Dirty Player(47)

Bethany was sweet. Too innocent for her own damn good. The very fact that she thought that would work—after Shannon’s past and her lack of ability to trust again—told me she didn’t fucking get it.

“I can’t. I’ve got to shower and get my parents home. Damn it.”

“Oliver—”

She called to me again and I turned. “What?”

“My purse?”

I tossed it to her and shook my head. “I’ll handle it. I just don’t have the time. Not right now.”

“You let it go too long and you’re screwed, you know.”

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and sighed. “I already am.”





Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN





SHANNON



It’d been a full twenty-four hours since I’d been to Oliver’s hotel room.

The pain wasn’t any better. I’d slept like shit, but had orders to fill and work to get done, so I’d dragged myself out of bed early in the morning to get to Stamped and start working.

I’d already changed my entire life after one horrific breakup. I couldn’t let this dream of mine fail, despite wanting to lament my inability to find a decent man.

“You know,” Melissa said, getting my attention from where she’d been perched on my worktable for the past few hours trying to keep me company. She’d brought her laptop with her and was working on some website designs for a few clients, but mostly she was talking, trying to keep me from not thinking about Oliver and the blonde.

I turned to her. She was holding a pair of pliers, opening and closing them repeatedly. A scary, maniacal grin on her face. “I really liked Oliver. Liked how he was with you. But this little tool is giving me some great ideas.” She winked at me.

I looked away and back to the metal bands laid out in front of me. I had to string them with charms before I finished embellishing them. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“I don’t want to talk about him, either. Or talk to him.” I heard the squeak of metal as she squeezed and played with the pliers. “But hearing him scream while I wrap these around his balls—”

“God,” I said, unable to stop the laugh at her description. “Stop, Melissa. Please.”

She dropped the pliers and picked up her laptop. “I just wanted to see you smile.”

Rolling my eyes, I turned back to my work. “You’re a nutjob.”

“That’s what I was talking about. A smash-and-crush nutjob.”

I glared at her out of the corner of my eye at the same time a bell at the front door rang. We weren’t opened for business, wouldn’t be until Thursday, but I had deliveries scheduled.

“Can you go take care of that, please?” I asked as I began twisting a fine piece of sterling silver.

“Sure thing, hooker.”

I snorted as she walked out of my office, listening to her quick feet take her down the hallway.

She was back within seconds, and when she spoke, her voice had lost its playfulness.

“Holy shit, Shannon.” She grabbed my shoulders and spun me around, her eyes wide and her hands trembling. “Bethany Carlson is in your store...looking for you.”

Who?

“Who? What?”

“Bethany Carlson. Famous country singer?”

My eyes bugged out and I dropped my tools, my bracelet forgotten. “What the hell? Me? Why?”

“I don’t know,” Melissa breathed, the awe clear in her voice.

My hands began trembling at the same time she pulled me to standing.

“Go see her!”

My hands went to my wild hair. I’d forced myself to take the time to get ready that day because I was going to be at the store, but Bethany Carlson? She was famous. I freaking loved her music. I had tried to talk Patrick into taking me to her last concert that went through Des Moines two years before and then acted not that disappointed when he’d twisted his lips and went, “Eh. Really? Not really my thing.”

Dick. I knew how to pick ‘em.

I brushed the errant thought out of my mind and blew out a breath. “Okay. Okay, I’m going.”

We rushed out of the office, Melissa close on my heels, and then I froze when I reached the end of the hallway.

In front of me was a woman with her back turned to me.

Blond hair flowing to her waist. A tight, short skirt that barely covered her ass. Tanned and toned legs that went to gold strappy sandals I would die to own.

And all of it—from the hair to the waist to the legs—had all been parts of the woman that had been burned into my brain since the morning before.

“Holy shit,” I breathed, slamming to a halt in my tracks at the same time I reached out to squeeze onto Melissa’s hand.

“I know,” she hissed quietly, totally awed.

