“Not long-term, no. But I think it would give you the safety net you think you need to try with Wes.”

She was starting to sweat. Her heart beat even harder. “You’re delusional. Love has infected your brain. Just because you’re head over heels with Jax does not mean the rest of the world has changed. I have definitely not changed. I’ve never been a forever type of woman. Hell, I’ve never even been a more-than-a-month type of woman. And for the last five years I haven’t even been a more-than-one-night type of woman.”

Fear eclipsed her thought process. She had to work hard to think in a straight line. Extra hard to keep her arguments together. Because now that Lexi had gone and voiced those what-ifs that Rubi had suppressed in her subconscious, she couldn’t ignore them.

“Going around and around about this is just confusing you,” Lexi said. “You’re living off a script you put in your head a long time ago, one that doesn’t apply to who you are now.”

Lexi lowered to her knees again. Rubi knew she was blowing a chance with someone special, and that hurt. But she could handle being hurt if that meant Wes wasn’t. She could—she had to—let a chance with Wes pass if that meant he didn’t get damaged by her issues. As long as she was blowing it for herself and not for Wes, she could handle it.

Rubi turned according to Lexi’s gestures. As her friend pinned an area in the back of the bra, Rubi pressed a hand to her stomach. She didn’t like this. She didn’t want this. She just wanted to stay in her safety zone and keep Wes in his own safety zone.

“Just in case you were wondering,” Lexi said, “the reason you’re all jittery and sweaty and can’t think straight is because you’re crazy about him. Because you care. Because he matters. None of the others did. That alone should tell you everything you need to know.”

That was information Rubi didn’t need. And bringing it out in the open like this only complicated all her current struggles.

Yeah, she definitely needed some space.

Eight

Wes stopped the truck along the curb in front of Lexi’s studio, and the sight in his left eye blurred. Hard to believe he’d been in perfect health when he’d left here just four hours ago. No broken bones, no bruises, no blood—all of which he had now, after a few hours with Bolton.

He was relieved to see a light still on at almost one in the morning and pulled his phone out to text Jax.

WES: Are you and Lexi up?

JAX: The woman never sleeps, which means neither do I. Where are you?

WES: Outside.

JAX: Come in.

Wes pocketed his phone. The movement shot pain through his shoulder. “Fuck.”

Rage kicked into a boil again. He was livid. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so angry.

He put all his focus into moving without splitting his head open. The whole left side of his head and face throbbed with each pulse of blood.

Jax came to the studio’s entrance in gym shorts and a T-shirt and jerked the door open. “Do you need to go to the ER?”

“No.” His disgust came out in that one word. “I need ice and painkillers.”

Jax turned away and started through the downstairs studio toward an employee break room. “What happened?”

“That fucker Bolton happened.”

Wes passed through the decadently appointed main salon where ornate wedding dresses lined racks on the walls and dressed mannequins. Everything in the studio was shiny marble and plush carpeting, upscale carpentry and thickly padded seating arrangements. This was, after all, a millionaire’s mecca for the most elite, haute couture, and couture wedding fashions.

A full-length mirror caught his image, and Wes stopped. “Ah, shit.”

He brushed at the blood on the front of his white shirt and cursed the producer of the film. Again. Wes had often played unofficial bodyguard to a star he was doubling. Personal protection was one of the professional hazards of a stuntman. Men who defied death and dismemberment daily were typically smooth mediators and confident fighters, which kept unruly fans away. Or, in Bolton’s case, kept the actor reined in. But Wes had never doubled a star this messed up. Bolton seemed bent on beating every man he came into contact with and talking dirty to every woman within earshot—all after just three drinks.

“I’m adding a new shirt to the bodyguard bill. MacKenzie now owes me over three grand in payoffs, and this is a fifty-dollar shirt. Oh, and by the way,” Wes added as he eased to the corner of a desk chair and laid his forehead on folded arms, grimacing against the pain, “I quit.”

“You’re not quitting.”

Wes lifted his head as Jax returned with ice in a plastic bag. “Why the hell not? You’re not the only game in town, Chamberlin.”

“Sit up and stop whining.” Jax laid the ice pack over his swelling eye, and Wes swore. “Hold it there, and I’ll get some meds.”

Jax turned toward the main salon and the stairs to the loft, but Lexi appeared with a bottle of Advil in one hand, a bottle of water in the other. “Here.”

The sight of her brought back Wes’s other biggest frustration. “What did you tell Rubi, Lex? She’s trying to put the brakes on us again.”

“Hey,” Jax barked at Wes. “Watch your tone.”

“Stop,” Lexi said. “Both of you.” She looked at Wes. “I didn’t say anything negative to Rubi. I said just the opposite. She has a tendency to turn things upside down when she’s stressed.”

He swallowed the Advil and drank half the bottle of water, now even more pissed he had no direction for his anger. Setting down the bottle, he muttered, “Thanks.”

