Broken Resolutions: A Rule Worth Breaking / The Man She Can't Forget / Billionaire Boss, M.D.

He jerked his chin towards Jake as Blue Sky’s enigmatic manager jumped off the stage, his long jeans-clad legs carrying him purposefully towards Caitlin. It didn’t take a genius to deduce that he wasn’t happy. Blast!

Her chilled fingers curled over the car keys in her pocket and held them tight. It wasn’t as if she was late deliberately. She honestly wanted to take this amazing opportunity they were offering her. But right now, judging by the fierce scowl on Jake’s handsome face, it might just be about to be taken away from her.

‘I’m sorry I’m late. I just—’

‘What was the last thing I said to you?’ he barked.

Startled, Caitlin glanced across at Rick. His expression conveyed that he’d witnessed similar scenarios too many times before to be at all perturbed.

‘Don’t be late?’ she ventured, her teeth anxiously clamping down on her lip.

‘And didn’t I also tell you to be here at five-forty-five? It’s now twenty past six. You’re thirty-five minutes late. That’s not acceptable, Miss Ryan. It’s not acceptable at all.’

Jake was shifting restlessly from one black-booted foot to the other, a muscle ominously flinching in the side of his lean, unshaven jaw. Caitlin didn’t dare quip that his watch must be fast, even though it clearly was. The fact that he was unshaven made him look edgy and dangerous—as if anything could happen and probably would.

‘A customer came into the shop just as I was getting ready to leave—’ the words came out in a heated rush as she gripped even more tightly onto her car keys.

‘Couldn’t you have turned whoever it was away and told them to come back tomorrow?’ he snapped.

Affronted, Caitlin widened her eyes.

‘I never turn customers away. People don’t just come into our shop to buy things, Mr Sorenson. Many of them come in for healing of one kind or another. The girl that I saw was distraught. She’d just broken up with her long-term boyfriend and was looking for something that might help ease her distress. I’m not so cold-hearted that I would tell her in her hour of need to come back tomorrow.’

Jake was so taken aback by this answer that the red mist of anger that had threatened when Caitlin had walked in late dissipated like ice beneath the sun. Sucking in his cheeks, he blew out a long, slow breath, shaking his head and taking a moment to compose himself. I must be losing my grip, he thought irritably.

Caitlin proffered a hesitant smile. Jake’s bemused glance collided with hers just as one corner of her pretty mouth nudged a very sexy dimple. Something hitched in his heart…not to mention below his navel.

‘Well, we’ve wasted enough time as it is,’ he growled. ‘Take off your coat and get yourself up on stage. We’ve got a hell of a lot to get through tonight and we may well be here until breakfast—so be warned.’

After making her apologies to the other band members, seeing that Jake’s attention had suddenly been claimed by Rick, Caitlin fell into animated conversation with them about music. Did they write all their own songs? Did they ever do any covers? And, finally, did they have a playlist for tonight’s rehearsals that she could look at?

The young men were only too pleased to answer her questions, interspersing their answers with jokes and anecdotes and generally going out of their way to help put her at ease. Mike Casey, the lead guitarist, with his tousled dark hair and rather serious brown eyes, explained that he added the harmonies to several of the songs and he and Caitlin would need to spend some time together working on them. Then he told her that he and the others had rented a house in the village for the duration of their stay and she’d be more than welcome to come over and work on them there.

‘Caitlin?’

She spun round at the sound of her name, folding her arms across the blue chambray man’s shirt that she’d thrown over the too-revealing red T-shirt she’d been wearing earlier. The long shirt-tails skimmed her bottom in her tight jeans and helped her feel a little less vulnerable than she had done in the shop, when Jake’s toe-curling glance had all but consumed her with its frank and hungry intensity.

She was staring into the same hauntingly blue depths now as he looked up at her from the foot of the stage. Her mouth dried. He handed her a sheet of paper with music and lyrics on. Accepting it without comment, she let her gaze fall eagerly on the title. It was another great rock standard that she knew by heart.

The lyrics were passionate and heart-rending, and she’d sung it with genuine feeling when she’d first learned it because she’d empathised with the sentiment of the song only too well. It was about a girl whose dreams had been cruelly shattered when the man she loved had used her and ill-treated her and had consequently robbed her of every bit of self-confidence she had…

But now… Her glance quickly perused the musical arrangement and her heart skipped a nervous beat, because the time had come for her to really prove to both the band and their enigmatic manager that she could deliver what they hoped she could. It was one thing to conquer her fear of an audition—quite another to front a band for the first time ever and do it well. This was where things started to get serious.

‘You know the tune? We can choose something more contemporary if you prefer?’

Jake’s blue eyes honed in on the roomy chambray shirt Caitlin had donned over the sexy red T-shirt and once again he sensed that she wasn’t at all at ease with her body. Why else had she covered up? And how would she cope when she had to perform on stage in front of a crowd he wondered?Would she be self-conscious then?

She was a naturally beautiful woman, and the sensual aura she exuded when she walked into a room was a killer. It was a given that her looks would be a big asset to the band, and he didn’t want her to try and hide that sensational body behind oversized clothing. Still, there was plenty of time for that particular discussion. Right now Caitlin had to prove to them that she was a worthy replacement for Marcie.

