Killian gave a slight shake of his head, his lips twitching with amusement. “I feel the same way. Never fucking doubt it.”
Then I realized I hadn’t actually said the words. “If you didn’t get it from the song, I love you.”
He grinned, rubbing his nose against mine. “I got that.”
I kissed him again, pouring my heart and soul into it until Killian impatiently lifted me up into his arms. I wrapped my legs around his waist and held on as we stumbled and kissed our way back into the bedroom. He dropped me on the bed, managing the feat of climbing over me and removing his boxers at the same time.
“We need to put it on the album.”
Happier than I ever thought possible, I beamed. “Really? You like it that much, huh? I can feel my ego swelling.”
“Mine is swelling too,” he murmured wickedly, and then kissed me as he slipped his hand between my legs.
I gasped against his mouth as his thumb caught my clit. “I’m so . . . oh God . . . so happy you liked it.”
“I fucking loved it,” he growled against my lips. “I want it immortalized and when it’s time,” he pushed his fingers inside me, working me until my hips undulated against him and my pants of need filled the bedroom, “everyone will know that Skylar Finch wrote it for me.” He paused, drawing my focus from impending orgasm to his face, to his utter seriousness. “I know I don’t yet, but I’ll do everything in my power to try to deserve you.”
And as we fell together, loving each other more honestly than we ever had before, the darkest corner of my mind whispered to me. I had to force its thoughts back into the shadows, hoping that those fears never came true.
* * *
IT WAS STILL DARK OUT when Killian’s cell rang.
He groaned in his sleep beside me and made no move to reach for it.
I planned on closing my eyes and going back to sleep when it stopped, but as it rang again, my cell rang too.
What the hell?
Killian muttered something under his breath and reached across to his side of the bed to grab his phone off the table. Annoyed that we’d been so rudely awakened, especially considering our sexual shenanigans had kept us awake most of the night, I turned over and almost knocked my phone off the table trying to grab it.
“What? Lois, slow down.” Killian was suddenly very awake as he sat up.
I frowned at him as I fumbled to open my phone, not liking the sound of his side of the conversation at all. Seeing Autumn’s name on my screen, I refrained from unleashing my tired grumpiness on her.
“Skylar, it’s me,” she sounded distressed and breathless.
It made me bolt up into a sitting position too. “What is it?”
“It’s all over the news.”
“What’s all over the news?” I asked, but as I looked at Killian, staring at me with concern and anger in his eyes, I thought maybe I already knew.
“A fan posted photos of you, Micah, and Brandon outside the flat yesterday morning on Instagram. She said she followed Micah and Brandon from their hotel and when they disappeared into, and I quote, ‘a mysterious flat, I just knew in my gut something good was going down. I called a friend who brought her car and supplies and we camped out all night waiting for them to emerge from the mystery flat. We had no idea how big the climax to our ridiculous night of playing paps would be. Lo and behold, we found Skylar Fucking Finch!’”
“Holy shit.” I felt my chest tightening as I practically fell out of the bed, hauling the bedsheet out from under Killian to cover myself as I hurried down the hall to the door.
“Are you okay?” Autumn asked in my ear.
I pushed the peephole cover aside and looked out, feeling marginally calmer to see the hallway was empty.
I felt a warm hand on my shoulder and spun around to find Killian. “They can’t get into the building.”
Still, the fear made my gut churn. “What’s going to happen?”
Autumn sighed. “Is my brother there?”
“Yes.”
“Put him on.”
Dazed, I handed the phone over to him. He took it, appearing beyond exasperated. “Aye, I’m here,” he said impatiently. “I just got off the phone with Lois. She was giving me a heads-up that the paparazzi have set up camp outside Skylar’s building.”
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.
“Problem is, I’m here and I can’t be seen leaving here at this time in the morning.”
Oh, shit. I hadn’t even thought about that. I threw my hands up in disbelief and horror and Killian caught one of them. He pulled me into him, caressing my back in soothing strokes as he listened to Autumn. “That sounds like a plan. Thank you. We’ll see you soon.”
“What sounds like a plan?” I asked as soon as he hung up.
“The paparazzi can’t see me. This is already going to be a shitstorm without adding that on top of it. Autumn is going to come over with a security team we’ve used for other artists. You’ll get dressed and you’ll leave the apartment to draw them away so I can get out.” He took hold of my biceps and bent his head to mine. “Under no circumstances are you to engage with any of the press. You keep your head down and the security team will get you out. Okay?”
My mind whirled. I felt so disoriented.
I think I’d always secretly hoped it would never actually come to this.
“And . . . and . . .” I blinked, trying to remember what I wanted to say. My lips felt numb. I brushed my fingers over them, checking that they weren’t made of rubber.
“Skylar?”
I shook my head. “I, um . . . yeah . . . uh . . . where am I going? Where is this security team taking me?”
“To the label.” He brushed my hair off my face. His eyebrows almost touched, he frowned so hard. “Tell me you’re okay.”
I couldn’t.
I wasn’t.
“Fuck, Skylar, I’m going to make this okay. We knew this would happen eventually.” He wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight, and even though I held on, devastatingly his arms felt nowhere near as safe as they had the night before.
