
the studio property manager's number lit across her screen. Her lease renewal
would be coming up soon. Maybe he wanted to talk about it. She set her cup
aside and engaged the call. "Hi, Mauro."

"The front of your
studio has been vandalized, with graffiti all over the windows. I have the
police here. They'd like to talk to you. Can you come in now? I called Renee,
she's on her way."

Dread
weighted her stomach and she clutched the phone tight. "What the hell? Are
you serious? I'll be there in ten minutes."

"What's
wrong?" Luke asked from behind her.

Focused, she
didn't answer, just tossed her phone in her purse and dashed to the bathroom to
brush her teeth. She'd been a fool. What made her think that not checking the
internet meant the fans had given up?

"What's
going on?" Luke grabbed her toothbrush wrist.

She spit into
the sink and wiped her mouth with the back of her other hand. The words gushed
out on a half sob. "Graffiti on the studio. The police," she
swallowed hard. "The police are there and want to talk to me."

A dark expression covered
his face. "I'm coming with you."

Minutes later, the cab
screeched to a stop behind the police car.

Audrey looked out the
window and her breakfast threatened to make a reappearance.

Ugly words, sprayed
across the windows, in huge bright red letters. The giant words would be
visible from a block away. Her surroundings began to spin. She squeezed her
eyes shut to block out the words, but they were just as big and bright behind
her eyelids.

Slut. User. Whore. Die
Bitch!

Tears stung
her eyes and rolled down her hot cheeks. How much more could she take? They'd
threatened her life for chrissake.

Luke gripped her hand and
guided her out of the cab toward Mauro, Renee, and the police officer. She was
only too glad when the cop suggested they go inside.

The officer introduced
herself, but Audrey missed the name thanks to the buzzing in her ears. She made
herself focus while the woman kept talking.

"Ma'am, do you have
any idea who could have done this?"

Her thoughts ran to
Mikala. Luke's super fan was local and hated her. But in reality, Luke had
millions of fans. She told her about Mikala and the nasty internet postings on
her site and finished up with the truth. "It could be anyone."

With an expression
promising murder, Luke rattled off his own brief summary of the cyberattacks.

The officer nodded,
jotted down notes, and asked Mauro a few questions more before leaving.
"I'll be in touch."

Mauro scrubbed his hands
over his face. "I'll get someone out here to scrape the paint off the
window. It may take a few days, but hopefully not more than that. And I'll have
it covered up with cardboard while it's being worked on. I'll call you as soon
as it's set up. Cardboard will go up today."

Audrey held herself
together. When Mauro left, she went to her office in the back room. Who would
do this? The letters were shaky, not straight, but that gave them more of a
horror movie vibe. Had that been deliberate?

Luke pushed open the
door. His eyes burned with anger. "Come on, let's get out of here."

"No. I need to work.
I was going to come in to do the books today and that's what I'm going to do.
Business as usual." Her fingers shook. She folded her arms across her
chest to hide her trembling hands.

"Fine. I'm grabbing
coffee from the shop down the street, I have a phone call to make and then I
have an errand to run. I'll meet you back here." He pressed a kiss to her
forehead and strode away.

She watched him go until
he disappeared into the coffee shop. "He's in a dark mood."

"Well, I can
understand why." Renee held the door for her.

Audrey's fingers
continued to shake while she did the books, and while Renee and she prepared
for their conference call with Frozen Blur's manager. The new all-woman rock
band had apparently loved her designs from the show.

When the band's manager
came through on video chat, she had the entire band with her. "We want
everything from the runway show."

"Excuse me?"
Audrey spanned the six women in the screen.

"The metallic
pieces, the leather, the spandex, the chains. All of it. Except the menswear,
of course."

The woman sitting to the
manager's right, with pale pink hair and a diamond nose piercing gave her a
wave. "Your name is all over the place right now. People love to hate you,
and we love stirring up trouble, so of course, we need your designs."

The
love to hate you
line bothered her. "Um, thank you?"

"But mainly we love
the designs anyway and want to book you for our album photo shoot next
month."

"I would love that.
I'm very excited to work with you." Audrey kept her voice professional but
couldn't control the huge smile spreading across her face. After such a shitty,
scary morning, and all the petty online bullshit, she really needed some good
news.

As she pulled up her
calendar and talked with the manager about available dates, Renee gave her a
big grin off camera. After the call ended, Audrey glanced at her own hands.
Apparently, an ounce of kindness and a huge sale were a good cure for
trembling.

Luke arrived a while
later. "Here you are, iced coffee and a whistle to add to your
keyring." He set them on her desk, then turned and gave Renee the same.

"What's with the
whistle?" She tried it out and the shrill sound blasted Audrey's ears so
much she jumped. Then Renee giggled, "Never mind, I figured out what it's
for."

He stayed in the
background while she finished the books. Close, but not in the way. After that,
the stress of the morning caught up with her and her concentration was fried.
She sent Renee home and closed up early.

Luke convinced her to see
a movie. They sat in the last row of a darkened, nearly empty theater, with a
bucket of popcorn between them, watching a comedy that didn't require heavy
concentration. Laughing helped ease the hollow feeling in her soul.

They picked up dinner
from the sushi place close to her apartment. And then finally, they were home.

Luke set the food on
plates and she opened a bottle of white wine. They hadn't talked about it, and
she needed to. Someone coming after her in one of her personal spaces scared
her. "Who do you think did it?"

"Your guess is as
good as mine. The obvious choice would be Mikala. I spent a long time today
looking through the most frequent commenter profiles for clues. No luck. That's
when I picked up the whistles. It's not much of anything, but it made me feel
better."

"I appreciate all
the support you gave me today." She rose onto her toes, until she could
reach his lips, and kissed him.

He drew her into the
living room and nudged her until she sat on the edge of the couch. He sat
behind her, legs splayed on either side of hers, and massaged the tension from
her shoulders. Over and over, he worked the muscles in her back, shoulders,
neck, and head, varying pressure and speed. She sipped wine and everything
mellowed.

He kissed her between her
shoulder blades and started singing, his voice low, more of a whisper against
her skin, and he kept it up as he melted the stress from her body. That same
song he'd been singing since the first night he'd stayed over. The song was
older than she was, had been written before she was born, but when he sang it,
she thought of it as only hers.

She settled against him.
"I'm glad you're here."

"Sunshine, I'll
always be here."

That wouldn't be the
case. Eventually, he'd want to go back home to California. Eventually, the band
would start recording, and then touring, and getting increasingly busy with
Furious Records. And then she wouldn't be able to rely on him to calm her down
or make things better, or have him to hold every night.

She needed to start
getting used to handling things on her own. Too soon, he'd be out of her life.