The Rock Star's Email Order Bride

Part 7

SEVEN

Pounding began in Jason's head. It wasn't until he cracked one eye open that he realised there was pounding outside it, too. On the door. "f**k off," he mumbled. He reached across the bed, but there was nothing to grab but linen. Where were all the girls? He remembered two, maybe three of them, but they weren't here now. That meant no one else would answer the door and the hammering wouldn't stop until he did something about it.

"Yeah, coming," he growled. He reached the front door and waved it open.

"Mail delivery, Mr Felix." The night porter waved at the box of fan mail, topped by a small stack of official-looking envelopes that he should probably read first.

Jason kicked the box inside and grinned when it skidded on the polished tiles, spilling the stack of bills across the floor. White envelopes, white tiles...and one matte black envelope with the address printed on a sparkly silver label. He picked it up and flipped it over, wondering who'd died. It's not like he got funeral invitations very often. Maybe it was one of the Stones or some other rock royalty, acknowledging him as heir apparent to the title of the King of Rock, and begging him to attend the funeral of their old frontman and take his place in the band.

He squinted at the address, struggling to focus on the ornate script. Miller. Who'd he know named Miller? At an address in Perth...

Shrugging, Jason ripped it open and a shower of black glitter floated to the floor. The embossed card in his hand was an invitation, all right. To the wedding of Dr Alana Angel Miller and...fuck! He threw it on the floor, wanting to stomp it into the tiles. Angel was marrying the crazed stalker? The psycho who'd nearly killed her, then tried to beat Jason up, too, when he came to visit her in hospital?

Ignoring his splitting headache, he marched to find his phone. Without hesitating, he punched his sister's number and leaned against the kitchen bench while the call trilled for her to answer.

Pick up, pick up, pick up...she had to.

"Hi Jason. This really isn't a good time. I'm – "

"What the f**k is this? Is she f*****g crazy?" he interrupted. "He should be locked up and not allowed near her. She should be committed to a mental hospital. f*****g insane..."

"Right, one second. I told my boss it's a family emergency and, seeing as the whole room heard you, I think he'll believe anything, provided I get your profanity the hell out of his meeting. I take it you got the invitation?" The faint sound of a door closing came down the phone line. "Okay, Jason. I'm back in my office and I've closed the door so everyone in the building doesn't have to listen to you swearing. She said she wanted to invite you and I gave her your address."

Then she knew he hadn't left the state. She knew where he was. f**k, did that mean tomorrow she'd be on his doorstep, knife in hand?

"She said she'd castrate me, Jo! Cut my f*****g balls off. What part of that didn't you believe? You're the one who keeps telling me to stay away from her. She carries that knife with her everywhere. And you told her where I live?" Shouting hurt his head, but he couldn't seem to turn down the volume on his own voice.

"She didn't really mean it," Jo soothed. "She was angry. You'd set some security guard to stalk her without telling her. You scared her."

"She wasn't f*****g scared. Do you know what she did to the guy? Her and that steroid-enhanced psycho she thinks she's going to marry? She stabbed him. f*****g stabbed him. Then tied him up with electrical tape and tortured him until he told her everything. In her own apartment." Jay hadn't slept for three days after he'd heard that, certain he'd be next. If Angel didn't hunt him down, she'd send the psycho instead, and that guy liked inflicting pain. Just look at what he did to her. "She can't marry him. She just f*****g can't!"

Jo sighed. "She can and she will, Jason. Look, I don't like him, either, but she can take care of herself. We're not teenagers any more. Even before Chaya made the charts, she had the money to hire security to watch her twenty-four seven. Trevor says he's not a threat and he'd know. He saw combat in Afghanistan, for God's sake. You're just jealous!"

"No, I'm not!" The words escaped before Jason could stop them. f**k, he sounded like a whiny five-year-old instead of a rock god.

"Jason. You're my brother, and I know you. You've always had a thing for her."

A thing. She made it sound like something small and squeaky that hid under the bed at the first sign of danger. He didn't have a thing for her. It was full-blown love and had been since primary school. Since the first day Jo invited her to sit with them at choir practice. He'd lost his soul in the depths of her dark eyes that day. She'd never f*****g noticed, though. Even when Chaya hit it big, she hadn't treated him like a rock god. He was just Jason, who forgot the words and drank too much and was never on time to rehearsals. Who ignored a rock god? Who f*****g dared?

