Losing Us Read online

  Out of Line Series

  Out of Line

  Out of Time

  Out of Mind

  Out of Line Box Set (Out of Line #1-3)

  Fractured Lines

  Blurred Lines

  Sex on the Beach Series

  Between Us

  Losing Us

  Chasing Me (Coming Soon)

  Finding You (Coming Soon)

  Written as Diane Alberts:

  Take a Chance Series

  Try Me (Take a Chance #1)

  Love Me (Take a Chance #2)

  Play Me (Take a Chance #3)

  Take Me (Take a Chance #4)

  Seducing the Princess

  Stealing His Heart

  Falling for the Groomsman

  Faking It

  Divinely Ruined

  On One Condition

  Broken

  Kiss Me At Midnight

  Kill Me Tomorrow

  Temporarily Yours

  Reclaimed

  Superstars in Love Series

  Captivated by You

  One Night

  When it all comes crashing down...

  Everything I thought I had with Austin Murphy—safety, stability, the normalcy I crave but my celebrity lifestyle rarely allows—was ripped away in one night. I wanted to surprise him, but the joke was on me. Now I don't know if I ever really knew him at all.

  Someone has to pick up the pieces...

  Mackenzie Forbes was everything I ever wanted and the one person I didn't deserve. When a past mistake costs me the girl I love, I'll do everything I can to get her back. We both have demanding careers and family secrets darkening our pasts, but I need Mackenzie in my future.

  Sometimes everything you have to give just isn't enough...

  To Greg. My love, my heart, my partner. I love you.

  AUSTIN MURPHY had a way of making a song seem more intimate than a night in between the sheets with him. And I’d been between the sheets with him enough times to speak from experience. I stood backstage, hidden behind a speaker since he didn’t know I’d come back to Nashville yet, watching him sing with a racing heart.

  It was the first thing I’d done when I met him, watching him sing, and I still couldn’t stop watching when he performed. When he stepped up on the stage, the whole world stopped and stared. It was if time itself stood still and waited for him to finish. There was something about him, his looks or his voice or his charisma, that demanded as much. And the universe listened.

  During the past few months, his career had really taken off. He’d opened for me over the summer for my world tour, and the buzz had initially been all “Mackenzie Forbes’s bad boy lover tours with America’s Sweetheart” but it had quickly turned into “Austin Murphy, heartbreak extraordinaire, takes America by storm!” instead.

  No one had been happier about that than me.

  After he’d finished his booking with me a little under three months ago, he’d gone back home, so Rachel could to return to school instead of studying remotely, but the buzz hadn’t stopped. While Rachel had been working on advanced geometry and chemistry, Austin had been working his butt off in his studio in Miami. I hadn’t seen him since.

  It had been months.

  The only reason he was doing this show was because he was in Nashville for one last concert with me, for the ending of my tour, but that wasn’t for another two nights. Rachel was with Mrs. Greer, checking out a college, so she was fine back home. Plus, she was seventeen, so she was getting to be more independent. Austin had found a way to balance family and his dreams, and I couldn’t be happier for him. Really.

  But I missed him so much.

  Our reunion was needed more than ever.

  I was on the last leg of my North American tour, and then he was going to kick off his own in the summer. A whirlwind national tour that spanned all of America in three months, since that’s all he could do because of Rachel’s schooling. I’d be busy in the studio myself, working on my next album, so the chances of seeing him were slim to none. And if that didn’t make matters worse…

  There were rumors. Lots of them.

  I, of course, knew better than to listen to them. But he’d been different lately on the phone. Distant, almost, and I had the sinking suspicion he wasn’t happy. The tabloids were constantly showing off pictures of him with his arms around other women, beaming as if he’d died and gone to heaven down in Miami, surrounded by hordes of women dying to get in bed with him. Logically, I knew they were just the standard pictures you take with fans after a show, but some of them had looked like more.

  And that scared me more than you’d ever know. I took a steady breath, watching as he finished his next-to-last song. Next would be the song he’d written for me. It was his way of saying he loved me, singing my song at the end of every show.

  Smiling, I closed my eyes and waited.

  He cleared his throat, waiting for the screams and the shouted I love you’s to die down. If so, he’d probably be waiting a long time. “Thank you, I love you too.”

  Opening my eyes, I willed him to turn his head and look at me, but he took his Redskins hat off and swiped a forearm across his forehead. I needed to see those bright blue eyes looking at me with love and warmth and—

  “I normally close with the song I wrote for Mackenzie Forbes, as you all know, but tonight, I’m feeling a different song. One that’ll be on my next album.” He paused, letting the crowd go crazy. “You want to hear it early, before anyone else?”

  They went wild, shouting and crying and screaming. The majority of the crowd was, of course, women. His lifestyle was so similar to mine, and yet so different at the same time. The majority of my fans were girls who wanted to be me, and the majority of his fans were also girls who wanted to be me—except it was because they wanted to screw him. I was simply the one who got to do so.

  He strummed the guitar and stepped up to the mic, closing his eyes. I leaned in, breath held, needing to hear the song he’d replaced mine with.

  You walked into the room,

  All roses and sunshine.

