“What? You check their IDs before you screw them?” I asked, tossing my hair over my shoulder. “Or do you make them bring their birth certificates just in case? Does the guy that lives here know that he has a nasty old man running around trying to bed all the little girls?” Even as the words left me, the truth hit me, and I felt all the color drain from my face.
Tom…Tommy. Yeah, I was definitely on slow motion tonight in the brain department. I should have put it together by now, but I didn’t let thoughts of this creep enter my mind all that often. Now that I had realized my mistake, I knew that my heart was about to be shattered into a million pieces.
A strong hand touched my arm, and I jerked. Jesse frowned at my reaction but I looked away, avoiding his eyes. “What’s wrong?” he demanded. When I didn’t answer, his eyes moved to his friend. “Tom?”
I felt Tommy stiffening. “You?” he asked, his voice rising. “You are with her?”
“What’s going on here, Tom?” He spoke with more force now. “You and my girl not hitting it off?”
I felt bile rising in the back of my throat, but I took several deep breaths to keep it down. I wanted to hit a rewind button and have this night never happen. If I didn’t know that Tommy Kirkman was the great man that Jesse had told me so much about I could ignore the rest. I could keep from shattering. I wouldn’t have to leave him or Emmie or the guys.
But there wasn’t a rewind button or even a pause button so that I could soak in the man I loved one last time before I walked away from him forever…
“How did you get involved with her?” Tommy demanded, stepping closer to Jesse.
Jesse seemed to grow bigger before my eyes. “What’s it to you?” he demanded in a tone that I had never heard him use before. It was cold and full of steel, and I chanced a glance at him to see that his eyes were changing by the second.
“Jesse…” I started to touch him, but Tommy grabbed my arm and jerked me away from him.
I cried out, his hold on my arm so tight it would leave bruises. “You don’t get to touch him,” Tommy snarled down at me, his face getting so close to mine the stench of whisky and smoke on his breath made me gag. “He’s too good for the likes of you!”
I flinched, his words just as painful as his touch. I hated him. Hated him to my very soul, and yet a part of me loved him too. A tiny little part of me would always crave his love and acceptance. Didn’t all daughters want that from their fathers?
Tommy released me so quickly I wasn’t sure what was going on. I raised my head to find Jesse pinning him against the wall, his eyes full of white hot rage. “You touch her like that again, and I will make you swallow teeth!” he roared at his old friend.
Tommy stared up at the drummer with a dazed look in his chocolate brown eyes. “You would turn on me over a girl like her? Over some little whore that…” He didn’t get to finish what he was going to say. Jesse’s fist connected with his jaw making his head snap back, and I wasn’t sure if Jesse had followed through with his threat or not because blood gathered in the corner of Tommy’s mouth.
“You don’t get to talk about her like that either!” Jesse shouted at him.
Someone turned the music off, making the place unusually quiet. I glanced over my shoulder to see all eyes were on us. Fuck! I did not need this now. I grabbed Jesse’s arm. “Jess, please. Just take me home,” I pleaded.
“Not until he tells you he’s sorry.” Jesse tightened his hold on Tommy’s shirt. “Tell her.”
Tommy turned his head and spit right at my feet. “Fuck off.”
Tears gathered in my eyes, but I refused to let him see. “I don’t need an apology. Just take me home.”
“Layla…”
“Layla!”
My head snapped around at the sound of Lana’s voice. I didn’t know how she knew I needed her, but I didn’t question it; I was too glad to see my sister. She was running through the doorway with Drake right behind her. “Layla, let’s go,” she commanded.
I released my hold on Jesse’s arm. She ran up the stairs and took hold of my arms, inspecting me as if she was scared I had lost a limb or something. “Are you okay?” she demanded, shooting Tommy a vile glare.
“I’m fine.” I whispered. “Can…Can you take me home?”
“Of course.” She pulled me into her side, and I didn’t look back as she led me away. Drake fell into step behind us. I kept my eyes down as I passed through the crowd of partiers. I couldn’t bring myself to hold up my head like I had the right too. No one would believe anything but what Tommy Kirkman told them anyway.
