Unstoppable (Fierce) (8 page)

I nodded quickly. With a relieved sigh, I flopped onto the bed.

“Don’t break it, you cow.”

“Fuck you,” I muttered.

“Is that an offer?” he said with another snicker.

“Never again,” I promised as I glared at him, arms crossed across my body.

“Well,” he said as he stood over me. “We still got to make it convincing.”

I gasped as he pushed me back against the mattress with his hands on my shoulders. Before I could spring back up, he kicked my legs apart so he could kneel on the bed. “What are you doing?” I hissed.

“Making love to my wife,” he said with an evilly upturned smile. I started to panic the minute the weight of his body pressed me into the mattress. His eyes devoured me as he began to move against me,
making it sound like we were making hot passionate love even though we were both fully clothed. Meanwhile he scoured over me, his contempt dripping like sweat from his face. His head bent toward mine. “Scream,” he commanded softly.

“No,” I bit out between clenched teeth.

“Scream like it’s the best sex you ever had,” he said in a low voice, and I felt the unmistakable sensation of his growing hard against me. “That way your girlfriend will start to want what you got.”

“I’m never going to set Shelby up for you,” I told him as I tried to scoot out from under him.

“Wow, that’s the most I’ve ever seen your fat ass move in a bed,” he said as he plopped over onto his side. He kept rattling the headboard to make his point to our poor visitor clear: he was a sex god she would be remiss not to indulge.

“Really?”
I sneered. “Didn’t you watch the tapes?”

He just laughed. “Freak porn isn’t my thing.”

I turned my back on him. It was going to be a long week.

Shelby stayed in the loft, which had been fitted with a bed just big enough for our pixie guest. Fortunately it was far enough away from the bedroom that shenanigans like the one upon our
homecoming would be unnecessary. I wanted to stay as far away from him as possible, even in a cramped queen bed in an even more cramped bedroom. I went to sleep practically dressed, curled up as tight as possible, teetering on the edge of the bed.

The first night, when I felt the unmistakable effects of his pleasuring himself, I scooted from the bed and left the room entirely, opting instead for a long bath in the claw foot tub in the tiny main bathroom. As I lay there and soaked in the warm water, I fought to replace thoughts of Eddie – and in effect, subsequent thoughts of Shane – from my head. My stomach growled at me as my brain scrambled, trying to stuff the most unpleasant trauma of my past back behind the mental door with a broken lock.

“
I’m not hungry
,” I told myself as I dried off and dressed. “
I’m just overwhelmed
.”

After settling for a tall glass of water to quell the grumbling, I made a mental note to check in with Maggie the following morning. I glanced up at the quiet, darkened loft where Shelby slept blissfully unaware of my conflict, then retreated back to the bedroom.

Eddie was sprawled naked across the bed, thankfully asleep. I grabbed a pillow and gently tugged a blanket free, then slept on the floor.

I woke the next morning to the smell of bacon sizzling in a frying pan. When I emerged from the bedroom, I found Shelby sitting across the bar from Eddie, who was preparing a lavish breakfast for our guest. They laughed as they interacted, Eddie ever a charming flirt, and I used their distraction to slip back into the bathroom to shower and dress for the day.

When I emerged, Eddie bestowed his most charming smile my direction. “Hey, babe. I was going to serve you breakfast in bed.” He sent me a knowing wink, which made my stomach lurch. I covered it with a small smile as I perched next to Shelby at the bar.

“No time for that,” I said. “We have a busy day today.”

“That’s why I got to take care of my girls,” he said as he slid some eggs into the plate in front of me.

Despite the fact my stomach wanted to eat itself after being deprived the night before, each bite tasted like cardboard in my mouth. I hated being here with Eddie, pretending to be his loving wife, watching him thrive in the expensive house I rented for him under duress. From his clothes to the furniture to his car, he was living the high life on my dime – but he was little more than a petty thief in my eyes.

I once loved Eddie Nix, or the Eddie Nix I thought him to be. Now I loathed him. I really and truly hated the mere sight of him.

