Skeletons of Us (Unquiet Mind Book 2) (16 page)

Gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white, Killian glanced over at Lexie for the hundredth time. He could hear the low thump of the bass emanating from her headphones from across the cab. She’d shoved them in her ears the moment the doors had enclosed them in this space together.

“
Turn right in one hundred feet. You will shortly be arriving at your destination.”

The fucking automated GPS meant she hadn’t even had to give him directions. Her blonde head was turned away from him, the mass of curls cascading down her back. They were long, much longer than when he’d last touched them. He ached to run his hands through the golden locks. To taste that rosebud mouth that was currently pursed with what Killian recognized as anger. She was still beautiful. Beyond beautiful. She had more freckles sprinkled across her lightly tanned face and he ached to run his lips across them. Her jawbones were more angular, with age and with her diminishing weight. Her little body in those fuckin’ jeans still got him hard. Shit, the sliver of flat stomach peeking from below her tee had him granite. She’d never be anything but beautiful to him, but her diminishing frame worried him, gnawed at him.

But it was her eyes that got to him most. That fueled the burn that had been present in the back of his throat for four years. The hurt behind them. He knew she’d been trying to hide it from everyone. Problem was, she couldn’t hide it from him. Fuck, he almost wished she could. Seeing how deep that shit ran, how raw it was after four years, it almost brought him to his fuckin’ knees.

It also gave him hope, a glimmer of it in the dark recesses of his mind, but enough to grasp onto. If the hurt was still that fresh, still that real, maybe he could heal it. Maybe he had a chance to get his girl back.

Maybe that was a fuckin’ pipe dream and he’d be sentenced to being haunted by that look of despair he’d created on the most beautiful girl in the world’s face.

That would not happen if he had anything to do with it. His girl would be happy again. With him, if something in this world gave him a break. Without him, if that’s what it took. First, he had to make her safe. It wasn’t lost on him that there was someone out there waiting, watching.

That had been what his days had been made up of since he’d arrived at the mansion in Malibu. He hadn’t expected anything less from rock stars, but it still jarred him to see how far they’d come in four short years. The place was sprawling, offering million-dollar views of the ocean. It was everything she deserved and far away from what he could have given her.

That hit him somewhere deep. He didn’t think there would be a new kind of hurt. He’d been living with pain for years. Had sought it out in the ring. But seeing the life she’d built without him was something else. Seeing her turn into a beautiful woman with pain behind her eyes and the world at her feet nearly killed him.

Staying in the same house as her was torture. He said staying because precious little sleeping was done. He spent most of his time outside, chain smoking and watching the ocean, searching the darkness for shadows.

In the daylight, the shadows were still there, the shadows of the love they’d had. He saw it behind her eyes, even when she tried her best to ignore him. In a room full of people, it was only still him and her.

The men in the band had made it their mission to make sure Killian and Lexie were never within five feet of each other, as had Mia when she was there. She had not forgiven him for hurting her firstborn and only grudgingly accepted his presence, not knowing the seriousness of the situation.

Wyatt, Sam, and Noah, however, did.

“The only reason I’m not going and buying myself a gun and getting creative is because you could make yourself useful in making sure that sick fuck doesn’t come near Lexie,” Sam had hissed at him on the first day. “But you go anywhere near her, you try and use this as an opportunity to fuck with her head again, I swear to God I’ll kill you and dump your body in the ocean.” Sam paused, glancing to Lexie, who had been bent over a table with Noah, frowning at a sheet of music. Her hair was tumbling around her face. Killian got lost in that for a second before Sam had spoken again.

“Maybe this can be your punishment. Trust me, I’ve thought of plenty over the years, but this, seeing the broken person you created, seeing how you sucked the true joy out of her life, I can’t think of anything better. Other than making you a eunuch.” On that, Sam had walked off.

Killian’s body had prickled with the impact of Sam’s words. The truth of them. Watching Lexie over these few days had been nothing short of excruciating. Sam was right, she was broken. She smiled, laughed even, but true happiness wasn’t lit up behind her eyes. They had a hardness to them that hadn’t been there until Killian put it there. He’d break his back trying to take that out. Trying to fix his colossal fuckup. But he didn’t have a fuckin’ moment to talk to her, to try and gather the bones of them and bring them to life somehow.

Not until this morning, and the pain in her voice when she’d finally cracked had almost brought Killian to his knees.

It scared the shit out of him.

“You have arrived at your destination.”

Killian pulled into the lot of a huge warehouse with multiple cars parked outside it. Mark, Lexie’s manager, was leaning against a Mercedes, sunglasses on his head and a phone to his ear. Hannah, Lexie’s assistant, stood beside him holding a tray of coffees.

Lexie lurched out of the car before Killian had even come to a complete stop.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, quickly parking and doing the same.

She was actually willing to jump out of a moving vehicle to get away from him.

