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The air choked with his harsh laughter. “I assure you, you did not save him. He’s been in a three-year walking coma.”

“Why? He didn’t know me.” Her voice sounded as uneasy as the conversation.

“I don’t know.” Laz bent toward her. “Whatever you gave him made him look at things differently, made him want to get better. He wanted to explore it…the tattoo, you, I don’t know. But your death meant he would be forever incomplete…unfinished.”

She cleared her throat. “What’s his story? How did he get the scars?”

His eyebrows slammed together. “Scars?”

Just cover it. One big sheet of black.

Oh God. Jay had really wanted to keep his back covered, even from his friends. “Yeah.”

A wretched kind of silence fell between them. She tried to ride it out, but after an idle debate with her heart-shaped conscience, she couldn’t convince herself to walk away. “I want to talk to him.”

Nathan sighed, and Laz swung out an arm and pounded on the divider. “Come on, Tony. Can’t you make this thing go any faster?”

The smile he directed at her danced at the corners of his mouth, betraying his nervousness. “When we get there, try to see the man beneath the surface. Whatever you saw in him three years ago, look for that, okay?”

“I didn’t—”

“You did. The proof is permanently inked on his back, and he cherishes it more than life itself.”

20

The limo stopped in a private underground garage a few feet from the hotel’s service elevator. The ride to the top floor pulsated with impatience. Laz tapped the toe of his boot against the steel walls, sputtering Charlee’s heart more than it already was. Nathan clenched his fingers along with the Musak jingle trumpeting from a hidden speaker.

What would she say to Jay? The notion that he cherished his tattoo sung through her veins. Maybe he’d ask her to finish it.

The bell dinged, and they jerked in unison. The doors opened to an austere landing lined with more doors. She welcomed the stark privacy, but it surprised her. “Do you always take the sneaky way?”

Laz swiped his card key on a solid-looking door. “Jay prefers to be removed from the view and presence of strangers, and he hires the best security professionals in the business to ensure he gets that.”

“He chose the wrong damned lifestyle then.” Nathan held the door for her with a smirk on his face.

They walked through another service door, and…oh, wow. The entry engulfed them in another world. Marble pillars, gold-leafed mirrors and red velvet settees adorned the space. A heady reminder of how famous Jay was. Would he give a shit about a nobody like her? What if she’d misinterpreted his songs and she’d built up some ridiculous fantasy about him in her head? Her heart pounded and her hands trembled.

Laz led them down a hall. “Jay didn’t choose this life. It chose him. And to answer your question, Charlee…” He looked at her over his shoulder. “When our security personnel suggest we use the service elevator, we use the damned service elevator.”

Good to know. The lackluster elevator seemed like a small concession as she passed a junior suite, a grand elevator foyer, another long foyer, a second bedroom. The scale and quantity of the rooms floored her. “This is all part of your suite?”

An oval foyer opened to a powder room, a study, and a gym. He stopped them in the center. “For thirty thousand dollars a night, we should have our own fucking pool.” He smiled with a tinge of red in his cheeks. “And you’ve only seen the entrance.”

She’d lived with one of the richest men in the world and never experienced extravagance on this level. None of it was visible from hercell. She’d been nothing more than a pet. No, not even that. Rich people pampered their pets. She stared at her Doc Martens in a harrowing moment of clarity, and fuck her, but it stung.

Nathan scanned something on his phone and returned it to his pocket. “Charlee?” He narrowed his eyes.

Damn him and his awareness. “Just having a little awed moment. Sheltered girl, you know?” She pointed at herself.

His eyes narrowed. Yeah, sheltered was a nice way to put it.

Laz moved to the double doors. “We took the security team out with us tonight, which means Jay’s been in there without a chaperone for a few hours. Mind waiting here for a minute?”

What, was he twelve? She rubbed a sweaty palm on her jeans. “We’ll wait.”

When the doors snicked behind him, she leaned against the wall and tried to still her racing heart.

Nathan mimicked her lean beside her. He seemed strangely calm as he eyed her.