Redeeming You

  Redeeming You

  by

  Lisa Cardiff

  Redeeming You

  Copyright © 2014 by Lisa Cardiff. All rights reserved.

  First Print Edition: June 2014

  Limitless Publishing, LLC

  Kailua, HI 96734

  www.limitlesspublishing.com

  Formatting: Limitless Publishing

  ISBN-13: 978-1499333862

  ISBN-10: 1499333862

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To my husband and everyone else who lets me babble about book nonsense.

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Groaning, Cam pulled his fingers away from his face and looked up at Alec. “Why are you still here? I thought you and Marcus had plans? Some bar or something.” He’d just watched the love of his life close the door on him and their past forever. He didn’t feel like being social.

  “Marcus found something better to do.” Alec sat down on the black plastic chair next to him and handed him a beer.

  “Let me guess …” Cam opened the beer and took a sip. “The blonde with the red dress.”

  “You might be right.” Alec drummed his fingers on his thigh. His hands were always moving as if he needed the constant motion. “You want to get out of here? There’s a party if you’re interested.”

  “You go ahead. I’m not in the mood.”

  Alec stood up and put his hand on his hips. Cam could tell he had something to say, but he really wasn’t in the mood to talk, not tonight.

  “You need to let Bre go.”

  Un-fuckin’-believable, could this day get any worse? Cam drained the rest of his beer and tossed the bottle in the trash. “I’m pretty sure I did that a year ago,” Cam responded humorlessly.

  “Sure, you blessed their relationship or whatever, but you never gave up hope that you two would end up together.”

  “Doesn’t matter. She’s marrying Jax. She loves him.” Saying those words out loud literally made his chest ache. He’d known that she hadn’t been his for over a year, but time hadn’t diminished his pain. Would there ever be a day when he didn’t regret the way he treated her, when he didn’t want her back?

  “You’re right, she does and Jax loves her.” Alec rocked back on his heels. “More than you ever did.”

  “You don’t know shit,” Cam said, his hands balling into fists. He’d loved Bre since the day she moved in next door. He’d loved her for fourteen fucking years and even now, when she’d agreed to marry one of his best friends, he still couldn’t stop loving her. Like a good friend, he smiled and wished her all of the happiness in the world. He was pathetic.

  “If you really loved her, you would have never touched another woman, not once. You only love the idea of her.”

  Cam looked away unable to hold Alec’s dark stare. Alec didn’t need to tell him he was asshole. He already told himself that every day. “I always loved her. I just never deserved her.”

  Without saying another word, he walked away. He had to get Bre out of his mind, out of his heart before he went insane. He just didn’t know how to do it. He’d tried other women, alcohol and a few other things he was ashamed to admit, but her amber eyes still haunted his thoughts. He needed to get his shit together.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Six months later…

  What the fuck was that noise? Cam rolled to his side, and he fell off the bed. Opening his eyes, he groaned at the light streaming through the windows of his hotel room. His entire body hurt. His mouth felt dry and tasted like an ashtray. Why did he start smoking? That’s right: because his life fucking sucked.

  Chasing Ruin exploded on the music scene as the next big thing, and his personal life simultaneously spiraled into a pile of shit faster than he thought possible. He looked around the room trying to remember what city he was in today. Unfortunately, nothing looked familiar and he didn’t remember a single thing about the previous night.

  “Cam! What the fuck? Open the door.”

  Cam covered his face with his hands intending to ignore Jax’s constant pounding and yelling outside his door. He’d been riding his ass for the last month and he didn’t want to hear his lectures anymore. He had Bre. Wasn’t that enough?

  Cam’s hands patted the floor looking for something to cover his ears and his hand landed on a used condom. Even when he was fucked out of his mind, he never forgot to use one. Visions of bleach blonde hair with dark roots tickled the back of his mind, but no other reminders of the not so lucky woman from last night were visible. He must have kicked her out before he fell asleep. At least he had enough sense in his drunken state to be firm about not letting a woman sleep in his bed. Waking up next to strangers magnified his hangover and his feeling of worthlessness tenfold and he didn’t need any help in that department. If they were gone when he woke up, he could almost pretend it didn’t happen instead of adding it to his growing list of mistakes.

  “Open the fucking door! Now!” Jax yelled.

  Cam stood up, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror near the bed as he walked to the door. He looked like hell. His eyes were bloodshot. Dark circles etched the skin under his eyes from a combination of lack of sleep and overindulgence in…everything. To top it off, he had faint scratches on his chest courtesy of one of the groupies he indulged in last night. He needed to make that another one of his rules: No marking his skin. He didn’t want to remember them after they walked out his door.