“Layla!” Jesse had followed us out of the house, but he stopped me when I went to get into Lana’s car. “Layla, what the fuck just happened in there?” His rage hadn’t dimmed at all. If anything, he looked even angrier. “How do you know Tom?” he demanded.
I closed my eyes, knowing what he suspected. It was what everyone in that room suspected. That I was some out casted lover of the great Tommy Kirkman. “I can’t tell you.” I whispered.
“Why the fuck not?” He yelled.
“Because I signed a nondisclosure form when I was sixteen!” I yelled back at him. “I can’t tell anyone anything!”
“You might not be able to, but I sure as hell can,” Lana said, getting between me and Jesse. She didn’t even blink as she glared up at him. “Stop looking at my sister like that, Jesse Thornton! She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then why isn’t she talking?” He tried to push her out of his way so that he could get to me, but she didn’t budge. “Move Lana!” He didn’t try to touch her, but when she refused to budge he started to move around her. Drake moved behind Lana, and I was thankful for the added wall of flesh that separated me from Jesse.
“No. Fuck you!” Lana shoved him hard, and surprisingly he moved back a few steps. “You’re thinking the worst of her right now. I can see the wheels turning in that fucked up rocker world mentality that you have. My sister is better than that. She is better than you. And she’s sure as fuck better than her fuck faced father.”
I swallowed hard, not caring that Lana was using words that I had asked her not to. My heart was shattered because I had seen what Jesse was thinking too, and it had gone down the dirty route. I opened the door to Lana’s car and got in.
This was over. I was done. Turned out that Jesse Thornton was exactly who I had first thought he was.
Chapter 17
Layla
I felt like I was in a daze the entire trip back to Malibu. Lana drove quickly but carefully and got us home in record time. No one spoke. Lana knew that I wasn’t ready to talk about it, and Drake, who was sitting in the back, didn’t say a word.
When we pulled into the driveway, I got out of the car and walked to the guesthouse with my head down. I heard Drake murmuring something to Lana, but didn’t care one way or another what he was saying. I was numb. Cold. This night was a disaster, and I wished I had never gotten out of bed that morning.
When I opened the door to the guesthouse, Nik jumped to his feet. His presence here surprised me. “What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice sounding hoarse.
“Drake asked me to keep an eye on Lucy. She was sleeping when they left and hasn’t woken up since.” He took a step toward me, looking concerned. “Layla, are you okay?” He glanced behind me. “Where’s Jesse?”
I shrugged. “Probably still at Tommy’s.” I didn’t care where he was right now as long as he wasn’t near me. I swallowed hard. “Thanks for watching Lucy, but do you mind going home now? I…I’m not very good company.”
“Did you and Jesse have a fight?”
“Something like that.” I kicked off my boots and dropped down on the couch. Lana walked in through the still open door with Drake behind her like always. There was tension radiating from him, and I knew it was because of me. Was he scared I was going to pack up and take Lana far away from him? Trust me, the thought had crossed my mind more than once on the drive home.
But I wasn’t goin
g to run away. I refused to give up Emmie and the life that my sisters and I had here just because I had been stupid enough to fall for a guy that would think the worst of me. I wasn’t going anywhere unless Emmie, and only Emmie, asked me to leave. “Go home, guys.”
“Layla…” Drake gave me an almost pleading look. “Call me before you decide anything crazy, okay? Don’t run.” His eyes went to Lana who stood just a few feet in front of him. Don’t take her away from me, his eyes seemed to say.
“I’m not running,” I assured him and saw his shoulders noticeably relax. “But you need to go. I’m not strong enough to deal with you here right now.”
Nik still stood over me, frowning. “Tell me what happened, Layla. Maybe I can help.”
I glared up at him. “You can’t help. Nothing you say or do will fix what happened tonight. Nothing, not even a time machine could change any of it. Not unless you have a way of extracting DNA from someone’s gene pool.”
