“Not willing to flash a little arm for views?” I teased when she was gone.
He came over to my corner and sunk down to a squat in front of the chair I was sitting on. I fought the urge to scramble away because I had no self-control when he was this near.
“What the fuck was that during the interview?” he growled.
I shrugged, feeling chastised.
“Pull shit like that again and I’ll tell them the truth,” he said.
He was bluffing and we both knew it, so I smiled sweetly. “You’re going to tell them you’re a vindictive asshole?”
He stroked a thumb across my bottom lip, staring at my mouth with his intense blue eyes. “Every time you start acting like a mouthy slut again, it just reminds me it’s been too long since you’ve been on your knees.”
Someone cleared their throat at the door. His publicist was standing there with a carefully neutral expression.
“They’re ready,” she said.
Zane stood up slowly and turned to follow her without even glancing my way, but Gabriella turned back to me. “He’s doing an acoustic performance of the new single for this one. You can listen in the booth with us if you’d like?”
My heart raced at the prospect of getting to hear Zane perform.
Zane scowled. “It would be better if she waits in the car.”
Gabriella looked away politely and made her way down the hall.
“You want me to wait in the car,” I said slowly, trying to figure out whether he could be teasing.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “We’ll be in a hurry. I’ll be down as soon as I’m finished here.”
I nodded and followed the security guy out to the waiting car like a good little girl, trying not to feel anything.
I didn’t have any right to be hurt or disappointed, so I focused on the safer feeling that was bubbling inside of me and was fully angry by the time Zane slid into the back seat next to me.
He immediately started doing something on his phone and we rode in silence until I couldn’t take it anymore.
With icy politeness, I said, “How was your performance, dear?”
He looked up from his phone. “Why are you being weird?”
“Because you embarrassed me in there by dismissing me like a fucking child.”
He went back to his phone.
“Why did you ask me to stay?”
He sighed but didn’t look up. “You know why.”
“Why not leave me at the hotel then? Don’t drag me around like your girlfriend if you only want an escort for the sex. You go do your job and I’ll do mine.”
His eyes flicked up. “And which do you want, Maia? You want me to treat you like my girlfriend or treat you like my whore?”
Both. I wanted both, but I was a fucking coward, so I said, “We both know what I’m here for.”
He gave a small nod, but the muscle in his jaw was working. He leaned back in the seat, legs sprawled wide and glanced down. “Then do your job.”
The way he growled it did something to me, and I slid to my knees in front of him. He hammered the privacy screen button so hard I jumped.
He gestured impatiently with an open hand and it shouldn’t have been hot. Goddammit,it shouldn’t have been hot. But I fucking loved it when he was like this. Everyone else was too polite, too insecure to pull it off.
