Whole Lotta Sin: Rock Star Hearts - Book #3 Page 3

  Sebastian stopped and stared at me, his stormy eyes swirling. “Then we’ve got her.”

  “Exactly.” I nodded. “We have to hold on until then.”

  He reached for me, but his hand paused before his fingers could brush my arm. Grimacing, he pulled back. “Thank you, Juniper. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

  I lowered my gaze, thinking about all the things Harry had attempted to beat into my skull today—metaphorically, of course. Sebastian loved me, so why was it so hard to love him back?

  “Do you want to get something to eat?” I asked, holding out an olive branch of sorts. “I skipped lunch.”

  “Sure,” he murmured, focusing his gaze on the mountain of highlighted paper. “Sounds good.”

  4

  Sebastian

  Josh had an apartment in the centre of Sydney, overlooking Woolloomooloo and the botanic gardens.

  It was one of the poshest parts of the city, and the other people who lived in the building hated his guts. No prizes for guessing why. A wild rocker living amongst high-society snobs was his hilarious idea of sticking it to The Man. When we were out on tour or someplace recording, he let his family stay and they weren’t much better. In the dictionary, right next to Carroway, was the word chaos.

  When the elevator door opened, the man himself was waiting for me.

  “About time you showed up,” Josh said handing me a cold beer. “You’re always the last fucker to get anywhere.”

  “This better not be about work,” Nate called out. “I was looking forward to a couple of weeks without looking at your miserable face. You’ve been pouting so much that your mouth looks like a cat’s arse.”

  “Yeah, and I’ve got a flight to Majorca in a few days,” Damon said as we joined them in the living room. “I want to be on it, not sitting here riding your cock, Seb.” That was Damon in a nutshell. The second we got some time off, he was on a plane to some exotic location where the sand was white, the water was blue, and the women were clad in tiny bikinis that barely covered their nipples.

  I took a seat in an armchair and kicked my feet up onto the coffee table. Twisting off the cap on my beer, I took a swig and wondered if there was an easy way to break the news to the guys. Probably not.

  “Have you heard from Juniper?” Josh asked, his question surprising me.

  “Not exactly.” I shook my head. “I went to see her.”

  “You went…?” His eyebrows rose. “And?”

  I shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

  “How? She fucking loves you man. No sex tape can change that.”

  I snorted. “It was our world that fucked her over and in a way, she blames me. She changed everything and took a chance, only for shit to blow up in her face.”

  “None of that was your fault,” Damon said. “It was those bitches, Vix and Mallory, who plotted to get rid of her. You were just caught in the crossfire.”

  “Still, I can’t blame her for not trusting me,” I said, sinking back in the soft armchair. “That footage humiliated her. Have you guys ever noticed how it’s always the woman who comes off looking bad in those things?”

  “Is she coming back?” Nate asked, deflecting my question. “She has to come back.”

  For all the times I wanted them to welcome Juniper, now they cared? Now when things were shit and not before when it could’ve been avoided. I knew they had their own lives to worry about, but this was… Juniper was important.

  “Three months on tour with your miserable arse was enough to send a man insane,” Josh declared. “It was the tamest tour in the history of Beneath. Our street cred is ruined.”

  “Fuck the tour,” I exclaimed. “Vix blackmailed Juniper into signing an NDA. She’s to keep her mouth shut on everything about me, the band, and what happened on tour, and in exchange, Vix won’t release anymore footage.”

  “There’s more footage?” Nate asked. “Seriously?”

  “I don’t mind a bit of porno to get going—seriously, it’s great inspiration—but filming someone without consent is just low,” Josh said. “At least that chick on the Ferrari had her face blurred out.”

  “At least?” I scoffed. “I should’ve protected her, too.”

  “I don’t think she minded,” Damon said. “Last I heard, she went on to become a porn star.”

  “Huh?” I frowned, not able to reconcile the fact I might’ve been used by a groupie as a stepping stone. It was yet another of my arrogant character flaws I had to work on.