He only looked more confused now. “Did you and Jesse break up?”
“Oh, yeah. We definitely broke up.” I told him with a laugh that held little humor.
Nik opened his mouth to say something, but Drake stopped him. “Let’s go, bro. She just needs some time to get tonight straight in her head.” Nik sighed but nodded, and I was relieved when both rockers left without another word.
Once the door was shut behind them, Lana dropped down beside of me on the sofa and without a word, pulled me into her arms. Like a child, I buried my face in her hair and held on as the tears fell freely. My past had come back to bite me in a big way…
My mother, Lydia, had only been sixteen when she met Tommy Kirkman. Sixteen to his thirty-five. Of course she hadn’t told him that she was only sixteen. I was sure that she hadn’t even been a virgin when she had willingly climbed into the rocker’s bed. She had meant to get pregnant. It was all part of her plan to become a rocker’s wife, or at least his play thing for longer than a night.
Tommy had picked up and moved on the next day, but Lydia had made sure that he knew that she was pregnant. When I was born, a court ordered paternity test was done, and Tommy had forked over some big time money, but made sure that my mother knew that he wanted nothing to do with me. She had been disappointed that I wasn’t enough to keep the rock star on a leash for at least a little while, but the money he had shelled out had been enough to console her.
I hadn’t really thought about the man that was my father growing up. I had known who he was from the time I was old enough to ask about who he was. It wasn’t until my mother kicked me out when I was sixteen that I tried to contact him.
I had nowhere to go, was living in a shelter and barely getting anything to eat. I had been desperate, so I had went to one of his concerts. It hadn’t been easy, but somehow I had managed to sneak onto his tour bus and waited for him. He had been high on the adrenaline from his performance and maybe something stronger, but he hadn’t been so stoned that he didn’t understand who I was when I told him I was his daughter.
Tommy Kirkman had been less than pleased to see me. I didn’t have a copy of my birth certificate to show as proof, but I didn’t really need one. I might have looked a little like my mother, but I had more of my father in me. My chocolate brown eyes, the rich cinnamon color of my hair, the angle of my chin and the shape of my nose—that was all Tommy.
“So what do you want?” he had snarled after I told him who I was.
“I…My mom threw me out. I don’t have anywhere to go,” I had told him, putting my pride aside because I had nothing left.
“That’s your problem.” He moved around the bus until he found a half empty bottle of whisky. He pulled the top off and started drinking directly from the bottle. “That settlement I gave your slut mother was to make you go away. I signed over all my rights, and she got her money.”
“But…” I knew I was fighting a lost cause. He wasn’t going to help me. Not unless… “I’ll sell my story to the papers. I’m sure that all your fans would love to read about your bastard in the gossip pages.” Not to mention I was likely to get a good price for selling my story. “And wouldn’t the world like hearing how you got a sixteen year old pregnant?” Maybe it was the truth, or maybe I was just trying to bluff him into helping me out. I wasn’t sure. I could never really know. I was a scared, desperate girl then, but I left with that threat ringing between us.
The next day I met Zeke and he took me in, and I forgot about the threat I had made to Tommy.
So it came as a surprise when two weeks later a stuffy looking lawyer had knocked on Zeke’s door. He worked for Tommy Kirkman and he had something for me. A check for five thousand dollars if I signed the nondisclosure, keeping me from every telling anyone about who Tommy was to me. It wasn’t much, not considering the amount he had given my mother to keep her mouth shut, but I didn’t care. I was done with Tommy. I didn’t need him. I had someone that cared about me now, someone who worried if I was actually eating.
So I took the money and signed the nondisclosure, never thinking I would ever have to explain myself to anyone where Tommy Kirkman was concerned…
“Layla!”
My head jerked up and I wiped at my tear stained face. Jesse was outside pounding on the front door. “Layla, open up and talk to me!” He sounded just as angry as he had back at the party. Some of my numbness started to fade, and before I could think better of it, I was on my feet and across the living room pulling open the door.
Jesse
Father.
Father?
Father!
