Page 17 of The Encore Effect

Beckett was already in the car when she slid onto the black leather seat, the door closing behind her. He wore a dark blue V-neck that showed off the owl tattoo at the base of his throat beneath his usual leather jacket, the shirt’s color a perfect match for his eyes. Without looking up from his phone, he said, “You’re not wearing your earrings.”

She lifted her hand to push her hair behind her naked earlobes but didn’t respond. Let him stew about it. Honestly, she was surprised he even remembered the earrings in the first place.

Liar. You knew he’d remember. That’s why you waited so long to wear them around him.

She just hadn’t expected him to call her out on it. After months of being so close to him without talking—really talking, she’d never felt farther away from him. Wearing the earrings had been like her own private pressure relief valve, a way to remind herself that once upon a time they’d known how to do more than fight with each other. Even if they still hadn’t known how to communicate back then.

Some things never changed.

“You talked to Jo?” she asked. He grunted an affirmation. “Obviously we’ll want to tell the guys what’s going on.”

“No.”

She blinked in surprise. “What do you mean ‘no’?”

“The fewer people who have to keep the secret, the more likely it’ll be kept. Jo and Derek agree.”

She frowned, wondering why they hadn’t said anything about that to her. “What about your brother?”

“He was asleep in the car last night. He won’t remember anything.” He glanced up at her from under his eyelashes, his thumbs still moving over his phone screen. “Jackson can’t keep secrets for shit.”

“But Nico already knows this isn’t real,” she said, gesturing between them.

A low, displeased rumble emanated from his chest. “I handled it.”

“Oh, you handled it?”

He finally lowered his phone to rest on his jean-clad thigh, though she could see the barrage of messages continuing to fill his screen. “He won’t say anything.”

She scoffed, folding her arms over her chest and turning her attention out the window as the lights of Vegas sped by. She wasn’t concerned about Nico—not really. But she’d had a plan when she got in the car, a plan that did not involve lying to the other members of Midnight Storm for the next month, and Beckett had gone and blown that to smithereens in a matter of minutes. It was one thing to lie to the public, to the press, but the band and the crew were family. And on a tour like this one, they spent too much time together to pull off a lie of this magnitude without actually behaving like an engaged couple twenty-four-seven.

Oh shit.

A shiver worked its way down her spine. An annoyed shiver, not at all an intrigued one.

“Logan won’t believe it,” she muttered.

“He will.”

“Why? Because you’re such a paragon of honesty?” she asked, glancing at him.

The little muscle in his jaw ticked, and he turned his attention back to his phone. “Because he knows how I felt about you.”

Felt. Past tense.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream and smash his stupid phone and get out of this godforsaken car. Silly of her to have thought that he had even a modicum of that feeling left for her, to have let herself imagine that there was anything more to their kiss than a performance. He was a professional performer, after all, and she knew better. If he’d still felt anything for her, he’d had a decade to tell her. And he hadn’t.

Her chest ached. What had she agreed to?

The car slowed to a stop beneath the awning of a large, square building. Kat’s breath burned in her lungs when she read the sign above the door. “I thought we were going to brunch. What are we doing here?” When he didn’t immediately answer, she snapped, “Beckett.”

He held her gaze as he tucked his phone into his jeans pocket. “My fiancée needs an engagement ring.”

Before she could argue, the car door opened, Ray standing dutifully beside the vehicle in case she needed help getting out.

She didn’t want this. All the times she’d imagined what it would be like to get an engagement ring from Beckett, it had never been anything like this.

Beckett rounded the car, bending slightly to offer her his hand. Her attention flitted over the hummingbird inked on the back of his hand, its beak disappearing into the center of the flower on his wrist. She’d been with him the day he’d gotten that tattoo, back when most of his body was still untouched by ink. She didn’t know when he’d added the phoenix on his other hand, the flowers on his arm, the roses on his throat, but she remembered every moment of watching that hummingbird take shape. “They’re symbols of happiness,” he’d said, tugging her down to kiss her as the tattoo gun buzzed.