“Layla!” Jesse had followed us out of the house, but he stopped me when I went to get into Lana’s car. “Layla, what the fuck just happened in there?” His rage hadn’t dimmed at all. If anything, he looked even angrier. “How do you know Tom?” he demanded.

I closed my eyes, knowing what he suspected. It was what everyone in that room suspected. That I was some out casted lover of the great Tommy Kirkman. “I can’t tell you.” I whispered.

“Why the fuck not?” He yelled.

“Because I signed a nondisclosure form when I was sixteen!” I yelled back at him. “I can’t tell anyone anything!”

“You might not be able to, but I sure as hell can,” Lana said, getting between me and Jesse. She didn’t even blink as she glared up at him. “Stop looking at my sister like that, Jesse Thornton! She didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why isn’t she talking?” He tried to push her out of his way so that he could get to me, but she didn’t budge. “Move Lana!” He didn’t try to touch her, but when she refused to budge he started to move around her. Drake moved behind Lana, and I was thankful for the added wall of flesh that separated me from Jesse.

“No. Fuck you!” Lana shoved him hard, and surprisingly he moved back a few steps. “You’re thinking the worst of her right now. I can see the wheels turning in that fucked up rocker world mentality that you have. My sister is better than that. She is better than you. And she’s sure as fuck better than her fuck faced father.”

I swallowed hard, not caring that Lana was using words that I had asked her not to. My heart was shattered because I had seen what Jesse was thinking too, and it had gone down the dirty route. I opened the door to Lana’s car and got in.

This was over. I was done. Turned out that Jesse Thornton was exactly who I had first thought he was.

Chapter 17

Layla

I felt like I was in a daze the entire trip back to Malibu. Lana drove quickly but carefully and got us home in record time. No one spoke. Lana knew that I wasn’t ready to talk about it, and Drake, who was sitting in the back, didn’t say a word.

When we pulled into the driveway, I got out of the car and walked to the guesthouse with my head down. I heard Drake murmuring something to Lana, but didn’t care one way or another what he was saying. I was numb. Cold. This night was a disaster, and I wished I had never gotten out of bed that morning.

When I opened the door to the guesthouse, Nik jumped to his feet. His presence here surprised me. “What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice sounding hoarse.

“Drake asked me to keep an eye on Lucy. She was sleeping when they left and hasn’t woken up since.” He took a step toward me, looking concerned. “Layla, are you okay?” He glanced behind me. “Where’s Jesse?”

I shrugged. “Probably still at Tommy’s.” I didn’t care where he was right now as long as he wasn’t near me. I swallowed hard. “Thanks for watching Lucy, but do you mind going home now? I…I’m not very good company.”

“Did you and Jesse have a fight?”

“Something like that.” I kicked off my boots and dropped down on the couch. Lana walked in through the still open door with Drake behind her like always. There was tension radiating from him, and I knew it was because of me. Was he scared I was going to pack up and take Lana far away from him? Trust me, the thought had crossed my mind more than once on the drive home.

But I wasn’t going to run away. I refused to give up Emmie and the life that my sisters and I had here just because I had been stupid enough to fall for a guy that would think the worst of me. I wasn’t going anywhere unless Emmie, and only Emmie, asked me to leave. “Go home, guys.”

“Layla…” Drake gave me an almost pleading look. “Call me before you decide anything crazy, okay? Don’t run.” His eyes went to Lana who stood just a few feet in front of him. Don’t take her away from me, his eyes seemed to say.

“I’m not running,” I assured him and saw his shoulders noticeably relax. “But you need to go. I’m not strong enough to deal with you here right now.”

Nik still stood over me, frowning. “Tell me what happened, Layla. Maybe I can help.”

I glared up at him. “You can’t help. Nothing you say or do will fix what happened tonight. Nothing, not even a time machine could change any of it. Not unless you have a way of extracting DNA from someone’s gene pool.”

He only looked more confused now. “Did you and Jesse break up?”

“Oh, yeah. We definitely broke up.” I told him with a laugh that held little humor.

Nik opened his mouth to say something, but Drake stopped him. “Let’s go, bro. She just needs some time to get tonight straight in her head.” Nik sighed but nodded, and I was relieved when both rockers left without another word.

Once the door was shut behind them, Lana dropped down beside of me on the sofa and without a word, pulled me into her arms. Like a child, I buried my face in her hair and held on as the tears fell freely. My past had come back to bite me in a big way…

My mother, Lydia, had only been sixteen when she met Tommy Kirkman. Sixteen to his thirty-five. Of course she hadn’t told him that she was only sixteen. I was sure that she hadn’t even been a virgin when she had willingly climbed into the rocker’s bed. She had meant to get pregnant. It was all part of her plan to become a rocker’s wife, or at least his play thing for longer than a night.

Tommy had picked up and moved on the next day, but Lydia had made sure that he knew that she was pregnant. When I was born, a court ordered paternity test was done, and Tommy had forked over some big time money, but made sure that my mother knew that he wanted nothing to do with me. She had been disappointed that I wasn’t enough to keep the rock star on a leash for at least a little while, but the money he had shelled out had been enough to console her.

I hadn’t really thought about the man that was my father growing up. I had known who he was from the time I was old enough to ask about who he was. It wasn’t until my mother kicked me out when I was sixteen that I tried to contact him.

I had nowhere to go, was living in a shelter and barely getting anything to eat. I had been desperate, so I had went to one of his concerts. It hadn’t been easy, but somehow I had managed to sneak onto his tour bus and waited for him. He had been high on the adrenaline from his performance and maybe something stronger, but he hadn’t been so stoned that he didn’t understand who I was when I told him I was his daughter.