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Chapter Seventeen
It had seemed like a much better idea when Jase had laid it all out for her. Now that she was actually inches from the stage, with Pax in plain sight, it seemed like an especially bad idea. What was she supposed to say to the audience anyway? There was nothing she could say that wouldn’t hurt his feelings, airing out all their dirty laundry to a bunch of strange tourists.
What if she were recognized? What if people took pictures, and the nightmare started all over again? He would kill Jase, and both of their businesses would be at risk. And lastly, what if Pax didn’t react at all, and Jase actually had to go through with spanking her? He had sworn it wouldn’t happen—but what if? She couldn’t take a spanking from Jase. She had given it a lot of thought in her few weeks without Pax, and realized that she was not a spanko in the least. For her spanking was defined only by the deep connection she had with Paxton. The thought of anyone else doing it—ever for any reason—made her literally nauseated.
Jase called her name again, more loudly, and pointedly the second time, and she realized she had to move. She had agreed to this cockamamie scheme, and now she had to see it through to fruition. She closed her eyes and sent a prayer heavenward and began to move. She didn’t make it one step, before Pax cleared the stage in a leap, and caught her by the arm, pulling her behind the curtain. “Stay,” he growled, shaking his finger only inches from her nose.
Her stomach dropped into her toes. He was mad, and quite scary. Jase was right about the drastic change in his attitude.
Pax was back in a minute, all but dragging Jase behind him. “What is the meaning of this?”
“The meaning of all this,” Jason intoned sarcastically, “is to get my best friend to pull his head out of his ass, face his demons head on, and make peace with the woman who is, in the opinion of everybody who knows you, the best damn thing that has ever happened to you. Period.”
“Nobody asked you to interfere.” Pax’s voice was cold and hard. “And I like my head, just where it is, thank you very much.”
Jase had been on point when he described his best friend as a rigid an unflappable asshole.
“Nobody asked you to interfere just now, either. If you like your head and other things exactly how they are, get out of my way and let me finish my show. The audience is waiting. Diamond is my grand finale, you know. Start and end with the best,” Jase said with a wink. “You taught me that.”
Pax was blocking their entrance to the stage. With his legs spread shoulder width apart, arms crossed with determination over his massive chest, he was about as broad as her and Jase standing together shoulder to shoulder. And he did not look pleased in the least. “Over my dead body,” he growled. “You are not laying a finger on her. No way, no how. And she is not your employee. I’m an owner here too you know. And I say she’s fired.”
Diamond gasped. That was a hiccup she hadn’t anticipated. But apparently Jase had. He pulled up to his full height. Even so, his eyes were level with Pax’s chin, and he looked Pax calmly in the eye.
“I own fifty-one percent, which means I can overturn any decision you veto. I’ve just never chosen to pull rank before now, because I value your opinion too much. But not on this, my friend. Not on this.”
Pax didn’t back down, even though anyone could see his goose was cooked in this argument.
“You went behind my back and hired her. You took her from her home, and put her in harm’s way. She isn’t safe here, and she doesn’t belong here.”
“Ha!” Jase scoffed. “That is a prime example of the pot calling the kettle black, my friend. You went behind my back and hired her first—don’t forget that.”
The two men were nearly chest to chest, spoiling for a fight. Neither one had given her a second glance in the last five minutes. She wondered if she should speak up or wait to see how this played out. With three sisters, she wasn’t used to mass amounts of testosterone flying around and she wondered if this would turn into a fist fight. She had never seen one before, but she imagined this was how they started.
“It’s not the same.”
“Isn’t it?” Jase countered. “It seems the same to me. I fired her, and you asked me to reconsider. I said no, and you claimed extenuating circumstances, and hired her yourself. Well, I asked you to reconsider, too, if you recall. And you said no. And there were extenuating circumstances, namely the fact that you’ve been a giant fucktard since the moment she stepped on that plane and everybody is fucking sick of it.”
“Oh, we’re name calling now, are we? Real mature, asswipe.”
Diamond couldn’t help it then. She laughed and both men jerked in her direction. It was obvious from their faces that they had forgotten she was standing there.
“I’m not name calling. That, my friend, is a fucking fact,” Jase shot back. “And here’s another one. You don’t get to break up with someone and still dictate their life choices.”
The sound that came from Pax could only be described as something between a growl and an all-out roar of anger. His fists clenched at his side and Diamond could see that there was a very good possibility that this would come to blows. As much as she was curious to see what an actual fist fight between two very dominant and stubborn men would look like—these two were best friends—and they were in a way fighting over her. Unacceptable.
Pulling her shoulders back—hoping to look fierce—she stepped sideways between them, extending her arms between their chest to create distance between them. Well, she tried to extend her arms anyway by pushing on their rock like chests, but the two men were unmovable stone walls. There was barely room for her body to squeeze into the small gap between them. Her interference did the trick, though. Both men looked down at her in amusement.
“Having trouble, princess?” Pax spoke first. It was the first thing he had said to her since this debacle began.
“Back up,” she spoke firmly, even though she was trembling from the adrenaline. “The two of you do not get to fight over what I get to do with my life. But here’s a reality check, Paxton. Jase is right. It is my life, and you gave up your right to an opinion. LA is not my home, and hasn’t been for a long time. If accepting Jase’s offer was a mistake, then I’ll deal with the consequences when they come, and on my own.” This part of her speech was fudged a bit because the truth was that Jase had no plans to employ her past tonight to her knowledge—but Pax didn’t need to know that.
“Fine. Do what you want.” Pax was not budging, and her heart was breaking, as she started to lose all hope in Jase’s plan. “But he is not laying a hand on you. If he so much as breathes on you wrong, I’m going to paddle his ass. And then I’ll pound him into the pavement for good measure.”
Diamond had to try really hard to not react. The image of Pax’s paddling Jase made her want to shake with laughter, but the idea that this argument seemed to be coming to an end, without resolution, and without any softening from Pax made her want to curl up in a ball and cry. It had been a long shot. She had been crazy to agree to it, but she would have done anything to have Paxton Donovan in her life and Jase had sworn that deep down Pax felt the same. He was just better at hiding his emotions than she was.
He was really good at hiding his emotions.
Jase let the dust settle on Pax’s threats for a minute before he spoke up. He gave her a soft nudge before he started speaking, so slight she wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not.
