“I’m sorry, do you have brain damage? I am not now, nor have I ever been, your girl.” I turned so I was facing forward and folded my arms over my chest. “I guess you forgot that somewhere during the past fifteen months.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve just been biding my time, letting you cool your jets. But I’m done being patient, Dimples. Your time is up, and I’m not letting you run from me anymore.”
“‘Letting me’?” I repeated in a soft voice and slowly turned my head to look at him. “You let me?”
“Yes, baby. I allowed you to run after misunderstanding what was going on in my apartment that day you returned my key. I allowed you to hide away with your sister in Tennessee for an entire summer. I let you avoid me for the past fifteen months. Because I knew in the end, I would come out on the other side the winner.” He reached out and tucked a few locks of my hair behind my ear. “And here I am, with you right beside me. Where you belong.”
“You didn’t allow or let me do anything, asshole. You. Are. Nothing. To. Me.”
A voice in the back of my mind whispered I was a liar, that no matter how hard I’d tried to forget about Jagger Armstrong, it hadn’t worked. I still wanted him. Still stupidly loved him. But I’d be damned if I told him that. He wasn’t worth my time or the tears he would bring with him if I let him back into my life.
His jaw clenched for a moment before he grinned again. “Keep telling yourself that, Dimples. Maybe next time you shouldn’t let me see those beautiful baby blues when you lie to me. They give you away every single time.”
The limo started moving, and I was half tempted to jump out of it. But I had other jobs lined up in the coming weeks, and I couldn’t risk injuring myself or scraping up my face. After I’d canceled on clients for months, it had taken a lot of work to show them they could rely on me again when I’d finally felt like going back to work. I’d spent the last year proving to them I was worth the money they were shelling out to make me the face of their products.
Deciding ignoring him was the best course of action, I retrieved my phone and texted my brother.
Me: What the fuck did I agree to do for you again? I can’t seem to remember what the job description was.
Cannon: I didn’t specify at the time. You’re going to be in a music video.
I narrowed my eyes at the way he’d worded that last sentence. A music video. Not his music video.
Me: Whose video is it, Cannon?
I saw he’d read the text, but he didn’t message me back, and I swallowed a curse.
Me: If it’s not for you, I’m not doing it!
Cannon: You signed an airtight contract, baby sis.
Me: When THE FUCK did I sign a goddamn contract?
Cannon: The day after I asked you to do this for me.
I didn’t remember signing any frigging contract. But a few texts to my agent later and I was looking at the scanned document with my name scrawled across the bottom. I would have called bullshit, but my signature was too unique for anyone to have tried to forge it. They must have tricked me into signing the damn thing somehow, but I didn’t know how. I always looked over everything I signed.
Deciding I was going to murder my brother—and my agent for helping him—I dropped my phone back into my purse and glared out the side window until the limo pulled up in front of the hotel a good twenty minutes later.
A valet opened my door, and I stepped out. The humidity blasted me in the face, but I ignored the sticky heat and stomped into the hotel. As if they were watching for me, Mom and Dad appeared in front of me.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Dad said as he kissed my cheek. “How was your flight?”
“Did you two help Cannon set this up?” I asked instead of answering his question.
“What do you mean?” Mom asked innocently.
“Did you trick me into signing a contract to do a fucking music video?” I glared from one parent to the other, not liking the sly looks in their eyes as they smiled fondly at me.