Page 22 of The Encore Effect

She nodded. “But I only get it If we can get to the end of the tour without any headlines about band member misbehavior. It’d be enough to let me stop touring and focus on my books.” Her throat constricted around the words. She didn’t talk to Beckett about her writing. Not anymore.

“And that’s what you want? To stop touring?”

“Used to be what you wanted, too.”

He stiffened beside her and she wondered if he was remembering all the plans they’d made back then—the house with the yard big enough to have their friends over for cookouts in the summer, the children they’d walk to the school bus and tuck into bed together at night. A life they’d fully imagined, where she’d write her books and he’d make his music and they’d only travel when they wanted to. A life that felt so far away.

“What’s stopping you?” he asked.

“My books don’t pay the bills, Beckett. At least not yet. I need that bonus to cover my expenses while I focus on building my author career.”

“If you need money, I could—”

“I don’t want your money.” She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.

“Never used to bother you before,” he mumbled.

“It did,” she said softly. “But I was right out of college, living paycheck to paycheck. And I wanted to be with you. That meant doing things like getting on a plane to Paris, whether I was working on the European tour or not. I could never have afforded that, and you just paid for everything like it was no big deal.”

“It wasn’t.”

“It was to me.”

The silence stretched between them. Then, his voice in the dark, “I didn’t know that.”

She rolled the words around in her mind, carefully forming the thought before she gave it voice. “It made me feel like… like you were buying me or something. We weren’t equals. We weren’t partners. No one outside of the band even knew I existed. I was your dirty secret, bought and paid for.”

“Kat, no—”

“I know that’s not how you meant it. But that’s how it felt.” She turned to look at him even though all she could see was his silhouette in the passing streetlights. “I don’t want your money, Beckett. But I appreciate the offer.” She sighed. “I’m going to get Midnight Storm through the next month of this tour and then I’m cashing out, knowing that I earned every penny of that bonus.”

“Then I guess we want the same thing.” She tossed a questioning glance his way, but his expression was blank even as his eyes kept their sharp focus on her. “To keep my brother out of the press.”

She smiled weakly. “Think we can put on a good enough show to pull it off?”

“We’ll figure it out.”

Slowly, carefully, he climbed under the covers beside her. Their arms brushed against each other in the small tour bus bed, their thighs so close she could feel the heat rising off his skin.

“Do you still hog the covers?” he asked.

“What? I don’t—” She shoved his shoulder, and he chuckled, the sound dark and deep like honey dripping over her. “Are your feet still freezing?”

“Only when you hog the covers.”

She rolled her eyes and bit back her smile. “Goodnight, Beckett.”

She felt more than saw his eyes dance over her profile. “Goodnight, Luna.”

Chapter Nine

Somewhere west of the New Mexico state line, Beckett woke as though swimming to the surface of a glassy ocean. The first purple fingers of dawn crept past the curtains in the tiny tour bus bedroom as they sped down the highway towards Albuquerque. Beside him, her back pressed to his front, fingers intertwined with his where they lay over her belly, Kat snuggled deeper into his hold, sighing softly in her sleep. He tipped his nose into her hair, breathing in the vaguely tropical scent of her—coconut and sunshine and Kat.

His knee ached, the kind of bone-deep soreness that demanded relief. He didn’t usually lie on his side when he slept, the extra pressure on his hip exacerbating his knee’s instability, leaving him feeling worse than when he went to bed. But he wouldn’t move for anything. Not when her ass was tucked against him, thigh pressed to thigh, his arms encircling her as he’d spent so many nights longing to do.

Judging by the sunrise filtering into the room and the estimated travel time on the itinerary Kat had handed out the night before, Beckett guessed he had at least another two hours before they arrived at their hotel in New Mexico. Two more hours to hold her, to watch the rising sun glint off the engagement ring on her finger and know he was the one who put it there. To pretend she hadn’t agreed to this so she could afford to walk away from him. Again.

Knee be damned. He’d danced his way through more shows than he could count with his knee screaming at him. He could lie with her just a little longer.