The voices suddenly went silent. He opened the door a crack. "Can it wait?"

"Not really." The sooner the expenses were cut in the budget, the sooner I could notify venues and change vendor requests. "I wanted to get these expenses trimmed before we got into Denver. Want to go downstairs?"

He opened the door wider, and I saw a TV inside the room, paused on a frame from a black-and-white movie. "I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you come in here?"

"I’m . . . not sure that’s a good idea at all."

"Then we can talk some other time. How does next week work for you?" he said, starting to shut the door again.

Oh no you don’t. I wedged my arm into the door frame. "No, Jax. This has to happen today. It can’t wait."

He sniffed at the air. "Then come in, but close the door. Everything smells like skunk out there."

I noticed the white clouds of pot smoke drifting into his room. Was he trying to get me to play another game? I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to piss him off by making his room stink. I scooted into the small space, shutting and latching the door behind me.

"So this is the famous Fortress of Solitude," I said, taking a look around. The room was barely wide enough to fit Jax’s king-sized bed. I had no idea how they’d gotten the mattress in, but it hugged snugly against two walls. Thick fabric swaths hung from the ceiling, in dark, subdued hues.

An assortment of pillows in dark brown, deep purple, and navy blue covered a bed layered thick with dark comforters. A guitar hung next to the wall-mounted flat-screen. The effect was somewhere between gypsy caravan and blanket fort.

He sat on the bed in a gray v-neck, a different shirt than he’d been wearing before, probably because I splashed water on the last one. Jax looked like a Mongol khan in his tent, his golden skin a glistening highlight against the dark fabrics. The room smelled of him—a rich, earthy scent I couldn’t get enough of.

Control yourself, I thought, tempted to slap myself again. Just finish the expense talk, say goodbye, and get out.

"Since you’re already here," Jax’s voice broke through my daydreaming and jolted me back to reality, "Want to stay for the movie?" His eyes were glued to the screen.

A couple of hours of being next to him in a room with a locked door? That couldn’t possibly be a good idea. "Maybe some other time," I responded nicely. "Right now, we’ve got more important things to do."

"More important than the greatest film of all time?"

I broke away from my paperwork and looked closely at the screen, but all I saw was two men on a train car. I shrugged. "I don’t think I’ve ever seen it."

"I’ll give you a hint. It’s from the director so great I named the band after him."

Ah, right, The Hitchcocks. "And here I thought the band name was just an excuse for innuendo," I said remembering how I’d first mistaken the band’s shorthand for its real name.

His eyebrow scar moved almost imperceptibly upward, and the corners of his mouth turned up. "You should know by now," he said, each syllable making my heart beat faster, "that I don’t need an excuse for innuendo."

I had to steer the conversation back to safety. "You know, I’ve never seen one. A Hitchcock movie, I mean."

"Not even Psycho? The Birds?"

"Nope," I said grinning. "Guess our tastes are incompatible. Ready to talk business now?"

"Exactly the opposite. I’m ready for you to watch," he said, but he wasn’t smiling back. "You need to know what you’re missing." I tried to interrupt, but he continued, "If you don’t watch Strangers on a Train, I won’t talk expenses with you and that’s final."

I felt myself bristling. "Hey! You promised in the hot tub you’d make the expense cuts."

"That’s true. But I didn’t promise I’d make them in the middle of my favorite movie. Now, are you staying or going?"

"Just so we’re clear, if I stay for the movie, we can talk expenses right now. No bullshit, no tricks."

He nodded once. "No bullshit. No tricks."

I sighed. It didn’t seem likely, but it would be far easier to talk to him now and watch the movie than to try to catch him later when he could come up with some other excuse to be "unavailable." I also kind of found myself almost looking forward to a break from work. "Oh, what the hell," I said.

As soon as I plopped onto the bed with my laptop, my eyes went wide. The mattress was the exact kind I liked best—supportive, but with enough pillowy softness at the very top to keep it from feeling like a board. Given what I slept on last night, I couldn’t help letting out a soft, comfortable sigh.

Jax’s dark eyes twinkled. "I knew I was good, but I didn’t know I was that good."

"Get over yourself." I shot him a wry smile. "It’s this bed."

"Strange," he said, scratching his chin in mock mystification. "It’s never had that effect on me."

"It’s definitely the bed, and not you," I reiterated, not wanting to feed his ego. "At least it doesn't plant fake female fans in the audience to come on cue."

"There aren't any planted fans," he said with amusement. "It's real."

"Really?" I rolled my eyes. "Let me guess, the Jax Effect at work."

He rubbed his thumb against his chin, smirking. "The Jax Effect." He laughed, sending a tingle of warmth suffusing through me. It was the first time I’d heard him laugh. It displayed a warm, human side of him I hadn’t seen before in our interactions. "I like it. Sounds like an album title."

I started laughing. "Maybe we’d better talk about those budget cuts," I said. Even though Jax was playing nice for now, I couldn't let this conversation get too far off track.

A dark cloud passed over his face and just like that his voice became cold and pure business. "What’s my easiest route to keeping the label off my back about money?"

I knew that I’d messed up. The brief glimpse of the warmer side of Jax had disappeared so quickly that I wasn't even sure if it was real. But then again, talking business was exactly what I wanted to do. If he wanted to keep things professional, that suited me just fine. "I’ve noticed one of the most expensive discretionary spending items you have is pyrotechnics. It’s literally burning up your money."

He looked skeptical. "Pyro’s an important part of a good rock show. It’s something that separates us from bands that aren’t doing as well, and bands that aren’t willing to go the extra mile."

"I’m not talking about getting rid of all of the pyrotechnics," I said hastily. "But I don’t think you understand the kind of financial trouble you could be in."

"Explain it to me then." His response seemed like he was genuinely interested.

Does he really not know? I’d heard band members were often kept in the dark about finances, but I’d never seen it in person. "So, to start with, your spending money isn’t really yours," I told him. "It comes from the label, and it’s an advance on your future album sales."