“Where’s Bolton?” Jax asked. “And what the hell happened?”

“Bolton’s in jail.”

“What?” Jax planted his hands on his hips. “You were supposed to prevent that.”

Wes already felt bad enough. He slammed the ice on the desk and glared at Jax through his right eye. Lexi gasped in horror at the sight of his face. “I could have if he hadn’t had a fucking dime of coke in his pocket. Or if the woman he groped would have taken my money instead of pressing charges. Some things are out of my control. Besides, the fucker deserves to spend the night with lowlifes for starting the goddamned brawl that landed me this eye. And I’m warning you now, if he tries to take credit for giving it to me, I’m going to leave him looking twice as bad.”

Lexi stepped between them. She wore white sweatpants that hit her midcalf with the word PINK curved over the ass in—of course—pink, and a matching pink tank. Her hair was up in a messy bun, her face pristinely clean of makeup. She looked every bit the sun-kissed Kentucky farm girl of her roots.

“Relax, both of you,” she said. “Jax, why don’t you make whatever calls you need to make and I’ll clean Wes up.”

Jax ran both hands through his hair. “This is insane. I’ll find a way to shoot every one of his scenes without his face in it if I have to. That’s why you’re not quitting, Lawson. Once Craig and MacKenzie get wind of Bolton’s shit, they’re gonna want to make you into the next fucking Hollywood star.”

He pulled his phone from his pocket and stalked into a quieter area of Lexi’s studio.

Wes yelled after him, “I don’t want to be the next fucking Hollywood star. I just want to do my goddamned stunts without an asshole causing trouble.” He fisted the ice bag and gestured toward Jax’s back. “Coke, dude. He was carrying a bag of fucking cocaine. Do you realize the mess that could have gotten us all into if he had it on the set? Or if he used before a fucking stunt?” His blood boiled with the ramifications. “Someone could die.”

As soon as he stopped yelling, the pressure in his head subsided, leaving a residual throb he felt all the way to his teeth. He groaned, closed his eyes, and let his head fall into his hands.

“Shh, Wes.” Lexi’s hushed voice instantly cut his tension. She put a hand on his shoulder and tilted his face up toward hers with two fingers. “He understands. He’ll take care of it.”

Wes let his anger ebb, closed his eyes, and blew out a breath through his teeth. “Sorry I got mad at you.” He opened his eyes and winced. “You’re not going to pin my mouth closed, are you? I don’t think I could take it.”

Lexi burst into laughter, her blue eyes sparkling. “Shut up.”

“Does that translate into forgiveness?”

“There’s nothing to forgive. I’m going to get the tackle box.”

“Oh no,” Wes groaned as she disappeared into the break room. “Not the tackle box.”

“Yeah, Ted,” Jax’s voice, heavy with turmoil, came distantly from the other room, “we’ve got a problem.”

Wes’s shoulders sank—Jax hadn’t called the director, MacKenzie, he’d gone straight to the top and called the producer, Ted Rimer.

Wes put the ice on the desk and laid the left side of his face on the bag. Pain shot through his eye, his temple, his brain. “That fucker better stay in jail.”

Lexi set the tackle box on the desk in his line of sight. “Quite the little temper you’ve got there, Mr. Lawson.”

“Stupidity and laziness chap my ass.”

“I can see that.”

She opened the huge box and pulled out all sorts of shit. Wes just let his gaze blur. Lexi had created the first aid kit shortly after she’d started dating Jax and realized that every injured or troubled Renegade ended up on Jax’s doorstep at all times of the day and night.

“You’re the fucking best thing to ever happen to that man,” he mumbled. His cheek and tongue were starting to swell, and he sounded drunk. He wished he were. This would all hurt a hell of a lot less. “Actually, you’re the best thing to happen to Renegades, period.”

“He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me too. And I guess you Renegades are okay, even if you do keep trailing blood through my studio. Bring your head up.”

Grimacing at the ache in his neck, Wes obeyed. Now that his adrenaline had receded, all the tweaks and pains were blaring like bright lights.

“What can I do to become the best thing that ever happened to Rubi?”

She paused her inspection and met his eyes, her gaze thoughtful. “I…don’t really know how to answer that. As much as I think I know what she needs, she has to be the one to accept things and people into her life. Jax is only good for me because I let him in.”

“Not encouraging,” Wes grumbled.

She soaked a cotton ball with hydrogen peroxide and wiped at blood on his nose. The skin beneath Wes’s eye flinched at the sting. “I don’t think your nose is broken. It’s pretty straight, and it doesn’t look like it’s bleeding, but you’ve got a nice cut across the bridge. Rubi will probably think that’s all kinds of sexy.”

Wes laughed. The movement sent pain shooting through his face, and he groaned. “Oh hell, don’t do that.”

“Sorry.” But there was humor in her voice. “Let’s see the eye.”