"I'm not going. No f*****g way." If he had to watch Angel walk down the aisle to marry another man, he'd cry. He'd be on the front of every damn newspaper in the world with the headline JAY FELIX IS A p***y, because the woman he'd always loved threw him away for a muscle-bound psycho.

"You have to, Jay. Even if it breaks your heart to do it, she wants you there. What will the reporters say if you don't show up?"

"There won't be any. She doesn't give interviews and doesn't let any of them into her life." Jason tried to make it sound certain, but he wasn't. People took photos at weddings and all it took was one leaked to the press. Weddings were easy to crash – he'd even done it once or twice.

"You know there will be. A Chaya wedding means all of us. Grow a pair, put on a tie, and be there to support her. God knows how much she's done for you over the years."

Jason tried not to think about it. Every mess he'd gotten into, she'd seen it. Or most of them, at least. Those accusing eyes as she shook her head, disappointed again. Every time he got drunk, or the rare occasions he'd tried something stronger – f**k, trust a med student to know exactly what every illegal d**g did to his body, plus describe what happened when people overdosed. She'd treated enough cases when she did her emergency department rotations. She had a rock god terrified to take drugs because nothing ruined his high like a fear of certain death. And the loss of his recording contract – she'd threatened that, too, if he couldn't pass a d**g test.

"I'm busy. I can't go because I already have plans."

Jo snorted. "Bullshit. You don't have any plans for the rest of this week, let alone the rest of the year. You'll have to find a better excuse than that."

He stared at the invitation. The wedding was a whole year away at some beach resort in the south west. Wasn't that where her body had been dumped? When she'd been kidnapped and nearly died. No wonder the invitation resembled a funeral notice. Dark like her stage name: Angel Black.

Another name caught his eye. Well, not really a name. It was the absence of a name beside his.

She requested the company of Jason Felix and partner. Now that was a low blow, when she knew damn well she was the only life partner he'd ever dreamed about. Oh, sure there'd been other girls he'd considered, but only briefly. He shoved Audra out of his mind. Angel. Always, it came back to her.

"So I'll tell her you'll be there?" Jo ventured. "C'mon, Jason. It's time to grow up and face facts. She's just not that into you. You'd both be better off with other people."

No. Not before hell froze over and pigs flew and he put a g*n to his head. Except he didn't want to die. Maybe she did. Maybe she'd taken the whole gothic costume to heart and now she wanted to die young. The ultimate tragedy.

Maybe it was time to face facts. If she married that psycho, he'd kill her for sure. But Jason didn't intend to settle for sloppy seconds if she survived. No, that ship had sailed. If Angel wanted to make her own bad decision, f**k her. Or not. He could get any girl he wanted and he'd prove it, too. By the time he turned up at her wedding, he'd be deliriously happy with his own partner, who he'd introduce to the ball-breaking bride on her wedding day.

"Sure. I'll be there. With a partner, too."

Silence. Jo sucked in a breath. "Jason, if you bring some fangirl to the wedding who blows you under the table, like you did at Sheila's wedding, she won't laugh it off. She's got family coming over from the Middle East for the wedding. If you embarrass her like that...shit, Jason, you're asking to get killed."

No, he didn't want some fangirl this time. She'd see through that as the passing fancy it was. "Don't be stupid. If she wants me at her wedding with my partner, then that's what she'll get. Not some fangirl. I'll be bringing my wife."

"Jason, tell me you haven't done anything stupid."

He grinned. "Stupid is for rock stars. I'm a hotel manager now, or something like that. All respectable and s**t. I should cut my hair and wear a shirt, maybe. But the hotel maids like it when I don't, so only occasionally."

"Oh, Jason, you didn't marry one of the hotel staff. Not that poor hotel maid. Please – "

The mention of Audra twisted the knife in his heart even deeper. f**k her. f**k them all. "Not a maid. No f*****g way. I'm going to find a girl, make her madly in love with me, and we'll get married. All happily ever after and s**t. Like a movie. Or the book I was reading last night."

"What book?"

A romance book Jason didn't feel like discussing with anyone right now. She'd say he was stupid. He pressed his lips together.

"Jason, no one marries a stranger and expects to be happy. That sort of thing only happens in fairy tales and romance novels. Not to real people. No one believes in happy endings any more."

"You'll see. My wife and me, we'll be so f*****g happy, we'll stick the wedding couple in the shade. Tell her that, Jo." He ended the call and let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.

A wife. One who wasn't a fangirl. He'd need a foreigner who had no idea who he was. One who didn't know his name, but who believed in fairy tales. Where the f**k was he going to find one of those?