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“No, I’ll get a ride with one of the guys.” He jerks his thumb toward Rider. “You’d better go see what he wants and keep me posted.”
I nod, but then the bartender turns up the TV in the corner, and my gaze flies to it when I hear my name. “Mother fucker,” I curse, and glance at the pictures of me right here in Nelly’s with that girl that tried to climb me wrapped around my waist. “How the fuck—”
“Oh Christ,” Cole says, and I grip the back of the chair and squeeze hard enough to break it.
“I guess we know what Jeremy wants,” Kane says, as adrenaline floods my body. Has Harper seen this? Does she think I was out whoring with other women? Fuck, man, I need to talk to her and I need to talk to her now. “I gotta go.”
Chairs scrape the floor as the guys stand, like they’re ready to flee with me, but I’m out of there in seconds flat, and phone Harper from the truck. When it continues to ring and ring, I toss it aside, desperate to get to her. I start the car and grip the steering wheel hard enough to turn my knuckles white. I pull into traffic and drive like a goddamn madman as I hurry home, praying Harper is there.
I swallow to calm myself down. The fans are going to eat this up, and a woman wrapped around me wouldn’t have been a big deal until Harper. I guess the media jumped on it, because I haven’t been giving them anything to work with lately, and while I love my fans, I have to be who I really am. Being with Harper taught me that, and maybe I should only be caring for those who care about me. Let’s face it, I give the fans what they want, but they don’t know me, or care about me as a person.
But Harper is smart. She’s not going to jump to the wrong conclusions, right? I mean, we’re not officially together or anything, but she must know I’d never fuck around on her. I’m not like Gavin’s father, or that douchebag ex of hers. What the hell was his name? Devon? I guess it doesn’t matter. I just have to hope she believes enough in me to know I’d never do anything to hurt her, just like I know she’d never do anything to hurt me.
I finally make it home, and practically leap from the truck when I find Jeremy standing on my steps, the front door cracked open.
“Where’s Harper?”
“Gone,” he says and folds his arms across his barrel chest.
“Gone where?” I’m about to push past him and search the house for her things when he stops me. “I need to find her.”
“She saw the photo of you with that girl, Liam. She was heading out, she looked kind of panicked, like she needed to get out of here, when I showed up. She had a big duffle bag in her hand, like she was fleeing. She stopped long enough to ask if I saw the pictures. I told her I did. She asked if I thought they were true, that you were with that girl.”
“What did you tell her?”
“What do you think I told her, Liam? I wasn’t going to lie about your reputation.” He smirks.
“Nothing fucking happened, and now thanks to you, she thinks something did.”
He gives me a look that suggests I might be dense. “I wouldn’t be too worried about her, Liam. She was using you all this time. Don’t worry
, though, I told her you were using her, too.” He smirks. “I let her know being photographed with a single mom dog walker was all about your image.”
“Why the fuck would you do that?” I fist my hands, and if I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to straighten this out with Harper, I’d knock his fucking teeth out, but when it comes right down to it, he was going off my reputation—the Liam I presented to the world, not the Liam I really am. But Jesus, Jeremy was the one who set up the pictures of the two of us. She doesn’t know that, though. Now, she likely thinks I was behind them showing up at my door. “Wait, what do you mean she was using me too? Never mind. I don’t have time for this. I have to go find her.”
He grabs my arm and I shake him off. He arches a brow, like I shouldn’t have done that and says, “You won’t go searching for her when you hear what I’m about to tell you.”
That stops me dead in my tracks. I square off against him. “What are you talking about?”
“All you saw was the pictures of the girl.”
“Yeah, I was with the guys when they were splashed all over the that bullshit show, Dirt. But I wasn’t joking, nothing happened. Someone set that up for the photos.” My mind goes back to Griff and the way he was smirking at me. What the hell, though? Who am I to him? My mind comes to a screeching halt. Did Harper ever tell me Devon’s last name? Is it possible it’s Griff? Fuck me. “Griff had to be behind it,” I murmur to myself.
“That woman just threw herself at me, and I think I know who was behind it.”
“Do you know who’s behind this?” He holds his phone out, and when the image of Harper and me having sex at the cottage last night plays out before me, my heart sinks into my gut, and my throat dries and crackles like tinder in a blazing fire.
“What the fuck?” My eyes meet Jeremy’s. “Where did you get that?”
“The better question is, how did Dirt get a hold of it?”
I shake my head. “Dirt has this? All they showed was pictures of some random girl wrapped around me. I didn’t see this.”
Jeremy glares at me. “Maybe you should have hung around the bar a little longer, because they followed up with this.”
Since my knees can no longer hold me, I sink down onto my stoop as Rider pulls into my driveway. The guys all spill out of the car, and slowly walk toward me. From the looks on their faces they saw the follow-up on Dirt.
“Hey,” Cole says and sits down beside me. “That was from last night huh?”
