by Elise Noble
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1 - Alana
Chapter 2 - Alana
Chapter 3 - Alana
Chapter 4 - Alana
Chapter 5 - Alana
Chapter 6 - Alana
Chapter 7 - Alana
Chapter 8 - Alana
Chapter 9 - Alana
Chapter 10 - Alana
Chapter 11 - Alana
Chapter 12 - Alana
Chapter 13 - Alana
Chapter 14 - Alana
Chapter 15 - Alana
Chapter 16 - Alana
Chapter 17 - Alana
Chapter 18 - Alana
Chapter 19 - Alana
Chapter 20 - Alana
Chapter 21 - Alana
Chapter 22 - Alana
Chapter 23 - Alana
Chapter 24 - Alana
Chapter 25 - Alana
Chapter 26 - Alana
Chapter 27 - Alana
Chapter 28 - Alana
Chapter 29 - Alana
Chapter 30 - Zander
Chapter 31 - Alana
Chapter 32 - Zander
Chapter 33 - Alana
Chapter 34 - Alana
Chapter 35 - Zander
Chapter 36 - Zander
Chapter 37 - Zander
Chapter 38 - Zander
Chapter 39 - Zander
Chapter 40 - Alana
Chapter 41 - Alana
Chapter 42 - Zander
Chapter 43 - Alana
Epilogue - Alana
What's next?
What's next?
What's next?
Want to stalk me?
End of book stuff
Other books by Elise Noble
INDIGO RAIN
Elise Noble
Published by Undercover Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019 Elise Noble
v5
ISBN: 978-1-912888-00-9
This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
Edited by Nikki Mentges, NAM Editorial
Cover design by Abigail Sins
www.undercover-publishing.com
www.elise-noble.com
If you act like a rock star, you will be treated like one.
- Marilyn Manson
CHAPTER 1 - ALANA
“AIEEEEE!” TESSA SHRIEKED.
Huh? My neck creaked as I turned my head to the side. I’d fallen asleep—or rather, passed out—on the sofa, and between there and the kitchen, the apartment I shared with my brother looked as though the love child of a hurricane and a tornado had rampaged through it.
Tessa poked her head around the kitchen door. Once, she’d been my best friend, but not anymore seeing as last night’s get-together had been her idea.
“You’re either gonna love me or you’re gonna hate me.”
Judging by the apologetic grimace on her face, it would be the latter.
“What have you done?” I croaked.
“Tell you what, why don’t you get up and have a cup of coffee first? Or some more wine? There’s half a bottle of…” She ducked back into the kitchen. “Euuuch! That is not wine.”
How about I go and puke in the bathroom instead?
“I can’t believe you talked me into having a party.”
“Oh, come on, Alana. You haven’t lived until you’ve had to grovel to the police at three o’clock in the morning.”
Yes, that had really happened. Which meant my brother was sure to find out what I’d done when he got back from his honeymoon, and he’d probably lecture me for twenty-four hours straight. The police had actually been quite understanding. Possibly because I’d unplugged the stereo straight away, or maybe because Tessa had cried—crying on cue was her party trick, quite literally—but when everybody scuttled away, we’d been left with the mess to clean up.
“Please just make the coffee.”
“When does your brother get back?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
Which meant we only had one day to make the apartment look perfect again.
Perhaps you’re thinking it was a strange arrangement, me living with my half-brother and his new wife, and I guess you’re kind of right. But Zander had raised me from the age of fourteen, so to me, sharing a home with him was normal—first a crappy bedsit in Sydenham, and now our riverside apartment in Chelsea. Plus I adored Dove. They’d only been together for a few months, but they were perfect for each other, and I couldn’t have been happier for them when they’d decided on the spur of the moment to tie the knot in Las Vegas. I’d even played bridesmaid. But then they’d decided to travel around South America for a month, and since I’d just started my summer break from university, I’d been left home alone. Then this had happened.
Carnage.
I rolled off the sofa, tripped over a cushion, then paused to pick up a lamp on my quest to find caffeine. Was that a red wine stain on the carpet? Or worse, blood? With Tessa and a blow-up doll as my witnesses, I was never holding a party again. Or even attending one. What were the symptoms of an aneurysm? Something in my head felt as though it was about to burst.
Tessa slid a mug of coffee across the kitchen island in my direction, and I propped myself up on a stool. Someone had drawn a smiley face on the clock above the sink. Dammit.
“So, tell me why I’m gonna hate you more than I already do right now.”
“Well, you might not hate me.”
“Why? What did you do?”
“It’s actually really good news if you decide not to be boring for the rest of your life.”
“I already tried that last night, and look how it turned out. The whole apartment stinks of vomit. What did you do, Tessa?” I asked for the third time.
