Love Song Read online

  Love Song

  A Rogue Rock Star Romance (Book 2)

  Elle Greco

  56West, LLC

  For Lia

  Thank you for your unending supporting and your eagle eye with my stupid typos.

  Love you loads!

  Contents

  Love Song

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Before you go…

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Elle Greco

  Love Song

  by Elle Greco

  A Rogue Rock Star Romance

  Book 2

  1

  “It’s a sweet ride,” I said to my sister Presley as she steered her brand-new Mercedes Benz SLC Roadster through the open gates and into the circular drive.

  “And you didn’t even let me put the top down,” she said. Her full lips formed a pout.

  “My skin would be like crispy fried chicken, you know that,” I said.

  “You could wear sunblock,” she said.

  “I do wear sunblock,” I snapped back.

  I wasn’t being a diva, and she knew it. My skin was so damn pale that even slathering on SPF 90 didn’t keep me entirely protected from the relentless Southern California sun.

  “And you paid for this car… how?” I asked her testily.

  Presley flashed one of her ten-thousand-watt smiles. “Grimm gave me a generous advance.”

  Gary Grimm was the founder of the legendary record label Grimm Records. Presley just signed a solo deal with him.

  “And you blew your advance on a car?” I asked.

  Her eyes slid my way. “Jealous?”

  “Of course not,” I said, ignoring the knot that was tightening in my stomach. “It’s just… a lot of money.”

  “You could earn some for yourself, you know,” she said. “You want me to talk to Grimm? Maybe you can write a few songs for some of his artists.”

  “He’s not interested in me.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  “Presley, please,” I said. “He snapped up you and Nikki. It was like the tour bus dumped me on the side of the road.”

  “Let me plant a seed.”

  “Forget it,” I said, dismissing her with a wave. “Besides, you know I only write for you and Nik. And my professors.”

  Her perfect nose wrinkled. “And you’ve got nothing but a secondhand Prius to show for your work.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with a Prius,” I muttered to my hands folded in my lap.

  “I swear you go to school to hide from the world rather than live in it,” she continued her familiar lecture.

  My sigh was quiet. I wasn’t in the mood to have this argument with her. Again. She and Nikki both had talent to burn, and their career trajectories in the erratic music industry spoke to that. I didn’t have the stomach for the game. I liked UCLA. I liked taking classes. It was forward-thinking. It was safe.

  And there was an excellent reason to want safe. We learned from a young age that the business was volatile. Hell, it chewed up my dad and spit him right out, sending him packing back to Maine with a load of debt and a drug problem. Women especially had a brief shelf life. A hefty advance smartly invested could outlast the cutthroat executives and fickle public. Stocks, bonds, real estate. Not a car. Cars lost ten grand in value the minute you pulled out of the dealership.

  “The point is, Pres, you could have bought a Honda or something.”

  “You mean like that one taking up my spot in the driveway? I don’t think so.” She pulled in beside it. “Honda screams delivery guy. This Benz says rock goddess.” She killed the engine and opened her door.

  I shook my head at her while she angled her long legs out of the tiny car. “It also says you blew about fifty K you don’t”—she slammed her door, leaving me to roast in the car’s leather interior—“technically have yet,” I finished under my breath before extracting myself from her ride.

  I caught up with her at the bottom of the slate steps leading to my stepfather’s contemporary Mediterranean-style villa in the heart of Bel Air. A decade, give or take, of living in such opulence bought by the music industry had made Presley forget the dead-end road that our father met on the rock and roll journey. But there were way more sob stories of crash-and-burn careers like his. Vince was the exception. Our dad, the rule.

  The oversized front door was wide open. There was a moving truck parked at the end of the walkway.

  “Wonder what room Mom’s redecorating this time,” I said as we made our way up the stairs. Presley just shrugged. Mom’s favorite hobby was blowing through our stepfather’s money.

  We had just about reached the open front door when a guy in an ill-fitting suit tumbled out. He gave us a harried glance and then careened down the steps, his briefcase clutched in his arms.

  “Hey!” Presley called out to him. Ignoring her, he jumped into the dusty Honda, turned over the ignition, and kicked up gravel as he peeled away from the house. “Dammit.”

  “What?”

  “I was waiting on a contract from Grimm. I was hoping to sign it and send it right back with the courier.”

  “Contract?” I asked. Presley just smiled. “Wait, you mean you don’t even have a contract yet? You bought the car before you actually signed?”

  “The money’s as good as in my bank account,” she said. “Grimm wouldn’t dare go back on our handshake.”

  I bugged out my eyes at her back as she strode into the house. Presley was a smart woman, but this was unbelievably stupid.

  “Crap!” Presley shrieked, coming to a dead stop as I nearly slammed into her. I skittered to the side and made my way into the grand foyer. Sheets of legal-sized paper were strewn all over the marble floors.

