Page 31 of Hard Rock Desires

I stopped short.

Grace wasn’t there. I looked around. She wasn’t anywhere in the cafe.

“Did anyone see the girl I was with?” I asked.

“The blond?” One of the fans pointed to the door. “I think she left.”

Left?

I exited the cafe and scanned up and down the street. Grace wasn’t waiting outside.

“Grace?” I called out.

No answer.

I jogged down the street and turned the corner. Maybe she’d gotten tired of waiting and had gone for some fresh air. But I explored all the side streets and she wasn’t down any of them.

I walked back to my car and slid into the driver’s seat.

Had Grace really just left without telling me? How did she even leave? I’d driven her here. Maybe she was walking back home?

I lifted the parking brake and slowly drove down the main street, keeping an eye out to see if I could spot Grace on one of the sidewalks. The longer I drove, the more annoyed I became.

She’d really just up and left. She hadn’t even said a word to me. I could understand if she was annoyed at me being mobbed by a bunch of fans, but she could have said something. I would have backed out earlier if I’d known she was getting impatient. I hadn’t been paying attention to the time, but if she’d just said something I could have made my excuses and told the fans I had to get going.

But she hadn’t said anything. She’d just left.

The same way she’d left at the after-party.

The frown on my face deepened as I drove home.

She could have said something. She could have warned me before just taking off. But no.

She’d just walked out.

I pulled into the vast driveway at the back of our mansion. I slammed the car door closed, a little too forcefully, and yanked open the side door that led to the small, second kitchen at the back of the house.

That was right, a second kitchen. The place was a mansion, after all. It had apparently been used as a staff kitchen, back when the previous owners had live-in staff.

I strode past the island counter and fridge, making my way to the front hall so I could head up the spiral staircase to the master bedroom on the third floor. Finn, Micah and I had drawn straws for it when we moved in, and I’d won. Anya got the master bedroom on the second floor where she and Kaylee lived. Chris had happily taken the single bedroom on the main floor.

Having the master suite didn’t mean much, since all the bedrooms in this place came with their own en-suite bathrooms, walk-in closets and living areas, but the master bedrooms were bigger with skylights in the roof and terrace balconies large enough for a whole patio set. The only thing that kept them from being full on apartments was the lack of our own private kitchens. Considering we mostly lived on take-out, that wasn’t a dealbreaker.

“Hey, are you all right?” Finn asked, peeking his head out from one of the large dens on the first floor.

I stopped after only a few steps up the stairs. My hand clenched down on the railing.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked.

Through the open door to the den I could see the open box of pizza, soda cans and video games on the big screen TV. The guy practically lived like a stereotypical bachelor. Of course, he also joined Chris in the home gym often enough, so I supposed I could give the guy a break.

Still, I had no idea why he couldn’t contain the mess to his own room. He was the main reason why we hired a cleaning agency to come in twice a week.

“You came stomping in here so loud I could feel the floor shake.” Finn lifted a can of soda in his hand in a salute. “Is cupcake class not going so well?”

I had a feeling this probably wasn’t going to be the last time I regretted telling him what I was up to.

“Fuck off,” I said, but there was no energy behind it. I felt drained all of a sudden.