One More Time - Ali Parker Page 0,13

a problem with Alicia?”

“No,” I answered without hesitation. Alicia was smart, talented, dedicated, beautiful, and she’d managed to wrangle my brother into a semi-decent person when he wanted to be, or when she was around. I had no problem with her.

Jared wasn’t pulling any punches though. “Do you have a problem with me and Alicia?”

“No.” It’d been a long time since Jared was able to talk to me like my brother instead of the fucking Emperor of Rock bullshit he’d bought into. Alicia had pulled Jared back out of the Emperor. She was good for him, and he was amazing with her. I was happy for both of them, lingering resentment of their happiness aside.

“It’s not that,” I started. “It’s that I don’t trust love. That’s all. It’s not you, and it’s not Alicia. It’s… that.”

“You don’t trust love?” Jared asked, his brow furrowed in confusion. I could see the exact moment that realization dawned not a second later and watched as his eyes widened and his mouth formed an ‘o’. “That’s what this is about? Elizabeth?”

“Jared.” My voice was a low warning. Her name coming from his lips was rubbing me the wrong way, stroking the red-hot flames of anger that sparked in my belly every time she came up. My brother either didn’t recognize the warning, or he didn’t care, because he carried on as if I hadn’t said anything.

“Not every woman is like her, Caleb. Seriously, she was a—” Before I even fully knew what I was doing, I was across the table, and my fists were full of Jared’s shirt, my knuckles white and my fingers aching from their tight hold on the fabric.

Even after all this time and everything that had happened, I still couldn’t stand people talking shit about Liz. It was fucked up, and a therapist could probably have a field day with it, but it couldn’t be helped.

I relaxed my hold on Jared’s shirt, looking up to find the familiar shit-eating grin on his face. “You know what your problem is? You’re still in love with her, aren’t you? You still love Liz.”

You still love Liz. His words clouded my mind, and red fog hazed my vision. The hand that had let go of his shirt formed a fist, and it connected with Jared’s jaw hard enough that the asshole stumbled back, but not hard enough to have done any lasting damage.

Damn it.

Jared rubbed his jaw, opening his mouth wide and testing whether he could move it properly. When he finished his self-assessment of the damage, something we were both plenty talented at for all the practice we’d had, he started laughing.

“I can’t fucking believe that’s still what all this is about. Fucking Elizabeth. I didn’t believe in love either. I also didn’t think that it was real, but trust me, it is. You’re a fool and a coward if you keep running from it. Especially if you keep running because of her.”

He finally managed to compose himself, returning to his earlier, serious demeanor. Stepping closer to me, he clasped my shoulder and looked me right in the eye. “If you decide to do this thing with Kelly, just don’t take it too far, okay? Despite what just happened here, you just said that you don’t actually have a problem with Alicia or with our engagement, so keep that in mind. This rivalry thing is only to help build up hype for PR and the tour. We don’t want negative results from it.”

Rage and frustration with my situation was still coursing through my veins, and it was taking every ounce of willpower I had to keep from pushing him off me. I didn’t have the patience for a lecture or a talking to. “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want.”

“Of course you will. I’m just saying be smart about it, Caleb.” Dropping his hand from my shoulder, he walked to the door, gave me a salute, and shut it behind him, leaving me alone in this glass monstrosity of a conference room with only the angry ocean beyond the windows as company.

I walked to the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows and stared down at the beach, at the waves crashing into the rocks sending spray every which way before rolling to shore. My mind felt as jumbled and in turmoil as the waters below.

Playing up a brotherly rivalry for the press was one thing: smoke and mirrors, as Jared put it. But there were a lot of ways that this thing could run