  Presley stooped down and started picking them up. “Dammit. I hope they numbered the pages.”

  She was so absorbed in gathering the papers off the floor that she didn’t notice our mother leaning heavily on the banister of the sweeping staircase. Ice made delicate clinks against the crystal rocks glass in her hand as she staggered her way down.

  “What are you two doing here?” she slurred.

  I shook my head and averted my eyes. Her cotton robe was open, and her overinflated boobs spilled out of a skimpy sports bra. She’d covered her bottom half in a pair of Lululemon leggings. For a hard-partying fiftysomething woman, she was pretty well preserved and could get away with the athleisure look. I inherited her height, her fast metabolism, and her flat chest. She’d paid for her anatomical enhancements.

  “Answer my question,” she demanded. “What are you two whores doing in my house?”

  At the word “whores,” Presley angled up slowly, papers in hand. She glanced at me, her face tight. I pressed my hand to her shoulder.

  “We live here, Mom,” I said, hanging back a little. I knew better than to approach Angry Drunk Mom.

  �
�Not anymore,” she slurred.

  “Go home, Mom, you’re drunk,” Presley muttered under her breath. I swallowed a snort.

  “Three lil bitches, thass what I raised,” Mom continued. “All three of ya.”

  She held up the glass and pointed it at each of us, like she was counting. One, ice clink. Two, ice clink… She got stuck on three, looking between me and Presley.

  “Where the hell’s the other one?” she asked, meaning Nikki, who was the youngest.

  “Nik lives in Venice Beach, Mom, with Dion. You know that,” I said. I let go of Presley’s shoulder and took a cautious step toward our mother. “Why don’t you go lay down for a bit?”

  “Don’t you come near me,” she shrieked.

  I froze in place. The way she was swaying, I was afraid she would tumble the rest of the way down the staircase.

  Mom clutched the banister to steady herself just as three burly moving guys appeared at the top of the stairs. Presley’s mouth dropped open at the sight of two of them juggling the headboard of her bed. The other one was carrying my desk chair.

  “Mom?” I asked, my eyes following the men on their way down the stairs. “What’s going on?”

  “Whass goin on? I’ll tell you whass goin on. My slutty daughters broke up my marriage,” she howled.

  I looked back at Presley, who had stopped watching the movers and was now examining the papers in her hand.

  “Mom?” I asked. “What are you talking about? Where’s Vince?”

  Our stepfather wasn’t great at smoothing out her moods, but he was still better at it than either of us.

  “I dunno where that sonuvabitch is. Don’t care. Prolly got his head up some teenager’s pussy, thass where he is.”

  I took a breath and pressed my fingers to my temples. Old habits died hard, and Vince wouldn’t win husband of the year anytime soon. He strayed. We knew he strayed. Mom knew he strayed. She usually took his dalliances in stride, because Vince always came home, always bearing gifts. Very expensive ones. Pamela Benson Davis liked expensive gifts.

  Mom was no saint either. Her weekly private yoga lessons with Hot Yogi didn’t improve her flexibility or her mental state.

  “Mom, Vince does this, you know he does,” I tried to placate her. “Hell, you do it too!”

  “Not like this I don’t,” she said, blinking. I noticed that behind her false lashes, her eyes were wet with tears.

  “So why are the movers taking our things? Did he kick us out?”

  She listed to the side as she dragged her finger through the air, pointing from me to Presley then back to me. “I’m kicking all your asses out. Your shit is going to charity.”

  “Fuck,” Presley whispered. She shoved the papers at me and raced up the stairs, pushing past mover number four, who was carrying out Presley’s vanity mirror. The guy stumbled and lost his grip, and the nearly full-length oval glass crashed down the stairs before shattering into pieces on the hard marble floor.

  Mom turned, found her balance, and then started heading up the stairs. “You may want to grab your clothes before they haul those off too,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Mom?” I called up to her.

  When she reached the top, she turned to me one last time. “You three are dead to me. Dead.”

  With that, she pivoted toward her wing of the house.

  My ass dropped onto the bottom step, and I focused on the legal papers Presley had shoved at me. They were divorce papers. Vince was the one who had filed.

  Crap.

  2

  “Yo, wassup, Jett?” My stepbrother Rafe clapped my shoulder, yanking me out of The Pleasures of the Damned, a collection of Charles Bukowski poems. The staccato styling of the self-proclaimed “dirty old man” agreed with my current temperament.

  I glared at him from above my glasses. Rafe, at six feet three, hovered over the booth. A funky purple knit beret covered his trademark short dreads. His clothes—a pair of faded jeans, a taupe-colored T-shirt with a narrow linen scarf looped around his neck, and a vintage brown leather jacket—hung a little loose on his lean frame, but that was all by design. Rock and roll meets reggae by way of the overpriced vintage shops on Melrose.

