Jared finished his water. He tossed the bottle into the nearest trashcan, then crossed the room. He didn’t stop until he was right up in Ryder’s face. “I asked if you heard me. She’s not one of your legion of groupies. Don’t screw around with her.”

“I’m not.”

“She’s my sister, man.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“I don’t know what to think. Hell, most of the time I don’t have a clue what’s going on in your head. If someone had asked me yesterday if I trusted you with her, I wouldn’t have thought twice. But after what I just saw…” He shook his head. “We both know Jamison’s had a thing for you for a decade.”

Jared’s words sent a dark thrill through him, had his dick twitching all over again. When he was in his early twenties, he’d known she had a crush on him. But she’d been in high school at the time. The idea that she still felt something for him…it made him— He put the brakes on, locked that shit down tight. Now was not the time to think about how easy it would be to get Jamison into bed. “Have I ever done anything about it?”

“Not until now.”

He growled low in his throat. “How many times do I have to tell you I’m sorry? That it won’t happen again?”

They stared at each other, stale-mated for long seconds. Then Jared closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, and all of the aggression seemed to flow out of him. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to bust your balls, Ryder. I’m really not. But, dude, you go through women like you go through condoms. Like they’re cheap, disposable, and mean nothing more than your next fuck.

“Which is fine. I get it. I really do. If I had all your shit to deal with, I’d probably do the same thing. But you know Jamison deserves better than that.”

“Don’t you mean she deserves better than me?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“No, but it’s what you meant. Isn’t it?” He waited for Jared to protest, to tell him he was being stupid. Taking things out of context. But, in the end, his best friend didn’t say a word—and Ryder couldn’t blame him. He knew Jared was right, even as he felt the weight of the other man’s disapproval all the way inside of himself, deep down in the spots he worked so hard to pretend didn’t exist anymore.

He ignored the twinges of pain, refused to even acknowledge them. Instead, he smiled the cocky, lead singer grin he was known for all over the world, and said, “You don’t need to worry about me taking advantage of Jamison. After all, she’s not exactly my type.”” The implication was that the fault was with her, not him.

Nothing could be further from the truth—he’d always been fascinated by Jamison’s deep waters, by the complications and contradictions that made her different than the other women he knew—and he waited for Jared to call him on his bullshit. But before he could, Jamison walked into the room, shoes and coat on. Shoving her crazy, sexy curls out of her eyes, she snarled, “And who exactly said that you’re my type?”

Ryder’s stomach sank at the anger Jamison didn’t try to hide. And the hurt that she did. Once again, he’d screwed up and once again, he had no one to blame but himself.

She wanted to hide.

Wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole.

Wanted to crawl under the couch and never, ever come out.

Or, barring any of those scenarios, she at least wanted to bury her face in her hands and pretend the last hour and a half had never happened.

Why, oh why, hadn’t she stayed in her room? Why had she woken Ryder up? And why had she stayed with him, pushed at him, when it was obvious that he wasn’t interested in her? That he would never be interested in her?

It had been humiliating to stand there listening to Jared talk about the crush she’d had on Ryder. Had been even more humiliating to listen to Ryder dismiss that crush—and her—as nothing. As not being his type—which she knew was just another way of saying she wasn’t sexy enough for him. Wasn’t pretty or glamorous or skinny enough for the rock star he was. One would think she’d have learned her lesson by now. It wasn’t the first time she’d been rejected, after all. She’d thrown herself at Ryder at seventeen and he’d turned her down. hard. What had made her think that things would have been any different tonight?

He was talented, smart, gorgeous, rich. And she…she was just the chubby, uptight, ridiculous younger sister of his best friend.

Ignoring the way they were both watching her—Ryder warily and Jared with remorse—Jamison crossed the room and picked up her purse. She recognized the looks and she wasn’t going to fall for them. Not this time. No matter how much she wanted to crawl into a hole and hide, she was going to see this conversation all the way through. She’d walked away from more than enough this week.

She started with her brother. “Really, Jared?” she asked, pushing to her feet.

He held his hands up in a very obvious gesture of surrender. “We were just talking, Jelly Bean.”

“I get it. You live in this weird-ass world where you’re rock gods.” She swept her gaze over to Ryder, making sure he understood her words were for him as well. “Where you get anything you want with the lift of a finger. Where women beg you to sign their breasts or sleep with them or do any manner of sexually deviant things. Which hey, is great work if you can get it.

“But all that sex and fame and rock and roll has a tendency to skew how you see the world. It warps you, makes you forget you’re just people like everyone else. People I knew long before you were rock gods and long before you were—” She popped her fingers in the air, made air quotes— “two of People Magazine’s ‘sexiest men alive.’

“I grew up with the whole group of you. I saw you screw up with girls, crash your cars, fail tests, get grounded. Hell, I saw both of you cry over guitar lessons and GI Joe dolls. And now you’re all grown up, bad-ass rockers who can have anything and anyone they desire. Whoop-de-do. All that means is I spend an inordinate amount of time worrying you’ll drink yourself to death.” She forced herself to look Ryder over with distaste. “Or come down with some horrible, untreatable STD. Now why exactly would I want a piece of that?”

Tossing her hair over her shoulders, she made a grand exit, making sure that she closed the suite door softly behind her. She wanted to slam it, but there was no way in hell she was giving either of them that satisfaction. Nothing like giving a speech that made her knees knock together and then blowing it all by showing them just how much they’d gotten to her.

She walked swiftly down the hallway to the elevator, determined to get the hell out of there before Jared came after her. She couldn’t afford it, but she would totally eat the cab fare back to her apartment if it meant getting out of there with the last vestiges of her pride intact. She loved her brother and the other guys, but she couldn’t face Ryder right now. Couldn’t look him in the eye and behave normally when the derision in his voice was still ringing in her ears.

She’s not exactly my type. Like his could-be-disease-riddled ass was such a good catch?

She’s a little too much. Like she needed an announcement to tell her that? It wasn’t like she’d spent the night trying to get into his pants, for God’s sake. He was the one who had backed her up against that wall. He was the one who had kissed her. After you bit him, her conscience reminded her.

Ryder had made it abundantly clear that he would never be interested in her. She wasn’t going to waste the next ten years of her life the way she’d wasted the last—pining away for a man she could never, ever have. It might not have looked like it last night, or this morning, but she had more self-respect than that.

Determined not to think about it—about him—any more, Jamison punched the down button and prayed that the elevator would come quickly. It wouldn’t take Jared long to throw on a T-shirt and come after her. She needed to be gone by then.