And Jo was right. If they could get the fans online excited, if they could show how many people were waiting for Midnight Storm to get back out there, then he could almost guarantee his partners at the label would greenlight the tour. Assuming Beckett didn’t reinjure himself, and Jackson kept his head on straight. But the twins were another problem entirely, and not one he could solve by throwing a few thousand dollars at it. Lord knew he’d tried.
“You can take Annie with you anywhere you need to go to get content—as long as the guys keep it clean around her. Hell, she’d love an excuse to spend more time with the band. You’rea great nanny—”
“It’s been twenty-four hours,” she scoffed.
“You’re agreatnanny,” he repeated, wanting to snuff out whatever bullshit thought had her deflecting the compliment the first time, “and you clearly know this social media shit better than the people I’m paying back in New York. You’re good at this, Jo. So, come on. Two birds, one stone, eight grand. What do you say?”
She stepped closer, a slow smile spreading across her lips. That look was dangerous. Despite his better judgement, he fucking loved it.
He dug his hands into his pockets to keep from catching her around the waist and pulling her against him, from dragging his nose along her throat to breathe in her apple rain scent straight from the source.
“You better be careful, daddy fox. You keep solving all my money problems and telling me what a good girl I am, and I might feel the need to thank you.”
His cock kicked behind the placket of his pants, his own voice a rough growl. “I don’t believe I called you a good girl.”
“Not in so many words, but you’re speaking to my praise kink all the same.”
He scraped his hand over his jaw. This woman was trying to kill him in the middle of a crowded fan convention.
“Will you let me thank you?” she murmured as she reached towards him.
When she was millimeters from touching his chest, he caught her wrist. Her skin was so soft beneath his palm. Itmade him want to claim all that softness for himself.
Leaning close, his beard brushing against her ear, he grated out, “The day you thank me, little menace, it’ll be because you believe you’re worthy of the praise, not because I’m paying you.”
Chapter 9
“Do you think we’ll find the ghost tomorrow?”
Jo glanced at the downtrodden little girl at her side, her pink sandals dragging across the waxed parquet floors. She hadn’t anticipated Annie actually wanting to find the infamous ghost of the Hotel Bellwether, but with each allegedly haunted location they’d visited that day—the library, the top floor of the Shelley tower, the poison plant garden near their cottage—Annie had grown increasingly discouraged. There were still a handful more locations on the list Jo had found online—“Ghost sightings at the Hotel Bellwether: A Practical Guide”—but if she was going to run Midnight Storm’s social media account properly, she needed to get some content from the panel they were speaking on that afternoon. The last few spots on their wild ghost chase would have to wait.
“Why do you want to find this ghost so bad?” Jo asked. “Seems to me that if a ghost doesn’t want to be found, we should leave it alone.”
Annie sighed theatrically. “I guess.”
Jo held open the small door at the end of the hall, flashing the badge Derek had pressed into her hand that morning. The security guard posted at the door nodded, his blank expression never wavering and his broad shoulders straining the seams of his suit jacket.
“Have you seen any ghosts, Giddy?” Annie asked the man.
“No ghosts here,” he said, keeping his eyes straight ahead.
“No ghostsanywhere,” Annie wailed.
The security guard dropped his eyes to Annie, frowning, clearly distressed by Annie’s impending meltdown.
“Hey, Giddy,” Jo said, pulling his attention.
His eyes darted to her. “Gideon, ma’am,” he corrected her.
“I heard a rumor that ghosts like to hang out after dark at ice cream shops.”
His brow furrowed in confusion. “Like Sweet Beginnings?”
“Exactly like Sweet Beginnings. You’ve heard that rumor, too, haven’t you?”
Annie spun to face him, wide-eyed and hopeful. “Have you, Giddy?”
He glanced between the two of them before resuming his stoic expression, eyes straight ahead. “I might have heard something like that.”