Nowhere felt safe now that they had found me again.
AUTUMN ARRIVED NOT TOO LONG later. I’d showered and dressed, feeling jittery and more than a little sick.
It was adrenaline.
Adrenaline spiked by fear that I was about to lose everything that had begun to make me happy.
Killian’s sister, as promised, was not alone. There were two huge burly guys with her wearing dark jeans and black sports jackets. Beneath their jackets their sweaters stretched across massive muscular chests. Their expressions were mirror images of fierce calm that said “don’t fucking mess with me” without actually saying anything at all.
They looked like every other professional security personnel I’d ever hired.
Not that I was hiring them. Since Adam had given me access to my accounts, I’d tried to pay Killian back for everything but he wouldn’t let me. We’d argued before I got in the shower about who would pay for the security.
Again, he wouldn’t let me.
I’d figure out a way to pay for this, even if I had to be sneaky about it.
I stared at Autumn standing in the living room with the security guys. She looked flushed and harried, and there was a large suitcase beside her.
I flicked a look at it, then back to her. “What happened?”
She rounded her eyes. “They swarmed me like bees as soon as they saw these guys with me.” She gestured to the men.
I gave them a halfhearted wave. “Hey, I’m Skylar.”
They each held out a hand one after the other to shake, introducing themselves as Rick and Angus respectively. “We have a car waiting for you outside,” Angus said. “We’ll get you away from here safely.”
I blew out a shaky breath. “What’s with the suitcase?”
“I’m packing you up.” Killian strode out of the bedroom, pulling on a sweater. His hair was still wet from the shower he’d insisted we take together. I’
d stood under the stream of water while he washed my hair, taking care of me, as I tried not to disappear into myself. It was hard to stay present but I needed to face this, not run away from it.
“Packing me up?”
“You can’t stay here anymore now that they know where you live.”
“And where am I going to stay?” I asked.
He looked at the security men, his sister, and then back to me. “We’ll discuss that at the label.”
“We should probably get this over with,” Autumn said. “Rip it off. Like a plaster.”
“Like a Band-Aid,” I corrected her stupidly, like it mattered.
She smirked. “You’re in Glasgow. We call them plasters here,” she teased.
I couldn’t bring myself to smile back. The effort to do so seemed too great. “Let’s do this.” I brushed by Killian to hurry to the bedroom closet. He came in after me as I was shrugging into it my coat.
He stared at me warily. “We’ll get you through this. This was always going to happen, no matter how you came back into the limelight.”
I bristled at how defensive he sounded, like I was blaming him for putting me in this position when I wasn’t. I knew that this was always going to happen once I reached out to my old life. However, for a long time, I thought I was never going back and as awful as it made me, it was nice to think I’d never have to deal with this shit if I didn’t go back.
“I know this isn’t your fault.”
He scowled. “Then why have you barely touched me since the news broke?”
Confused, I gestured to the bathroom. “Did we not just take a shower together?”
“Aye, where you stood like an icicle in my arms.”
“What? Oh, I’m sorry. Is my paparazzi crisis cutting into your sex life?”
Fury slashed across his face and he slammed the bedroom door closed.
“Don’t,” he bit out, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. “Don’t you fucking dare take this out on me. I’m trying to help you after you had Brandon and Micah come to the bloody flat and blow your cover.”
“My cover?” I laughed humorlessly. “Like I’m some spy? I’m not a spy, Killian. I’m a soon-to-be disgraced ex-pop-rock star. They’re never going to forgive me. No one is going to buy this album. You get that, right? When they find out that I’m safe and alive and I haven’t let my fans know I’m safe and alive, they’re going to annihilate me. It might have been okay if we got there first. Spun it the way we planned to. But not now.”
Killian contemplated and then said calmly, “Last night you sang a song you wrote for me and we said we loved each other. And I do. I love you, Skylar. I will do whatever it takes to protect you. But do you really love me?”
Feeling winded by his need to even ask, I whispered, “You know I do.”
“Then stick with me.” He stepped toward me, his dark eyes pleading. “Hold it together and stick with me. Stop panicking. Take a breath. And know that I’m beside you. We will fix this. Believe me.”
His soothing tone worked and I released a shaky sigh. I nodded. “Sorry. I . . . I’m out of practice handling these assholes.”
He took hold of my hand and I stumbled into him. His kiss was soft and reassuring. He held my face in his palms. “Let’s get this over with.”
I nodded, feeling like if I could keep it together like he wanted, then maybe I really could do this.
However, nothing quite prepares you for the barrage of the paparazzi. It was not the first time I’d walked into a crowd of them, but I’d forgotten.
I’d forgotten how it was to be jostled as security tried to shove paps back, to hear camera lenses whirring in my ears, feel them knock against my shoulder, my chin, feel hands that snuck past security to grab and pull on me. All the while the cacophony of shouting and blinding flash from digital cameras discombobulated me. It was how I imagined a deer might feel, surrounded by a pack of wolves.
Hunted.
Trapped.
That’s probably why it elicited fear. Even with the rational part of my brain telling me they were only paparazzi and Rick and Angus would protect me, adrenaline flooded me.
