WILDER: A Rockstar Romance (20 page)

Part Two

Chapter One

Liliana

At the very first note, my heart dropped to my shoes.

I had to get out of here. Fast.

"Angel?" I called frantically into the dressing room, "I'm running next door. I'm desperate for caffeine. You want anything?"

"Caramel latte?" my roommate called from inside. This shopping trip was supposed to be about bonding, getting to know each other, but fuck it. I couldn't stay in this store a moment longer.

The beat was infectious. I could see shoppers starting to sway near the racks of discounted jeans. It was a four-on-the-floor, balls-out pop song, all glittering synth and pounding bassline. Almost impossible to ignore.

And it was already in my head. The last place I wanted it to be.

I rushed out into the oppressive heat of the New York City streets, but my cheeks were blazing even hotter as I tried like hell to avoid the song of the summer. I fled into the cool of the Starbucks next door and took my place in line.

The overhead speakers were piping in some plinking little indie folk tune. I sighed in relief. I checked my nails, resolving for the fifty billionth time to stop biting them, then immediately stuck my thumbnail in my mouth and started nibbling.

I was next in line when the plinky song ended. There was a pause. I craned my neck and saw one of the baristas changing out the iPod behind the counter.

And there it was again.

I managed to hold it together, right up until the vocalist began. He started with the chorus, a nail right to the center of my heart.

"You got it right, babe/We spent the night, babe/And I'm just a little bit cocky, yes, it's true…"

I was out of there before the rest of the song ramped up. Because he didn't say, "little bit." No, he snarled and slurred his words, so that it came out sounding a lot more like, "Lil Bit."

Lil Bit.

Liliana Nesbit.

Me.

Jaxson Blue had worked his way back into my life, managing to ruin everything for me once again. This time without even having to see me face to face.

I ran out of the coffee shop with my hands clapped over my ears, but the bassline still pulsed in my chest, making my heart beat irregularly… just like it did when Jax stood in front of me naked for the first time. Tattooed and smoldering, with electric blue hair that did disconcerting things to his deep, deep blue eyes, he cupped my face in his hands and I melted right into a puddle at his feet.

I was halfway back to my apartment before I remembered Angel. And her coffee. And mine.

This was a matter of life and death. She'd have to understand. Or, if she didn't, then this bout of erratic behavior would be one more thing she could titter about with her boyfriend who stayed over every night and yet never pitched in for rent… or food… or the miles of toilet paper he clogged our aging toilet with every morning. Or maybe she could throw another party without consulting me, leaving me to be the one to have to clean up our tiny shoebox of an apartment.

I can't believe he used my own words in a song about me.

I stopped short with a sigh. It wasn't Angel I was mad at. She was a flighty slob, a spoiled Midwest princess who lacked in every real world skill an adult should have, but then again, what was I? We were both nineteen, strangers in this city and far away from our loved ones. I could cut her some slack.

Him, though?

"You didn't mean a word of it," I whispered.

"You're deluded," he chuckled.

"You're a cocky asshole."

"You got that right, babe."

He could rot in hell.

Chapter Two

Jax

I was getting tired of having to chat up every two-bit blogger that crossed my path, but what was even worse is having to sit there and listen to them blather about my mother with the kind of reverence usually reserved for the freaking Pope.

"And what was it like, growing up the son of Annie Blue?"

This blogger, a curvy little thing that I could definitely see taking home—providing she lost the obnoxiously huge cat-eye glasses that dominated her face—just asked me the same damn question that the previous ten reporters on this junket asked me.
How many times can I come up with a witty, concise way of saying what I really want to say? How am I supposed to answer a stupid question like that?

Being the son of Annie Blue is all I've ever been.

Even now, as my label readied the release of my first EP. Even now, as my first single was blowing up. Even now, as I had studio time booked for the full-length follow-up. Even now, as I had a Rolling Stone cover story in the works and my first tour was in the planning stages.

Even after all of this, I was still the fucking son of fucking Annie goddamn Blue.

I didn't say that, of course. Instead I shifted in my chair, spreading my legs for a second. The pretty blogger's eyes went right to my crotch, and I smiled a little. Yeah, she wanted it. A few choice words, and I'd have her begging for it.

"Well…" I smiled, showing the dimple I knew drove girls crazy. "Being the son of Annie Blue? That's the only thing I've ever known, sweetheart." She wiggled a little right then. I'd have her squirming one way or another. Just get those glasses off… "To some people, my mom is an icon," I added, hating how glib and portentous I sounded, "but to me, she's always going to be Mama."

I nearly vomited in my own mouth after that one. I had outdone myself. The last time I called Annie "Mama," I was still in diapers. She made me call her Annie the minute I stopped lisping and drooling, and any maternal feelings she might have had for me were drowned out by her own narcissism.

The curvy little thing giggled, typing furiously into her sleek MacBook. "I just can't imagine anyone calling Annie Blue ‘Mama,’ ” she said, shaking her head. "She's a goddess."

I tried to hold back the explosive sigh, but it came out anyway. Luckily for me, my publicist knew exactly what that meant.

