Right?

He hauled me in the room, stopped, closed the door and then turned back to me. His hand holding mine drew me near, nearer, nearer. He dropped my hand and both of his came to my waist. They slid around to my back and he started to pul me close.

Okay, it was safe to say something definitely had changed.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice breathy, my brain rethinking my decision not to protest or struggle. I had my head tipped back and was staring at his face.

His eyes weren’t blank but broody; they were intense and active.

I put my hands on his chest and he stopped pul ing me close. I figured this was mainly because he couldn’t get me closer without me moving my hands. Our bodies were pressed together, Mace looking down at me from his height, six inches tal er than me (this, for your information, was another of those seven hundred, twenty-five thousand things I missed most about him, him being so tal , since I was also tal , it made me feel petite and protected).

I was beginning to find it hard to breathe.

“You remember I told you after al of this was over, we gotta talk?” he asked.

I nodded, for some reason (okay, it was that look in his I nodded, for some reason (okay, it was that look in his eyes, he’d never looked at me like that, not even when we were together), I was afraid to speak.

“We’re not gonna wait ‘til this is over. We’re gonna talk now.”

Okay, not good. Al of a sudden, I didn’t want to get this over with.

I found my voice. “I’m not sure I want to talk.”

“That’s fine. I’l do the talking.”

Effing hel .

“I’m not sure I want that either,” I tried.

He dipped his head and his face got closer. “Sorry, Kitten. Enough time has been wasted.”

Oh dear. I didn’t like the sound of that.

I couldn’t stop him that much I knew. When Mace wanted something, Mace got it. I learned that early in our relationship like, the first date when he ended up spending the night, being the first and only guy I’d ever dated who I’d slept with on the first date.

However, thinking positively, maybe I could stal for long enough to get my head together.

“Before you start, tel me how much you heard,” I demanded.

He didn’t even try to screw with me, he just told me flat out, “Al of it.”

Shit!

“What’s the first thing you heard?” I didn’t know why I asked, maybe a form of self-punishment for being such an effing idiot and giving into Al y making me spil .

“The first thing I heard was, ‘Hel o? Stel a? Are you in the room?’”

Yep, he heard al of it.

I must remind you, my luck was not just shitty luck, it was super shitty luck.

“It doesn’t change anything,” I told him.

“It changes everything but then everything changed when you sang Hank Wil iams to me.”

Not this again!

“Mace, I’m not going to say it again, I didn’t sing Hank to you.”

“Kitten, the place was packed and stil , you and I were the only ones in that room.”

Sheesh.

“Please, let me go,” I asked, trying a different tactic.

“I didn’t leave you because you needed me.” Mace saw through my new tactic and didn’t think much of it.

I blinked. It felt like it took two days for me to blink; I did it in slow-mo. When my eyes were back to open they were a whole lot wider.

“Excuse me?”

“It wasn’t about you.”

Ah, so it was this game now.

My lips made a soft noise that sounded like, “poof”.

Then I said, “That’s what they al say.”

“It wasn’t.”

“So, it wasn’t me, it was you?”

“No, it was the men who watched you onstage, the ones I’d see gig to gig. Drinkin’ beer and adjusting their crotches and likely goin’ home and jackin’ off, thinking of you singing

‘Black Velvet’.”

“Right.” I sounded sarcastic because I meant to.

His face got closer. “Yeah. That’s right. Listen to me, Stel a, it wasn’t about you. I’m not the kind of man who wants other men jackin’ off to his woman. I’m also not the kind of man who wants to share her with four other guys.” My body went solid and my hands pressed against his chest. “I never cheated on you!”

“Yeah you did, every time you let me take a cal from Buzz or Hugo or Pong or Leo.”

Okay. Shit. Wel .

Um.

I had nothing to say to that because, in a weird way, he wasn’t wrong.

He felt my body relax, he knew he scored a point and he took advantage, pressing closer, his face dipping lower, coming to a stop an inch from mine.

“I knew when I got into it with you that I wouldn’t be the center of your universe. I was fine with that. I just didn’t know I’d be a satel ite.”

At his words, my body did an involuntary jerk.

I hated it that he thought that. I shouldn’t hate it, since I was over him, but I did.

“You weren’t a satel ite,” I whispered.

“I know that now, after hearin’ what you said in the kitchen. I didn’t know it then.” His arms came from around me and his hands went to either side of my neck, his thumbs pressing into the undersides of my jaw to tilt my head further back to look at him. “Kitten,” he said softly,

“you should have told me.”

Hang on a second here.

Was this happening?

And if it was, how was this happening? Why was this happening?

He broke up with me!

“You said I was needy,” I accused on a toss of my hair which, for your information, did nothing to dislodge his hands.

“I said your band was needy,” he contradicted.

“You did not,” I contradicted right back.

“I did. You heard it the way you wanted to hear it. I hate to break this to you but Stel a Gunn is not the Blue Moon Gypsies. There’s you and there’s the band. Babe, you gotta find where one ends and the other begins.” He was right. I knew he was right. I’d been worried about that for a long time.

But I wasn’t going to tel him that.

“You have no right to speak to me this way,” I snapped.

“I do.”

“And just how do you figure that?”