Devoted

Harper

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HARPER

The morning's events kept running through my mind, each word, each action, each stroke of the pen that I took to sign the contract making sure they embedded themselves deep into every corner of my brain. Did I do the right thing by agreeing to be Brody's fake girlfriend to get his ass out of trouble? Maybe? I don't even know anymore. It was no secret to anyone at the studio that Brody and I were the furthest thing from what you would call friends.

He treated me like I had the plague. If I were to walk by him in the hallway he would make sure that he moved as close as humanly possible to the wall on the opposite side. If I walked into a room that he was in, he would always fix me with that cold stare, his jaw muscles clenching and his nostrils flaring before storming out. Even if he was in the middle of a conversation. Any attempt that I made to hold a conversation with him was always turned down. In fact he treated me as if he didn't even hear me. Like I was some annoying fan that was chasing him around trying to get his attention.

But, the way he looked at me this morning had the butterflies that had been dormant for far too long slowly lifting to life, their wings leaving soft strokes against my skin while they struggled to flutter to life.

Even if it was for a second. He had never looked at me like that before and I'd be lying if I were to say that it didn't have me feeling something for him. Because at that moment, I felt everything for Brody Asher and rightfully so.

He was every woman's definition of dripping with sex. His appearance wasn't anything extremely out of the ordinary, but he definitely was someone who had a tendency to stand out of the crowd.

He had a golden complexion that was tattooed into his skin from years of working on the ranch before making it in the big time. His heart melting blue eyes melted perfectly with the warmth of his golden skin and he definitely knew how to use them. But despite their beauty if you looked just right at times you would see a flash of pain, maybe even a longing for something unknown but it never lasted long enough before he replaced it with lust and desire...his usual look.

His drawl was deep and sometimes hard to understand, something that couldn't be faked and served as a brand left on him from his truly country boy roots. But above all was his frame and his stature. He wasn't a gym rat by any means, but his arms were strong and well defined making any woman crave to be held within them. He was tall and built with a broad frame and chiseled features and he carried himself with a confidence that no other man in the industry could hold a match to. Add to that his almost consistent outfit of short sleeve shirts that hugged all the right places, light washed bootcut jeans held up by a worn leather belt with an oversized rectangle belt buckle, a pair of worn square toed Red Wings and his signature tattered Field and Stream hat and well...there was Brody Asher.

The most sought after man in country music. The man that every girl would die to be with. The man that changed the face of country music. And now after crossing my T's and dotting my I's he was my man and I wasn't really sure what to do with that. Or what to do with him.

I pushed myself from the couch, snatching my wine glass from the table. Maybe another glass would help settle the ravenous thoughts that were battling for dominance in my head. I leaned my hip against the counter as I pulled the cork from the bottle watching more intently than necessary while the red liquid swirled around the cup. Anything to distract me, anything to get my mind off of what the next month of my life was supposed to look like.

It wasn't like dating someone was completely foreign to me. It was just foreign in the sense that I hadn't been with someone in a few years. Not seriously anyway. And it wasn't like this was a normal dating situation with Brody either. He said that there were going to be rules, but the rules he gave me were shit. All they implied was that after whatever public thing we did together was over, so were we. But that did nothing to help me handle it when we were together.