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“I’m going.”

“No. You’re not.” Nathan propped his fists on his hips and stared down at her.

She circled him, hands balled at her sides, and shoved his back. “I am. You can’t stop me.”

Jay froze. She wanted to go? She’d only just arrived. Seeing her so fired up to leave roiled his stomach, keeping his feet rooted and his presence silent.

Nathan sighed. “Charlee, beating on me won’t change my mind.”

She punched him low in his back, and he chuckled. “Now you’re just behaving like a bratty teenager.”

“Arrgh.” She flopped down on one of the stone benches. “Maybe because I never got to be a teenager.”

Nathan rubbed his eyes. “I’m not falling for that one again.”

She pressed her forehead to her knees and held up her middle finger. Nathan stepped toward her toe-to-toe and twined his finger with the one she held up. Jay swallowed back his jealousy and forced himself to watch.

“Why do youhaveto go so badly?” Nathan squatted before her.

“Because, all the—” She stomped a foot, her head bobbing on her knee. “You wouldn’t understand. Just go away.” Despite her slumped posture, her tone was fierce.

Nathan released her hand and shoved her head up with the press of his fingertips on her brow. Much the way a guy might handle a bothersome little sister. Jay’s shoulders relaxed.

“What wouldn’t I understand?”

She looked up, blinked those huge blue eyes. “There will be women everywhere tonight. Women he’s fucked.” She glanced away, blinked again. “They’ll be pawing him, and he doesn’t do well in those situations. I want to be there to protect him, to support him…and I want to hear him sing.”

Oh, Christ. She didn’t want to leave. She wanted to go to the concert. Jay’s heart raced, as did his feet. Around the hedges and along the path to the corner where they huddled. He skidded to a stop behind Nathan. “Let me talk to her.”

Nathan stood, dug in his pocket. “Be my guest.” He pulled out a phone and handed it to Jay. “This is hers. Tony had a spare. I’ve programmed the numbers of the protective team and the household staff. Will you look over them, make sure I’m not missing anything?”

Jay nodded and pocketed the phone.

With a tap on Charlee’s head, Nathan said, “When you’re done here, I need to talk to you. I’ll be up at the house.”

When Jay could no longer see Nathan beyond the privacy of the garden, he joined her on the bench. She cast a worried look at him then focused on her fingers twisting on her lap.

He settled a hand over hers and stilled the movement. “For a minute there, I thought you were begging Nathan to take you away from here. Away from me.”

She jerked her head up, the depths of her eyes gleaming an unfathomable turquoise hue in the sunlight. “Oh no, that’s…No, I don’t want to leave.”

The skin between her fingers was as soft and soothing as a classical guitar riff. He wanted her velvet touch gliding effortlessly over his body. Probably not an appropriate time to want such a thing, but it didn’t stop him from imagining it. “Going to the concert is a bad idea, Charlee.”

Her face crumpled, but she still managed to clench that stubborn jaw. “When do you leave for your next tour?”

Motherfucker. He hadn’t even thought about that. “In two weeks.”

“Two weeks.” She stared across the garden. “And what? I stay here and wait for your return? For how long?”

No fucking way. “It’s a sixteen-week tour.”

She nodded, swallowed, and maintained her faraway stare. “That’s a long time.”

Too long. “You’re going with me.”

A little noise squeaked in her throat. She looked at him with so much longing, her eyes burned with it. So did his. She didn’t ask him to repeat what he said. Hell, he wasn’t sure he could. Taking her on tour with him was dangerous and selfish, and Nathan would stab him before he allowed it. And the groupies…Christ, the groupies would eat her alive. How the fuck could he protect her on the road?

With an army of highly-trained bodyguards, that was how. He sure as hell couldn’t guard her with sixteen weeks and hundreds of miles between them. “I’ll deal with Nathan.”