It Must Be Your Love (The Sullivans #11)(47)

Her fingers were barely wrapped around the door handle again when he said, “There’s one other thing I should probably mention.”

Of course there was, she thought as she looked back over her shoulder at him. “What now?”

“Natasha already knows who you are.” Before she could ask how, he explained, “While she was going through old clips, she found a couple of us from the night we met. I hadn’t told her about you, hadn’t told her anything at all about my personal life. But she saw you and she knew.” The cab driver was clearly riveted by their conversation, but neither Mia nor Ford gave a damn right then. “She confronted me about how I could possibly have been stupid enough to let you go when you obviously meant everything to me.”

Mia’s head was spinning. “That’s why you came back.” Her words were barely above a whisper.

“She helped give me the final push, but I was the one who finally owned up to the fact that I’d wanted to come back every day for five years. I’m sorry it took me that long to let my pride go. More sorry than you’ll ever know.” He scowled. “Pride could have ruined everything if I’d let it.”

He was right about pride, about the way it could ruin lives. And she knew she needed to do some heavy thinking about her own pride where Ford was concerned. Because while it was one thing to be careful about not making the same mistake a second time, it was another entirely to be stubborn simply for the sake of winning. Especially if “winning” meant not being with him.

Unfortunately, by then the cab driver was starting to look really closely at Ford, and the last thing she wanted was her very personal conversation with one of the world’s biggest rock stars to end up on TMZ tonight. It would be too easy for the driver to grab his cell phone and record the rest of their conversation. Thinking back, she was pretty sure they hadn’t said each other’s names or what either of them did for a living. At this point, it would be pure speculation on the driver’s part that he’d had a rock star in the back of his car.

Nodding in the driver’s direction, she said, “Thanks for the ride.” Turning back to Ford, she said, “Let’s go, Jeffrey. We’re late for that documentary they’re filming about your secret acne problem.”

Ford was laughing as he slammed the door shut behind them. “Jeffrey? Acne?”

She patted his perfect face. “Don’t worry, you’ll grow out of it one day. If the girls are smart, they’ll wait for you.”

He was still laughing when she went to say hello to the intelligent woman who was standing beside two men with big cameras. “You must be Natasha. I’m Mia. I hear you’re the one who’s responsible for bringing you-know-who back into my life.”

“And?”

Mia looked back at Ford, and as a group of tourists coming out of the EMP Museum recognized him and surrounded him, she said, “The jury’s still out.”

She’d always admired how great he was with his fans, but this time Mia wished he wasn’t quite so friendly as they vied for autographs. Some of the women were standing just a little too close...and when one of them asked him if he would sign her br**sts, Mia’s hands actually fisted at her sides.

So far this week they’d only been together at the tower house, her cousin’s winery in Napa, and her office. How could she have forgotten that women threw themselves at him everywhere he went? Or that groupies would do anything to try to get Ford into bed with them.

She’d never been an insecure woman, but who wouldn’t be threatened by that? No matter how over the past she thought she was.

“I’ve been on the road with Ford for months,” Natasha said, “but do you know one of the first things that really struck me about him?”

Mia could barely drag her narrowed gaze away from the fan who by now was practically topless. “What’s that? How talented he is?”

Natasha shook her head. “That he never once went off with a groupie or brought one onto his bus.”

Now the other woman had her full attention. “Never?”

“Nope. Not even once. When I realized he wasn’t even the slightest bit interested in the girls who threw themselves at him, I knew for sure that he was one of the good ones. And,” Natasha added after a weighted pause, “that was when I also knew that his heart must already belong to someone.”

“You’re not just making this documentary about him because it’s your business, are you?” Mia studied the redhead with new eyes. “You’re his friend, too.”

Natasha nodded. “He’s an easy man to like.”

And to love, Mia found herself thinking before she could stop herself.

Chapter Twenty

Ford was on a total high, the kind that only the stage—and being with Mia—had ever given him before. It had taken only a handful of hours for them to agree that the large warehouse half a block to the west of the EMP building was the best choice for the camp. Ford had asked Mia what a fair price for the building was, and when he promptly asked her to make a verbal offer to the seller, they accepted immediately.

Sure, everything was moving really fast, but it was all great stuff. A fantastic waterfront house in Seattle. The perfect space downtown for a camp for kids who could use music to get out of their shitty lives and into better ones.

And, he thought as he watched Mia going over the huge pile of contracts he’d just signed for the commercial property, the most beautiful woman in the world back in his life.