  “That sex tape launched her career,” Damon explained. “Filthy Fucking Ferrari’s, I think it’s called. Ferrari is misspelt to avoid being sued, but I’m pretty sure it’s a thing.”

  “He’s right,” Josh said, holding up his phone. “Filthy Fucking Ferrari’s is a franchise. There’s six of them. Wanna see the trailer?”

  “God help me,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose as Josh pressed play. Moaning and slapping sounds echoed out of his phone and I snatched it from him. Recognising the woman, I turned the video off. “This isn’t about the Ferrari. This is about Vix.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re fucking Vix,” Damon said, pretending to hurl.

  “Bloody hell, I’m not desperate,” I exclaimed.

  “What’s she done this time?” Josh asked, picking at the label on his beer. “It has to be something rank to get us all in the same room at the same time. Seriously, Damon wants to go on his pussy holiday to Majorca.”

  “Arsehole.” Damon slapped him on the back of the head. “We’re going on tour for six months come January.”

  “Come January,” Nate sniggered.

  “I knew a girl named January once,” Josh mused.

  “Let me guess,” Damon said, “you made her come.”

  “Sure did.”

  “Vix has been stealing from us,” I declared, fed up with their arseholery. “She’s been stealing and blackmailing and lying to cover her trail, and she’s duped all of us.”

  They fell silent and looked at me, clearly confused.

  “Huh?” Josh frowned. “Stealing what? Our dignity? We don’t need help losing that. I give mine away on a daily basis.”

  “Money,” I snapped, my annoyance starting to rise. “She’s been doctoring reports and skimming money for years. She’s stolen millions from us.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence before someone moved.

  “Bullshit,” Damon said. “If she’s taken that much, we’d know.”

  “Would you?” I challenged. “We’ve been too busy drinking and fucking our way around the world to stop and check our bank balances. When’s the last time you looked at your account?”

  His brow furrowed, and I knew he hadn’t looked at all. They all looked a little sheepish, which meant they’d been just like me when it came to money. The deposits had been so large, all we’d done was accept it with open arms. Anyone would when it came down to it, but it also made us ripe for the picking. Shit, we hadn’t merely been picked, we’d been fucked right up the arse.

  “How do you know?” Josh demanded.

  “She made a mistake,” I replied. “I got an unaltered royalty report by mistake and the deposit didn’t match. With everything that’s been going on, I wasn’t prepared to take it at face value, so I went digging. I found someone on the inside who got our reports, then I checked over all the transactions. Only one in ten were correct. One in fucking ten.”

  “When?” Nate asked, his grip tightening on his beer bottle.

  No matter how I said it, it was going to hurt. “It started a few months after we first signed…”

  “That’s almost…” Nate trailed off, looking troubled.

  “Fuck,” Josh cursed. “You’re serious?”

  “I wouldn’t joke about this,” I said. “I know I’ve got an axe to grind with Vix, but this is the big time. If we’re smart, we can catch her in the act and she’ll go to prison for a very long time.”

  “What about Juniper?” Josh asked.


  “Juniper…” I sighed and knew there was no reason not to tell them. She’d somehow managed to win them over, so they’d begun to care for her the way I wanted them to back when Juniper and I decided to leap together. “Juniper’s helping, but no one can know. She’s still bound by the NDA.”

  “She wouldn’t say anything against us,” Josh said. “With or without a fucking contract.” I raised my eyebrows and he snorted. “She’s fucking mint, mate. You found the only good woman left in the world and seduced her. Arsehole.”

  “Still, Vix can’t know she’s back… even if we aren’t together.”

  “Pfft,” Damon scoffed, “it’s only a matter of time before that’s a thing again.”

  “Then tell your sister to go jump,” Nate said. “Her lips are welded to Mallory’s arsehole.”

  “While we’re on the topic of financial drains,” Damon began, but Josh kicked him in the shin.

  “One of us has to get close to Vix,” he said. “Gain her trust.”

  “She won’t tell us shit,” Damon argued. “We’re the ones she’s stealing from, remember?”

