Protecting His Assets (18 page)

Uh, say
what
?

Cass rose from the desk and cast her brother a cool look. “Are you actually seeing her, Chase? Maybe you should think about that.” She strolled out without giving him a chance to answer, the door swinging shut behind her.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

With one question from Cass, Summer was right back in the same well of despair she’d been in before. Chase’s territorial routine did not equate to a basis for a caring relationship. She had to be careful about not seeing things that weren’t there. The dream she’d nurtured for years would sustain her, as long as she didn’t get sidetracked.

Yeah, he needed someone to believe in him, which she did with her whole heart. She cared about him deeply. Always had, always would. That didn’t mean she should open up her chest and invite him to start doing wheelies on her vital organs.

“How do I know what Cass meant?” Summer nudged him away, far enough that she could try to catch her breath. She shoved her hands through her hair, belatedly remembering she’d braided it. Escaped curls spilled around her face. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left when I did, but I was supposed to work this afternoon, and I wanted to talk to Jax. Why delay the inevitable?”

He stepped closer and smudged his thumb over her cheek. “Is this about last night?”

Her throat tightened. “I told her we had sex.”

“I’m not talking about that, and I figure she probably suspects as much considering I mentioned you were in my bed.”

“You don’t care?”

“Of course I care. She’s my sister, and her opinion of me matters. Do I like that she’ll add this to my list of fuckups? Hell no. But what can I do?” His thumb slid lower to the curve of her jaw, still rubbing lightly. “Besides, right now I care about you more.”

That word
care
seemed to be popping up all over the place. In her head, from his mouth. It felt so inadequate to describe the storm of emotions he created inside her with a look. A touch. “Since when?”

“Summer.”

His quiet admonition made her sigh. “What happened at the doctor?”

He dropped his hand. “I’d rather not—”

“So you chased me up here to demand answers from me while not giving any yourself?”

It was his turn to sigh, though he craned his neck to stare at the ceiling while doing so. “He offered me another couple names of people to see, but the PT isn’t working. I don’t want to live my life on medication. What’s the difference between that and alcohol?”

“There’s a big difference.” She reached out and grasped his arm, rubbing gently. “What about surgery?”

“That’s an option.”

“You’re still considering it?”

“I am.”

From the strained set of his jaw, he didn’t want to be. She cupped his elbow, her fingers moving in slow, tender circles. Trying to soothe without words. Instead he tensed even more.

“You have to protect your dreams,” she murmured. “They’re worth any risk.”

“Show me one worth it, then we’ll talk.”

The hard glint in his eyes killed the response in her throat. He wasn’t talking about her, she knew that logically. The rest of her refused to listen to reason.

Destroying his own sense of hope was one thing. That was his choice, as sad and disheartening as it was. But if the day came that his bitterness spilled over and he attacked
her
dreams—

A knock came at the door and she hissed out a breath. For pity’s sake, it was like Grand Central Station in that back room. “Yes?” she called.

“Sorry to interrupt, kids.” Jax sauntered inside and gave them a relaxed smile. The patterned scarf he wore drooped down his bullish chest, giving him a sort of comical look while not diminishing his hotness factor in the slightest. Which Chase seemed well-aware of as he glanced between Jax and Summer with an obvious scowl. “Just figured I should talk to Summer about the plan at her next show, considering her boss is getting mighty antsy out here about not having her countermate at her side.”

“I am not!” came Cass’s distant reply.

Jax only smiled more widely as he came up behind Summer and set his broad hands on her shoulders. She stiffened, but he didn’t seem to notice. Or care. “You don’t mind if we talk a little business, right, Chase?” He gave her a squeeze.

Chase’s scowl turned into a glare centered on Jax’s hands. “What do you need to talk about that I can’t listen to?”

“Chase, I need you a sec.” Cass appeared in the door holding a giant vat of ice cream. “I ordered this new sample tub and I can’t open it. Can you help?”

“Bring it here.”

“Can’t. Too heavy.” Out the door she went into the main shop.

Chase stalked to the door and glanced back accusingly at Jax and Summer as if he expected them to be in some state of undress. “I’ll be right back.”

Jax waited until Chase had gone to speak close to Summer’s ear. “You almost have him.”

“Huh?”

“He called me practically frantic about you, wondering if I could come by and talk to Cass, see if she’d heard from you. But casually. He didn’t want to set off Cass’s suspicions about you two. I’m guessing between when I told him you’d contacted me to set up an appointment and when he showed up here, he decided he didn’t give a fuck.” Jax shifted her to face him. “This is a good thing.”

“Is it?” She couldn’t make sense of anything at the moment. Fatigue and confusion and frustration hazed her brain. “He worries about me. I’m like Cass’s kid sister—”

Jax waved that off and slung an arm around her shoulders. “Tell me what shows you have coming up and we’ll devise a plan.”

“For my security?”

Jax’s mouth ticked up. “Among other things.”

For a second, hope bloomed. She wasn’t like Chase. She wanted to believe a pot of gold existed at the end of every rainbow, even the ones that were almost smudged away after the rain. A bleak, colorless world held no appeal for her. If she lost what she’d always wanted, yes, it would hurt. It was supposed to.

Losing Chase hurt, though she’d barely ever held him. And here was Jax, holding out a bag of gold doubloons. She could see the mirth and the mischief brimming in his eyes. God, she ached to scheme with him. But she couldn’t risk so much again right now, not when she’d already laid so much of herself on the line. She could only chase one fruitless dream at a time.

“Don’t you want to hear my grand plan?” Jax shifted from foot to foot as if he couldn’t keep still. “It might help both of us, if we play our deuces right.”

That
snagged her attention. “What do you mean?”