"That's all the time Mr. Blue has right now," Beverly said crisply.

The blogger looked shocked, and that's when I knew for sure that she expected we'd end up in bed together after this. At least in that regard, I was my own man. No one ever called me in Annie Blue's son when I took them home. It was
my
name they screamed out.

I stood up and shook her hand, giving her the full benefit of my dimple. She made a noise like a little squeak, and I could smell the desire rising off of her in waves. May be I could get her off her Annie Blue lady-boner in my own special way?

But luckily, Beverly seemed to know me better than myself. "Mr. Blue," she said, "I've arranged for you to be able to take a break. Did you want anything from craft services?"

The blogger, clearly shut out, slunk away, stuffing her laptop into her shoulder bag. I allowed myself one last glimpse of her ass, then sighed. "How many times have you cock-blocked me now, Bev?"

Beverly arched an eyebrow. "Who, me? I'm only looking after my best client's well-being."

"Bullshit. You just don't like the competition."

Beverly laughed. "Luckily for both of us, were not competing in the same pool." She let her own eyes linger for a second as the blogger disappeared around the corner, and then shook her head. "I could've taught that girl a thing or two," she sighed.

I licked my lips. "Please make sure to get it down on video," I told her, cupping my groin.

"You're an absolute pig, and I have no idea why I put up with you. Come on." Beverly sounded severe, but I could tell she was one second away from laughing. Getting under my radical feminist, lesbian publicist's skin was one of my favorite hobbies, probably second only to making music.

Such a fucking cliché, isn't it? Son of a rock star, grandson of a rock star, trying to make his own way in the music industry. It's a story so familiar, it's almost sad. I knew the minute I walked into the studio that everyone figured I was just a joke. I'd put out the four song EP, just to get it out of my system, then go back to my sad, playboy life of living off of my mother's money. I even believed it myself, figuring I would just use my mom's connections to scratch the itch, satisfy my curiosity.

Never once did I count on the fact that I'd love it more than anything.

I also never counted on the fact that I appeared to be good at it.

Now the little song I wrote a year ago, a poem jotted down in one of my notebooks after the biggest fuck-up of my life, was fucking
everywhere
. And none of us were prepared for it.

Least of all, me.

The label had me scrambling. A series of club appearances, really a small scale tour, were being planned at this very moment. I had studio time booked already for the full-length LP follow-up, an album's worth of material I hadn't even written yet. Of course, the label offered the services of the best songwriters in the business, but fuck it. This was my moment, my time to shine. “(Lil Bit) Cocky” was my words, but someone else's music. I was ready to stand my ground to make sure the world heard both this time.

Bev and I wolfed down a few sandwiches, watching the video guys break down their equipment. My face was still pancaked in the makeup the stylist had slathered on my face before the junket began, and it felt tight as a mask.

"What the hell time is it, anyway?" I asked Bev.

My manager snuck a look at her cell phone. "A fuck of a lot later than it should be," she said, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, Jax. I really need to get a better handle on these things for you."

I patted her arm for a moment. I once tried to get out of to sleep with me, a long time ago. She shot me down so gently that ever since, I'd felt a kind of protective instinct about her. "No, I talked too much. You know that."

Bev rolled her eyes. "You talk too much, and you reveal too much, Jax,"

I held my hand up to stave off the lecture I knew was coming. "I thought I did fine this time."

"What's it like to grow up the son of Annie Blue?"
she said, mimicking the blogger's wispy little tone. "Right there, she was trying to trap you. You say, 'Great!' and move on. Don't give them any more fodder than they already have on you."

I grimaced. Bev wasn't coming out and saying it, but I definitely knew what she meant. Pitchfork magazine had called my "enigmatic" lyrics "the biggest songwriting mystery since Carly Simon's 'You're So Vain.’ "

"Who is Little Bit?"
The headline blared.

But they got it wrong. Not “Little Bit.”

Lil Bit.

Liliana Nesbit.

The only girl I’d ever loved.

Chapter Three

Liliana

When she got back to the apartment, Angel stomped past me and slammed the door to her bedroom so hard that a book fell off of my nightstand.

She was probably angry with me.

She had a right to be, I supposed.

I sat at my crappy, thrift store desk and considered apologizing to her. But apologizing would mean explaining, which would mean she'd ask me questions, which would mean I'd have to explain my connection to Jaxson Blue.

I could just imagine how that conversation would go.

"Yeah, I lost my virginity to that sex god with his face plastered all over the internet.

"No. It's true. Me. Liliana Nesbit, the girl you know only as your mousy roommate who holes herself up on her room writing romance novels."

Yeah. Me. I'm not kidding."

She'd think I was crazier than she already did.

Best to just leave it.

Besides, I was in a groove now.

If there was one thing I had to give Jaxson, it was that he was good inspiration. As soon as I got home and in front of my wheezing laptop, the words started flowing.

It came to me all at once: my heroine, in an uncharacteristic fit of bravery, drew up her horse outside the gate where the intruder was last spotted. She called out, her voice rolling across the moor, but the only reply was her own echo calling back to her. The wind lifted a strand of jet-black tresses that she then tucked impatiently under her riding cap.