Lana’s last words kept echoing in my head. Layla was Tom’s daughter. It was a relief. The first thing that had crossed my mind was…
“Fuck!” I scrubbed my hands across my face. “Fuck!” The look on Layla’s face as I had yelled at her came back to haunt me. Now that my rage, my jealousy at thinking that my friend had touched Layla in any way, was evaporating, my gut filled with dread and fear. I had assumed the worst when I should have known immediately that my Layla wasn’t like other women. She hated rockers and would have never have been involved with one.
I was the exception. I knew that I was one lucky bastard that she had given me her heart. I had no excuse for the way I had behaved. Unless you counted the fact that I had never been jealous in my life until tonight. It wasn’t a good feeling, and I hadn’t known how to handle it, so I had taken it out on the woman I loved. And now I might have lost her…
My heart contracted painfully, and I pulled the keys from my jeans pocket as I turned toward where I had parked the Escalade.
Before I had gone more than a few feet, I saw the three men coming towards me. The lights from the house and the lamps outside gave me more than enough light to see that Tom wasn’t happy. The two goons that acted as his personal body guards had their jaws set, and I knew what was coming before my old friend even opened his mouth.
“Nice punch there, Jesse.” Tom rubbed his hand across his already swollen jaw. “That girl must be good on her knees because I have never known you to…” He broke off abruptly when I took a menacing step in his direction.
“You don’t talk about her like that. Ever!” I snarled at the guy I had once considered a good friend. “I’m going to marry ‘that girl’.” If she would still have me. If I hadn’t just screwed up everything.
Tom snorted. “Why would you do that? She’s just after what she can get from you. All that rocker money, just like her mother. As soon as she gets what she wants, you will be history, my friend.”
“You know nothing about her. How could you? You haven’t had anything to do with Layla her whole life, so don’t tell me what you think you know about your daughter, old man.” I watched Tom’s eyes darken when I said the word ‘daughter’.
“She’s no daughter of mine. I don’t care what those blood tests said. She’s not mine.” He turned to go back into the house, but the goons stood in the same place. “It was good knowing you, Jesse.” Tom called over his shoulder, laughing in a sickeni
ngly humorous way that made me grit my teeth.
I didn’t take my eyes off the old rocker as he made his way into the house. If he thought that two over muscled wannabe thugs were going to end me, he had another think coming. I had spent my life fighting, with odds bigger than this against me. I could handle these two without breaking a sweat…
The first punch came from behind, and I fell to my knees. A third goon had come around from behind. I should have known better. Tom liked to fight dirty. Hadn’t I seen just that the few times we had gotten into bar fights all those years ago?
Muttering a curse, I rolled to my side as one of the other goons swung his foot and tried to connect with my ribs. He just barely missed me, and I was thankful for my quick reflexes. When I got to my feet, the last goon was waiting on me, and I ducked to escape his right hook, countering with a punch to his mouth as I side stepped him.
Strong arms caught mine from behind, holding me in place. I struggled, realizing that a fourth goon had come to join our little party. The other three took advantage of having me restrained and started taking turns using me as a punching bag. The air was knocked out of me by the first guy, making me double over to suck in oxygen.
It wasn’t much of a fight that was for sure. Not when I was unable to defend myself against four steroid junkies. A punch from the guy to my right made my head snap back, and I tasted blood as my teeth snapped together and I bit my tongue. Fuck, that hurt!
“Jesse!”
Shane! I raised my head and saw my band brother just as the guy to my left started in on my kidneys.
“Axton!” Shane shouted. “Get out here!”
“What the fuck man…” Axton broke off when he saw what was going on and then I heard running feet as they hurried to help me. The guys to my right were tackled to the ground, and I heard them grunting as my friends used their fists to keep them down.
The guy still holding me tightened his arms. The goon that had been having so much fun trying to rupture my kidney wasn’t deterred by the arrival of my help. If anything, he seemed more into it with the sounds of his co-workers getting the shit beat out of them behind him. He got cocky and eased up on me just a little.