desirable people, she wasn’t phased in the least. She felt for him.
But this was the life of a soon-to-be husband of a Victoria Secret model.
“I’m taking Liam back up to Kara. I’ll be back in ten.”
Cheyenne took Liam by the hand and headed in the direction of
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the stairs to the neighboring building where Steph, Kara, and the bridesmaids were staying.
Steph and the two musicians exchanged silent looks. She
squared her shoulders. “Ok. Say what you need to say. Just get it over with.”
David and Scot exchanged an unreadable look of their own,
and Scot spoke. “Steph, your choices are yours. I have nothing to say except I’m sorry, because it would have been cool to have
you as a part of our dysfunctional family.”
David nodded. Steph thought he looked like he had a lot
he’d like to say, but when he spoke, he was brief. “Me too.”
The bartender returned with her lime garnished drink, and
she accepted it in silence. Scott nodded to the outer door. “It quit raining. Let’s go outside.”
The three of them picked up their drinks and headed
poolside bantering about the flash rainstorms of Noronha. David
sounded traumatized as he revealed that in the day and a half
since he and Yara’s friends and family had arrived, they’d had
six such bursts of rain with almost no warning. Steph glanced up from her drink as she crossed the threshold to the patio, and the view nearly made her trip over her own feet. David grabbed her
arm to steady her, and she blinked in disbelief at the pool which seemed to vanish into the beautiful horizon. The guys headed
away from the pool to a shaded table, and she stumbled along
after them.
As she took a seat, Scot spoke again. “I know I speak for
everyone else in Fury when I say we’re sorry about the video,
too. The rest of us tried to tell the label not to release it, or to just release the footage of us playing and cut the scenes with the
model. But they’re a bunch of whores. All they could see were
the vaults full of money they would make.”
“Thanks for trying. That was a jagged-ass pill to swallow.”
Steph murmured.
Scot leaned forward and fixed her with his serious dark
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gaze. “He was hurting, Steph. We didn’t even know he was film-
ing the parts with the model until the shoot was almost done.
Mark found out and came to drag us out of an interview to try to stop it. The rest of us were under the impression it was going to be a band performance video only. Phillip pitched the rest privately to the director who was salivating all over the camera
when we showed up on the set.”
Steph imagined their diminutive manager Mark throwing a
fit at hulking Phillip, and it made her feel momentarily better.
“Phillip was pretty pissed at the shoot.” David offered, as if
Phillip’s drunkenness would soften the blow somehow. Images
from the video dominated Steph’s thoughts, and she tried to un-
clench her teeth.
“He seemed to be having a good time with it. Guys, I get it.
Artists use stuff from their lives all the time.” Steph shrugged.
David and Scot exchanged another conspiratorial glance, and
Steph titled her head at them, wearing her annoyed face.
“What?” She pointedly looked at Dave, whom she knew
would cave.
“The model took him home.” He replied, unable to meet her
eyes. Steph wasn’t prepared for the gut punch of this develop-
ment. Not only had he reenacted their antics for the camera, but he’d hired a look-alike stand-in to “re-enact” them privately as well.
“Wow.” She downed half her drink, when the lobby door
opened and Phillip stepped through it. Though she was thirty feet away and he’d cut his hair, she’d have known his confident
mannerisms and amazing body anywhere.
On the heels of David’s revelation, seeing him stung more
than she’d prepared herself for. Attractive as ever, he was darkly tanned, and his hair had been bleached even blonder by the sun.
He wore a white sleeveless shirt, and his tattooed arms looked
bigger than she remembered. When he reached back with one
arm and pulled his shirt off over his head, she knew for sure he’d 63
TAMMY COONS & MICHELLE PACE
been hitting the gym and doing a lot of lifting. As he turned in their direction, she saw the new tattoo he had over his heart. Unfortunately she’d also caught glimpses of it in the fucking “Fire Woman” video. She couldn’t tell what the tattoo was from this
distance, but it was black like the rest of them and looked sort of Celtic in nature. Then, she was too distracted by the lost look he wore to bother getting a better look at it.
He’d spotted her; that much was obvious. He’d been kick-
ing off his sandals and froze mid-movement. As his smoky eyes
rested on her face, he stood up tall, and his jaw tightened.
“Oh shit.” She didn’t realize she’d said it out loud until Da-
vid whipped his head in her direction. Phillip turned away from
them immediately, and she glanced at Dave. He opened his
mouth to speak and then snapped it shut. Steph turned her entire body toward him (purposely away from Phillip) and took a
hearty sip of her drink.
“You look like you want to say something, David. Spit it
out, already.”
“He still loves you.” David blurted and then turned red all
the way to his hairline. “Sorry.”
Steph looked down at her cocktail and played with the
straw. Even though it was utterly selfish, she wanted to believe him. She’d turned him away, and he’d shut her out. But she still wanted him to want her. It was wrong and prideful and oh-so-textbook Steph Brier behavior. This was one of many huge char-
acter flaws that she needed to work on.
Add it to the list.
She found it difficult to look in Phillip’s direction and diffi-
cult not to. Thankfully, she heard a splash and saw his golden
hair bobbing in the water.
Steph swigged down the rest of her caipirinha in one gulp.
It burned all the way down, and she was glad. “It’s been a