  “She wants what everyone else does,” Josh said. “And that makes her just as exploitable as the next person.”

  “Yeah, and what does she want when she has a mainline to our fucking fortunes?” Nate demanded. “Please, enlighten us.”

  “She wants someone to care for her.” Josh smirked and raised his bottle in a mock toast.

  “Are you nominating yourself?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

  “Sure. I’ll fuck anything. I’ll just turn her over and—”

  “Bloody hell,” I exclaimed. “I don’t know if I’m okay with that.”

  “Dude, she has no problems screwing us and everyone else over,” Damon said, clinking his beer against Josh’s. “The way I see it, we’re only going to get the proof we need by fighting fire with fire. If Josh wants to dip his wick while doing it, then I’m all for him taking one for the team.”

  Sexual exploitation didn’t sit well with me, but we were talking about millions of dollars, blackmail, and exploitation on a grand scale. Filming Juniper and me without our consent and broadcasting explicit material was a crime in itself. I knew if we didn’t fight this, then Juniper and I would never be able to be together. More than Vix’s non-disclosure forced us apart, but fighting back was the first step to repairing the broken shards between us.

  “This is everything,” I said, leaning forward. “It’s our careers, our reputation, and our family.”

  “That bitch will rue the day she fucked with Beneath,” Josh added, fist-bumping me. He glanced at the others and wiggled his fist.

  Damon rolled his eyes. “Dude, we’re not the four fucking Musketeers.”

  “No, we’re fucking Beneath,” he said. “The baddest bad-arses to ever grace rock ‘n’ roll, and no one takes advantage of us or those were care about. No one.” He glanced at me. “Including Juniper.”

  Damon smashed his fist into Josh’s. “There. Happy?”

  Nate added his to the mix and nodded. “So, do we synchronise watches?”

  Despite myself, I laughed. “Dude, it’s not a James Bond movie.”

  Josh leaned forward and slapped me on the shoulder. “Go and fix things with your girl,” he said. “We’ll keep Vix of your arse. She won’t even know Juni’s here.”

  He winked. “Anyone who can fleece Damon at poker as well as she did is more than welcome in my book.”

  “And you?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Leave Vix to me,” he replied wickedly. “She’ll buy what I’m selling, don’t you worry.”

  5

  Juniper

  Sebastian had been gone a long time.

  Outside, the world was going about its business—boats were bobbing along the harbour, planes were coasting through the air, and I was stuck inside Sebastian’s McMansion, hiding from paparazzi.

  After an hour playing with the remotes in the theatre room, I couldn’t figure out how to get anything to play, so I lounged on the couch in the living room. I’d longed for a little peace and quiet, but now that I had it, I was bored out of my mind. Was that a first world problem? Probably.

  Picking up my phone, I scrolled though my contacts—all seven of them—and pressed Vanessa’s number. By now, she’d be frothing at the mouth waiting for an update. The last time I’d spoken to her was the day I’d left the Point and she hadn’t been too happy to see me go—even when I told her about Sebastian and his intentions to get back at Vix. But that was Ness, always protective of the people she cared about. The lioness of Point Mambie.

  “Juni!” her excited voice yelled in my ear.

  “Hey, Ness.” I nestled back onto the couch and watched a few stray clouds skid across the brilliant blue sky outside.

  “How’s things in the big smoke?”

  “Hot.”

  “What kind of hot are we talking about? The penis kind of hot, or the weather kind of hot.”

  “Vanessa.”

  “So… no penis?”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “No.”

  “Are you back together?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Seriously? Then why did you go with him, huh?” she demanded in that high and mighty way she had. “If you really don’t want to be with him, then you could’ve said no.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “I need to slap you, Juniper Rowe. Stop being so wishy-washy.”

  “Am I that melodramatic?” I asked with a moan.

  “Yeah, you are.”

  “I don’t mean to be.”

  “You overcomplicate things, Juni. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m being a direct bitch right now, but you need to hear it. Stop what you’re doing, forget everything you know, and think simply.”

