She didn’t say a word. But her voice filled his head. “I was broken. Dead inside,” it whispered. “You made me feel alive.”
It was a funny thing about addiction. During his stint in rehab he’d learned that addicts couldn’t really ever be cured. They just learned ways to abstain. Resist temptation. And even years after abstaining, the smallest taste would put them right back where they started.
He hadn’t fully believed it until that very moment. Until he’d gotten a taste of making music with Kylie Ryans and realized that since that day he’d walked out on her in this very same bar, he’d been dead inside. Going through the motions.
But being here, with her, again…had brought him back to life.
“WHAT THE hell was the meaning of that?”
“Of what?” Trace looked at her like she’d lost her mind. But she saw it. That spark in his eyes, that mischievous, triumphant gleam.
“You know what. It was supposed to be one song, Trace. One. And that whole ‘we’re expecting’ thing. Do you have any idea what kind of rumors you probably just started?”
He smirked, and she felt her blood pressure rising.
“Relax, Kylie Lou. It was a joke. And about the encore—so what? It’s just a song.”
Her fists clenched at her sides as she stormed out the back exit of the bar. “You are such an ass. What happened to being professional and not crossing lines?”
“Ky—”
“No, forget it. I don’t know what I was expecting. Same old selfish Trace. Just do whatever the hell you want and don’t bother considering how it affects anyone else.”
It had been nearly a year since she’d gotten this upset over anything. She was practically shaking with rage. He was so damn arrogant. She was almost overcome with the urge to slap him. Hard.
“This really about the song? Or you all worked up about something else?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Well, I don’t love that you told everyone in there that I was pregnant either.” She folded her arms and glanced around in hopes that her ride would be there. She just wanted to escape to the safety of her apartment. But the back lot was empty.
“It was a joke. You know, something people say sometimes to break the tension?”
“Oh, you’re a comedian now? Guess everyone needs a fallback plan.” She tried not to watch as he unbuttoned his sleeves and rolled them up his muscular forearms, but it took serious effort to keep her eyes elsewhere.
“When did you get so damn uptight? Am I imagining things or did you use to be more fun?”
She’d been so carefully holding it together with everything she had. But all of his comments in the bar and his whole ‘let’s just make jokes and have fun’ attitude was more than she could handle at the moment.
“Fun? You want to talk about fun? Yeah, Trace, it was real fun falling for someone who didn’t actually give a damn about me. And it was even more fun watching him run to someone else—someone he’d promised meant nothing to him—via every tabloid and gossip website known to man.”
“Kylie, you know how the media is. And I never said she meant nothing—”
She took a step closer to him, despite how much being in his space scared the crap out of her. But she knew her limits and if he finished that sentence she would break apart into a pile of splintered pieces.
“You know what’s really fun though? The most fun I’ve ever had in my life fun? This sick, twisted joke that fate is playing on me where my dream—everything I’ve worked so hard for, sacrificed for, and damn near lost my mind over—is totally one hundred percent dependent on some self-absorbed ass who thinks this is all one big joke and that I was put on this Earth solely for his sheer amusement.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to focus on her breathing. She would not—could not—let him get to her like this. She was a professional. She could do this. No matter what kind of spectacle he tried to turn this tour into, she would keep her head up and get through it. Hopefully maintaining her career and her self-respect.
“Hey,” he said softly.
She opened her eyes and saw him reaching out in her direction.
No. Hell no.
She put a hand up to stop him. “I’m fine. I don’t know why I’m surprised that you aren’t taking this seriously. But I’m over it now.”
His mouth dropped open slightly as if he were going to say something, but the back door opening behind him cut him off.
“Ryans, you okay?”
Kylie smiled at Steven, thankful for the interruption. Now that her nerves had calmed, she was completely humiliated that Trace Corbin had gotten the best of her.