“Remember how last night, someone put on an Indigo Rain song and we started perving over pictures of Rush Moder on Instagram?”
No, we didn’t. Tessa had been perving over Rush Moder, something she’d started doing almost three years ago when Indigo Rain had their first UK number one. I could understand why—dark hair, designer stubble, a strong jaw, piercing blue eyes… He was incendiary. She even had a shirtless photo of him set as the screen saver on her phone. And last night, it hadn’t only been pictures of Rush Moder we were looking at, but his words too. He’d posted a snap of himself holding his middle finger up to the camera then gone on a rant at the paparazzi, accusing them of printing lie after lie about the band to sell their “shitty, hate-filled gossip rags.” A proper meltdown.
“Rush is the lead guitarist, right?”
“Right.” She paused to take a sip of her coffee. “Uh, I might have messaged him.”
That’s what she was panicking about?
“I wouldn’t worry. He’s a rock star—I’m sure he gets loads of messages from tipsy girls.”
“You don’t understand. He freaking replied!”
“It probably wasn’t him. I bet the band’s PR person confiscated his phone right after he unleashed that tirade on the press.”
Tessa shook her head. “No, it was him. I didn’t believe it at first either, but he even sent a photo.”
“Why? Why would he do that?”
“It was a trade. I had to send one first.”
“Let me get this straight… You were flirting with Rush Moder last night, and now you don’t know what to say to him?”
“No
t exactly.” Tessa shifted so the granite expanse of the kitchen island was between us. With hindsight, I should have realised something really, really bad was coming, but my alcohol-addled brain was still functioning at half capacity. “I borrowed your phone, so technically, you were flirting with Rush Moder.”
“You what?” I picked up my coffee, contemplated throwing it, then realised I needed the caffeine too much. “My phone was locked.”
“And your PIN number’s one-two-three-four. I’ve watched you type it in a thousand times. But before you go crazy, I was doing you a favour, okay? You know how you need to get a job?”
A job? How did we go from drunken sexting with one quarter of the world-famous bad boys of rock to my employment status?
Although, yes, I did need a job.
Tessa and I had met at school soon after I moved to London, and now, seven years later, we were both studying for journalism degrees and about to start work for our placement year. Or at least, Tessa was. She’d already landed her dream internship with NewsFlash magazine, the perfect career move for a girl who wanted to become an investigative journalist. Me? I hadn’t had so much as an interview, probably because I hadn’t applied for any jobs, and I wasn’t even sure I liked journalism anymore. It had all seemed so glamorous when I signed up—flying around the world to report on breaking news and interview the rich and famous—but when I’d temped at a newspaper last summer, I’d spent my time fetching countless cups of tea for a boss who thought patting me on the arse was an acceptable form of greeting. And most evenings, I’d still been sitting at my desk at ten o’clock, correcting typos.
Honestly, working in a fast-food restaurant would’ve been more fun, because at least they offered free fries, but when I broached the subject of dropping out with Zander, he’d looked so disappointed that I’d rapidly backpedalled. He did pay my tuition fees, after all.
So, until now, I’d been burying my head in the sand. My ex-boss said I was welcome back anytime, probably because my replacement was male and built like a wrestler, but I guess I figured if I ignored the work situation, it would go away. So why had Tessa brought it up now?
“Yes, I know I should look for a job. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Because I might have found you one. Well, sort of.”
“Can we back up a bit here?”
My brain was struggling to process all the information. I’d missed something.
“Okay, okay.” She talked slowly, as if I were a small child. Better. “Rush Moder is sick of the media printing rubbish about him and the band, so I came up with a total brainwave.”
“Did this brainwave happen before or after you almost set fire to the curtains with flaming sambuca?”
“After, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a genius.”
A groan escaped my lips. Even before the sambuca, Tessa had been a little worse for wear, and although I loved her dearly, genius was stretching things a smidgen.
“Just tell me what you did, will you? Get it over with.”
“I sent Rush Moder a pitch on your behalf. What better way for them to set the record straight than to write their own story? A biography! That way, they can tell the world the truth.”
“And?”
“Well, you’re the perfect person to write it. Duh.”
“Tessa, I don’t know the first thing about penning a biography.”
“Don’t be so negative. Didn’t you win a creative writing contest once?”
“I was thirteen years old!”
That was back in the days when I used to translate my pain into words. I’d submitted one of my efforts to the short-story section of a local arts festival, and I could still see the judging notes in my mind now.
This heart-wrenching tale of the abuse suffered by a young girl at the hands of her stepfather moved us all to tears. A gritty and well-written piece of fiction.
Too bad it wasn’t fiction.