  “Simply?” I rubbed my eyes. “Simple seems like a complicated prospect right about now.”

  “Let me outline it for you then,” Vanessa declared. “Listen to him, talk to him, and find your way back. It was how you came to be together in the first place, right? It wasn’t just a sex thing, it was a deep and meaningful… whatchamacallit.”

  “I hate how you’re always right when I want to sulk.”

  “Sulking never helped anyone. Now, get you some chocolate. Chocolate does help.” There was a scraping sound from the other end as she covered the little microphone on the end of her phone. “HUGO!” she screeched. “Go to the supermarket and get me some Caramello!” The phone rustled again. “Now, where were we?”

  “Caramello? What happened to the tropical pineapple?” I asked, my mood lifting.

  “Meh. I got tired of it.”

  “Tired of tropical pineapple? That’s the best flavour.”

  “So, how are things going with you know what,” she declared, changing the subject with as much subtly as a bull in a china shop. “Is the fox in the hole? Or has the chicken flown the coop?”

  “We don’t have to speak in code words,” I said with a chuckle.

  “You signed an NDA.”

  “I think we’ll be fine unless you plan to email Stargazers.”

  Vanessa gasped like she’d just been wounded. “Never! Don’t ever say that again, Juni!”

  “Na, I know you’d never break my trust like that.”

  “Good.” I could hear her pout over the phone. “So?”

  “So, Sebastian was right,” I began, elaborating on the text I’d sent her the other day. It still cut, knowing how much Vix had stolen from everyone. It wasn’t just money, but the band’s dignity too. “We’re working on a way to get enough evidence to catch her.”

  “She’s going to go to prison. Shit, how brazen can a person be?”

  “She’s taken millions, Ness. It’s bad and I don’t know how to make it better. I—” I sighed and shook my head. “It feels like the mountain to end all mountains.”

  “Millions?” she whispered. “Bloody hell, Juni.”

  “Sebastian’s telling the others now,” I went on. �
��I managed to convince him to let them help. He was going to take the responsibility for all of it, for me, for the sex tape. He was just going to shoulder it all and not tell anyone.”

  “But he told you,” Vanessa pointed out. “Out of everyone, he trusts you above all else. That’s gotta tell you something, right?”

  “Harry said the same thing in a roundabout way,” I mused.

  “Sebastian loves you, duh.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why won’t you let him back in? Sounds like he needs you now more than ever. You can’t just ghost him because you’re too scared to face whatever’s holding you back, Juni.”

  Tears prickled in my eyes. “I know, Ness. I know.”

  “Remember what I said then. Think simply.” She grunted. “Minimalism is all the rage right now. It’s not just about getting rid of stuff, it’s about finding happiness in the simplicity of life without the constant barrage of society weighing you down.”

  “Really?”

  “Fucked if I know! I just made that last bit up, but it sounds deep.”

  I laughed, my heart aching for my best friend. I missed her crazy shenanigans.

  “You’ve got a few weeks until he has to go on his fancy Euro-tour, right? And you’ll have to work on your Vix takedown scheme, so you’ll have plenty of time to simplify.” I could picture her eyebrows wiggling on the word simplify.

  “Okay, I’m going now,” I declared. “Bye, Vanessa.”

  “Don’t you hang up on me, Juniper Rowe!”

  I pressed the end call button and sighed. Nobody was telling me what I wanted to hear, which meant she was right. I was being a melodramatic hussy, big time.

  Pushing to my feet, I wandered around the living room, studying all the nooks and crannies of the McMansion. It was a good name, so I decided that’s what I was going to call it since it was such a cookie cutter display home in here. Sebastian wasn’t here much and when he was, he seemed to spend all his time in his music room.

  Naturally, that’s exactly where I was drawn. Even when he wasn’t here, the remnants of his aura still drew me to him and to that room. It was infuriating in a way, especially since I was avoiding my feelings. I had to let in the bad to have the good and it fucked with my head in a nasty sex tape kind of way.