  “I’m putting on some clothes. Stop pounding on the door,” Cam yelled as he pulled a pair of black, tighter than sin jeans on his legs. Why the hell did he think it was a good idea to wear them again?

  He threw the door open. “Somebody better be dead because there’s no other acceptable reason to be banging on my door at the crack of dawn.”

  Jax glared at him and for a minute Cam thought he was going to be on the receiving end of Jax’s fist. Regrettably, he’d been in that position too many times lately.

  Jax shoved him aside as he walked into the room. “Dawn,” Jax scoffed shaking his head. “It’s after lunchtime.”

  Cam slammed the door. For the last month, Jax felt more like his jailer than his friend. “Whatever. Don’t be a fucking asshole. As far as I recall, we don’t have a show tonight. I can sleep all day. It’s really none of your business.”

  “Have you looked at the internet today?” Jax leaned against the dresser.

  “I just woke up. I haven’t done anything yet,” Cam said folding his arms across his chest.

  Jax
pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to Cam. “You’re in for a rude awakening. Take a look.”

  After studying Jax’s face for a few prolonged seconds, Cam snatched the phone out of his hand. He’d done so many fucked up things over the past few months he had no clue what he’d see on that screen, but from the anger on Jax’s face, he could tell it was bad. His finger paused over the play button of the YouTube video.

  “Go ahead,” Jax prompted. “Tell me what you think.”

  What the hell. He might as well get on with it. Jax wouldn’t leave until he made his point and he needed to take a shower to get rid of the alcohol and sickly sweet perfume coating his skin. It was making him nauseous. Cam exhaled loudly and tapped the screen. “Fine.”

  After a few seconds, Cam saw a grainy image of himself naked sitting on the bed with a girl between his knees, her head bobbing up and down while he kissed another girl who ran her hands up and down his chest. Sickened, he tossed the phone back to Jax. “So what,” he said shrugging. “I’m not the first person to have a sex tape blasted across the internet. It’s not even newsworthy.”

  “Maybe not, but the drugs littering the nightstand are newsworthy, or at least according to our label.”

  “I didn’t see any drugs,” Cam said throwing open his suitcase to dig out a clean shirt. He didn’t think Jax planned to leave any time soon.

  “You want to take another look?”

  “Not really. If you say they’re there, then you’re probably right. What’s the big deal?” Cam rolled his eyes and shook his head, which was not a good move when it was throbbing against his skull. “Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. I’m living the dream.”

  The words came out flat and jaded because his life has been far from a dream since Bre left him. She’d left a big hole in his heart that he still couldn’t figure out how to fill. A quagmire: that’s how he describe his life.

  “You’re self-destructing and you don’t even care. That’s the fucking problem.” Exasperated, Jax dragged a hand through his hair. “You don’t care about yourself and apparently, you don’t give a shit about the band. Did you even notice you were being taped?”

  Barely, but he wouldn’t tell Jax that. “Maybe.” Cam smirked. “But I was kind of preoccupied at the moment if you didn’t notice.” He shouldn’t have said it. He should apologize and promise to behave, but he didn’t have the willpower to change his life, so why bother lying?

  Jax paced back and forth. “The label is livid. The sex tape is one thing, but the drugs in the background are a game changer.” Jax stopped pacing, and faced Cam, his face angry and concerned at the same time. “Do you have a problem? Do you need help, because if that’s the case—”

  “No,” Cam said interrupting him, because he didn’t have a problem. He dabbled when he partied, but he didn’t love it. It made him feel like shit and it was hard to perform the next day unless he took more and as stupid as he’d been the last six months, he knew a vicious cycle when he saw one. Besides, he wouldn’t do that to his parents. His mom would die a thousand deaths if he overdosed.

  “The girls on the video said it was all your shit.”

  It wasn’t, but he didn’t need to explain it to Jax. “So what if it was?” Cam said pulling his shirt over his head. “Do you want to search my room?” Cam waved his hand in front of his body. “Be my guest.”

  Jax’s eyes narrowed. “Do you even remember the night?”

  “A little.”

  “Did it happen last month, last night or six months ago?”

  Cam looked up at the ceiling contemplating the question. “I saw my new tattoo, you know the one going up the inside of my arm, so must have it happened within the last two weeks.”

  Jax didn’t say anything.

  “Are we done?” Cam asked. He was done with this conversation.

  “Unfortunately, we’re not.” Jax handed Cam a letter.

  “What’s this?” Cam unfolded the letter.

  “Read it.”

  Cam flipped through the pages. It was a three-page letter from the label. He couldn’t read this right now, not with his head pounding and his eyes burning from a lack of sleep. “You’ve already read it. Why don’t you summarize it for me?”

  Jax ripped the pages from his hands. “The label wants you to submit to regular drug testing or we have to hire a chaperone to follow you around.”