I shook my head and whispered back, “No. That’s her. That’s the woman who came out of Oliver’s yesterday. I knew she looked familiar then, but I couldn’t place her.”

Her eyes jumped open and her lips pulled back to a sneer. “That whore. Oh my God, what is she doing here?”

I wanted to hug my friend and her loyalty. To go from being in awe to getting her claws ready to attack, Melissa was the shit.

“Fuck,” I whisper-hissed. I forced my feet to move forward. As I walked toward her, Bethany turned to me and exhaled slowly.

“Hello, Shannon. I’m Bethany. We didn’t really get the chance to meet yesterday.”

She was famous. A country rock star who toured with the best of the best and had won handfuls of CMA awards.

She’d also walked out of my boyfriend’s home—or ex-boyfriend’s—dressed in barely anything and giggling about seeing him later.

I hated her.

I forced myself not to be enamored with the first part, to focus on the second, and didn’t take the hand she offered to me.

“Can I help you?” I asked, my voice dry and hoarse and blood rushing through my veins.

Her hand fell to her side and she sucked her lip between her teeth. “I, well, I’m not sure what I’m doing here, but I thought maybe it’d be best for me to come talk to you myself.”

To mark her new territory? She already had it. Oliver lost claim to me when he slipped his “I’ve never cheated and would never cheat” dick into her.

I crossed my shaking arms over my chest and said nothing.

“I’m really sorry,” she said, the words rushing out of her. She waved her hands in the air while she spoke, making her seem even sweeter. “Oliver and I, nothing happened, I swear. We’re friends. I stay in the room next door to his and I’m only in town a few days. I saw him at the bar the other night and he was so drunk, I helped him to his room. That’s it, I swear. I went there yesterday to make him coffee and make sure he was okay.”

She seemed honest, almost pleading with me to believe her and God, I wanted to.

It didn’t change anything, but I still really wanted to believe that Oliver hadn’t cheated on me. Or fucked another woman so quickly after kicking me to the curb.

“Thank you for letting me know,” I said. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“You don’t believe me.”

Her pretty blue eyes turned sad and she sucked a lip between her teeth again. “I can understand why, I really do. But well, I haven’t always had the best luck with guys, and sooner or later they all turn out to be assholes. But Oliver’s not like that, and he wouldn’t have…we’ve never, I swear, Shannon, nothing happened with us. Nothing ever has. We’re just friends and we get together occasionally when we’re both in town, but it’s never been anything more than drinks and laughter.”

I believed her. Her sincerity was too genuine, the pain in her voice was too obvious. “I believe you,” I finally said. “If that’s all…”

“So you’ll forgive him?” The pain switched to hopefulness so quickly I almost got whiplash.

Bethany was younger—around Beaux’s age, I figured, but she’d hit the music scene even before she was twenty-one and flown to the top of the charts where she’d been for years. I knew all this because I’d been a fan of her music and seen her perform on television during the music award shows. My hands still shook from overwhelmed excitement.

Sighing, I forced down my sudden, overwhelming need to fangirl. “The thing is, is that you’re here explaining it to me and he’s not. And he hasn’t.” Tears burned the backs of my eyes. The way he’d stared at me. “Thank you, I suppose, for explaining it to me. It helps, honest. But Oliver and I—”

“He loves you,” she cut in, stepping forward.

I held my ground even though I wanted to run from her.

“He told me. He talked about you for hours, felt so shitty about everything he said to you. I swear to you, if you give him a chance, he’ll explain it.”

“I’d have to see him for that to happen.” And it hadn’t.

“I know. He’s being an asswipe, but if you want to know the truth, all he talked about the other night was you.”

Tears filled my eyes, making her go blurry as I blinked them back. “I don’t know what to do with that.”

She looked lost for a bit, her gaze roaming my store as if she’d run out of her own things to say before she looked back at me and shrugged. “I don’t know either. Boys suck.”