Page 99

Beckett recoiled. “You fired her because of me?”

“I fired her because she violated her contract. I had no other choice.”

“Of course you had another choice! You own the fucking label.”

Derek shook his head. “I own one-third of the label. And if you think I didn’t do everything I could to try to protect her, you are out of your goddamn mind.”

Beckett deflated, which only made him angrier. He wanted to rage, to punch someone, to make someone else feel as badly as he did, even if he knew it wouldn’t change anything.

“Kat is one of the smartest people I know. She knew the risks involved with her decisions, and she made them anyway,” Derek said. “We can’t protect people from the consequences of their own choices. Even when we want to.”

Beckett stumbled back, only one thing pounding in his head, over and over again: Find her.

It took twenty-seven minutes for the taxi to get from the hospital to the hotel. Twenty-seven minutes where Kat didn’t answer her phone, where the driver asked “hey, don’t I recognize you from somewhere?” and then proceeded to drone on about the time he had some B-list movie star in his car the year before.

Another four minutes to get from the car, through the lobby, up to their hotel room, the elevator seeming to stop on every floor.

Thirty seconds for him to find his hotel room key in his wallet.

“Luna!” he shouted as he threw open the door.

Her suitcase sat open on the bed, half filled. He stalked past the luggage and pushed open the bathroom door to find her sniffling as she methodically packed her toiletries, mascara stains beneath her eyes. He pulled her into his arms, hugging her so tightly his arms shook. Fisting his t-shirt, she buried her face in his chest.

“I’m so sorry, love,” he murmured into her hair, steadying himself with the sunshine and coconut scent of her.

She drew a shuddering breath, gathering herself, then stepped out of his arms, returning to her packing. “How’s Jackson?”

“Stable. He’s checking himself into rehab as soon as he’s released.”

Despite the tears in her eyes, her face lit up. “That’s great, Becks. Really wonderful news.”

He watched as she nestled her eye cream into the bag next to the tube of red lipstick, the little case of Q-tips, her razor. “You don’t have to go,” he said.

“I do. My plane leaves in three hours.”

“I know you don’t work for the tour anymore, but you can still come with us. As my fiancée.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” he insisted, the words almost a growl in his throat. “We can—”

“I can’t, Beckett,” she said sharply, cutting him off. “My contract is clear. If my employment is terminated, I am to have no further contact for the duration of the original agreement. I’m not allowed anywhere near your shows for the rest of the tour.”

He scoffed. “They can’t possibly enforce that.”

She went back to her packing, piece by piece erasing herself from their shared space. “I have to find a place to live. My apartment is still subletted through the end of the tour and—”

“You could—”

She glared at him in the bathroom mirror. “I swear to God, if you say I can move in with you right now…” She shook her head, grabbed her toiletry bag, and pushed past him into the hotel room, shoving it into her suitcase. “Maybe this is a good thing. It will give us both some time to clear our heads.”

“I don’t need to clear my head.”

“Space to think about where we go from here. If we go from here.”

“There is no if.” He gripped her biceps and turned her around to face him. “Luna, if you’re picking another fight with me to try to push me away, I’ll—”

She chuckled, rubbing her eyes. She looked so tired. “You’ll what, Beckett? You’ll tell your brother our engagement isn’t real?”