Lost in the Beat Read online

  “Not tell him?” Rae’s shriek should’ve cracked the mirror or at least alerted the rest of the household to her fall. It sure wrenched her from reliving her sordid past.

  “He didn’t ask for this baby.” Jase Collins could never know about their unborn child. No doubt he’d be appalled by this outcome, and really a baby didn’t fit with his rocker lifestyle anyway. They’d raised his sister on tour with them, and look how she’d turned out. Countless run-ins with the law, and like all celebs she got out of them thanks to her brother. Samantha Collins was no pillar of society. Fallon did not want that for her kid.

  “Neither did you.” Rae tossed the test into the garbage can. “He should’ve wrapped his prick. Irresponsibility is rewarded with little bundles of joy.”

  Fallon flinched.

  “Oh, honey, I wasn’t talking about you. He knows better. You know how many times he’s dipped his wick in hos on tour….” Her sorority sister’s eyes widened, and Fallon looked away. “Oh, God, Fallon, I didn’t mean you…um…are—”

  “It’s all right.” Not desiring to meet the judgment she’d glimpse in her friend’s eyes, Fallon picked imaginary lint off her pants. “You’re right. That’s what I was that night. Jase Collin’s whore.” The words were bitter on her tongue.

  Rae wrapped an arm around Fallon’s shoulders and patted. The action did little to soothe Fallon’s frazzled nerves. “It’s only been six weeks since the concert. There’s still time to decide if you should tell him or not. Besides, he almost died, he might be happy about the baby.”

  She would make Rae one promise. “He will never know about my baby.”

  Her sister gave her a perplexed look that made Fallon squirm. That look had her questioning if she were being selfish. Maybe. Probably. But she was incapable of rational thought at the moment. Every time she thought about telling her parents of the gift they’d be getting soon, she panicked a little. Christmas was less than a month away. She’d have to tell them then. They’d be so disappointed in her.

  I’m disappointed in myself.

  The humiliation of admitting how far she’d fallen would wound her pride, but what choice was left? A baby wasn’t something she could hide, so she couldn’t not tell them.

  The identity of the baby’s father could be kept to herself. Her parents never had to know she’d disgraced herself with a rocker.

  Eleven months later

  A couple of weeks ago, Hot Wired wrapped up their six month U.S. tour that’d been interrupted by Jase’s automobile accident a few weeks into the gig. Comatose with a head trauma, two broken ribs, and his left arm broken in three spots, Jase had undergone surgery and a shitload of physical therapy. With his physical therapist in charge, he’d healed faster than anticipated, and they’d gotten back on the road a month earlier than expected. He joked his body healed quickly because it was terrified of the doctor that pushed him.

  Jase loved being on the road. He fed off the energy of the fans. Putting his sticks to the drums and pounding out beats was better than all the free pussy he banged. Except for the one chick he couldn’t get off his mind, the same one he’d made love to and then watched run away from him the very same day of his accident.

  The I.D. she’d used as proof of legal age turned out to be fake. That scared the ever-lovin’-hell out of him. What if they finally located her and she was underage. Because of this incident, they’d implemented more stringent protocol, and each groupie’s license was swiped into the federal database. His attorney advised him to call off the search, but Jase couldn’t get her out of his mind.

  With a weighty sigh, he slammed his fingers through his hair. The hunt had been vacated midway through the tour. That’d been all right while nightly gigs had distracted his focus. Now that he was home, he became antsy like always. Going from parties every night to domesticated boredom at the end of the tour was always a tough transition. He executed another twenty reps of push-ups. Exercise was a good outlet to feed his monotony. So was focusing on the band’s next album.

  He and Fang—his best friend and lead singer of Hot Wired, who also happened to be dating his little sister—were churning out lyrics like nobody’s business. At this rate, they’d have enough songs for two albums, maybe three. If this was what happened when his buddy fell in love, shit Jase probably would’ve approved of the romance from the beginning instead of lobbying against it.

