I don’t waste another second. I head straight to the airport, my phone pressed to my ear the entire way.

Halle is on the other end of the first call. She’s getting the pilot to the band’s jet and whatever it is he has to do to get an immediate departure cleared.

I hang up with her, my head spinning as I listen to that damn voice text from last night again.

And again.

Paul’s threat. His attempt at blackmail. The smug fucker.

My next call is to my brother.

Nathaniel picks up on the first ring. “Jase?”

“Why were you at my house the other day? Talking to Hendrix?”

“I came to get her thoughts on how to dissolve the marriage once the court date comes and goes.”

I think of the words I heard Hendrix say. The denial of how she feels for me. And . . . then I think of the look in her eyes last night.

How could I have believed she really felt what she told Nathaniel?

She was protecting me. Making me look better in the eyes of my brother. Right?

“And what did she say?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t get that far. She said she’d only talk about it after the judge ruled. That she didn’t want to jinx anything.”

“And that was all you came to talk about?”

“What are you getting at?” Nathaniel asks.

Just making sure you’re not sabotaging what I have. But the words don’t come out. Years of animosity have me thinking them while a newfound attempt to fix what the two of us have broken makes me bite them back.

“Jase?”

I shake my head to clear it. Get my mind back on task. “I need a favor,” I say, no nonsense. “I don’t want an ‘I told you so.’ I don’t want a damn word.”

“Is it illegal?” Nathaniel asks, always the lawyer first.

“No.” I sigh. “I need you to draft up a letter. A contract with a payment in the amount of two hundred thousand dollars.”

Nathaniel swears under his breath. “Please tell me you’re not hiding a dead body.”

I bite back the snark. “I need it presented to Paul the Fucktard. Not sure of his last name but Josie at Josie’s Java will know it.”

“That’s a lot of specifics,” he jokes but then his laugh dies when I don’t laugh too. “For?”

“It has to be in exchange for the release of any and all claim of ownership of Cookie Cutter as well as the sale of any information to the media—”

“What’s going on, Jase?”

“Hendrix’s ex is trying to blackmail her. He put money into the company but is trying to extort her by leveraging ruining my reputation. And of course, in true Hendrix fashion, she’s willing to pay to protect me, to protect the world tour.”