AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Good. Because I’m not marriage material. And you aren’t my type.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in because Reese had fallen headlong into his eyes the moment he stepped near. This close, she could see that they weren’t a flat brown, but almost an olive green toward the center and—Wait, I’m not his type?
He stood still, his face just inches from hers, as if waiting to see that she understood. Reese again threatened her eyeballs to stay dry. She could not let him see the way his words fractured her. They shouldn’t have. I mean, it’s not like she realistically thought he would want her. Especially not after their first meeting. But something about hearing those words out loud, from his amazing and sensual mouth …
Sterling turned and strode away, pushing past Morgan as she came back through the door. She looked quizzically at Reese. “Hey! Where are you going? I talked to Kevin at Azul and she’s legit.”
“We’re all good,” Sterling called.
Reese heard the bus door slam. She backed up into the private lounge and sank onto the leather sofa, covering her eyes with her hands.
Morgan stepped back into the room. “Want to fill me in on whatever just happened?”
Reese groaned. “Uh, not really. But sure. I mean, I couldn’t humiliate myself any more. I met Sterling the other night at his meet-and-greet. I, um, had a bit of a fan girl moment. I only drank one glass of wine. But that’s apparently over the limit for me. I may have completely humiliated myself and given the impression that I’m a verified stalker.”
Morgan laughed. Reese found herself giggling. “Oh man. Well, I guess if that’s your worst moment, it’s not so bad. And we don’t allow drinking on the tour, so you should be fine. His dad was an alcoholic, so James hates drinking. Sterling, I mean.”
Reese was slightly reeling from that very sensitive piece of information Morgan dropped on her. “Why do you call him by his last name? Just out of curiosity. I mean, is that something he likes?”
“James is actually his first name. James Sterling. When he got signed, they flipped it. Sterling James sounds more like a rocker. I sometimes slip up and call him James, but he prefers Sterling now.”
“Oh,” was all Reese could manage. She remembered that Kevin had said that Morgan was a new manager. She was obviously missing a piece. “Thanks for laughing about this and not firing me.”
Morgan smiled. “Kevin said you were the best when I called. Actually, he said he was glad Daniel’s wife was on bed rest because you were a better fit for the job. Is he always that, um, what’s the word …”
“Awful? Unfeeling? Yes. All of the above. He’s a good boss, but I think he might be a robot underneath.”
Morgan laughed again. Reese envied the casual way she seemed to take all of this in stride. The souped-up tour bus. Sterling’s hotness. The weird situation with Reese.
“You seem so chill. I know Kevin said you’re Sterling’s new manager, but it doesn’t seem that new. Did you ever have a fan girl moment? With him?”
Morgan’s blue eyes widened and she looked like she was about to laugh again. “Sterling? No way. We’ve been best friends since we were kids. He’s amazing, but I don’t see him as the superstar. He’s just my James—er, Sterling. The fame stuff is my job, but I don’t think about him as different because he’s famous.”
Reese didn’t miss the way Morgan’s tone shifted when she said “my,” or the way she glanced back where he had disappeared to the front of the bus.
If her heart had fractured earlier, it split completely and fell to pieces now. To sum up, Reese wasn’t Sterling’s type. He didn’t want to get married ever. He basically seemed to barely tolerate her. And his manager slash BFF—who was gorgeous and looked like a rock star herself—had the hots for him.
This was a good thing. The cocktail of reasons she shouldn’t care about Sterling should be enough to shut down her crush permanently. Reese would be much better once her body stopped reacting like a schoolgirl every time she saw Sterling. Or talked to him. Or thought about him.
This was good. Get over him as soon as possible and be completely professional.
But as she and Morgan sat planning, Reese couldn’t escape thinking about the way her stomach had dropped into some cavernous pit of despair. This tour might be the best thing that happened to her career, but it also might kill her a little bit at a time over the next two months.
Chapter Four
Sterling stomped off the bus and into the parking lot, trying to calm down after his conversation with Reese. How did this happen? He almost lost it when he recognized her on the tour bus. The interaction with her at the meet-and-greet had been the low point in his weekend. The way she hung on him and talked about getting married and the smell of booze coming off her skin. Even if he hadn’t been unaffected by her looks.
He didn’t know if he believed her explanation. One glass of wine—really? Reese did seem totally different just now. Calm, professional, even contrite. Gorgeous.
He almost choked when that last thought flashed through his mind. No way was he going to think about Reese like that, even if he agreed to keep her on. She already had several strikes against her. Normally he kept his support team to guys, just to avoid cat fights and crushes. Morgan was an exception since they had grown up together and he saw her like his little sister. The social media manager was supposed to be a guy.
He trusted Morgan implicitly and if she didn’t feel like Reese was good for him, she would be up front about it. If she didn’t make an impact quickly, he would fire her. Until then, he would keep his distance. Maybe make sure that Morgan was hard on her. It was probably best for him to keep his distance from Reese as much as possible.
She may have been professional in their conversation, but he could see the way her breath caught when he stepped closer. Her eyes had gotten that heavy, glazed look that he knew too well from the women in his past. It was the kind of look he had been avoiding for a long time now.
It had been a rush at first, seeing how women responded to him. Or, rather, as he realized, how they responded to his fame. After his first few years as a legitimate star, Sterling realized that while it might be true some rock stars used women, it went both ways. Some of the women took trophies: a pair of underwear or a photo of him while sleeping that got posted to social media. One took a whole page of song lyrics he’d been working on. Sterling’s relationships—if he could actually call them that—left him feeling scraped out and hollow. It didn’t take him long to realize that. He was actually pretty tame as far as rock stars went.
What he had told Reese was also true: he didn’t want to get married.