  I didn’t know then, what I know now…

  Thought you would never be mine.

  But you are…

  Oh, you are.

  As he sang, tears filled my eyes but didn’t spill out. He’d written me another song, and it was as beautiful as the last. At least, I assumed it was about me. If he was singing about another girl being his, well, then we had more problems than I’d thought.

  Barely moving, I listened until he played the last chord, letting it drag out long and clear, then backed away from the speaker. I’d go wait for him in his dressing room and surprise him there with a kiss and maybe a few well-placed caresses. And then once we got home…

  He would be all mine.

  Any doubt I might have had about him, about us, faded away. I’d been a fool to doubt our love, and an even bigger fool to fall for the oldest trick in the book—the paparazzi’s lies. Austin wouldn’t cheat on me. He loved me, and I loved him. And that was the truth. In a week, we’d hit our one-year anniversary, which was why I was here early. It was time to reconnect and remember who we really were. Not the Austin Murphy and Mackenzie Forbes the world saw, but the real us.

  It had been too long since we’d been just two people in love.

  I’d blown off a few days in the studio, but I didn’t care. I’d finished all my finals, I’d finished recording two songs, and now it was time for me to actually live. With him. After the show, we’d fly back to Florida. I was spending all of spring break there, because my best friends Quinn and Cassie were coming down too. We were having a reunion, of sorts. Cassie had to go down for a trial, and I lived there now—when I wasn’t busy touring or recording songs—and Quinn had joined in, so we could all
have our annual spring break trip. It had been too long since I’d seen them, and I couldn’t wait.

  Almost as much as I couldn’t wait to surprise Austin in his dressing room.

  I slipped inside the doorway and closed it, leaving the lights off. Once he came in and settled down, I’d slide up behind him, close my hands over his eyes, and whisper, “Guess who?” all seductively in his ear.

  It was our little game we always did when we snuck up on one another. And he’d pull me onto his lap, our lips would meet, and everything would be okay. Better than okay, because we’d be together again. That’s all we needed.

  Lightning flashed outside his window, and I jumped. A big storm was coming, and I wanted nothing more than to get out of here before it hit, get tucked in under the blankets together, and wait it out the best way possible—naked, in each other’s arms.

  That’s also all we needed.

  The door opened, and the light flicked on. I hid behind the changing screen in the corner, a ridiculously big smile on my lips, and peeked around the corner. The smile quickly slid off my face, though, because it wasn’t Austin…

  It was some blonde chick I’d never seen.

  She ripped off her shirt, and since she didn’t have a bra on, it didn’t leave much to the imagination. At all. And, damn, but the girl had big boobs with silver barbells through the nipples. She looked as if she had no doubt of her welcome in Austin’s room. I had to wonder if she had reason to feel that way.

  Just as I was about to step out and tell her to get the hell out of my boyfriend’s room, the door opened and Austin strode in, whistling through his teeth. His dark ink swirled down his arms, as hot as the day I’d first met him, and his dark brown hair was barely visible under his hat. He wore a dark gray T-shirt with a dragon on it, tight black jeans, and a cocky grin. Underneath that grin was the chin dimple I loved so much, but instead of wanting to kiss it right now…I wanted to punch it. And him.

  And the girl with the pierced boobs.

  He closed the door behind him and stopped, his eyes on the blonde in his chair. Collapsing against the door, he locked it. Actually locked it, instead of turning around to leave. “You can’t just…come in here like this, Diane. Put your shirt back on before someone comes in and sees you. Quickly.”

  “Why not?” The blonde pouted and stood up, sashaying over to Austin. When she reached him, she trailed her finger down his chest and over his abs, pausing above his waistband. Austin’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t move away. “You said it yourself the other night. You’re lonely and confused and want more out of life than what you’re getting with that sweet, wholesome country girl. I can give it to you, just like I said the other night. You didn’t object then.”

  Austin caught her hand. “I was drunk that night, and I didn’t mean any of the things I said, or might have done. None of that should’ve happened. We need to both pretend it didn’t, and forget it all.”

  “I’ll never forget any of it.” She laughed. “Not in a million years. You wrote that new song for me, didn’t you? Admit it.”

  He tugged on his hat. His nervous tic. “Look, I don’t know—”

  The girl didn’t give him a chance to finish that sentence that I so desperately wanted to hear, because she planted those overly painted lips of hers right over my boyfriend’s. He’d said he was lonely and wanted more than I could give him? And then he’d said that she should “pretend it never happened,” and it didn’t take much to figure out what he’d like to pretend hadn’t happened.

  How could he?

  Tears blurred my vision, and I stepped out from behind the screen just in time to see him step back from the hussy who was apparently more his style than me.

  He held her hands in both of his wrists. “Diane.”

  “You want more than I can give you?” I asked at the same time, my voice low and steady, despite the way my heart had shattered the second that woman had walked into the room, and he hadn’t sent her away. “That’s what you want?”

  “Shit,” Diane said, her brown eyes wide.

  Austin froze, his face pale as a ghost, his hands still on her wrists. “Mac. No. This isn’t what it looks like.”

