Page 31 of You Rock My World

JOSIE

At first, the figure emerging from the shadows is a blur, an indistinct outline against the backdrop of the night.

But as it reaches the circle of light, recognition punches the breath out of my lungs.

It’s Billie Rae. My inner fangirl flares to life, and I have to physically stop myself from blurting out something mortifying like, I loved your latest album!

This isn’t a glamorous meet-and-greet. I’m not facing one of my favorite singers, she’s Dorian’s ex-wife.

The woman who put him through so much, who hurt him so deeply.

And she’s pissed. If looks could kill, we’d already be making our way to the afterlife.

“Well, isn’t this cozy?” Billie Rae sneers, her brown eyes flashing with anger as they land on me then Dorian. I swallow against my heart hammering in my throat. “So much for not having a side piece, uh, Dorian?”

He steps forward, jaw tight, hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Josie and I only work together.”

There are a million reasons he must say this. The chief one that I asked him not to make our relationship public. But it still stings to be described as a mere professional connection in front of the woman he wrote countless love songs about.

“Do you think I’m fucking stupid?” Billie slurs, listing to the side and grabbing onto one of the pool chaises for support.

She’s visibly intoxicated. With what, it’s hard to say, but Dorian wasn’t exaggerating her problem.

Still, I also can’t help noticing how beautiful she is.

His ex is jaw-dropping in a way I’ll never be.

“You always lay out fairy lights for your ‘employees,’ Dorian?” She snickers. “Must be real tough business.”

A muscle twitches in Dorian’s jaw. “What are you doing here, Billie? How did you even get in?”

She tosses her blue-streaked blonde hair over her shoulder. “Oh, I have my ways. You should know that by now.”

Every instinct tells me to go to Dorian, touch him, comfort him, but I’m afraid I’m only going to make things worse if I do, so I stay put in my chair.

The silence between them is thick enough to choke on. On Dorian’s face, restraint is battling with frustration. Billie glares at her ex-husband and then fixates on me.

“Isn’t she too plain for you, babe? Since when have you gone vanilla?”

Dorian squeezes his fists tighter and then releases them only to squeeze again, the movement causes the tattoos on his arms to move, the designs coming to life. “Watch it, Billie,” he snaps. “You don’t get to come here and insult?—”

“Everything okay here, sir?” We’re interrupted by one of Dorian’s bodyguards stepping into the garden and placing himself between us and Billie Rae.

The man is tall, with dark hair, darker eyes, and clean-shaven.

He’s wearing an impeccable black suit and makes me wonder if Dorian shops for his security detail at the Elite Muscle and Charm Department Store.

But then our guy takes in Billie Rae and his brows pinch in a scowl so fierce I’m sure Dorian must’ve found him at The Brooding Protector Emporium.

“Thank you, Nick.” Dorian’s voice is cold in a way I’ve never heard. “My ex-wife has decided to add breaking and entering to her track record.”

Billie Rae’s eyes narrow into furious slits, her lips curling back to bare her teeth. “You’re such a piece of shit,” she spits. “You want to erase me? This is my fucking house!”

She raises her voice with each syllable until she’s screaming. In a surprisingly fast-moving blur for someone who was swaying on her feet moments ago, she lunges at Dorian, her fingers curved like claws as if she means to tear at his face.

But she doesn’t get far. The bodyguard, Nick, steps in with deadly precision, intercepting her mid-flight.

He pins Billie’s arms to her sides and pulls her back against his chest, his grip unyielding as she thrashes against him.

Billie fights like a woman possessed, twisting her body and flailing her legs.

One kick lands on the bodyguard’s shin, but Nick doesn’t even flinch. Is he made of steel? Wearing shin pads?

“Get your damn hands off me!” she bellows, thrashing so violently that her hair whips in all directions.

“Dorian, you coward. Fight your battles.” Her screams are loud and jagged, her breath ragged and her movements growing more desperate.

“You have no right!” she howls, her head jerking back in a fierce arc aimed at Nick’s chin.

But she’s too short, and he dodges, taking the hit to the chest where it should hurt less.

“You think you can throw me away? That you’re better than me?

” she snaps at Dorian, then yells at Nick again. “Let me go, you asshole!”

Seeing Billie Rae like this—a broken, furious mess—is gut-wrenching. Her rage is raw and tragic; blind fury seems the only way she can hold herself together. But the twisted helplessness that coats her anger is impossible to miss.

She’s a stranger to me, and the sight doesn’t leave me indifferent. How is Dorian even handling this? To see someone he once loved reduced to such a state. It must be heartbreaking for him, no matter how much time or distance he’s put between them.

My heart twists as I glance at him; but his face is a fortress, his emotions locked behind high walls.

Billie starts to cry and that seems to break Dorian. His shoulders sag, the tension draining from him as if he’s done, can’t take any more. His voice softens, stripped of anger, pleading. “Billie, just stop. If you stop struggling, Nick will let you go.”

Her thrashing halts, her body going slack as she glares at him through her tears, her chest heaving with exertion.

For a beat, no one moves. Then Dorian gives Nick a small nod, and the bodyguard releases her cautiously.

Billie crumples to the ground, folding in on herself like a broken marionette.

She starts sobbing harder. Her cries are ugly and desolating, words spilling out between sniffles that make no sense.

“I can’t… You left me.” She mumbles something else that disturbingly sounds like, “Alone.”

Dorian turns to me, expression pinched. “Are you okay to drive home?”

I am being dismissed and I don’t know how I feel about it. “Yes.”