  He grinned, impervious to my glare. The gap between his two front teeth marred an otherwise perfect face and made him even better looking. I scowled harder.

  Immune to my nasty looks, Rafe chucked his leather messenger bag into the booth and slid in opposite of me. Once settled, he grabbed a sugar packet from its holder, ripped it open, and dumped the contents on his tongue.

  I would love to say that I did not think about sex while his tongue tasted that sugar, that I did not imagine that same tongue tasting my sweet spots. But since I was stone-cold exhausted, I was weak. My imagination ran wild.

  I crossed my legs. Tight. “That is disgusting.”

  “You look like shit,” he said, spraying a light coating of sugar crystals at me when he spoke. “Even though you have that hot-for-teacher thing going on with your glasses.”

  I removed my glasses and placed them on the table. He peeled open another sugar packet. “Fuck off, Rafe. I am not in the mood.”

  He tilted his head, and the expression on his handsome face shifted, softened. He put the sugar down. “Talk to me, babe. What happened? You flunk a midterm or something?”

  Rather than answer him, I took a final swallow from the dregs of my coffee cup. He knew me too well.

  School was my solace. A space to be Jett Benson. Not Presley’s little sister. Or the older sister who nagged little Nikki. Or the caretaker of our self-destructive groupie mom. No one in my family—extended or otherwise—was college bound except for me. I liked my college life. There were zero reminders of my rock god stepfather and his brood of rock and roll heirs.

  “Why are you here, Rafe?”

  “Was on my way back from talking to Randall’s Music 101 class and saw your car,” he said. “Thought I’d swing by. Say hello.”

  Randall was a retired Grimm Records A&R guy who spent his twilight years teaching classes in UCLA’s music business program.

  “What wisdom could you possibly impart on poor Randall’s impressionable students?” I asked. Celebrity rather than talent had always dazzled Randall. It irked me he was passing that quality—which led to mediocrity—on to the next generation of executives. More flash and flesh, less substance.

  Not that Rafe wasn’t talented. He was, in spades. But he was also kind of famous. Not to mention rock-star gorgeous. Rafe was the total package. He also knew it.

  “My wisdom is vast, Beanpole,” he said. “It may even help your stubborn ass. So, tell me what’s up.”

  I glared at him. “Stop calling me that.”

  He grinned. I refused to look at his sexy gap tooth and instead waved my hand at the waitress who continued to ignore me. I dropped my arm and flopped back against the vinyl seat when she passed by yet again without so much as a glance in my direction.

  I pushed the empty sugar packets into some spilled coffee. “I didn’t get any sleep last night. Nikki and Dion…”

  “Like rabbits, huh?” Rafe said, his tone sympathetic. I nodded. “I dealt with that shit for a weekend while I had my crib painted. I moved back to my place a day early. I’d rather sleep in toxic fumes than listen to that noise.” Rafe slammed his palms on the table and raised his voice up about three octaves. “Oh, Dion, touch me there, harder, deeper.”

  I swallowed a chuckle as heads swiveled in our direction, shrinking even lower in my seat and releasing my hair from the clip that contained it. Unruly red kinks spilled out, hiding my face, which had gone as crimson as my curls.

  “Unfortunately, it’s the only place I have to crash,” I muttered, eyes not moving from the faux wood grain in the laminate table.

  “You could always ask to join in,” he said, flashing a devilish smile. “That could be fun.”

  “Ew, gross,” I said, going into a full-body shudder. “That’s gross. That’s so gross. And now I can’
t unthink it. Thanks a lot.”

  Rafe collapsed into a fit of laughter. His mischievous look took ten years off of him, reminding me of the prankster teen who had tormented me with slugs plucked from the garden, tossing them onto my schoolbooks while I was trying to do homework.

  Boys sucked.

  “It’s not funny, Rafe,” I said, once he regained some control over his laughter. His mouth twitched up, but he kept himself in check. “I can’t stay there. I can’t go back to your dad’s mansion, since Mom has it locked up in the divorce proceedings. What do I do? Pitch a tent next to the La Brea Tar Pits?”

  “See if you can get into the dorms,” he said, like it was that simple. “Maybe they’re not all filled up.”

  My left eye twitched. “No. The dorms are not an option.”

  “That’s bullshit,” he said. “They gotta have room. Someone has to be blowing off this semester. Can you call someone?”

  A slight headache bloomed behind the twitching eye. “It’s not an option,” I repeated.

  “Did you even ask? Or are you just making a stupid-ass assumption?”

  “I’m not stupid, Rafe,” I snapped back. “The dorms are not an option.”

  He angled his body up, reached into his front pocket, pulled out his phone, and began swiping. “We’ll see about that.”

  I reached out and grabbed the phone out of his hands. “No, really. Just stop.”