Page 29 of Hard Rock Heat

He jerked his head no. When he lifted his eyes to mine, they were full of a muted pain, with something close to fear in the whites of hiseyes.

"I gotta go," he said shortly. He shoved his phone into his pocket and stalked off, back and shouldersstiff.

"Are you sure—" I began to ask, but he was already halfway across thefield.

Confused and not a little worried, I waited until he was gone before following hispath.

I'd seen Damon flirt and smirk and tease, but I'd never seen him like this. The closest to upset he'd been was when mentioning Ian and Hope's gross honeymoon stage. Even when I'd inadvertently touched on a sore subject when asking about his family, he'd merely gone quiet and changed thesubject.

I pulled out my own phone and sent a quicktext.

Hope you're okay,I wrote. Let me know if there's anything I can do tohelp.

The reply didn't come quickly, but when it did it wascurt.

I'mfine.

Lips pursed, I had to assume this was Damon's way of saying mind your ownbusiness.

A few minutes later, as I was getting into my car, my phone pinged again with anothertext.

Thank you,itsaid.

Heart squeezing in my chest, I stared at his message for far too long before slowly pulling out of the parking lot and drivingaway.

Chapter Nine

Damon wasn'tmy only client. I still had to answer emails, talk with vendors, attend meetings and do all the other dozens of things that took up my day when not at an actualevent.

I was able to pass most of it over to Katherine. Since I'd mentioned the coordinator position, she'd been more keen than usual. I didn't need to ask her to take on some of my work. She eagerly asked every morning and afternoon if there was anything else she could do tohelp.

Although part of it was her trying to prove herself, I had a sneaky suspicion she had an ulterior motive. The more work she did for me, the more chances she had at running into Damon — and potentially the other members of Darkest Days. The girl was a perfect mix of me and my sister — workaholic and starry-eyed fangirl all inone.

With my mind occupied by my busy job, I didn't have much time to think about Damon, or his weird phone call. He hadn't messaged me at all since that day in the stadium. I'd thought he would continue torturing me through text, but he was oddly silent. I didn't know whether to take that as a good sign. Maybe I'd shut him down enough times he'd gotten the hint. Or maybe that phone call had been more serious than I'dthought.

Alright, so I lied. Despite being inundated with work, I had been thinking about that man more than I shouldhave.

It was when I'd found myself checking my phone for the tenth time that day, wondering if I'd missed a message from him, that I realized I had a problem. I decided to call my sister. She'd know if Damon was okay. At the very least, she could discreetly ask her boyfriend about hisbrother.

"Hey Faith," Hope asked, breathless, after answering her phone on the sixthring.

"Sorry, you busy?" Iasked.

"No, just— Stop it!" She squeaked and laughed, the sound muffled through the phone's speaker, as if she held her hand overit.

"Am I interruptingsomething?"

"No, no, it's fine." I heard her shush someone. "What'sup?"

I hesitated, pondering how to phrase this without giving anything away. Finally I decided to just come out withit.

"Have you heard from Damon recently? Is heokay?"

I could see Hope's frown in her voice. "No, why? Is somethingwrong?"

"We had a meeting the other day." It was only a sort of lie. "He got a phone call and it seemed to upsethim."

I heard Hope murmur something to the person she'd shushed. She returned to the phone. "Ian says Damon seemed fine the last time he talked tohim."