Mark and Hannah both regarded him coldly as he approached behind Lexie. He barely gave them a glance. Everyone connected to Lexie had treated him with barely disguised disdain—Sam, Wyatt, and Noah with flat out hostility—apart from the publicist wearin’ the fancy shit, Jenna. Though she treated everyone with the same brisk detachment, her attention always on her phone.

Killian didn’t give a shit about that. Fuck, he actually liked it. It meant that Lexie had people around her who cared about her enough to hate him.

Plus, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought. He was here for Lexie.

“Coffee,” Lexie all but cried, clutching a cup Hannah offered her. “Hello, my love, it’s been too long,” she declared, sipping and letting out a little moan.

Killian watched her eyes flutter as the rosebud mouth closed around the coffee lid. He cock stiffened in his jeans. Fuck, even watching her drink a coffee got him hard. Everything about Lexie did, though.

“How long’s it been? Half an hour?” Hannah joked, obviously knowing Lexie.

Lexie frowned back. “I’ll have you know it’s been almost twelve hours. A record.”

“You’re late,” Mark declared, interrupting Hannah and Lexie.

“Sorry. I was held up,” Lexie said, glaring at Killian.

Mark barely gave him a glance. “We’ve got no time to waste. We’ve got to get this done. Then we’ve got a lunchtime interview. You’ve got an appointment with your trainer. Then straight to sound check.”

Lexie nodded and moved with Mark. Killian followed behind, listening to all the things Mark was telling her about the interview. About all the things she had to do. Killian couldn’t believe it. Every second of her day was planned. She didn’t even get a fuckin’ break. She needed one. He didn’t miss the dark circles under her eyes, or the fact she hadn’t gone to sleep until well past midnight every night and was up at dawn. She hadn’t stopped since that day at the hospital. Killian was scared shitless she’d fall down. She had to. No human could keep going after what she went through.

He would just have to make sure he’d be there to catch her when she did.

And he’d be there to punish the one to make her fall. He’d been punishing himself for years for being that person. It was refreshing to focus revenge outward.

They entered a huge door that opened to a cavernous room full of people and equipment. The room was buzzing. It actually shocked Killian for a second, and he’d been in some fucked-up situations; he was hard to shock.

“Lexie, darling! You’re here,” a sharply dressed man exclaimed, kissing both her cheeks.

She beamed at him. “Sorry I’m late, Jorge.”

He waved his hand. “No problem at all, my beauty. Let’s get you to hair and makeup.”

He hustled her away and Killian followed at a distance, his eyes scanning the room. It was humming with activity, people running around everywhere. It didn’t escape his notice that most all of them stopped what they were doing when Lexie walked in. It jarred him seeing that. He knew she was famous. He’d spent four years watching her on TV, standing in the crowds at every concert he could get himself to. Almost every city in the continental US. It almost killed him going to those shows, watching her from a distance, being so close but knowing he’d never touch her again. But he had to keep his promise. The last one he’d keep when he broke every other one.

“Freckles, I’m never gonna miss a single one of your gigs. Never gonna miss my girl owning the stage, owning my soul.”

He’d seen thousands of people screaming her name at those concerts, worshipping her. But it was quite a different thing watching it up close, people stopping in their tracks at the sight of Lexie. She hadn’t changed. She was still that beautiful girl she had been in high school. That’s what got to him the most. There was hurt behind her eyes, an ocean of it, but she hadn’t been warped by this fame, turned into someone different. Someone ugly. She was humble. Fuckin’ kind. She’d left Duke’s hospital room yesterday, tears in her eyes and inches away from breaking. Killian had been certain she’d fall then. She’d collapse. He was ready to catch her. But before he could move, two shy kids approached her, asking for autographs.

Fury licked at Killian’s throat. Yeah, they were just fuckin’ kids, they didn’t know any better, but could they not see? Could they not see she was hanging on by a thread? She didn’t have anything left. But he’d watched in amazement as the hurt completely disappeared from her face and she smiled warmly at the kids. Fuckin’
joked
with them, as if she was leaving a room after she’d gotten the best news of her life. He’d been awed.

The same was happening now. She had that act in place, sitting in a makeup chair, joking with people, like her life was easy, like she wasn’t battling the demons that had blindsided Killian this morning. That’s what worried him the most.

That and the man out to hurt what was his.

“Please tell me the bags under your eyes are Prada?” Mario, my makeup artist, asked me. His perfectly plucked brow was raised as he regarded me sitting in the chair in front of the fluorescent lights. Shayla, my hairstylist was working to tame my locks and she giggled slightly.

“Come on,” she protested, locking eyes with me in the mirror. “Even with bags the size of Texas under her eyes, she looks better than half the models here.” Her southern twang was thick and she winked at me. I winked back.

Shayla and Mario came with me almost everywhere. Whenever I had press, appearances, or tours. At first, I thought having hair and makeup people was ridiculous. Then I realized how much shit I had to fit into every day and welcomed someone else dealing with making me presentable.