He winces. “I was a tad distracted when Sophie told me she was pregnant. Slight errors in judgment may have occurred.”

“Right.”

His eyes narrow on me. “You were at the meeting and signed the papers, Blackwood. You might try paying attention if you object to certain avenues of outreach marketing.”

“Uh-huh. Outreach marketing is an interesting term, by the way. Points for that.”

His eyes become slits. “Stop deflecting and tell me about your problem.”

“Stella told me about her job.”

I tug on the color of my T-shirt. I swear they’ve turned on the heat. Smiling, drooling baby pictures leer down at me. It’s like The Birds with diapers.

Scottie grabs hold of my elbow. “This way.”

I let him steer me out of baby hell and fill my lungs with gloriously polluted city air as soon we step outside. “Thanks.”

“Same thing happened the first five times Sophie dragged me into one of these stores,” he admits. “You have to work your way up to a full visit.”

We jog across the street and head toward Central Park.

Scottie resumes talking as soon as we’re in the relative privacy of the park. “You have a problem with her being a professional friend?”

“No.” If only. I’d prefer that right about now. “It’s not that …”

“Then what?”

I swear my throat is closing.

“Spit it out, John, or I’m returning to shop for strollers.”

“I found it adorable, all right?” I run a hand through my hair. “She’s utterly adorable. Something happened to me that I don’t …”

Scottie stops and stares at me. I can’t look him in the eye.

“I was standing there, looking at her, and she became … more. I couldn’t … I couldn’t think, man. Everything simply …” I wave a hand in annoyance at myself. “Tilted. The world titled, and there she was. You know?”

A slow, annoying smile spreads over his face. I want to kick him. But I don’t. I brought this on myself.

“Yes,” he says, “as a matter of fact, I do know.”

I was afraid of that. I remember how Scottie was when he fell for Sophie, his focus shifting from work to one chatty blond who appeared to drive him up a tree. It had been amusing as hell watching him fall. Not so much now. Not when I’m the one toppling.

The first instrument I played was a violin. I liked it fine and was very good at it. But the second I got a guitar in my hands, I knew it would change my life. Same with meeting Killian, Whip, Rye, Brenna, and Scottie. I knew they would play a part in my life, alter its direction and purpose.

I have the same knowing with Stella. She is fresh and new, comfortable and timeless, like one of my best songs, played an entirely different way. Only instead of jumping in with both feet, I want to back the fuck away. Unlike the others, Stella scares the hell out of me.

I’d stared at her in that shadowed hallway and it fully hit me how much I want her. I want her under me, over me, beside me. I want to dedicate hours memorizing the pattern of her freckles, each curve and dip of her body. I want her body against mine until her scent is in my skin. I want to taste her, to fuck her, to laugh with her. I want everything.

Sex has always been easy for me. I can detach, let myself feel pleasure, let myself ignore all the shit in my head. I love sex. But I’ve never truly wanted a particular woman before. One was as good as any. And if someone I was into wasn’t into me, there were plenty of willing and available women to satisfy my needs. I used to love that about sex—the ease and impersonality of it all. I could experience an intense human connection that I desperately needed without having to stay connected after it was over.

Nothing about Stella is impersonal.

Maybe if it were a simple case of lust or the need to fuck, I could handle this thing with Stella. But it’s not. That is abundantly clear. She told me she’s a professional friend, someone whose job it is to make other people feel a little less lonely in life, and that had been it for me. I fell straight into the abyss. My want of her isn’t just physical; it is soul deep.

If the choice is to have Stella in my life without sex, or fuck her and leave her, I will pick celibacy with Stella every time. But how do I expose my soul, as flawed as it is, and have any hope that she’d want me too?

I’m the eternal fuckup. Have been my whole life. It’s a miracle I’m famous. And, yeah, I am adored by fans. But they don’t know me. Stella does, and I’m not convinced she can stand my presence for very long. Sure, she’s attracted. I can see that just fine. But I know for a fact that attraction is a shallow emotion that can easily fade, so it doesn’t inspire much hope. Which is why I want to run as far as I can from Stella. But the harder I pull away, the more I feel her tugging me back.

Scottie is still staring, that knowing gleam in his eyes. He’s enjoying this.

I rub a hand along the back of my neck and squeeze the stiff muscles. “I left her standing there. Did a total runner.”

He nods as though my reaction is perfectly normal, which it bloody well isn’t. “‘We are all fools in love.’”

For a second, I gape at him. “Did you just quote Jane Austen?”

Scottie snorts. “Mate, you had a copy of Pride and Prejudice tucked under your mattress that first road trip we took.”

“I was trying to impress women!”

“Right. That’s why it was dog-eared and falling apart.”

“It was Brenna’s old copy,” I protest, but then shrug. “Darcy was all right. But it always bothered me that Elizabeth only started to change her opinion of him when she saw Pemberley.”

“She was falling before that; she simply refused to acknowledge it. You’re a cynic for thinking otherwise.” Scottie pulls out his phone to text for his car. The man never walks around the city if he doesn’t have to. “Which won’t work with Ms. Grey; that woman is a romantic.”

I would ask how he knows, but Scottie knows everything about everyone. No use getting annoyed about that. And he’s right.

Frowning, I look out over the park. The gray sky hangs heavy and full over the rolling green grass. Rain is about to fall and people are heading for cover. Scottie and I head for Columbus Avenue, where his driver will be waiting.

“What do I do?” I blurt out.

Scottie gives me a sidelong look. “Invest in a good set of kneepads. I predict a lot of groveling in your future.”

“If I could only spend time with her without worrying about anything else,” I mutter.

“That would be ideal.” Scottie appears to think that’s impossible. Then again, the lucky bastard was working with Sophie when they met. She had to be around his prickly arse.

A nebulous idea begins to form, tickling the edges of my desperate brain.

“Besides,” Scottie says, interrupting my thoughts, “we have bigger problems right now.”

The sinking feeling in my gut returns with a vengeance. “You talked to the women?” The list I’d given him was embarrassingly vague, but his staff keeps track of everyone who comes to our meet-and-greets or visits our VIP rooms, which helped a lot, considering that my usual hookups are with women attending Kill John functions.

“Yes,” he says slowly. “We also located the source. A young woman named Karen—”