  He knew this girl, and he’d told her he didn’t want to be with me anymore. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Any of it. “Don’t. Don’t even waste your time trying to…to…make this okay. I heard, and saw, everything.”

  He dropped the blonde’s wrists and stepped closer to me, hands outstretched. “Mac, no! You have to let me explain.”

  I stumbled back, tears running down my face. “Actually, I don’t. I think I heard enough, thank you very much. I came here early to surprise you…” I shook my head and bit my lower lip, my hand closing on the knob and turning it. “But instead I’m the one who got the surprise. If you weren’t happy, you could have just told me. You didn’t have to…to…” I gestured to the blonde, who watched us with wide eyes—topped with artificial lashes. Bad ones, at that. “Cheat on me.”

  He hurried toward me, tripping over Diane’s shirt, and almost fell flat on his face. “You have to believe me. I never—”

  Unable to listen to another word, I shook my head and ran out into the cool Nashville evening air. I made it outside in record time, and for the first time, I thanked my personal trainer for being such a hard-ass when it came to my daily workouts. Because I needed to get away from the man I loved before he broke me even more than he already had. He’d done the one thing he’d sworn to me he’d never do.

  He’d broken my heart.

  “PUT YOUR damn shirt on, and if you ever come near me again, I’ll place a restraining order against you. We aren’t, and never will be, together.” I locked eyes on Diane, the woman who had started out as a friend and turned into a crazy stalker woman after the other night, and then apparently followed me to Nashville, of all fucking places. “Understood?”

  Diane swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes.”

  Not wasting another second on her, I took off down the hallway of the backstage area. My heart pounding in my chest, I tore after Mac at full speed. I knew what she’d heard, and what she’d thought was happening, and I didn’t blame her for thinking it. I mean, a woman had stripped down in my room and then spoken to me with familiarity—which was on me—and then kissed me as if she had a right to do so.

  If the roles had been reversed, I’d have been pissed as hell too.

  But, damn it, she had to give me a fucking chance to explain. Yes, I’d had a bad night where I’d had too much to drink and felt alone in the world—because I’d missed her. That was why I’d gotten drunk and opened my idiot mouth. But I loved her more than life itself, and I’d never, ever cheat on her.

  When Diane had kissed me, I’d frozen, yes, but out of shock, not desire. Why would I ever want anyone else when I had Mac? I didn’t. Couldn’t.

  Pushing through the doors, I sucked in a big breath, my head swimming because I was out of breath. Sprinting after your girl after doing a full show was not the best of ideas on a good day, but this obviously wasn’t a good fucking day. Why, of all the days she could have come, did Mac pick the day that a chick decided to go all crazy on me and strip in my room? It’s not like that was an everyday occurrence or anything.

  Though I was starting to worry it might become one. It might be time to get security, like Mac had. Women could be crazy, man, when it came to singers.

  I was learning this the hard way.

  Bursting through the doors, I skidded onto the sidewalk. I saw her instantly. She waved to her driver frantically from the curb, motioning the black town car to come over to her. The man obeyed and pulled out into traffic, seconds away from reaching Mac’s side and taking her away from me. I knew I had one chance to make her believe me. To show her I wanted her and only her…

  And then she’d be gone for good.

  I walked up behind her, taking a calming breath. I couldn’t panic and act like a fool. “Mac, please. Let me explain.”

  She stiff
ened in front of me, her hands lifting and swiping at her cheeks. Knowing I’d done this to her, made her cry, sent a fist of pain punching through my chest. I wasn’t supposed to make her cry—I was supposed to make her smile, damn it. I’d fucked up, and I’d fucked up big time. And now I had to make it right.

  Somehow or another, I had to fix this.

  Lightning flashed above us, followed by a loud boom of thunder. A storm was coming, and it was about to hit. We had to go to shelter before it did.

  Together.

  Turning slowly, she faced me. The pain in those bright green eyes echoed my own, and I stepped closer. She held a hand out. “Don’t. Don’t come any closer to me. Not one step. We’ll do our show on Saturday, but…it’s over. We’re over. I can’t believe you did this to us.”

  I froze and held my hands up. “I know this looks bad, but I didn’t know she’d be there tonight, and I didn’t know you’d be there.”

  She laughed. “Clearly.”

  Ignoring her sarcasm, I continued, “I was just about to go back to my room and text you to tell you I couldn’t wait till you came to Nashville on Saturday. I wasn’t going to bring her back with me, or anyone else, either. I want you. Just you. I didn’t sleep with her.”

  She forced a laugh. It sounded as if it hurt to let out. “Now you say that? It’s a little late for denial, Austin.”

  “It’s true!” I grabbed her shoulders. “I didn’t do it, Mac.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she cried, covering her ears.

  “You have to. You have to believe me. You know me.” I pulled her hands off her ears. “You know I wouldn’t do that to you, don’t you?”

  She jerked free, stumbling backward. I almost helped steady her, but she shot me a dirty look. I held my hands up in the air to show her I wouldn’t touch her. “Oh, of course. It’s all a big lie, conjured by the media, even though I saw you kissing her and heard you asking her to forget anything ever happened between the two of you? To pretend it never happened? But, hey, I’m just supposed to believe you?”