“We’ll finish this tomorrow. I’ll call you.” He sounds distant, and I’m not sure if it’s an act for Billie’s sake, to pretend I’m just an employee, or if that’s how he feels right now.

“Okay.”

He nods with another look on his face I can’t interpret.

I grab my bag with trembling fingers, and head for the French doors. At the threshold, I pause, glancing back. Dorian is crouching next to Billie, his hands steadying her as if she’s so fragile she could shatter. “Is there someone other than John I can call?”

Her answer is hollow. “You are my person, Dorian. I have no one else.”

Tears sting my eyes, making my vision blur.

I can’t watch this—him comforting her, her staking a claim that burns through my skin.

I’ve spent too many months haunted by their marriage to handle this.

I know I’m being irrational. That Dorian is merely acting like a decent human being.

But I have to remove myself from the situation.

I stumble into the house, choking back a sob.

Driving away doesn’t calm me. The road blurs as I blink back tears, and I slow down, the taillights of the cars ahead turning into streaking smudges of red.

Tonight started like a dream, a romantic dinner under fairy lights and Dorian looking at me as if I was the only thing that mattered.

But it all feels so fragile now, like a crystal glass balanced on the edge of a counter, one wrong move away from shattering.

I want to believe this connection we have can be ours alone. But the truth is, Dorian doesn’t exist in a vacuum. His life is layered, complicated, with pieces of Billie Rae embedded so deeply in it, they might never come out.

A part of me knows I shouldn’t take it personally. Everyone has baggage, and I have mine too. But watching him comfort her, seeing her desperation, made me feel like the intruder. Like the one stealing someone who doesn’t belong to me.

My knuckles whiten as I grip the wheel tighter.

Love, or whatever this is growing between us, shouldn’t feel this heavy this soon.

And yet, when I think of walking away, invisible hands grip my throat, choking off the air, and something deep within me claws upward, primal and fierce, refusing to even consider letting Dorian go.

When I get home, I can’t sleep. I brush my teeth, wash my face, and change into my PJs, but then I lie on the bed staring at the ceiling, my mind a blank space. I resist for an hour before I text him. He said he’d call me tomorrow, but I can’t wait that long.

Josie

Are you okay?

As I hit send, I’m terrified he won’t reply, or give me some curt response, a simple yes, or worse, a thumbs-up emoji. Instead, my phone rings.

I almost drop it in my hurry to answer. “Hi.”

“Hey.” His tone is subdued, bordering on hesitant. “Sorry for earlier.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“I do,” he counters, guilt edging his voice. “The way I said goodbye was cold. But I wasn’t shutting you out. I just… I didn’t want to rattle the cage. Billie was already unhinged enough.”

I hesitate, biting my lip. “Is she okay now?”

A bitter laugh escapes him. “You saw her, Josie. She’s not okay.”

“I’m sorry. Is it always like that with her?”

“Yes. That’s what she does—rage and insults one minute, guilt the next. She twists every interaction until it feels like I’m the one to blame. It’s exhausting, and it tears at me every time. It’s why I had to get away. I couldn’t do it anymore… I couldn’t breathe.”

“I’m so sorry, Dorian.” I pull my knees to my chest. “It’s not fair for her to make you relive that pain over and over.”

“Fair left the building a long time ago with Billie,” he replies, his voice heavy with frustration. “You didn’t see her at her worst, Josie. Tonight was tame.”

“Tame? Dorian, she tried to claw your face off.”

“Yeah. At least she didn’t succeed this time.”

This time? Has she hurt him before? My thoughts go to the thin scar I felt on his shoulder. How many more are there across his body? How many did she cause? And how many cuts did she make on the inside that are invisible?

“And now that she’s seen us together, scratches are the least of our problems,” he says grimly. “I wouldn’t put it past her to go off the rails.”

“Worse than this, how? Do you think she’ll… escalate?”

“That’s what worries me,” he admits. “We’ll have to be more careful. Billie’s the type to hire a private investigator, tail me, you, your family. My security team is already sweeping the house to figure out how she got in.”

I grip the phone tighter. “What do we do?”

“Don’t give her anything to find. Lie low. Let her rage burn out and leave no fuel for it. If she got proof about us…” Dorian exhales, and I can picture him rubbing the back of his neck. “She’d start a press war.”

“What can I do to help?”

“Just… be patient. I don’t want to say this, but maybe it’s a good thing I’m going back on tour after the VMAs. We’ll be in different cities and Billie will have nothing to find.”

“No, don’t say that,” I whine. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

“I know, and I hate that she’s stealing the last days we could’ve been together.”

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t ask for this.”

“That’s the thing, though, at least in part, I did when I married her. But you never asked for the drama. You’re walking into a mess I should’ve cleaned up a long time ago.”

“Dorian. I’m asking for it now. I’m here because I want to be. And I’m not going anywhere.”

The silence on his end feels heavy, charged. “I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”

“Don’t encourage me or I’ll stick to you harder than sand after a beach day.”

His laugh is low, warm. “Careful, Monroe. I might take you up on that.”

“I’m counting on it. And you’re not off the hook. Next time, I’m expecting fewer ex-wives and more chocolate.”

“Duly noted.” I finally hear a smile in his words. “Do you want to go to sleep? It’s late.”

“I’m too jacked up to sleep.”

“Want me to sing you a lullaby?”

“Would you?”

“It worked last time.” He means a year ago, and the fondness in his voice almost undoes me. “Any requests?”

“A song from your first album.” I want something that he wrote before meeting her.

Dorian starts to sing, and I fall asleep to the sound of his voice, wishing I was in his bed, free to hug him all night.