My fingers clacked away. Occasionally I took a break to bite the edges of my fingernails down to the nub, but otherwise all was quiet and focused. I could tell I was getting into the scene, because my heart was beating faster, my breath coming shorter. I was living in my heroine's head.

Right up until I realized what needed to come next.

The
sex scene.

Those always brought me up short. Sex scenes are hard to write when you have limited experience to draw from.

Luckily for me, my limited experience was pretty incredible. Right up until the moment it broke my heart.

I leaned back from my laptop and cracked my knuckles. Geraldine Hunter, disgraced heiress to the Hunter fortune, just entered the vast, crumbling manse belonging to reclusive aristocrat Tristan Bard. Her heart beat rapidly in her tightly laced stays as she watched the devastatingly handsome Tristan descend the staircase, his eyes raking over her body…

Yeah, this was going to be good.

But I needed a little more caffeine before I could continue.

I stood up from my laptop and blinked at my room around me. The sun was setting below the building behind mine and the light could no longer make it into my solitary window. In my writing flurry, I’d forgotten to turn the lights on.

I wandered about the tiny space, still deep in thought, and turned on the lamp as I acted out the scene I was about to write. The way his Tristan's hands gripped the back of Geraldine's head, forcing her to tilt upward as his lips devoured hers. The way his "manhood" was so hard and unyielding that she could feel it even through the voluminous mass of petticoats that formed a barrier between them.

It was always easy for me to come up with the prelude. Passionate yearning, the tingling sensations that ripple up spines… yeah, I was a master of sexual tension.

But once my heroes got their cocks out, my scenes were always the same. They followed the script… the only one I knew.

I sat back down to start typing, slowly at first, then gathering speed. And as I wrote, I started blushing.

And squirming.

And hating myself.

And hating Jaxson Blue.

Tristan—
no, Jaxson, it's always fucking Jaxson.I'll just find and replace the name afterwar
d—
leaned back in the bed, cradling his head in one hand while the other held a cigarette, the smoke curling lazily to the ceiling. "Was that your first time?" he asked me…
Geraldine, whoever.

"No." I blushed. Then I told the truth. "Yes."

Jaxson's eyes tightened a little as he took a drag. "Well, you're ruined now, Lil Bit."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you're never going to have a guy as good as me."

I giggled. "You are so fucking cocky."
I was so infatuated back then that it hurt to remember.

The words started to come. Thick and fast, my fingers moving feverishly to capture every little detail that I could recall. But I embellished, of course. Tristan was Jaxson, of course, but Jax done right. Jax, the nice version, the one who gave me the happily ever after I never got in real life.

The fantasy carried me, like it always does, right to the end. The sun was peeking around the edge of my building again as I looked up from my screen, eyes raw and aching.

5:14 in the morning, New York time, and I finished the latest Liliana Grace masterpiece. I typed my favorite words—THE END—and stood up, still punch drunk from my own self-inflicted book hangover.

The buzz of my phone vibrating against the desk nearly gave me a damn heart attack.

When I saw the number, I rolled my eyes. My father had no concept of normal, human bedtimes, a trait I’d apparently picked up from him. "Hi Daddy," I croaked into the phone, my voice hoarse from disuse.

There was a crashing clatter in the background, the whoops and hollers of a party still raging on the West Coast. It was a noise that was familiar down to my bones—the sounds of the after-party. But this one seemed more raucous than normal.

"Lil Bit!" My father was shouting over the noise, sounding more than a bit drunk. "Baby girl, she said yes! Annie said yes!"

I was too damn spent to understand what the hell he was talking about. "Annie said what, Dad?" I shouted back.

"She's gonna make an honest man outta me!"

There was a roar of laughter and the sound of muffled applause. My father yelled something I couldn't hear that was met with shouts of approval. But I was still standing stock still, trying to process what he was saying.

"You and Annie? Getting married?"

There was a scrabble for the phone, and then Annie's smoky-rich voice suddenly filled my ears. "Liliana, he finally did it, the rat bastard. Tryna tie me down, after all these years.”

I smiled weakly, pulse hammering, because I knew what she was going to ask me next.

She inhaled—maybe a cigarette, probably a joint—and dropped the bomb right in my lap. "Can you make it out here for the wedding?"

My hands were shaking and I had the urge to run away, though I wouldn't get far in this shoebox I called my home.
"You and Daddy are having a wedding?"

"Oh, we're too damn old to have a big thing," Annie said. "Just a few friends and relatives. And our kids."

A million thoughts vied for space in my brain—the thought of Annie and my Dad finally tying the knot after an on-again, off-again relationship that spanned my entire time on this earth—the thought of seeing them all again; Bash, Diggs, Crusty Pete, Greg Fingers…

But the thought that took up the most space was
I'm going to see Jax again.

And right after it, the horrified realization that Jaxson Blue, third generation rock royalty—the cocky asshole who took my virginity and then broke my heart in the most public way possible—was going to be my stepbrother.