Free Bad Boy Romance: Nick (Romantic Suspense Alpha Male Romance) (New Adult Rock Star Contemporary Short Stories) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 2) by Jade Allen Page B

was talking to Ron about scheduling something
or other, and I didn’t care about that either. I walked to the back of the bus.
“Hannah? You seen Olivia? Did she go somewhere or something?”
    “She was in the lounge last time I checked,” Hannah said
with a shrug. “Working on another article for the magazine.” I sucked on my
front teeth and tried to think. The only place on the bus I hadn’t looked
through was the bunks.
    The guys were settling in the lounge when I walked back
through. “Anyone see Olivia go anywhere? I don’t want to leave her stranded,” I
said, trying not to sound as anxious as I was starting to feel.
    “Why would she get off the bus?” I shrugged, continuing onto
the bunks. I went to my bunk first—just on impulse. She wasn’t there. The next
option—and the most obvious one—was her own bunk.
    Sure enough, when I tugged aside the curtain, there she was,
curled up on the bed, facing the wall. “Liv? What’s going on? What’s up?” I
looked back at the lounge and decided that it was probably better to join her
in the bed—if she would let me—than to stand outside of the bunk and try and
talk to her. I climbed up and pulled myself onto the bed behind her.
    “I don’t want to talk about it,” Olivia said, her voice creaking
and breaking. I tugged the curtain back into place behind me.
    “Obviously it’s a big deal,” I pointed out. I shifted closer
to her on the bed. “Come on, Liv. Tell me what’s going on.” I pitched my voice
low, my lips only inches away from her ear.
    “We got found out,” Olivia said after a moment’s silence.
Her voice was flat. “Someone sent pictures to my editor. He emailed me while we
were checking into the hotel, but I didn’t see it until you got to the
station.”
    “What’s so wrong about that?” I wrapped my arms around her,
pulling her body against mine. “I mean, how terrible can it be? We’re in the
open now.”
    “He’s thinking about pulling me from the assignment,” Olivia
said. “Looks like the rest of the guys are going to get to argue over who gets
the money or how to split it.”
    “Why does he want to pull you?”
    “Because it’s a scandal! Everyone’s going to be going on
about me being a slut. I’m ruined.” She shuddered against me and sobbed,
turning her face towards the pillow. “All anyone is going to ever associate me
with is fucking the guitarist of Molly Riot.” I tightened my grip on her and
Olivia struggled against me, pulling away. “I knew this was a mistake. I knew
it was stupid and a bad idea and I did it anyway.”
    “It wasn’t a mistake!” I heard the guys in the lounge
starting to go quiet—not quite stopping their chatter, but certainly going
about it a lot less. I didn’t care. “Look, Liv—it happens all the time. Julian
Casablancas got together with his band’s assistant manager. Dave Grohl married
someone from MTV.” I pulled her tightly against me until she stopped
struggling. “We’ll convince your editor that it’s actually better that
you’re dating me.”
    “And if someone bitches that the only reason I wrote
something is because I’m fucking you? What then, Nick? Women’s careers get
ruined over this.”
    “Yours won’t.” I kissed the top of her head, holding her
body against mine, feeling the tension in every muscle. “I swear, Olivia. I
won’t let anyone ruin your career over this. It’s nothing.”
    “Nothing to you,” she said, her voice tight and so bitter I
could almost taste it. “When you break up with me in two months or four or six
because you want something new, you can forget all about me, and not give a
single shit about what my career looks like.”
    “By the time I break up with you—if I ever do, which at the
moment I’m not planning—no one is even going to remember this.”
    “They will if it goes to press,” Olivia said. “And I can
just about guarantee that the kind of person who would find my fucking editor’s
personal email