“Skylar, where have you been?”
“Are you joining Tellurian again?”
“Do you have anything to say to the fans?”
“Skylar, are you and Micah back together?”
“Skylar!”
“Skylar!”
SKYLAR!
I gripped hold of Rick’s jacket as panic tightened my chest. Most of the accents shouting at me weren’t even British. How the hell had the US press gotten here so fast?
Feeling my grip, Rick grew more aggressive in his efforts to forge a path for me to the car. Within seconds I was sliding into the back of an SUV with Autumn hurrying to slide in beside me. Rick slammed the door shut as soon as she was safely inside and Autumn hit the lock. Angus got in the driver’s seat.
As soon as Rick moved out of the way of the door to get into the front passenger seat, the paps pulled at the door handle to get in.
“Jesus Christ,” Autumn instinctively leaned toward me.
A pounding on the window at my head made me flinch into her. She grabbed my hands at the sight of the pap snapping photos of me through my window.
The SUV pulled away slowly, picking up speed as soon as we were on the road.
“You okay, ladies?” Rick glanced into the back to ask.
I nodded, feeling numb.
“I’m not.” Autumn squeezed my hands, worry etched on her face. “Skylar, how do you cope?”
Well, there was the rub because as of yet, I hadn’t found a coping mechanism for this that worked.
THE OFFICES OF SKYSCRAPER RECORDS felt marginally safer. Rick and Angus were hanging out downstairs with the full-time security guard. Autumn had gotten me a tea while Eve hovered over me worriedly. I’d understand why when I escaped to the restroom and saw my face in the mirror.
I looked pale and shell-shocked.
Lois, Jaclyn, and Kit sat quietly with me, Autumn, and Eve in a private office as we waited for Killian to arrive. I’d been offered something to eat and only took a banana to appease Autumn’s concern when I said I wasn’t hungry.
Killian blew into the room like he’d been running and headed toward me with a fierce countenance that widened my eyes. He came to an abrupt halt and I knew he’d realized that he couldn’t come to me like he wanted to. We were in a room filled with people who weren’t supposed to know we were together.
Frustration clouded his face before he cleared his throat and yanked out a chair on the other side of the table. “You got here okay?”
“Yes.”
“It was scary, Killian,” Autumn put in, still shaken. “They grabbed and pushed her and tried to get in the bloody car. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
His expression flattened and grew cold, and I knew that meant he was having to work very hard at hiding his fury. “Well, you’re safe while you’re here.” He looked at Lois. “Let’s talk about damage control.”
“Yes.” She nodded, grim. She clicked on the space bar on her laptop and the action lit up a white projector screen on the far wall. The Instagram post that kicked off this morning’s chaos appeared. It was the size of the entire wall so I could clearly see the photo of Micah and I kissing. Well, that’s what it looked like from this angle.
Fuck me sideways.
Autumn hadn’t mentioned that in her call. She winced at my expression.
I turned tentatively to look at Killian but his jaw was working as he tried to hold onto whatever emotion he was feeling. I was guessing it was anger. A lot of anger.
“It’s not what you think,” I said. “It’s the angle it was taken at. I reached in to kiss him on the cheek and he turned so I caught the corner of his mouth. This makes way more out of it.”
“It doesn’t matter what the truth is,” Lois replied. “Skylar, all that matters is that the public knows you’re alive and well, and kissing your ex-b
andmate.” She clicked her laptop again and the next photo on the post appeared. It was me and Brandon hugging. Another click, another photo. All three of us smiling at each other on the sidewalk outside the apartment building. The last photo was zoomed in on my face as I looked at the car across the street. Jesus Christ, I had seen someone ducking down in the car.
Little fuckers.
My nails bit into my palm from clenching my fists so hard.
“This is exactly what we didn’t want, I’m afraid,” Lois sighed, like I’d really put her out.
Screw you, Lois.
She clicked another button and a news article came up.
SKYLAR FINCH RETURNS FROM THE GREAT UNKNOWN
Then the publicist clicked another.
FINCH IS BACK AND ALREADY LIP-LOCKING WITH MURPHY!
And another.
SKYLAR FINCH FANS DEMAND ANSWERS
Feeling light-headed, I braced myself as I asked, “What are they talking about?”
Lois looked sorry for me. “The news broke here last night, which meant it reached the States yesterday afternoon.”
“Hence the American paparazzi outside my door. They do move fast,” I murmured.
“Right. Well, fans have responded on the band’s social media pages and on your long-neglected personal pages. There is positive commentary but the negative commentary is there, and there’s a lot of it. Controversy does of course divide the crowd.”
“What are they saying?” Eve asked.
I felt like slamming my hands over my ears yet somehow managed to refrain.
“There’s no need to get into the nitty-gritty,” Lois said, to my relief. “What this means is that we have a challenge ahead of us. But it can be managed. I think the only way to quieten the deluge of press is to do an exclusive interview where Skylar has a chance to apologize and explain to her fans. The public in general has a short memory. We need to remind them that Skylar’s mother was murdered and she had a valid reason for needing a break. I think we could definitely get Good Morning Britain.”