Irresistible Bachelors: Books 1-5 by Landish, Lauren (bts books to read TXT) 📕

when suddenly, strong arms are around my body, lifting me up. It’s Jake, and he pulls me toward the exit as the flames continue to grow.

We get outside, Jake setting me down as thick, black smoke rolls out the doors of Club Jasmine. I look around, trying to find my family, and at first I’m panicked. I see Mom and Mindy at first, then everyone else. Except Grandma. “Where’s Grandma?” I look around frantically, my heart pounding within my chest like a jackhammer, growing dread twisting my stomach.

“I’m here!” a familiar wavy but powerful voice crows. “It’d take more than this to knock me out! Now set me down, you big gorilla!”

I see Oliver, Mindy’s husband, with Grandma in his arms. “Sorry, I took the other exit. Everyone was headed to the same one.”

“What the fuck was that?” calls a fresh voice, hacking. “Honestly, what the fuck were you thinking?”

I turn to see an older man, his eyes ablaze in fury. “Who—”

“I’m the person you were trying to impress,” the man hisses, coughing. “I came to watch you sing, and you try to put on a pyro show like you’re a goddamn pro wrestler? Fucking amateur hour!”

I can see Jake wants to say something, but Nathan comes up, grabbing him, and he’s running back into the building, Gavin and Oliver on his heels. I want to rush after them. They’re trying to save the building, I guess, but I’m frozen as the man rants. “I swear, between the bad stripper dancing and the horrible caterwauling . . . I didn’t think it could get any worse!”

“You know what, you bastard? Take your bullshit and shove it!” Mindy yells, getting in his face. “It was obviously a fucking accident!”

The man gives her a look and turns on his heels, stomping away. He disappears into the crowd just as the sound of fire engines approaches, and Mindy holds me as I feel like I just destroyed my life. Everything was going great. Until that.

“Oh, my God, Min, I can’t believe this,” I sob into her shoulder. I’m too weak to look over to see which one of my bandmates looks guilty, though I have a pretty good idea which one it is. But it doesn’t matter. I feel like I’m responsible for this. “This is all my fault.”

“Shh,” Mindy reassures me, stroking my hair until a new set of arms wraps around me. It’s Jake, and he drops a fire extinguisher on the pavement before he pulls me into a hug.

“We got everyone out. The fire’s mostly under control and it looks like no one is hurt,” he says, coughing lightly. “But the roof . . . the roof . . .”

“The club?” I whisper, and Jake shakes his head slowly. I feel my heart break. I’m sure he hates me. I burned down his dream! “Jake, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

Before I can finish, Jake’s phone rings and he pulls it out. He listens, his face going white underneath the streaks of black. “No . . . no!”

“What is it?” I ask as Jake hangs up, and he starts to walk away. I follow him, grabbing his arm. “Jake! What is it?”

“There’s been a . . .” he whispers, seeming to lose his voice, his eyes unfocused. “Sophie . . . she’s been in an accident.”Jake

The cabin of Hannah’s car is silent as we make our way to the hospital. I’m riding in the back because, as a heaping helping of extra suck on tonight, my car was parked in the back of Club Jasmine . . . right where a back window blew out and turned my Maserati into a wreck.

This night has been something nightmares are made of. It started off with so much promise, with the chance for a brighter future for Roxy, for Club Jasmine. Now, the club’s a wreck and from what I hear, Roxy’s career might have gone up in flames right along with it, and to top it off, I’m terrified about how Sophie is doing because they wouldn’t tell me much on the phone.

“Jake, I’m so sorry,” she says quietly. After getting the call, I turned over everything at the club to Nathan while Hannah drives Roxy and me to the hospital. “You must hate me.”

The guilt in her voice tears at my fucking heart. She’s said it about a half dozen times as we ride, and each time, I haven’t responded. To be honest, I don’t know what to say. Instead, I look out the window, wishing that Hannah could drive faster.

“Jake . . .”

“Don’t worry about what happened right now,” I tell her quietly, reaching out and taking her hand. “Everything is going to be okay.”

Even as I say it, my stomach twists in knots. Things aren't going to be okay. The club being burned hurts on a lot of levels. We’re going to lose a lot of money over it. Sure, we had insurance, but that will cover repairs, maybe. It won’t cover the operating losses, the fact that nobody’s coming through the door, or that I owe the staff something during the time the club’s closed. And there’s no insurance in the world that’s going to cover the damage to Club Jasmine’s reputation. There’s no guarantee that even if we do get it repaired quickly, people are going to come back.

I just hope Nathan won’t lose his shit. He’s really taken personal pride in it, and it’s the first business venture he’s done that bears his real fingerprints and isn’t just transactions being shuffled around on a computer.

Honestly, though, my number one concern right now is Sophie. If something bad has happened to her . . . I feel like hell. I said I was going to start spending more time with her. But outside of breakfast and our school rides, we haven’t had a lot of time. Now she’s in the hospital after an accident of some kind, and if something’s happened to her, I’ll never