Page 37 of Dissonance

“I’m allowed to.”

“Aye.” He picks up his own coffee and takes a sip. “But you could also just eat your eggs.”

I huff a laugh, picking up my fork, and something eases in his expression when I take the first bite.

“I’m flying back to Toronto tomorrow night. Less than forty-eight hours.”

“Oh,” I manage, my stomach dipping before I can stop it.

He watches me, that calm, unreadable patience settling between us. I search his face for something I can push against, that uneasy prickling under my skin looking for a target. But all I find is quiet certainty. He’s not demanding anything. He’s just here, steady as ever, making it impossible to pretend last night was the same as the times before.

“Give me the weekend.”

I go still. I’ve heard those words before, murmured against my skin in hazy morning light a long time ago. The last time Lachlan James asked me for a weekend, I spent two days barely leaving a hotel bed, discovering exactly how risky his presence was to my resolve. And I still remember what it felt like to say yes.

“I’m not asking for more than this,” he says quietly, the corner of his mouth lifting as he steps closer. “Hell, you’ve told me plenty that it’ll never be more than it is.” He glances at my plate, his smile becoming more of a smirk. “Besides, the hotel breakfast is shite compared to this, and the company’s a hell of a lot better. Especially if the beautiful woman in front of me happens to be naked under that robe.”

He reaches out, toying with the tie at my waist, not pulling it, just holding it with the possibility of him peeling it off me until I’m bare, my skin sparking at the contact. I get stuck on his words, the ease of them, like he stopped expecting anything different a long time ago. And somehow, that makes it worse.

“Eat your breakfast, sweetheart,” he murmurs, letting the tie slip through his fingers. “And then, before I need to head back to the hotel and check on Cooper, I’m going to need to have you again. And I’m not about to waste a perfectly good morning.”

I shake my head, unable to help the small, rueful smile that slips free. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

“Aye.” He turns back to his coffee, entirely unrepentant. “But you knew that already.”

Chapter Sixteen

Thea

“I told you to stay out of trouble,” I say, keeping my voice level. “You promised you would.”

“And I did,” Tyler huffs, stopping his pacing to throw his arms wide. “She was one of Zane’s friends. I don’t even remember who she is.”

“That doesn’t make this any better,” I say, the weight of the article on my desk heavy on my shoulders. “You know how this looks. It’s bad, Tyler.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” His tone pitches before he catches it and he takes a deep breath, then resumes pacing my office floor, dragging both hands through his hair. “Thea, there’s a picture of my dick on the internet. My mom could see it.” He winces. “And it’s not even a flattering angle.”

“The angle is genuinely the least important part of this conversation.”

He stops short. “Easy for you to say. It’s not your body getting dissected by strangers online. I’m much bigger than tha—”

“No, enough,” I cut in, both hands flat on the desk as I lean forward. “How many times do I need to tell you this is your career you’re playing with? And mine. Not to mention, the label execs who are going to be furious. And then there’s everyone else who now has to clean up this mess because you couldn’t stop and think for five fucking seconds.”

“It wasn’t me,” he insists.

“Weren’t you the one who came to me because some girl sold a tell-all story about her one night in heaven with ZeroSaint?” I pick up the trashy magazine and toss it across the desk. Tyler’s half-blurred face—arm around a girl at the Grammy after-party a few weeks ago—stares up from the front cover.

“Okay, it is me.” He holds up a hand. “I mean, I didn’t take the pictures. I didn’t leak them. I was drunk, but I’m not a dumbass.”

Sighing, I look at him. Tension coils through his shoulders, his fingers tugging the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands before shaking them out. He’s rattled, more than he wants me to see.

With a deep groan of defeat, he drops onto the sofa across the room, dragging both hands across his face. “Zane said it wasn’t a big deal. That this stuff blows over.”

“Zane says a lot of things. Most of them benefiting him.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” I counter, folding my arms. “Every time there’s a mess, he’s lurking in the background, hyping it, filming it. The Fashion Awards the other month, no issues. The appearance at the race weekend, no incident. Both times, no Zane. Are you sensing the pattern?”