Rock Kiss 01.5 Rock Courtship(46)

Throwing her purse on one of the armchairs in the living area of the suite, she strode over and shoved at his chest. It didn’t move him even an inch—Thea might be tall, but she was also slender and nowhere near as strong as him. But the contact had a physical effect all right, the same effect she always had on him. As if she was meant to be his, as if she was his. Teeth grinding down as his jaw clenched, he fought the urge to touch her, waiting to hear what she had to say.

“How long have you known me?” she demanded, answering her own question before he could say anything—not that he was certain he was rational enough to answer. “Long enough to know I work things out by focusing on what needs to be done right then! You’ve seen me do—”

Grabbing her by the wrists, he hauled her against him. “So believing in me is something you need to work through?” He could hardly breathe. “I guess that answers my question about trust.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Her eyes were molten with fury. “I’d found out only minutes before your call, spent that time making sure the media didn’t have a hold of the allegations, that I didn’t need to spin into damage-control mode.”

“Damage control.” He bit off the words. “Nice to know you were so emotionally distraught.”

“I couldn’t let myself be Thea who’s in a relationship with you!” It came out a yell. “I had to be Thea, your publicist.” Cool, calm, rational, that was who she’d been at the instant he’d called, who she’d needed to be to protect him. “You couldn’t give me a minute to think, to switch gears?”

“Fuck it, Thea. You shouldn’t need to think!”

“Yeah? How would you react if you got a call telling you I’d walked into a hotel room hand-in-hand with Eric?”

He staggered as if he’d been kicked. “You’d do that to me over some bullshit claim?”

“No! I was making a point.” Chest heaving, Thea tried to hold on to her fury, but the stunned hurt in David’s eyes wounded her until it was difficult to remember the reason she’d said what she had. “But there for a second, you believed I would. Didn’t you?”

“No!” It was a growl of sound. “I just didn’t expect you to say something like that.”

“I didn’t expect to hear that a teenage girl was saying you’d made her pregnant!” Her breath came fast and shallow, her blood hot. “I shut down when I’m shocked or hurt,” she said. “That’s what I do, David. You know that, too!”

His fingers flexed on her wrists. “Why were you hurt?” he asked, his voice raw. “Why didn’t you just know it was bullshit?”

“I did, you idiot!” she said, kicking at him, she was so damn frustrated. “I just needed that minute to breathe, to think.” When she had, every cell in her body had rejected the idea that David would seduce a young girl, then abandon her. Neither possibility even remotely fit the man she’d come to know in the years since they’d met. He just wouldn’t do anything so dishonorable.

David maneuvered her so her back was pressed to the door, finally releasing her wrists to slap his hands palms-down on either side of her. “I don’t want you to need that minute.” Harsh words, his jaw a brutal line. “I don’t want you to have to think even that much. I want you to trust me so deep and true it’s in your blood.”

“Do you see where I am now, David?”

He frowned. “What?”

“I’m in your hotel room, which happens to be in the wrong state from where I should be, getting ready to handle any media fallout. I cut myself off from the world for the hours it took to fly here.”

His eyebrows drew together. “You put us above work.”

Yes, she had. But that wasn’t the point. Shoving her hands into his hair, she held on tight, her gaze locked to his. “I came to you,” she whispered, her throat gritty and eyes hot. “Even though the rational, logical part of me said I should cut my losses, that you were only doing what musicians do, I came to you.”

She pulled his hair when he would’ve spoken, anger apparent in the flattening of his lips. “I came because I knew it was all a lie. I knew it so deep that none of the rational reasons mattered.” Emotion a knot in her throat, she swallowed. “So you damn well give me my minute until I don’t need it anymore, until the scars inside me are healed over completely!”

David’s entire body trembled as the fury and force of Thea’s words slammed through him. “How long?” It came out a rasp.