She chokes. “Zane!”
I ignore her and pull her close enough that our bodies touch from chest to thigh.
“We’re together,” I say loudly enough for every camera in the room. “Officially.”
Ruby tries to pull away for appearance’s sake, but her pulse jumps under my fingers, and I know she likes it.
I feel it in the way she unconsciously leans into me a second later.
She swats my shoulder. “You can’t just announce?—”
I shut her up by kissing her.
In public. Hard and possessive. And fucking final.
Long enough that someone says “Jesus Christ” under their breath and someone else drops their champagne.
Ruby is breathless when I finally pull back.
“You’re insane,” she whispers.
“I know.” I kiss her again. “But at least I’m honest about it.”
She snorts, but she kisses me back.
A lot.
Guess she doesn’t totally hate being a rockstar’s girlfriend after all.
And next on my grand plan?
I can’t fucking wait to make her a rockstar’s wife.
If there’sone tiny upside to having a mansion where band mates and managers and crew walk in and out all fucking day long—and yeah, that’s about to change pretty damned soon—it’s that Ruby doesn’t know what fills the hours she isn’t looking. The hours when she’s squirreled away in the guest room, writing her fanfic.
So she has no clue I buy things.
Alotof things.
Things she’ll need when the next phase begins.
Things she’ll need when her body starts changing.
Things I’ve researched at three in the morning on private tabs I delete before she wakes up.
I’m not ready for her to see any of it yet.
But I hide them around the mansion in closets, cupboards and storage rooms anyway. As if I can build the future in pieces and tuck it away until the right moment.
Freddie would have a stroke if he knew.
Jude would laugh until he couldn’t breathe.
Mama would approve so violently she’d probably start knitting baby socks infused with moonlight.
Ruby?
Ruby is the only unpredictable part of this plan.
