Trapped by Annie Jocoby Page B

said to the group. “You’re going to be huge.”
    Neil smiled, and looked at me. “Oh, lass, you’re missing out. You could have told all your friends that you had wild monkey sex with me before I became famous. Alas, it’s not to be.”
    I nodded my head, thinking, secretly, that I wasn’t missing out on much. I had the world’s greatest lover, Luke, and that was really all that I was thinking about.
     
    On the way back to Liam’s place, we had a long drive ahead of us, because the restaurant was about forty-five minutes away from Liam’s Surrey home. Liam hummed softly and then said “sorry about all that mess, Dalilah. About Neil, I mean. He was a little blunt. I wasn’t expecting that, to be honest. Of course, then again, drunk people are prone to say what’s on their mind, aren’t they?”
    “You might say that.”
    “Well, you handled yourself really well. Luke would be proud. At any rate, thanks for coming along with me.”
    “I’m not sure what good I did, but you’re welcome.”
    “So,” Liam said. “What can I do to help you out some? I know that there must be something that I can do.”
    “You’re doing a ton just letting us stay with you and allowing us to decompress. I really couldn’t ask for more. But I will tell you that Luke is a musician and a song-writer, although his art takes precedent in his life. Maybe he could play some of his songs for you?”
    “Of course,” he said. “I’ll listen to them. But no promises. If they aren’t any good, then I’m not going to do anything with them. But if they’re good, then I might be able to sell them to some of the groups that are already signed to my label.”
    “That’s all I can ask,” I said.
    We finally pulled into the driveway. The light was on in my room. I was looking forward to just being with Luke, and finally getting a chance to relax just a little bit. Being with the boys that night made me realize how much I craved being with Luke. There wasn’t any way that I would jeopardize what I had with him, which was the main reason why what Neil was proposing was way off-limits. I would have left Liam’s house if he tried to push the issue with me.
    Of that, I was sure.
     

Chapter 8
    Luke
    Dalilah had just left to be with Liam and meet the band out at a fancy restaurant, and I was feeling out of sorts about it. I trusted her not to hurt me again, although I wasn’t entirely sure why I trusted her. After all, she did all these things behind my back with Nottingham. Who was to say that she was really above doing something just as devious, if it meant making Liam happy?
    Then I realized that, with my thinking along those lines, I needed some kind of way to come to terms with all that had happened. I was surprised that I was feeling this way –having a nagging feeling that Dalilah wasn’t to be trusted. She would be more than upset if she ever was clued in to how I was feeling, though, so I didn’t bring it up to her.
    I also realized that I might have been feeling that Dalilah was up to no good because of all the devious things that she had done. Things that I didn’t even know about until well after the fact. I had no clue that she and Nottingham had a relationship, at all, until all the shit had hit the fan. Then, come to find out that Dalilah was playing Nottingham behind my back all along. That rankled, even though she did it for me. But it did seem that she was just a bit too much of a mercenary for me. It upset me that she apparently wasn’t above playing people to get what she wanted.
    Would she play me as well? Or, perhaps worse, would she play somebody else if it meant that the ends of doing so would be favorable to her or me? It seemed that Dalilah did truly love me, and I knew that I truly loved her. But, with a woman who had no compunction in manipulating others for her own gain, was it only a matter of time until I became a casualty of her games?
    Then again, was I any better? Marcella had made it clear that