Page 43 of Hard Rock Heat

This time it was Damon's turn to grit his teeth. "Don't know why I let your sister talk in me into this," he grumbled under hisbreath.

"Hope told you to apologize?" Iasked.

"No one tells me to do anything," he said. "She just mentioned that maybe, sometimes, my mouth runs off and says things it shouldn't. I guess I've been in a bad mood and she knew something wasup."

I shouldn't have been surprised. Hope always did have an uncanny insight intopeople.

"I also wanted to apologize about what I said before," hecontinued.

"And if I ask you to clarify exactly what that was…?" Iasked.

His lips twisted into a frown. "You really want me to go intodetail?"

"I just want us to be clear on what you're apologizingfor."

"I'm sorry I made that drowning in pussycomment."

My stomach roiled just hearing thosewords.

"And I'm sorry I kept touching you after you laid down the rules," he continued. "I should have respected yourboundaries."

I blinked again, shocked as hell. "I didn't think you knew what boundaries wereeither."

"I know what they are." An almost impish smile crossed his lips. "I just usually ignorethem."

I couldn't help but let out a small huff of alaugh.

"No one can say you're not aware of your faults," Inoted.

"I know I'm not perfect," heshrugged.

"Your fans would disagree," Isaid.

"My fans aren't the ones I needed to say sorry to," he said. "So am Iforgiven?"

I scanned him up and down, contemplating for longmoments.

He put on a look of long-suffering. "How about I let you think about it while I get us adrink?"

With his apologies over with, Damon left to get us that drink. I eyed him as he maneuvered his way through thecrowd.

The man could admit it when he was wrong. That was better than most guys. He realized he'd screwed up, or at the very least, my sister had metaphorically smacked him over the head with the fact he'd done something wrong, and he'd come to say he wassorry.

It seemed like I had to reevaluate my opinion of Damon on a dailybasis.

While waiting for him to come back with our drinks, I scanned the room again. The size of the group had almost doubled. There were even more unfamiliar faces, people who had shown up fashionably late. As someone who always showed up fifteen minutes early to everything, the thought made my backitch.

A blond girl over in the corner looked familiar. After thinking for a moment, I placed her. She'd applied for a position through my company a while back. We'd been looking for classical musicians to act as a string quartet for our fancier events. If I recalled correctly, she played thecello.

I wondered what a classical musician was doing with a group of rock stars. Maybe the same thing a corporate event planner was doinghere.

I contemplated going over there and re-introducing myself, just to have someone to talk to at the very least. Maybe we could commiserate over the unlikelihood of two relatively normal, boring people like us being at a party likethis.

A commotion on the other side of the room caught my attention. A familiar voice was laughing while another male voice growled words ofwarning.

The first thing I noticed a very pretty young woman with dark red hair standing with a blue-eyed guy who vaguely resembledher.

The second thing I noticed was the blue-eyed man's fist about to make contact with Damon'sface.