“Do you think there’s going to be a showdown?” The older man in the Polo shirt and impeccably styled hair rested his elbows on top of some guy’s chair. All the reporters and editors nodded enthusiastically.
“Oh, absolutely,” a blond, malnourished girl exclaimed. “There’s no way around that. Alex Winslow is unhinged. I mean, he’s definitely cooking something delicious, what with the snippets from his ‘Letters from the Dead’ tour.” She clapped her hands together excitedly, brushing her tongue over her glossed lips in a way that was calculated and overtly trying and not at all like Stardust’s nervous gnawing. “But Winslow is still every inch of the reckless rock star we know. Like two weeks ago, when he attacked his drummer. He’s definitely going to let Will Bushell and Fallon Lankford know how he feels about them.”
“Apparently, he didn’t attack the drummer. There were severe sound issues and he was just frustrated. He was later photographed hugging Lucas Rafferty outside the hotel,” a guy chipped in.
Right. About that.
That had been Blake putting out one of the many fires I’d created. There were no sound issues—though I’m sure someone got fired for the non-existing one Blake reported—and the embrace I’d given Lucas outside our Berlin hotel had almost snapped his neck.
“Either way, will they even meet? I mean, chances are they won’t.” A brunette girl with bold red lipstick picked dirt from under her acrylic nails.
“They’re all going to be at Chateau De Malmaison’s Halloween event in Paris.” The older man snapped his fingers.
Someone tapped my shoulder, and I realized the queue had progressed, but I’d stayed rooted to the floor. I took a few steps forward, my eyes still glued to the screen. There was something cathartic about the pain coursing through me. It made me feel so human. So vulnerable.
“There’ll be no media at the event. And they’ll all wear masks.” The blond girl sounded disappointed. At least someone still got a mental hard-on for my personal life. Shame it wasn’t me.
“Mask or not, Will and Fallon owe Alex an explanation, don’t you think? Their engagement came as a surprise to everyone.”
For a second, I was in purgatory between my life the second before I’d heard it and my life after.
Engagement?
En-fucking-gagement?
I sucked in a slow breath. Fucking Fallon was the hottest mess Hollywood had had the displeasure of producing in this decade and Will was happily married to his work. What business did they have getting married?
“The preparations for the wedding have been going on for weeks now. Do you think they’ll invite him?”
Weeks? They’d been engaged for weeks and no one had told me? Then it dawned on me like hail. Trickling down at first, then all at once, pouring down on my fucking parade.
No Internet.
No social media.
Stay away from the laptop.
Channels in my hotel rooms hooked on news and porn and nothing else because of…
Cockgate.
Blake had created Cockgate. My jaw locked so hard my teeth meshed into dust. He’d do whatever he needed to divert the scandal from “British rock star loses his shit and goes on a three-week bender consuming every single gram of cocaine in Europe” to “British rock star fucks a random starlet and leaves her a souvenir.”
My blood boiled, and I made a U-turn, pushing the door open and storming out. Blake was still on his mobile. He had one eye on me, like I was going to drink myself to death in a coffee shop in the middle of Barcelona. I motioned for him to follow me up to our hotel with my hand, and he did, the device still cemented to his ear.
“All right. Gotta go. Talk later. Bye.”
We got in. Into the lobby. Into the lift. I was sick and tired of Blake and Jenna pulling shit like this. I had a babysitter, I was not allowed on the Internet, and every time I acted in a way that didn’t suit them, they’d dump the blame on other people and bark at me, like in Moscow.
Not to mention I suspected he put my fucking dick on the Internet.
Yeah, enough was e-fucking-nough.
“What crawled up your arse?” Blake’s defiant eyes dragged to meet mine when we were in the lift, and I had to tell myself, not now. When we get to the room. When we get to the fucking room, which only served to make every second tick like a year.
The minute the door behind us clicked shut, I grabbed a vase and threw it across the wall. I wanted to scream, but this time we didn’t have the entire floor for my entourage.
“How long have you known? About Will and Fallon. Don’t lie.” I wasn’t a bad man. I knew that. I paid my taxes. I always made sure my sexual partner orgasmed before I kicked her out. I took care of my family and mates, even when they let me down. So this didn’t make any sense.