My face burns so hotly it throbs. “Killian? You think I give a shit what Killian believes right now?”

“You should be extremely worried about what the bloody hell Killian thinks of you. The band’s welfare should be your top priority, damn it.”

“It’s obviously yours,” I snap.

“Of course it is.” He slashes the air with his hand. “I’m their goddamn manager! What did you think?”

“I thought,” I answer with a shaking voice, “I meant enough to you that you wouldn’t make ugly assumptions. That you wouldn’t worry about soothing Killian’s feelings at the expense of mine.”

All emotion wipes from his face, and he straightens to his full height, rolling his shoulders back as if to brace himself. “This is real life, Sophie. Not some movie. You don’t get to use this as some test to see how much I’ll blindly accept, as if that somehow will make me worthy of you.”

I stand there, mouth open, unable to form a word. A test? He thinks this is some stupid test? But a small, dark part of me wonders, am I testing him?

I would explain all of it if he gave me half a chance to get a word in.

And yet I am hurt that he immediately thought the worst of me. How could I not be? We’re better than this. I gave him my heart; I would never intentionally hurt him or anyone he loves. If he doesn’t know that now, I’m not sure he ever will.

His voice is cold and methodical as he keeps picking, his fucking logic stomping on my heart with every word. “You think I don’t understand what you’re doing? Give me a little credit. I know you as well as you know me. Did it become too much fun, believing you could manage me?”

This pain is dull and hollow, and somehow worse because of it. I close my eyes against him. “First I’m a sleazy schemer, and now I’m some jerk who enjoys leading you around by the balls for fun? Is that it?”

“Goddamn it, you don’t get to be the injured party here. Not this time.”

My eyes snap open. He looks so genuinely put out and hurt that I don’t know what to say. But I won’t apologize now, that’s for damn sure.

“Well, too bad, because I am injured. And you don’t get to tell me how to feel.” I take a step closer, my fists balling at my sides. “And right now, you’re making it really fucking hard not to hate you.”

He rocks back on his heels. Silence wells up between us like a living, dark thing. When he finally speaks, his voice is low and unsteady.

“You have always pushed me to express myself. This is me expressing myself. I can concede that I need to let myself live more in the moment and enjoy life. But you, Sophie Darling, need to grow the hell up and take responsibility when things go into the shitter. And if you cannot do that, you don’t belong on this tour.”

I hear him. I know he’s right about this. But his ugly conclusions and the way he jumped to them loom large as well.

Licking my dry lips, I make my voice as calm as I can manage. “Right now, the tour and whether I should be on it are the least of my worries.”

He frowns, tilting his head as if he can’t understand me. Part of me wants to laugh, only I know I’ll end up crying. Maybe we are too different, our priorities too far apart.

A knock on the suite door has us both flinching. Gabriel turns toward it, his mouth pinched, weariness lining his face. In this light, he’s almost haggard. He runs a hand over his eyes.

“That’s Jules. She’s here to give me an update—”

“I’ll leave you to it.” On wooden limbs, I head to the bedroom.

He doesn’t try to stop me.

And I don’t cry once I close the door behind me. I pack.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Gabriel

 

* * *

 

“Report?” I ask from one of suite’s dining room chairs. My head is too heavy to hold itself up, so I rest it in the cradle of my hands.

“The girl you caught on the elevator is Jennifer Miller. She’s a roadie, working in lighting.” Jules’s voice is hesitant and soft.

Regrettable, but apparently I’m quite good at cowing women. A lance of pain drives through my heart. I clear my throat, having trouble finding my voice.

“Go on.”

Jules takes a breath that sounds more like a sigh. “According to her statement, she’d been wanting to hook up with Jax. When she saw him having trouble getting to the elevator, she offered to help.”

Well, give the girl points for being an opportunist. I shouldn’t care, but I’m so bloody bitter at the moment, it’s all I can do not to sneer.

“And that cockwank? How did he get in?”

From between my fingers, I see Jules’s lip quirk in a smile before she presses down on them. “He, ah, approached them at the elevator. Told Jennifer he was an old friend of…” Jules coughs, her eyes darting away.

“Of Sophie’s?” I offer. Goddamn it, it hurts to say her name. I don’t know how I manage to utter it without inflection.

Sophie. She retreated to our bedroom after I ripped into her worse than anyone I’ve ever had a go at. She went with quiet dignity, and I felt small and full of regret. I don’t even remember the last person I cared about with whom I’ve truly lost my temper. There’s a reason for that. I cut people open with my words, as surely as a surgeon with a scalpel.

That fucktrumpet Martin, however… My hands curl into fists. It’s all I can do not to hunt the tit down and bash his fucking gob in. A shudder works through me. I’m regressing back to my feral youth, when I was a few steps away from becoming a chavvy thug.

Jules watches me with weary eyes.

I force what I hope is a bland expression. “Well?”

“Yes, that’s what he said. And he offered to give them a hand. Jax let them both up.”

My hand is cold and clammy as I rub it over my face. “What happened in the room?”

“Ah, Jennifer says she started…ah, making out with Jax. He didn’t appear to mind.”

Which means he was so out of it, he let the twit do what she wanted. I wave a hand, encouraging Jules to speed things up. I can hardly stomach sitting here, listening to this. I want to pace. I want to hunt down Sophie and crawl into bed with her, beg her to forgive me for shouting.