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Cam yelled rubbing his eyes. Sure, he hadn’t been an angel for the past six months, not even close, but submitting to drug testing or a hiring a nanny seemed a little extreme.

  “At least you have a choice.” Jax shrugged. “It’s not that big of a deal and it’s only until the end of the tour. Thirty more days.”

  Cam released a bitter laugh. “Right…pee in a cup or hire a nanny.” Cam shook his head. “As fun as that sounds, I’m not doing either, so you can tell the label to go fuck themselves. I can take care of myself.”

  “The label threatened to exercise the morals clause in the contract and cancel the tour.”

  Cam picked up a pack of cigarettes off the nightstand and shook the package. Empty, just like his life. He rubbed the back of his neck with one of his hands. He only smoked when he drank and he didn’t like it much. It made him feel sick the next day.

  “Then, they’d have to exercise the morals clause with most of their bands because I didn’t do anything that out of the ordinary.”

  “Maybe not, but the difference is that you were dumb enough to let someone tape you doing it and this wasn’t the first time.”

  Cam flinched at the tone of Jax’s voice. He couldn’t deal with this right now. His mouth felt as dry as the Sahara and all he wanted to do was shower and sleep for another ten hours or so.

  “Nobody will care in a week. It’ll blow over.”

  “We have to give them an answer by the end of the day, or this tour is over,” Jax said sounding tired and resigned.

  “Their loss.”

  Jax rubbed his temples. “Don’t be a selfish bastard. This affects all of us. Get your head out of your ass.”

  “Why aren’t you on my side?” Cam asked. “Why won’t the band fight for me?”

  Jax tossed Cam’s dirty clothes from the chair in the corner, then sat down. “Bre’s worried about you,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.

  And just like that, Cam felt like a complete loser. “Did she see the video?” He didn’t want her to see what he’d become. Even though she wasn’t his and would never be his again, he didn’t like the idea of her witnessing him behaving like a depraved loser.

  “Not really. She knows about it, but she wasn’t interested in watching.”

  Cam nodded as he sat on the edge of the bed facing Jax. “Is she mad?”

  Jax cocked his head to the side. “She’s worried. Your parents are worried. The guys are worried.” He tapped his fingers on his legs. “I need you to get your shit together. You haven’t been yourself for a long time.”

  Yeah, since Bre left. He knew exactly what Jax was trying to communicate without having to say the words. “What do the guys want me to do?”

  “We want you to agree to the chaperone for the remainder of the tour. Unlike the label, we don’t think drugs are an issue—not yet, anyway.”

  Cam looked to the side, contemplating his options. None of them was ideal. He’d rather pee in a cup every day, but Jax was right. Drugs weren’t the problem. It was the hole burned through his soul from Bre’s absence. He never knew how much he needed her and how much it killed him that he failed her until it was too late. “I’m guessing that you already have someone in mind.”

  “Yeah. Alec’s sister.”

  Cam jumped off the bed. “No.” He ran his hands through his hair repeatedly. He refused to spend the next thirty days shadowed by her. Cold didn’t begin to describe her. Some people found Alec with his black hair, dark blue, almost black eyes and black tribal tattoos cold and hard, but at least he suspected Alec had a heart be
ating in his chest somewhere. Taylor Reed—he wasn’t so sure he could say the same for her.

  “Why not? What’s wrong with Taylor?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with Taylor…other than the fact that she is the most uptight, unapproachable, humorless person I’ve ever met in my life. If you’re forcing me to have a nanny for the next month, at least make it someone with whom conversation is possible.”

  Jax rolled his eyes. “She’s far from uptight. I would describe her as reserved and maybe a little dark, but she’s the best option available. All the guys agree.”

  “Seriously?”

  Jax nodded.

  Cam had only met Taylor a handful of times, but every time he came into contact with her, she looked at him as though he wasn’t fit to lick the gum off the bottom of her shoes. She was a grade A bitch. “Why her?”

  “We can trust her.”

  Cam glared at Jax. “How do you figure? She’s barely human. She’s more like a robot. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile. She gives ice princess a new meaning.”

  “She smiles.” Jax cocked his head to the side. “On occasion,” he added quickly. “She Alec’s sister. Would you expect anything else?” he commented as if that explained everything.

  “And Alec is fine with this?” Cam asked disbelievingly, his eyebrows lifted. He couldn’t count the number of times Alec told the guys his sister was completely off limits, not that he was tempted. He wasn’t into the dark, brooding type even if Taylor did have an exotic sexy thing going for her. She was one of those women who had a mountain of dark emotional baggage just waiting to be unleashed on some unsuspecting guy and he had enough baggage of his own. He didn’t want to deal with anyone else’s.

  “For the most part, but she needs a job and some work experience.”