As she reached the door she stopped, dropping her bag. Damn it, she was running, and she’d promised him she wouldn’t. This was too big a deal to just walk away from. He’d hurt her, but they could get through it.

“Patrick!” Natalie yelled as loudly as she could, grabbing his shoulder and turning him to face her.

He was so surprised, he didn’t prevent her from taking the phone and hanging it up.

She handed it back. “Now that I have your attention.”

“What the f**k?”

“I nearly walked out just now.” She jerked her chin toward the door where her leather jacket lay across her bag.

“Oh, you’re going to run like you always do.”

She shook her head. “Nope. I started to but when I got to the door, I realized if I left, I’d be using that to put distance between us.” She’d be taking back control. “So I let go of that. I didn’t run. I’m right here, trusting you to work this out with me.”

“I don’t want to deal with you right now. I’m pissed off.”

“So you’d rather yell at your brother over the phone than work this out?”

“You can’t just act like I’m a man to rely on, one you trust to protect and take care of you and then give that all to someone else, instead.”

“I didn’t do that.” God, her chest hurt. She wanted to cry. Wanted to shake him to make him see reason. “Please listen to me. I came here to you. I am relying on you. Right this moment and ever since Ezra told me about this.”

“I think you need to go. Cool off awhile. I’ll be back home in a month.” His voice had gone flat. “Have them get you another room here. Charge it to us. I’ll have your travel taken care of.”

Real fear was ice in her veins. Everything was falling down around her ears, and she didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know how to fix it. Wasn’t sure he even wanted to.

“You’re seriously asking me to leave right now? You’re breaking up with me?”

“No. I’m not breaking up with you. I’ll call you in a few days once I’ve processed all this. Right now I just don’t want to deal. I’m on tour. I have to keep my head straight for that.”

She drew a breath and licked her lips. She would not cry. Not in front of him. “This is going to do more damage than me staying here will. You have to know that.”

“If you stay here, I’m going to say something I can’t take back.” He turned away from her, closing her out that last little bit so she stood there on the outside. Alone.

“You already have, Paddy.” She took a step back. “I’ll handle my own details, so don’t bother. Have a good rest of your tour.” She turned, hoping so much he’d call her back, but he didn’t. So she picked up her jacket and opened the door, grabbed her bag and left.

* * *

PADDY HEARD HER behind him and didn’t turn. Hurt anger burned through him. He didn’t want to look at her right then. Couldn’t.

He heard the door open and close, and she was gone.

He called Ezra back, who answered and started yelling before he could say a word. “Patrick! Get your head out of your selfish ass right now. Snap out of it. I can’t slap the shit out of you to get your attention, but let me call attention to the fact that you’re saying all this stuff in front of Natalie. To quote Pearl Jam, ‘some words when spoken can’t be taken back.’ Dick. That last bit was me, by the way.” Ezra’s voice had that whip in it he used when he dealt with them in the studio.

And Paddy didn’t want any part of it.

How long had he worked, really dug in and worked to earn her trust? With her, he’d been the man he had always wanted to be. The kind of man a woman would come to when she needed help and support.

And in the end, she’d trusted Ezra to do that and had treated him like a pretty second choice.

“Get your own girlfriend. Better yet, solve your own problems for a change instead of trying to solve everyone else’s. Fuck off and stay away from Natalie.”

He hung up and headed to the minifridge and grabbed a beer. Then he grabbed two more and a bottle of tequila he had already.

He drank them and wallowed. How could she have gone through all that and not called him immediately? Damn Ezra for not coming to him first and letting Paddy decide how to tell Natalie. She didn’t need to hear any of it. It made her unhappy, and Paddy would have known that. Ezra hadn’t.

He’d spent the better part of a year with her, proving himself and in the end, it hadn’t been enough.

Between Ezra and Bob Clayton, Paddy ached to pop someone in the nose, and since Ezra probably wouldn’t answer his calls, and he’d already unloaded on his brother, anyway, Paddy decided to handle Bob Clayton.

Before he got any more drunk, he did just that, using the phone number Jeremy had given him a few months back when he’d asked their manager to keep an eye on the man just in case.

“Bob,” Paddy said when he answered, “this is Patrick Hurley. Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Well, listen to that. A slurred phone call after midnight.”

“Says the man with opiate slur totally awake after midnight. I’m confused. Do you even try to be a dick or does it come naturally?”

“I’m trying to save my daughter from the likes of you.”

Paddy laughed at that. “From me? Yeah, because selling a lie to the tabloids for drug money is more your style than mine, old man.”