  Nah. No need for crazy thinking. He still held his doubts about Sam and Fang’s relationship, but after a year of dating he couldn’t deny they seemed happy and committed. Making it to the nuptials was another thing altogether, but they’d proven him wrong when he gave them six months at best. He continued to wait for the avalanche of a break up. If the paparazzi were to be believed, they split at least once a month. At this point, his rebel-at-heart sister would continue to date Fang to spite the press.

  Jase had become convinced the pap enjoyed stirring up shit and pissing off his sister. At least Sam’s relationship with Fang had culled her criminal behavior. At the beginning of their romance Sam had been arrested for grand theft auto. The recollection of watching her car chase on ViewTube sent terrifying chills scurrying all over his body. And that’d been a minor infraction compared to some of her stunts.

  Arms rubbery from so many push-ups, he performed a hundred sit-ups until he thought his abs would ignite from the burn. He continued to do them, relishing the fire in his muscles. His cell chimed mid-set. On the upward roll, he peeked at caller I.D.

  What the fuck could his attorney be harassing him about?

  He connected the call on speaker and continued his sit-ups. “You’re on.”

  “Jason….” The shuffling of papers filtered through the line. No idea why, his attorney refused to call him by his nickname. “How’s Sam?”

  “Good. Fang’s doing a bang-up job keeping her in line.”

  “I’ve noticed, and I’m impressed. I didn’t think anyone would be able to control her.”

  Jase stopped his exercises and pulled his knees to his chest, resting his forearm on them. No one, not even Fang, really controlled his baby sister, but he kept that to himself because he knew his legal counsel had called for some reason unrelated to his sibling.

  Clark Hanson got straight to the point of his phone call. “I just received a paternity suit against you.”

  He chuckled, but irritation fisted his gut. This was his first experience with a greedy bitch trying to pin a baby on him. Both Fang and Keys—Hot Wired’s lead guitarist—had suffered lawsuits, but testing had quickly proved the whores liars. Jase didn’t dip his cock into anyone without a condom, so he knew he wasn’t the baby’s daddy. Couldn’t be too safe with the bitches he came in contact with either. None of the gals he associated with were above attempting to saddle him with an unwanted pregnancy or someone else’s child. “It’s not my baby. I double wrap my boy-toy just in case.”

  “Wise decision.” Clark said that in a tone insinuating he considered most of Jase’s decisions unwise. “A paternity test will have her tucking tail and running, but you need to submit to the test to make it go away. Do you have free time today at three?”

  “I’ll be there. Text me the details. How long will it take for the results to come back?” He wanted this cleared up as fast as possible before the pap got wind of it.

  “Two to three days max. I’ll put a rush on it, but I don’t think that’ll be a problem. She seems desperate and wants—”

  “They’re all desperate.” They slept with him because they were desperate to rub against fame, to have just one moment they’d been embraced with greatness. That was only a slight bit of ego talking, because for the most part it was a fact they were one of the greatest bands of all time. Bands didn’t claim Hot Wired’s status without talent and hard work. “What’s her name?”

  He wanted the name of the woman he’d destroy if she pushed him too far.

  “Um….” Papers rustled from the other end of the line. “Here it is. Fallon Morgan.”


  Didn’t ring a bell, but Jase rarely asked the names of those he fucked on tour. Kept things easier if he stuck to the same nickname for all of them. ‘Good girl’ worked quite nicely.

  “The infant named in the paternity is—”

  “Don’t give a fuck. It’s not mine.” A bit of stuttering on Clark’s end of the line came through as if Jase’s callousness surprised him. Too goddamn bad. This celebrity business hardened people or ate them. He could say with conviction being famous bombed at consuming him the way it had lesser-known personalities. “I’ll contact Ted when I hang up and see if he can find her in the database of groupies.” They maintained a master list for all band members. Necessary actions to cover their ass, which showed how deranged this world was when a woman felt the need to use an innocent child to trap a man. “I’ll have him email ya’ if he finds anything.”

  Forty-eight hours later he was shooting pool with his sister and the rest of the band. Being with the gang helped him forget his boredom.