No, it was a cry for help, I saw that now. A cry for help that my mother either hadn’t heard or had chosen to ignore until Zander rescued me a year later. Thanks to the therapist my brother had worked his ass off to pay for, I could talk about my past more easily now, but it still hurt.
And Tessa wasn’t done. “We write stuff at uni, and you always get better marks than me.”
“There’s a world of difference between essays and articles and a whole damn book.” But then curiosity got the better of me. “Are you serious? He actually replied?”
“Yup. And he thought it was a brilliant idea. You start next week.”
“Wait, wait, wait. What?”
“Your new job. Indigo Rain arrives for their UK tour a week from tomorrow, and you need to join them next Monday. You know, to see what goes on and do interviews and stuff.”
“Show me these messages. Someone must’ve been pulling your leg. Like an intern having a joke or something.”
Silently, she slid my phone over, and the cheeky mare even had the balls to unlock it first. My hands sweated as I loaded up Instagram. What the hell had Tessa done?
It all started out quite innocently.
Raven: Rush, I just wanted to say I totally agree with your post. Publishing those pictures of your girlfriend naked was a horrible thing for that magazine to do.
Then things quickly degenerated.
RushModer: That really you in the bikini, babe?
Uh, didn’t Rush Moder have a girlfriend?
And as for the bikini, I was on the beach, okay? I’d pulled a wide-brimmed hat low over my eyes so nobody could identify me.
Because this was the Instagram account Zander didn’t know about. He could get a teeny bit overprotective, and if he saw a picture of me in swimwear on the internet, he’d get one of his hacker friends to remove it before I had time to change my password. Think I’m exaggerating? Well, when Tessa and I holidayed in the Algarve last summer, one of Zander’s colleagues from the Lisbon office of Blackwood Security had just happened to be staying in the villa next to ours. A total coincidence, according to my brother. And I only found out when I overheard the guy on the phone. Yes, I know I shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, but he was hot, and Tessa had encouraged me.
So secret me had started using Instagram to share my photography hobby with my friends, but as my portfolio grew, so did my number of followers. I didn’t stick to a particular theme. Rather, I photographed whatever called to me that day, anything from London’s hidden history to nature’s beauty to arty self-portraits, some of which may have been a little risqué. But I never revealed my face.
Raven: Yes, it’s really me. I went to Portugal last summer.
RushModer: Prove it. Blow me a kiss.
Any normal girl would have backed off at that point, wouldn’t they? But not Tessa. Now I thought about it, I vaguely recalled her lining me up for a selfie last night and encouraging me to make a duck face at the camera.
Raven: Here you go. But it’s only fair that you recite
Recipe
Recuse
Damn autocorrect!
Send me a picture back…
RushModer: Lol.
Rush Moder actually did send a photo, one of him puckering up while holding a bottle of Jack Daniels in his other hand. Guess we knew what was fuelling this little conversation, didn’t we? Alcohol. 80 proof.
Raven: Aww, partying alone?
RushModer: Why? Wanna join me?
Raven: Maybe. I have a proposal for you.
RushModer: Already had four of those this week, babe. One girl even gave me a ring.
Raven: Not that kind of proposal. This is totally a business one.
RushModer: Don’t be boring, bikini girl.
Raven: Give me two minutes of your time, and then I’ll send you another bikini pic.
She didn’t. Tell me she didn’t…
RushModer: Deal.
Raven: Here’s my proposal. I’m a journalism student, and I want to write a behind-the-scenes piece on the music industry as part of my degree. If y
ou give me access, I can totally tell your story. The real story of Indigo Rain, not trash about you and your friends. I don’t need to sell papers, so I’ve got no incendiary to make stuff up.
*incentive
RushModer: You got big coconuts, bikini girl.
*colonials
Duck.
Fuck.
Cojones. Balls. Big balls.
Raven: No, that’s totally you.
Did I mention that the drunker Tessa got, the more she used the word “totally”? Oh, and she tended to lose her flipping mind.
RushModer: I like you, bikini girl. Gonna send me that pic?
She did. She freaking did. Tessa sent a photo of me stretched out on a sun lounger in the same bikini I wore in my profile picture, drinking a cocktail sans hat. The only saving grace was that it had been taken before I fell asleep and got sunburned.
“I really hate you right now.”
She pointed at a bakery bag on the counter. “I went out to the patisserie and got fresh pain au chocolat for breakfast.”
Pain au chocolat? I almost smiled, but I stopped myself just in time. “I still don’t like you very much.”
“Have you read to the end?”
“Not yet. Just to the part where you decided to send a half-naked picture of me to a complete stranger.”
“Rush Moder’s a rock god.”
“I don’t freaking care, Tessa! I’ve never met him, therefore he’s a stranger. I barely even listen to Indigo Rain’s music.”