Free Unstoppable (Fierce) by Ginger Voight

rather than the sigh of exasperation I truly felt. We climbed into my new car to head toward the studio. Eddie let me drive, surprisingly, but I began to suspect as we eased into the I-10 traffic, that he had an ulterior motive. He promptly turned in his seat to chat with our lovely passenger in the back seat.
    “You have a great car,” she offered as we slowed to a stop amidst all the other L.A. commuters.
    “Don’t you have the same car?” Eddie asked, even though I suspected he knew damn well she didn’t.
    I glanced into the rearview mirror in time to see Shelby sadly shake her head. “It was only for the finalists,” she said softly.
    “Oh, that’s right,” he said and I sent him a dirty look out of the corner of my eye. He ignored it as he turned back to face her. “For the record, I thought you should have made it to the finale. Honestly, if it had been any other competition, you would have won.”
    I took a deep breath and counted to ten.
    “No,” she said with a dreamy smile. “Jace deserved his win.”
    Eddie nearly snorted with contempt. “He only won because there are a lot of desperate, horny people out there who think he’s some kind of romantic hero.”
    This time he met my gaze dead on, with a level of contempt of his own.
    “He is a romantic hero,” Shelby corrected as she scooted up to lean on either of the front seats. “I’ve never met anyone like him.”
    “You need to be careful who you trust, Shelby,” Eddie cautioned. “Nothing is what it seems, especially in this business. At the end of the day, he’s a guy just like any other, I guarantee it. He’ll do what he wants, with whomever he wants, no matter who else it hurts.”
    Shelby was stunned as she looked at Eddie. “What does that mean?”
    “It means you shouldn’t romanticize guys, Shelby. They’re all alike.”
    “You’re not like that,” she tried to reason, and I had to stifle my snort of derision. “You fell in lov e with Jordi when you were kids, and now you’ve committed your life to her, no questions asked.”
    He just shrugged with a smile. “I guess I’m not your average guy,” he offered.
    “I can see that,” Shelby replied with a smile. “Jordi is very lucky to have you.”
    When, exactly, had I put on my invisibility cloak? They kept talking about me like I wasn’t in the car… which, ironically, was the last place I wanted to be.
    I gritted my teeth through the rest of their conversation as I pointed us toward the studio, where we were supposed to lay down vocals for a new single to promote the tour. It was a re-release of “Make it Happen,” with the finalists of Fierce featured as lead vocals, just like the encore performance on stage. Vanni had let it slip Graham was considering the new release as the new theme song for Season 2, which meant this recording session was going to do double duty of selling tickets to the current tour and sell the show itself to new advertisers.
    No pressure.
    It helped me take my mind off of Eddie and his blatant attempt to woo Shelby right in front of me. I wanted to warn her, to tell her to run as far away from him as she could possibly get. But the only way to fully warn her would require taking her into my confidence, and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. The fewer people who knew the truth, the better. I had sacrificed so much to ensure Jace’s future; I couldn’t risk it on a whim.
    Shelby was a good Christian girl who had sworn s he’d save herself for marriage, so that had to protect her from the likes of Eddie. Surely there had been many other suitors who had tried to get into her pants. I had to trust she’d be able to hold her own with a lady’s man like Eddie.
    Plus there was her growing infatuation with Jace to consider. It was one of the positive byproducts of her crush; I knew as long as she thought Jace was a viable possibility, she’d never fall truly for Eddie’s sugar-coated bullshit.
    In fact, Eddie ceased to exist the minute