I touched the wedding band on my finger with my thumb. The cool metal reminded me why I went through this ruse at all. I’d give every dime I had to protect Jace and then some.

I washed down what little I could eat with some orange juice, then practically dragged Shelby from the tiny, homey little beach house. Eddie was quick on our heels, wanting to spend the day doing whatever it was we were doing. We followed us right out the door, his hands on both of our backs as he led us toward my car. “I never get to see you,” he crooned down at me. “We have to make every moment count.”

Shelby giggled as she watched us, so I played my part by offering a smile rather than the sigh of exasperation I truly felt. We climbed into my new car to head toward the studio.
Eddie let me drive, surprisingly, but I began to suspect as we eased into the I-10 traffic, that he had an ulterior motive. He promptly turned in his seat to chat with our lovely passenger in the back seat.

“You have a great car,” she offered as we slowed to a stop amidst all the other L.A. commuters.

“Don’t you have the same car?” Eddie asked, even though I suspected he knew damn well she didn’t.

I glanced into the rearview mirror in time to see Shelby sadly shake her head. “It was only for the finalists,” she said softly.

“Oh, that’s right,” he said and I sent him a dirty look out of the corner of my eye. He ignored it as he turned back to face her. “For the record, I thought you should have made it to the finale. Honestly, if it had been any other competition, you would have won.”

I took a deep breath and counted to ten.

“No,” she said with a dreamy smile. “Jace deserved his win.”

Eddie nearly snorted with contempt. “He only won because there are a lot of desperate, horny people out there who think he’s some kind of romantic hero.”

This time he met my gaze dead on, with a level of contempt of his own.

“He is a romantic hero,” Shelby corrected as she scooted up to lean on either of the front seats. “I’ve never met anyone like him.”

“You need to be careful who you trust, Shelby,” Eddie cautioned. “Nothing is what it seems, especially in this business. At the end of the day, he’s a guy just like any other, I guarantee it. He’ll do what he wants, with whomever he wants, no matter who else it hurts.”

Shelby was stunned as she looked at Eddie. “What does that mean?”

“It means you shouldn’t romanticize guys, Shelby. They’re all alike.”

“You’re not like that,” she tried to reason, and I had to stifle my snort of derision. “You fell in lov
e with Jordi when you were kids, and now you’ve committed your life to her, no questions asked.”

He just shrugged with a smile. “I guess I’m not your average guy,” he offered.

“I can see that,” Shelby replied with a smile. “Jordi is very lucky to have you.”

When, exactly, had I put on my invisibility cloak? They kept talking about me like I wasn’t in the car… which, ironically, was the last place I wanted to be.

I gritted my teeth through the rest of their conversation as I pointed us toward the studio, where we were supposed to lay down vocals for a new single to promote the tour. It was a re-release of “Make it Happen,” with the finalists of
Fierce
featured as lead vocals, just like the encore performance on stage. Vanni had let it slip Graham was considering the new release as the new theme song for Season 2, which meant this recording session was going to do double duty of selling tickets to the current tour and sell the show itself to new advertisers.

No pressure.

It helped me take my mind off of Eddie and his blatant attempt to woo Shelby right in front of me. I wanted to warn her, to tell her to run as far away from him as she could possibly get. But the only way to fully warn her would require taking her into my confidence, and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. The fewer people who knew the truth, the better. I had sacrificed so much to ensure Jace’s future; I couldn’t risk it on a whim.

Shelby was a good Christian girl who had sworn s
he’d save herself for marriage, so that had to protect her from the likes of Eddie. Surely there had been many other suitors who had tried to get into her pants. I had to trust she’d be able to hold her own with a lady’s man like Eddie.

Plus there was her growing infatuation with Jace to consider. It was one of the positive byproducts of her crush; I knew as long as she thought Jace was
a viable possibility, she’d never fall truly for Eddie’s sugar-coated bullshit.

