Wrong For You (Before You Series Book 3)(21)

Almost involuntarily, her fingers lifted to his lower lip and she ran her finger along it, pausing briefly on the silver ring.

“Are you a fan of the lip ring?”

She dropped her hand back to her side. “I never thought about it before. I don’t know anyone else with one. Do you always wear it?”

“No, not all the time. Does it bother you?”

“No, but I didn’t notice it.

His lips twitched and then he leaned forward again, brushing his lips against hers, lingering a little longer than necessary, but making her want more of him than she should. She leaned into him, resting her hands on his waist, hoping he’d take the hint, but he didn’t. Instead, he kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, and her lips before he stepped away from her.

“I’ll see you tonight, Little Violet.”

With that he pivoted and left, leaving her and her fevered lips tingling with loss. When she heard the front door shut, she sighed, looking at the clock on the microwave. Ten hours. She wasn’t sure what it said about her that she was already counting the hours until he came back, but it probably wasn’t a good sign.





Chapter Eight





Four hours later and six phone calls with his attorney, Alec sat in his basement apartment reading the contract to purchase the Foundation’s building. Five hundred thousand dollars. He’d made good money over the past two years since Chasing Ruin burst onto the music scene, but not enough that a half a million dollars meant nothing to him.

His attorneys went back and forth with the Barrington Family Trust for several hours, and after thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees, the price had dropped fifty thousand dollars. They still wanted too fucking much for that dump. He’d do it if that were the only option, but he still had to explore other ways for the Foundation to own the building.

Just as Violet suspected, the family wanted to sell the building to a developer. Fortunately, they hadn’t received many offers because it was overpriced. The real estate market was flat and the location, while pretty close to the campus, wasn’t ideal. It needed to be rezoned for apartments. Alec dialed his agent’s phone number.

“Rick,” Alec said when he heard his voice. “How’s the fundraising going?”

Rick exhaled loudly into the phone. “Fine.”

“Then what’s your problem?”

“If you want to raise money for a cause and you don’t want any publicity for you or Chasing Ruin, you’re wasting my time. You should be using this opportunity to create positive PR, especially after that shitstorm Cam caused with his videos.”

They’d been over this a hundred times. He didn’t want to bring attention to the Foundation or his connection to it. He had too many stories he’d prefer remained dead and buried. Any one of them would be worse than what Cam put the band through. The tabloid trash would eat up his drug-addicted mother, his dad’s death, his extensive juvenile record, and his nonexistent childhood. No fucking way. He didn’t want to revisit any of it. “We’ve been over this and I told you I don't want the press connecting me to the Foundation or my hometown. Nobody knows much about my history and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“We could spin it into a real tear jerking success story.”

“No.”

“It’ll come out sooner or later, especially if Chasing Ruin’s star continues to rise. It would be better if we controlled the narrative.”

Rick had a point, but now wasn’t the time. He wanted his month of freedom before he had to be back in the studio working on the new material Cam and Jax collaborated on over the last few weeks and he liked that nobody had recognized him or connected him to Chasing Ruin over the last few days, especially Violet.

Violet was light, rainbows, and sunshine, with her long blonde hair, glowing blue eyes and gorgeously dimpled smile. Since the age of ten, he’d been darkness and shadows, walking a tightrope to hell. He was entirely wrong for a woman like Violet, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to spend time with her.

For the past five days, he had watched the way she interacted with the kids at the Foundation. She believed in those kids, every one of them, even the kids he didn’t think had a shot in hell of turning their life around, and that made him want to be around her, close to her, and this morning proved she was interested in him, and not because he was part of Chasing Ruin. Something begged him to embrace that novelty before reality crashed into him. He just hoped she didn’t hate him too much when she figured out the truth about him.

“Eventually we’ll do it, but not now,” Alec finally answered.