“Well, if you were to act all friendly-like toward me, and I did the same, maybe Chase would see the error of his ways.” He tugged on a loose thread on her sleeve and her sense snapped back into place.

“No. I’m not playing games. If he can’t decide that he wants me on his own, it’s better we’re not together.” She drew her shoulders back. See, her resolve was already strengthening. “I’m fine being single. With my career—
both
of my careers—I don’t have time for silly entanglements.” Or wild, sheetrock-cracking sex.

“Glad to hear it. But if you change your mind, you know where I am.” He strolled out, whistling.

It was only after he’d left that Summer realized he’d never mentioned how his grand plan could benefit him.

The same day Chase lost—okay, gave away—his first client, he gained his second, a spoiled heiress with a tendency toward rampant paranoia. She’d found the ad Chase had placed online the week before and insisted she needed his assistance 24/7. He’d swiftly negotiated down from that, but he still found himself spending way too many hours standing around Macy’s and toting shopping bags. Toting freaking
bags
, like some well-paid bellhop.

“Chase,” Anastasia whined the following week when she caught Chase fixating on a poster tacked to a tree in Queens. The Palladio was hosting a New Faces Talent night, and who was the first one listed on the sheet? Sunny Z. Looking more beautiful and happy than any woman had a right to.

That would be her first show with Jax at her side instead of him. He shouldn’t think about it. He was the one who’d shuffled her off to Jax’s care.

Damn, he missed her.

She hadn’t called since that day at Triple Scoop. Since the morning she’d rolled out of his bed and strolled out of his life, though he’d given her a nudge. Maybe more than one.

This was the best thing for both of them, especially her. Now if only he could stop thinking about that frigging dressing room table, and the way she’d asked—no, told—him to go down on her. The way she’d smelled and tasted…

Chase’s groin tightened in concert with his grip on the shopping bag in his left fist. Right on cue, pain lanced through his elbow. If he hadn’t grabbed the bag with his other hand, he would’ve dropped it.

“Chase. Are you listening?”

“Dammit,” he muttered, turning toward Anastasia. “What now?”

She pressed her ample cleavage against his biceps and pointed up the street toward the pet shop. “I saw him,” she said in a stage whisper, shivering so violently that her wild blonde hair brushed his skin.

“Saw who?”

“The man who’s been following me.” She gripped Chase’s arm way too close to the elbow and he had to smother a grimace. “Please, can we go now?”

He didn’t think for a moment that someone was following her, but she was a nice, mostly lucid woman who’d been spooked by an attempted burglary in her upscale apartment the previous year. His hope was that if she started to feel safer while in his presence, then maybe that feeling would extend to the rest of her life. He didn’t know if that would actually happen. It wasn’t as if he was a shrink.

Hell, he needed a shrink himself, probably. But at least he’d begun regularly attending AA meetings again, to the tune of four times a week. Whatever got him through the night.

Without Summer.

He had another doctor’s appointment this afternoon, again with Dr. Jensen. The doctor had returned from his trip and Chase had scheduled the appointment not to discuss a new medication and therapy regime, but to start the path to surgery. Every time he wavered he thought of the weakness he’d felt that night holding Summer in the dressing room. Somehow that seemed like the cruelest blow of all, that in the midst of what should’ve been one of the best moments of his life—and still had been anyway—he’d had to face how fallible he’d become. Accepting he probably wouldn’t get better without the operation felt like failure.

But he was facing the situation. And this time, he wouldn’t chicken out.

He reached up and grabbed the flyer, stuffing down the momentary guilt at taking an advertisement for Summer’s show. She deserved something fancier than colored paper tacked up on a tree and crowds of drunk, screaming lechers who all wanted a piece of her for the price of a cover charge.

She would get there, of that he had no doubt. And he’d see it, one way or the other.

“Let’s go,” he said to Anastasia, shoving the folded flyer in his back pocket carefully, making sure it didn’t tear.

Later he’d take it out and study her face when he didn’t have witnesses. So he could remember, and wallow with his ice cold…water. Then, when he couldn’t take any more, he’d come back to the Palladio and creep in the back door to watch her from the shadows.

He’d become a bodyguard and a stalker in one month. Pretty damn impressive.

Chapter Nine

“You can do this. You can do it.” Summer chanted the words to herself backstage at the Palladio, her fingers going numb on the strings of her guitar. She’d played so much the past week that she was afraid she’d develop carpal tunnel. But she’d wanted to make sure she was ready.

Voices buzzed around her, the hive of pre-concert activity creating a low hum under her skin. This show would be the beginning. Tonight was the debut for a lot of things. A new Summer, one who wasn’t hampered by the past or by futile lustful impulses toward an unreachable man. Her new bodyguard, whom she most thankfully did not want to ride like a mustang every time she saw him. Maybe even a new manager, who would open the door for her to a life of travel and fresh faces and music. So much music and the people who loved it, coming to see and hear
her
. She’d finally be on her own, living life on her terms.

If she nailed it tonight.

She’d been on a half-hearted manager search for a while, sending out letters to the most reputable talent agencies in the city. Most of the nibbles she’d received hadn’t panned out, except this one. Frank Tedoro from the prestigious Tedoro and Thompson agency was interested in her music. Tonight he’d decide if he wanted to represent the whole package.

If he did, things would move quickly from there. He wanted her to get on the road and start busting her ass by playing venues all over the northeast, not only New York. The key to her success, he’d told her, was being seen. She was no longer just a person, she was a product. That freaked her out sometimes, but she figured it was one more thing she had to learn to deal with to get where she wanted to go.

God, she wanted to go. To leave the memories behind. To run from the arms she sometimes imagined constricting her when she closed her eyes and tried to sleep.