‘The song is fine’ she told him. ‘I know it well.’

‘Good. Take it away, guys.’

As the band started to play the introduction Caitlin listened carefully, curving her hands round the microphone stand in readiness and staring towards the back of the hall rather than at Jake. Her body was tense as a sprinter’s at the start of the most important race of her life, but she didn’t need to glance at the lyrics as she waited for her cue to come in. The words were etched on her soul.

There was no need for her to imagine that she was the woman she was singing about because she was. She’d been used, hurt and scorned by a man she’d once loved and trusted, and the devastating experience had taught her to keep her guard up. Adversity had taught her a huge lesson and, hard as it was, it had helped her to grow stronger.

I’ll put steel round my heart that your poison arrows can’t dent

And I’ll be the phoenix rising that you never saw coming…

Those were the lyrics.

Suddenly her eyes flew open and Caitlin’s glance fell on Jake. He was attired from head to toe in black, and his concentrated expression was utterly serious as he watched her performance. Minutes later, when she came to the end of the song, she was glad, because she desperately needed to suck in a steadying breath. Her heart was thumping hard at the painful memories the words had evoked. Yet, meeting Jake’s gaze once again, she didn’t immediately withdraw when it hit her that he had seriously begun to fascinate her.

It was probably just hormones, she thought irritably. She certainly wasn’t looking to take things further than a working relationship. Apart from it being against the rules, she wasn’t looking for a man. Just like in the song, Caitlin had had the relationship from hell with one particular man and it had nearly destroyed her. She certainly wasn’t going to entertain the idea of being with someone who could twist her insides into knots merely by looking at her.

‘Not bad,’ he said grudgingly.

Her fervent hope had been that she’d done much better than just ‘not bad’, and Caitlin’s heart plummeted. Still, Jake was the boss, and she wasn’t there simply in search of praise. Her ambition was to earn her living as a bona fide singer—never to be dependent on anyone either for love, self-esteem or security.

That was why seeing the ad for the auditions had excited her. It really had seemed like a sign that she should step up to the plate and start to fulfil her destiny. Staying at the shop and ‘playing safe’ just didn’t feel like the right option any more. Her family had moved on and so should she. It wasn’t the possibility of fame that interested her…far from it. Her passion was the music itself—the potential to experience joy in doing what she loved to do and to share it with anyone who cared to listen.

So she would bow to the man’s far greater experience in such matters and give her all to improve. She prayed her efforts would be enough.

‘Wow! Honey, you’ll never be poor with a voice like that,’ Rick told her as he went to stand next to his friend.

The contrast between the two men was striking. Rick’s longish tousled hair was tinted a sun-kissed blond, while Jake’s was a dark chestnut-brown, and their physiques were markedly different too. Jake was broad-shouldered and lean, his body supremely fit and toned, while Rick was shorter and more muscular. But, whatever the contrast in appearance, Caitlin sensed the two men were firm friends. There was a definite camaraderie between them that suggested their association had been born out of knowing each other for a very long time.

‘She was fantastic,’ Rick commented, turning towards Jake. ‘I felt every ounce of emotion she put into the song…she made it her own.’

‘That may be true,’ Jake responded, his cool glance deliberately sliding away from Caitlin’s. ‘But it won’t belong to her until she knows it intimately, inside and out. Let’s do it again, guys. Then you can do some of your own material.’

* * *

It was three hours later when Caitlin was finally able to take a breather. Perched on the edge of the stage, with her long slender legs dangling over the side, she was attempting to eat her portion of the Chinese take-away that Rick had ordered. Her throat ached, her head throbbed and she could have fallen asleep standing up.

The band’s charismatic manager hadn’t let up for one minute in his efforts to get the best out of her vocal performance and she felt as if she’d done twelve rounds with a prize fighter. Whilst she was perfectly aware that singing was a very physical occupation, even if a person was blessed with a good voice, nothing could have prepared Caitlin for the sheer effort that Jake demanded.

During the past three hours she’d survived admonition after admonition to, ‘Try again!’ ‘Put your heart into it, woman!’ ‘Hold back a little on that note…drop down a key…’ ‘Damn it, Caitlin! You’re just not tryinghard enough!’ Now she could barely summon up the energy to eat, despite the fact that the shrimp chop suey and bamboo shoots with Chinese mushrooms looked and smelled delicious.

‘Not hungry?’

Her tired glance fell on Jake’s long jeans-clad legs as he dropped down beside her. Her heart skipped a beat. Lifting her gaze, she looked up into the hauntingly misty depths of his soulful blue eyes. It struck her as unfair that a man should possess such enviably long black lashes, but then she mused that Jake must have been at the head of the line when God was dishing out extraordinary good looks…not to mention sheer animal magnetism.

Caitlin sucked in a less than steady breath when the scent of his cologne forged another assault on her beleaguered senses. In answer to his question, she responded, ‘I thought I was.’ Shrugging, she put her carton of food aside and touched a paper napkin delicately to her lips. ‘I only had a sandwich at lunchtime…it wasn’t very nice either.’

‘You must have known this wasn’t going to be easy. Still sure you want to go through with it?’ Jake challenged. ‘You need more than just talent in this game, Caitlin. You need equal measures of grit and stamina too.’