Page 50 of Big Boss
I nod. “Me.” I force my hands to stop squeezing the satin skirt of my dress. I’m pretending like I am okay, and part of that is pretending to the people around me. Not just Tate, who I still haven’t seen anywhere.
He wouldn’t miss his own fundraiser, right? No, First Steps is too important to him. He told me this was his dream.
Unless that was just a line he used to get women like me to fall for him. Well, it really worked. There is nothing more appealing to me than a good guy, especially if he’s dressed up in hot, bad guy clothing.
There’s a brief rustle of activity at the podium, and I look up to see my personal nemesis, Jackson Schmitt, hitting his champagne flute with fork tines to get everyone’s attention.
“I’m going to need a drink for this.” I didn’t mean to say the words out loud, but Bella turns to me and offers me a tight smile, passing me her drink glass.
I stare at her but then take it. I need to calm down more than I need to keep a clear head right now. And if I have to sit here, front and center, for whatever Jackson’s about to say, I am definitely going to need a drink.
I swallow too much champagne, and the bubbles go straight up my nose. I cough, but force myself not to openly choke all over the tablecloth.
Embarrassing myself to this extent in less than five minutes has to be some sort of new personal record.
Bella LeGrande stares at me and hands me her napkin. I wipe at my face, and she sighs, and I know I’ve smeared my lipstick again.
“Honestly.” The words slips out of her mouth, and she reaches into her tiny clutch and pulls out a makeup wipe. A fancy one that smells like peaches and a hint of expensive tea. Then she holds my chin between her fingers and wipes off whatever mess I’ve made of my face.
It brings back the memory of Tate doing the same thing to me when we first met, and that really sucks so I close my eyes for a moment. But Jackson’s saying something, and I have to pay enough attention that I can figure out how long I’m going to have to sit here before I can slip away and leave.
Why couldn’t the fancy event manager have seated me anywhere else? Or left me lurking in the kitchen, out of sight, where I belong?
Jackson’s talking about the charity now, and he’s got this beautiful slideshow of the fundraising goals and how much money the auction is currently raising.
I feel my eyeballs bulge at the figures and the statistics. I know Tate was worried, but so far everything about this feels like a tremendous success to me, and that’s just the auction figures. I know exactly how much each seat cost at this fundraiser.
I can’t help the smile that bursts out of me as I get to watch my best friend’s dreams coming true.
“And now your host and my very best friend, Donovan Tate.”
The applause fills the entire room along with a couple of cheers and whistles, taking every ounce of oxygen out of my lungs.
Bella thumps me on the back. “Breathe,” she whispers to me. I nod and force air into my lungs, as slowly as possible, trying to force my body to calm down. My eyes are still burning from choking on the champagne, but that’s all it is.
It’s not seeing him again. I won’t let it be true that seeing Donovan Tate actually hurts me. Not tonight. Not in public. And never in front of him.
Bella LeGrande hits me again and I turn to glare at her, but even as I turn my attention away from the stage, I can feel him appear in the spotlight. It’s more like I can hear it, the change in pitch that lets me know the crowd is excited, watching to see what happens next.
I turn my attention back to the stage, and he’s already settling down on a barstool, his guitar draped across his body like it’s some sort of pageant sash or something.
During the last week or so, I’d forgotten what it’s like to see him in person. Even with the images of his mouth all over Bella’s burned into my mind, it’s not the same as seeing him in person.
He looks so beautiful that it should be illegal for him to walk around like that. He’s all in black because of course he is, but even I can tell that what he’s wearing is expensive and most likely extremely soft to the touch. Probably made especially for him and this event. And his blood red fingernails simply enhance the bad boy rock star image that I thought he’d worked hard to leave behind.
He doesn’t even bother with making eye contact with any of us. He looks at Jackson and nods once, then wraps his fingers around the neck of his guitar and starts to play.
The entire room pauses as the first threads of the melody fill the ballroom. I’ve never heard Donovan Tate play music, and as far as I could tell, he hasn’t played his guitar or sang in front of other people in many years. Not since his band broke up almost two entire decades ago.
His eyes slide shut, and he leans forward just enough for his hair to cover half of his face. The music continues, and I can feel every note along my bare skin. I briefly wonder if everyone else is having the same sort of reaction as me, but then Tate leans forward to the microphone and starts to sing, and everything else about the world has to wait.
His voice is what’s going to ruin my life. Now that I’ve heard Donovan Tate play and sing, up close and personal, I am never going to get over him. There is a zero percent chance that any other human being ever makes me feel as many emotions as I do when I see him doing exactly what he’s meant to be doing all along.
The song that he’s playing is the kind that leaves you feeling like you’re watching the musician bleed out on the stage after they’ve ripped their heart out and shown it to you. And as much as I like to pretend that I don’t have any emotions, hearing him singing this painfully sad song is proving to me that I’ve been lying.
My former boss, the man I gave my virginity to, is singing on the stage just a few feet away from me about having to endure the worst heartbreak of his lifetime, and I want to stab whoever made him feel this way.
I swivel again to direct my wrath toward Bella LeGrande. She’s watching me already, though, and rolls her eyes as she leans in close to whisper in my ear.
