“Will you ever be able to play guitar again?” she asked. She could practically feel the sense of loss in him. She’d always been very sensitive to the feelings of others, so much so that her empathy was sometimes crippling. At the moment, her eyes were prickling with threatening tears, and he hadn’t even told her how he felt about losing his ability to play. She just had to look at him to know he was struggling with it.
“I hope so,” he said. “Even if I never regain enough strength and mobility to return to the stage, I hope to at least be able to play for fun. I do miss the feel of the strings beneath my fingers.” He grinned. “I guess it’s a good thing my voice was the least offensive. If I couldn’t sing, I’d be entirely out of a job.”
“I thought they hired you to be a singer. At breakfast yesterday they said your voice got them all laid.”
Max laughed. “Their perception of that audition and my perception of it are a bit different.”
“How so?” she asked, riveted by his every word and recalling that he hadn’t weighed in much on that breakfast conversation.
“They were looking for a guitarist/potential singer. I was actually auditioning just to be their second guitarist. I only sang because it was required. Before that, Logan was singing for them.”
“No shit!” she blurted.
“He has a decent voice,” Max said. “It just didn’t have the unique grittiness they were looking for.”
Toni was going to ask Logan to sing for her the next chance she got. She wondered if he’d indulge her curiosity.
“Does it bother you that Reagan has taken over as guitarist for the tour?” Another question that was very personal. She wasn’t surprised when he paused for a long moment before answering.
“Reagan has a bright future,” he said. “If her personal life doesn’t destroy it.”
Now Toni was the one to pause as she contemplated his response. “Why would her personal life destroy it?” she asked when she couldn’t decide what he meant. She figured it had something to do with Trey Mills. Maybe. And her bodyguard. Likely.
Max shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said that. I usually don’t talk this freely in interviews. Next question.”
Toni smiled. Did that mean he trusted her? She returned to her list. Maybe he wouldn’t notice she wasn’t following her scripted questions if she pretended. She could read a few from the list and then sneak in a few of her own.
She read the first question that Susan had insisted she ask each band member. “If you could spend a day with any musician—living or dead—who would it be and why?”
“I spend every day with musicians, so why would I want to hang out with another one?”
Surprised by his answer, she glanced up from her legal pad and found him grinning. “Are you teasing me, Mr. Richardson?”
“I couldn’t help myself. I’ve been puzzling over what Logan sees in you for days. You aren’t exactly his type, you know?”
She’d been puzzling over it as well, so Max’s criticism didn’t hurt her feelings. Much. “What’s his type?”
“Fast and superficial.”
Her face flamed. Well, she definitely fit in the “fast” category. She’d known Logan all of an hour before she’d succumbed to his charm and tumbled into his bed.
“There’s an uncommon warmth about you,” Max continued.
So he’d noticed her blush, had he?
“A recognizable depth. Thoughtfulness. You seem to care deeply about . . .”
She met his eyes, and his brows lifted.
“ . . .everything?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
He laughed cynically. “No, sweetheart. It’s rare in this dog-eat-dog world.” He leaned forward, his head cocked slightly as he appraised her. “So now I can’t help but puzzle over what you see in Logan.”
Flustered by his compliment, Toni pushed her glasses up her nose.
“He’s fun and caring and considerate,” she said.
“Logan Schmidt is caring and considerate?” Max asked, his eyebrows arched high. “Are we talking about the same guy?”
“He is to me. He brought me dinner last night. I didn’t even have to ask.”
“I guess you bring that out in him.” He smiled softly. “John Lennon.”
She blinked at him. “Huh?”
“I’d spend a day with John Lennon.”
“Oh!” She’d forgotten she’d asked him that question. “Why?”
He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Because he’s fucking John Lennon. I met the rest of the Beatles at various charity events and award shows. I’d dreamed of meeting the band since childhood and, well, John was murdered before I got the privilege.”
“You couldn’t have been very old when he died.”
“I was in elementary school. I didn’t take the news well. I refused to get out of bed for days. My mom was so worried, she took me to a psychiatrist.” He tilted his head at Toni. “I’m not sure why I’m telling you this. I’ve never told anyone that before.”
“Do you mind if I include it in the book?” This was exactly the kind of thing she wanted to include. Scraps of their lives that had never been shared with the world before.
“You could leave the part about the shrink out.” He worried his wrist brace again, avoiding her gaze.
“I’ll leave it out,” she promised.
She read the next question on her list. “What’s your favorite part of being a rock star?”
“Being interviewed by pretty journalists.”
Of all the amazing things that touched his life on a daily basis, that was his favorite? After gawking at him for a moment, Toni realized that he was teasing her. Flirting with her? She dismissed that thought as soon as it occurred. There was no way Maximillian Richardson was flirting with her. The man dated supermodels and A-list actresses.
“I was under the impression that you didn’t like to be interviewed.”
“Depends on who’s doing the interviewing.” The smoldering look he offered would have sent her panties flying across the room under normal circumstances, but she’d given control of her panties to Logan, and she wasn’t about to lose them so easily this time.
She narrowed her eyes at Max. He wasn’t flirting, she realized. He was trying to redirect her questions by being distracting. And the man wrote the book on distraction. She’d have to word her questions cleverly if she wanted to milk real answers out of him.