NAKED AS THE DAY I WAS BORN, I picked up my guitar from beside my bed and laid it across my lap. I strummed a chord idly while staring up at the ceiling. Afternoon light shined in through my open windows, warming my bare skin. It wasn’t a bad way to kill some time.
I could have done without the woman rushing around, redressing herself like the open air was burning her skin.
“Slow down.”
Stopping, she turned her dark brown eyes on me. I knew that look. I’d lived with that look for years. Nothing good ever came of it.
“This can’t happen again.” She hopped around, slipping on her heels.
I leaned my head back again, dragging my hand across my forehead. This wasn’t the first time we’d had this conversation. “Come on, Iz. We don’t need to play that game. It’s no fun.”
Isabela Ruiz, my former wife and now the ruler of my kingdom, marched to the side of the bed, standing over me. She’d gone from the afterglow to sleek and pissed off in the span of five minutes. Her raven waves tumbled over her shoulders, no worse for wear. Her makeup was barely smudged, although her signature red lipstick had vanished.
Most of it around my dick.
She pointed a French-manicured finger from her chest to mine. “You’re right. This isn’t fun, Dom. I came here to talk about a press release—not wind up in your sheets.”
“Don’t act like I had to convince you to be there.”
“You didn’t, and that’s the problem. Every time I’m around you, I forget you’re no good for me.” She flipped her hair behind her back and worked an earring into her ear. “And then I remember two minutes after I come.”
With a harried sigh, she strode from the room, expecting me to follow. Normally, that was reason enough for me to stay put, but I wasn’t done with this conversation.
Throwing on a pair of briefs, I sauntered out to my living room where Isabela stood with her arms crossed, waiting for me. The sun was even brighter here, picking up the chocolate hues in her hair and the golden glow of her perfect skin.
Stopping right in front of her, I lifted a wave and brought it to my nose for a long sniff. “Are we going to talk like adults, or am I going to have to keep chasing you all over my house?”
Isabela peered up at me, and there was no mistaking the pain in her pretty brown eyes. The thing was, when she left our marriage the way she did, she lost the right to seek comfort in me. That pain was hers, and I refused to shoulder any more of it.
“How can I move on if I keep coming back here?” she asked.
I scoffed, letting her hair drop. “Aren’t you dating that lawyer? The slick, boring one? I call that moving on.”
“That ended.” She smoothed her hands down her pencil skirt. “But if I were dating him, wouldn’t I have just ruined it by fucking my ex?”
I winced. Isabella rarely swore, and when she did, it was most often in Spanish. I was screwed when she cussed in English.
“Then what’s the problem? Fucking is the one thing we always got right.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “You see? I’m going to think about you saying that for days, torturing myself with it. I don’t want this anymore, Dominic.”
I’d said the wrong thing, but I couldn’t take it back. I’d add it onto the pile of wrong things I’d said to her over the years.
“So, go. We don’t need to have some big breakup scene. We already did that when you walked out on me.”
Three years done and gone, and here we were, still in the same place. Maybe she was right. Was it even possible to have casual sex with an ex-wife? It didn’t seem like it…at least not now.
“Fine. You’re right.” She picked up her purse and briefcase from where she’d dropped them beside my couch. “I’ll send over the paperwork to terminate my employment with you.”
That stopped me dead in my tracks. “What are you talking about?”
She adjusted the strap of her purse on her shoulder. “Obviously I can’t continue to do your PR. That means spending too much time together—and when we do, we always wind up in bed. I don’t want that anymore. I have to move on.”
My brows pulled into a tight line. “That’s bullshit, Isabela. I do not accept.”
We’d met eight years ago. I’d been in need of new PR, and Isabela’s company had come highly recommended. A year later, we were married. Four years after that, we were divorced and demolished. Even after everything we’d been through, the way we hurt each other, we’d stayed friends. Distant friends, but we talked once a month or so…fell in bed once a month or so too.
“It doesn’t matter if you accept. I can’t work with you. And I certainly can’t go on tour with you next month.”
She was unwavering, and I thought maybe she wasn’t bluffing. She’d put her foot down with me a lot over the years, but I always managed to work that foot back up. Maybe she wanted to truly sever the rest of our flimsy connection.
“So, send one of your underlings on tour with me.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I sure as hell don’t trust anyone else to do my PR. Not unless you’re in charge of them.”
She pressed a finger to the spot between her perfect eyebrows. She always got a headache there, especially when she got pissed at me.
“You slept with the last woman I sent on tour with you. I can’t have that, Dom. That is unacceptable. I do not need a lawsuit on top of everything else.”
I threw my hands out. “Then send a guy. As long as you’re telling them what to do and I don’t have to talk to them, I don’t give a shit.”
Isabella puffed out her cheeks, then slowly released a breath. “Fine. I’ll think about our contract.” She held up one finger. “But anything physical between you and I is finished. We’ve been dragging each other along like old baggage the last three years and I’d rather not spend the next three doing the same.”
“Drama, woman.” I shoved my fingers through my hair in frustration. All I’d wanted out of this day was a really good fuck, some music, a nice meal, and a blunt to round it all off.
“You know,” she jabbed a finger at me, “if you didn’t make a mess all the time, you wouldn’t have such close, personal relationships with your PR people.”
I gave her a long, hard look. The mess was telling nosy reporters to go fuck themselves. Flipping off record execs who didn’t know their ass from a hit single. Getting in fights with jackholes who didn’t know when to stop.
That didn’t make me a mess. It made me a man who didn’t hold back his reactions. No artist worth his salt felt things in small ways. Insults didn’t slide off my back. Injustices didn’t fade into the background. Feelings weren’t something to manage. I liked my life raw and unmoderated.
“Can’t teach an old dog new tricks, Iz. You know that,” I drawled.
She rolled her eyes. “Old is right. At forty-two, you’d think you’d learn some self-control.”
“I’ve got plenty.” I eyed her in that spicy red skirt, letting her see I was looking at her. “If I didn’t, I’d have you bent over, that skirt around your waist, fucking some sense back into you…or fucking you senseless—whichever gets you to keep working for me.”
“Not happening.” She brushed by me, striding to my front door. “I’ll call you, but I won’t be by.”
“Got it!” I wandered back to my room, threw myself back onto my tangled sheets, and picked up my guitar, shaking my head. I couldn’t decide whether I believed Iz, or if her wanting to sever all ties even mattered. We weren’t ever getting back together. There was no question about that for either of us. But she’d been a steady source of distraction for so long, my gut protested giving that up.