  Like always Sam did her typical bullshit and ran the table on him. She showed no one any mercy when it came to the sport, not even Fang, and the guys were egging her on to kick Jase’s ass. He took it in stride because it was better than spending an evening alone, or obsessing over his best friend fucking his little sister.

  Sam sunk the eight ball, pointed her stick at him, and bragged her victory with a grin. “That’s how it’s done, big brother.”

  “Victory kiss time!” Fang dragged her against him and planted a wet one on her.

  Jase rolled his eyes. Derr shook his head.

  Keys crossed his eyes. “Seriously? A victory kiss? Fang, that’s a lame-ass excuse to put a lip lock on Boo.”

  After their parents’ died in a car wreck and he brought her back to LA with him when she was only fourteen, she and Keys had become pretty serious about scaring one another. She’d screamed, “Boo!” at him so many times, Keys had nicknamed her that. It’d stuck all these years later.

  “He doesn’t need an excuse. ‘Just because’ is good enough for me. And you’re just jealous he’s getting ass regularly and you’re not.” Sam sent Keys a raspberry.

  “Gah!” Keys threw his hands up as if he’d had all he could take. “Spare a man that nasty mental visual!”

  Sam smacked him on the chest. In the next breath Keys roughed her up with some tussling that ended with her in a headlock and shrieking as he tickled her. She screamed and wiggled to get free, while Fang watched, chuckling, without going to her aid.

  Jase’s cell went off in his pocket, jangling one of their tunes and vibrating his ass. He hit the accept button without noting the caller’s name. “Yeah.”

  “Jason, it’s Clark.”

  “Give me a second. Sam and Keys are trying to kill each other, and I can barely hear ya’.” This phone call was just a formality anyway. He’d waited for two days to receive the news that would soon be delivered. He exited the billiards room into the hallway where the noise reached a bearable octave. “Assuming you’re calling to let me know the bullshit paternity is over?”

  “Not quite.” Clark cleared his throat. “The baby is yours. You’re a 99.9 percent match, so unless you have a twin out there I don’t know about…you’re confirmed as the father.”

  Jase leaned against the door and slid to the floor. Closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose while the fingertips of his other hand tingled. “No-fucking-way.” He couldn’t recall a condom breaking at any point, so…no-fucking-way.

  They’d looked into a Fallon Morgan, but the name hadn’t matched against the groupie database. He didn’t fuck around with non-groupies while on tour and given the child’s age, they’d have been on tour when the infant was conceived.

  “There’s gotta be a mistake, Clark.”

  “Results like this aren’t wrong. Condom probably broke and you were too drunk to know it.” Jase nodded his agreement, unable to discount the possibility of that scenario. “We fight this, you look like an asshole in the media, and you still lose. I’ve scheduled a consultation for the two of you to meet the day after tomorrow at eleven. Be here an hour early to discuss options.”

  Options? That was a joke. The world was off-kilter when he was a daddy. What the fuck was wrong with the universe giving him a responsibility like this? “Her attorney coming?”

  “Yes. He’s a sad excuse of an attorney. You want to pay her off and make her go away quietly, I’m sure I can make that happen.”

  “That would make me an asshole.” Jase jammed his fingers through his shoulder-length hair. The press would crucify him either way. Not that he gave two fucks what the media thought. Never had and wouldn’t start anytime soon.

  A baby. Fuck me. Donating DNA did not a daddy make, but was enough to classify him as a parent for financial purposes. He must decide what he wanted. Did he ask for a relationship with the infant or give it a fighting chance with his money, but not his presence? He didn’t even know the sex of the child. Hadn’t cared what life hung in the balance until now. “Is it a boy or girl?”

  “Daughter. You okay, Jason?”

  Jase chuckled, noting the irony in the sound. “No. It’s not every day a man discovers he’s fucked up the life of another just by being her parent.”

  “That you care at all says you’re a decent enough of a guy.” If Clark had said that like he meant it, Jase might’ve believed him.

  “I’ll see you Wednesday.” Jase disconnected the call and dropped his cell on the floor. Groaning, he scrubbed his face with his palms.

  “What’s up, big brother?” Sam leaned through the doorway and peered down at him.

