Page 52 of The Dom

“Nate told the band that if we didn’t boot Joshua, Manhattan Records wouldn’t sign us.”

Fuck.

A double betrayal, first by having sex with his brother’s girlfriend, then by giving the band an ultimatum to get rid of Joshua.

“I guess I don’t need to ask what choice you made.”

“Look, we’re not proud of it, but Nate hadn’t really given us many options. He threatened to blackball us if we didn’t do it.”

I wanted to say that Nate wouldn’t do anything like that, but I knew from personal experience just how ruthless he could be when it came to getting what he wanted. Hadn’t he blackmailed me into being his date back when we’d met for the first time? I’d told myself that he hadn’t truly meant it. That he wouldn’t have actually fired me if I’d said no. Now, I wondered if that was really the case.

“Don’t take my word for it,” Zed said. “Do a little digging. You’ll find out that Nate Lexington isn’t who he pretends to be.”

With that final ominous declaration, Zed hurried away, leaving me to think about what he’d said and wonder how much I could believe. When I brought this up to Nate tonight, would he give me the same version of the story as the one I’d just heard and expect me to be on his side? Or would he have excuses for what he’d done? Or would he tell me that there was no truth to anything Zed had said and offer me the real story?

One thing was for certain: I wanted answers, and as soon as we left the party, I intended to get them.

Thirty-Three

Nate

I was going to kill Zed Hipwood.

First thing Monday morning, I’d have Jailene combing through Unraveling’s contract to find out if I could fire Zed but keep the rest of the band. Hell, I’d even give him a ‘severance package’ or whatever I needed to call it for it to be legal. I wanted him gone.

Thanks to him, I would need to come up with a creative way of explaining the whole Joshua-Unraveling thing. The last thing I wanted was to ruin my weekend by telling Ashlee the whole dirty truth.

At some point, we’d gotten separated, so by the time I’d made my way back around to her, I was more than ready to leave. The party itself was already a huge success, and Stu was more than capable of handling things on his own.

It wasn’t until we stepped outside that I noticed how quiet Ashlee had been these last few minutes. She wasn’t a naturally talkative person, but this wasn’t a normal sort of silence. It felt more like she was pulling away from me, and I could only blame one person.

Zed fucking Hipwood.

“A&R did an amazing job tonight.” I chose to ease into whatever was on her mind. “Not that I expected anything less.”

“Thank you.” Her voice was calm, polite…and distant. She continued to stare out the window, but the blank expression I could see in her reflection made me believe she was looking away from me more than she was looking at something in particular.

“Saya had the entire band sign a poster and a t-shirt for Catherine.” I held up the bag Saya had given me, but Ashlee didn’t look at it. “I suppose I’ll need to figure out what Jacob’s into so I can get him something similar.”

“I’m sure Catherine will love it.”

Okay, at least she was paying that much attention. I let a minute pass without either of us saying anything, hoping she’d give me something. Anything.

“Are you all right?” I finally asked.

“Did you sleep with Joshua’s girlfriend?”

I felt like a bucket of ice water had just been dumped over my head. When I’d imagined all the ways this conversation could go, I’d never pictured her flat-out asking me that question. The only thing that could’ve prompted it was someone telling her what’d happened all those years ago. I had a pretty good idea of who that person was, but I asked it anyway, not wanting to jump to any conclusions.

“Where did you hear that?”

The edge to my question was far too sharp, but it was too late to call it back.

“Zed.”

“And you’re just going to believe him? Since he’s clearly such a reliable person.” I was making it worse, but I couldn’t stop myself.

“No, Nate, I’m not ‘just believing’ him. I’m asking you to tell me what happened.” She sounded tired.

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