In fact, Eddie ceased to exist the minute Jace entered the studio and joined us behind the microphones.
Eddie was still there, sitting across from us in the control room with the recording engineers, but we no longer cared.

Jace greeted us both with warm hugs before he put
on his earphones. Suddenly, our performances came alive with the inclusion of his spectacular voice. It was hard to believe he had never sung a note prior to his injury. Thank God for the first therapist who suggested they listen to music to aid his recovery. He began to sing to offset the pain, and from out of nowhere this voice bubbled to the surface, far more nuanced, still, than we even knew.

He had spent the better part of the last three months with both Imogene and Vanni to stretch his vocal ability in time for the tour. They honed his crystal-clear falsetto to where he could drop it as easily into a rock song as he could a ballad. Gone were the 1970s AM standards he initially brought into the
Fierce
competition, songs I later learned were the songs his dad had once dedicated to his mom during their courtship. Those had meant something to him, so he leaned heavily on them to convey emotion to the audience. Every now and then he’d sing them just for me, but he was quickly growing beyond that into more complex, thematic songs that reached the listener with the power of his voice alone.

I was so proud of how much he’d grown that I could have burst. It inspired me to push my own limits, which were alre
ady off the charts. All my life my mother had cautioned me that was just vanity and showing off.

When I finally confided that to Jace, he simply said, “What’s wrong with that?”

So I let it rip when we were in the studio, matching Jace note for note, unconscious of the fact that Shelby was drowned out by the both of us.

It took a break, and Eddie, to point that out.

He cornered me when I was refilling my water bottle. “How can you be such a cunt to someone you say is your friend?” he demanded in a low voice.

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s not enough that you and Bionic Boy stole her crown, now you have to steal her thunder? Is it that important to you to be better than everyone else, Jordi?”

I glared at him as I sipped the ice cold water. “You tell me,” was all I said as I spun on my heel and returned to the studio.

But when we went into the new verses, I did temper my performance. It wasn’t her fault that I had such a powerful voice; there was no need to overrun her in a tune that didn’t even allow for lead performances anyway.

We were a team. And I was used to being a team player.

I could see the gratitude on her face as she took her own vocals down a notch, no longer straining herself to keep up – or at least be heard.

We had it near perfect by the time Vanni arrived with Graham later that afternoon, both of whom were very pleased with our performances.

Graham gave me a big bear hug in greeting, nearly lifting me right off the floor. He hadn’t been kidding about how he wanted to take the finalists of the show under his wing. He practically adopted me after I signed onto the label. I was as welcome to his house as I was in his office, so I had shared many dinners with both him and my guardian angel, Maggie.

They didn’t
pry much into my private life; I got the feeling that they suspected I wasn’t ready to divulge that kind of information. But they made their presence in my life a welcoming one, and I knew that I could depend upon them both to guide me in making good decisions.

“How are you doing, kiddo?” he asked as he planted a kiss on top of my head.

“Great,” I lied through my teeth. Though technically a homecoming, I was biding my time until we hit the next stop on the tour. I was ready to put Los Angeles – and Eddie – in the rear view mirror. The ruse was much easier to pull off when he wasn’t right in front of me, demanding that I play nice or else.

The group headed out to a trendy, late night restaurant, where Maggie and Andy joined us for a rowdy dinner
that lingered till the midnight. Eddie planted himself at my side, his arm draped permanently around my waist, taking any and all opportunities to touch me, flirt with me or interact with me. My ached from the effort of maintaining a phony smile, and within an hour I was nursing a dull headache. I gulped more ice water to remedy the pain, signaling for the waiter to refill me. Not only would it help my headache, it would keep me from reaching for the bread basket filled with delectable goodies I knew I had to avoid. And it wasn’t even that I was hungry. I had a generous portion of sea bass that Maggie and I had decided to split, which was fortunate. I wolfed my portion down before it could fully register on my taste buds, so no doubt I’d have gorged on the full plate. All that was left were the decimated remains of vegetables that looked a lot less appetizing than when they first brought it to the table.