Page 26 of My Three Billionaire Rockstars

Damn it.

Damn him.

There’s one clip where the camera catches him turning toward the crowd, sweat-dark hair pushed back, voice rough with whatever song he’s halfway through, and I genuinely have to pause it because the man has no right to be this good looking and talented at the same time.

“No,” I tell the screen.

Daisy sneezes.

“No,” I repeat. “I’m not doing this.”

Because now I know exactly what this is.

I’m the novelty.

The waitress who didn’t care who he was. The woman in a diner T-shirt who spilled eggs on him and didn’t dissolve when he stared. The challenge. Different from the women who walk over smiling because they already know his face.

That may be interesting for a while. A little while. Long enough for him to enjoy the friction of it.

But I know how men like Xander Harlow work. Maybe not him specifically, but the type. Beautiful, successful, used to attention, used to getting what they want. They like a woman who pushes back right up until the moment she asks to be treated like she matters.

I scratch Daisy behind the ears and stare at the dark screen of my laptop.

“He’s very good looking,” I say reluctantly.

Her tail thumps.

“And his music is annoyingly hot.”

Another thump.

“And I would rather eat glass than become another notch on his bedpost.”

Daisy rolls onto her back like she’s overcome by the burden of my brilliance.

“Exactly,” I tell her.

Xander Harlow can keep the money, the fame, the impossible stare, and every woman in a twenty-mile radius who wants to build a shrine out of old concert posters.

He’s a problem. A gorgeous, talented, arrogant problem.

And I’m smart enough to know better.

At least, I really need to be.

FOUR

Julian

Iwake up to the sound of Gabe talking loudly, about to either close a deal or ruin someone’s life.

It could go either way.

I’m flat on my back on the couch in the main lounge, one arm hanging off the side, a guitar pick stuck to my cheek because I passed out mid-existential thought last night. The house smells of coffee and wood and the faint leftover murmur of yesterday’s recording session.

“No, I don’t care what they think the risk is,” Gabe says, pacing somewhere behind me. “We’re not building this to be safe. We’re building it to work.”

I crack one eye open.