  “I’m the baby-daddy.”

  “Holy fuck!”

  Yeah, that’d kinda been his thinking too. She shut the door to the game room and sat beside him. Shoulder-to-shoulder, she rested her head on the wood and laced her fingers with his. Her touch fed him comfort, leveled out his apprehension. He could count on his baby sister. She was dependable, even helped nurse him back to health after his accident. He’d sort of raised her, so he could be an adequate daddy. Maybe not a good one, but how much harder could real parenting be? He couldn’t kid himself. He’d fucked up major when it came to raising Sam. Just a year ago she’d been jacking cars as a hobby. Only Fang’s influence curbed her behavior.

  “What’cha gonna do, Jase?”

  “I’ve no idea. Can you see me as a dad?” I’m not ready for that responsibility either.

  She shrugged. “Why not? You raised me.”

  He snorted.

  “You have me to help. I win the hearts of everyone, and my niece or nephew—”

  “Niece.”

  “—will love me best anyway. It’s the law of the universe, aunt’s spoil, so that means we’re loved more.” She tossed him a cheesy grin.

  Jase wrapped his arm around her shoulders and hugged her against his side. He loved his sister so damned much. If he could love a kid half as much as he did her, then didn’t his daughter deserve that? “It’s not like the momma is handing her off to you to raise alone. There’s at least a sensible parent among us. I hope.”

  “Fallon Morgan is the mother. I don’t recall her, but according to my math the baby-oops happened around the beginning of the tour.” Somewhere near the time his car accident put the tour on hold. Only one woman stood out during that time. My redheaded virgin. “We can’t find a record of her. I keep wondering why she waited so long before she filed a paternity suit.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Guess not. Except I’ve missed four months of my daughter’s life.”

  “Doesn’t make her any less yours. Or mine.” She squeezed his leg. “I’m an auntie!”

  Jase laughed at his sister’s enthusiasm. He was glad one of them was excited. Terrified described his sentiments a whole lot better.

  Fallon’s nerves got the better of her. Nausea twisted her gut in knots and bile hit the back of her mouth, burning her throat. She patted the baby’s back and paced the confere
nce room Jase’s attorney had stuck them in thirty minutes ago. Of course the office was swanky and nothing like her attorney’s shabby locale. Her lawyer, Bill Mayers, looked way too calm and collected for her peace of mind. A total contradiction to her emotions.

  I will see Jase again soon. Excitement twisted with her anxiety, making her hands shake and her palms sweat. She would’ve preferred to have given him the opportunity to do right by their daughter instead of going this route, but she hadn’t known how to contact him without involving the lawyers.

  Finally, Faith drifted off to sleep and Fallon settled her in the car seat. Fallon glanced down at her second hand navy blue dress and was pleased when she didn’t spot any vomit. The hazards of motherhood. Even though her daughter had been an unplanned pregnancy, she was the best thing that’d ever happened to Fallon.

  The door opened, and she took a deep breath to face them. Her lawyer greeted Jase and his attorney, while she took her time calming her nerves with an obscene amount of oxygen.

  Afraid of the accusations she’d witness in Jase’s eyes but knowing her time was up, she pivoted. The man from her dreams was dressed in a suit that fit him perfectly. She suspected it’d been tailored to his frame. Except for the defiant length of his dark brown hair, he could’ve passed for a businessman. No, that was incorrect. Jase Collins’ presence screamed rebellion so loudly he couldn’t be mistaken for anything but a rocker.

  Accusing sapphire-blue eyes met hers, and eyes wide with a territorial gleam, Jase said, “You.”

  His attorney gave him a funny look, but addressed her, extending his hand in a formal greeting. “Ms. Morgan, I’m Clark Hanson.” She shook the man’s hand, but his words were mostly a buzz in her ears. Jase claimed all her focus. “Please take a seat, and we’ll begin discussions.”

  As she sat, Jase remained standing, his gaze focused solely on her. “Fallon Morgan. Hmmm… Interesting name change since we’ve got you on record as Liz Riley. Were you even twenty-two last year as your I.D. said?”