The next big thing who would take the world by storm and destroy her heart in the process.
“Please leave, Nick,” she asked again, the request no more than a whisper. “I won’t let your life destroy Josh’s.”
Wordlessly, he reached behind him and withdrew a phone from his back pocket. He slid his thumb over the screen a few times before lifting it to his ear without taking his gaze from her face. “Come get me, Aslin,” he said, voice steady. Composed.
Cold emptiness welled in Lauren’s stomach. She fought the need to close her eyes, to bite her lip and hug herself. Instead, she watched him gather up his shirt and pull it over his head. She watched him dress, unable to say a word, refusing to listen to the words she wanted to say—stay, I’m sorry, love me. She couldn’t listen to them. This was the way it had to be, no matter how irrevocably he owned her body, her soul. This is the way it had to be for her sanity.
How it had to be for her son’s wellbeing.
Are you sure you’re thinking of Josh here? Are you?
“Fuck off, Rhodes,” Holston suddenly shouted, his voice much more distant than before, and Lauren started, realising she hadn’t heard him for the duration of Nick’s dressing. She hadn’t heard anything but the thump thump of her stupid heart and the soft shhh of material sliding over skin. Nick’s skin.
She blinked, jerking her stare to the closed door. The paparazzo shouted something again, something that sounded like, “Go back to England, you Pommie bastard,” and someone else laughed, a short sharp chuckle filled with mirth followed by a sharp double knock on her door.
Nick let out a sigh. “That’s my bodyguard.”
When she didn’t say anything, he opened his mouth, closed it again, dragged his fingers through his hair and then turned to the door and opened it.
A massive man dressed in black jeans, black T-shirt and black leather jacket stepped across the threshold, his shoulders so broad he almost had to turn sideways to pass through the doorway. His direct blue gaze slid over everything with intense scrutiny, marking everything, missing nothing, before settling on Lauren. He studied her, took in her bare legs, her hastily buttoned pyjama shirt, her disheveled hair. If he thought anything of her state, he didn’t show it. “Ms. Robbins,” he said, a subtle British accent rolling through her name.
She stared back at him, his sheer presence turning her pulse to a rapid trip hammer. She’d seen images of the man in magazines and on the television, always shadowing Nick or clearing a path through a squealing, writhing crowd, but no photograph conveyed the absolute size of him. The latent menace that oozed from him in waves. The intimidating, controlled power.
Lord, he looked like he could snap a person in two with barely an effort.
Of course he could, Lauren. He’s Nick’s bodyguard. He’s got to be able to hold back every screaming fan, maniacal groupie or whacked-out psycho who thinks Nick is his best friend.
The thought made her scowl. As did the overwhelming worry for Nick’s safety that came with it. She didn’t want to be worried for Nick. She’d been there, done that and burnt the T-shirt. She wasn’t going to do it again.
She couldn’t.
“This is not how I planned anything, Lauren.”
She turned to Nick, her chest so tight she wondered if she would ever draw breath again. She looked at him, trying to see the rock star, seeing only the man she fell in love with oh so many years ago.
The man she could never let go. The man she would worry about until time ceased.
She wanted to tell him to stay. Wanted, but wouldn’t.
“All I wanted was to share a moment of reality with you,” he said. “A day of being just a guy taking the girl of his dreams somewhere wonderful and joyous.”
She caught her bottom lip with her teeth.
“We need to go, Nick,” Aslin’s voice rumbled, “preferably before Holston retrieves his camera from where I pegged it and comes back.”
Nick nodded once, never taking his gaze from hers. “There’s still more to say, Lauren,” he said. “More to say and more to hear.”
He turned away from her then. Half a second before the door flung open and Josh came charging through it.
“Mum!” he shouted, “There’s a helicopter parked on the—” He ran slap-bam in Aslin.
“What the fuck?” he yelped, staggering backward.
“Josh!” Lauren snapped. God, what was he doing home? Now?
But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because her son was staring open-mouthed at Nick. Open-mouthed and wide-eyed and rooted to the spot. He swung his head, only his head, and gaped at her, and she bit back a groan of dismay at the excited disbelief on his face, a face so like his father it made her stomach knot.
“Mum?” he croaked. “Why is Nick Blackthorne standing in our house?”
Chapter Seven
Nick stared at the tall, lanky boy standing but a few feet away from him. No, he didn’t just stare at him, he devoured him. His son. Jesus, he was looking at his son. Sound ceased to exist. The world became nothing but one boy, one teenage kid with scruffy black hair, freckles and wide grey eyes wearing a dirt-smeared soccer uniform and a shell-shocked expression. One boy staring back at him.
He sucked in a breath, unable to blink. He was numb. No, he was thrumming with so much energy he was going to burn up. No, he was…he was… Jesus, he was looking at his son.
His son who had no idea who he was.
The thought punched Nick in the gut. Hard. And the world rushed back at him.
“Mum?” Josh was saying. “Why is Nick Blackthorne standing in our house?” Nick listened to every vowel and consonant and syllable, noting the timbre and rhythm in his son’s speech. Josh’s voice must have only recently broken. It was deep, with just the slightest hint of a crack on the odd note. But there was a music to it as well, a strength. It rolled over Nick like a warm wave, making his gut clench and his chest squeeze.
“Mum?” Josh repeated, and Nick started, jerking his attention to Lauren.
She stood as still as he did, her lips parted, her stare jumping between him and her son—their son—her cheeks growing pale even as a warm flush painted her throat.
She didn’t say a word.
Tell him. Tell him now. Fuck a duck, Nick, every family member you’ve ever had has been ripped from your life, taken from you, and now here’s your son, standing right here, asking why you’re here. Tell him. Tell him who you are.
His heart smashed faster. He licked his lips, sensing Aslin move behind him. But it was only a distant recognition. His focus was on his son. And the woman he’d stupidly left behind way too many years ago.
Tell him.
Josh gaped at his mother, at him, back to his mother again. “Is anyone going to say somethin’?”
Nick looked at Lauren. Saw the conflict tearing at her. Saw it swimming in her eyes. Saw it. Felt it.
He stepped forward, extending his hand as he did. “Hi, Josh.” He wrapped his fingers around his son’s hand, giving it a firm shake. A fissure of something elemental, something beyond his ability to understand shot through him at the palm-to-palm contact with the teenager, and he hid his intake of breath on a low chuckle. “Your mum and I knew each other a long time ago. I just thought I’d pop in and say hello.”
He heard Lauren make a little noise and flicked her another quick look. She was watching him, her face an ambiguous mask, her body tense. But on her lips was a smile, a small smile that filled him with such an overwhelming urge to take her hand and pull her into his embrace that for a surreal moment he almost reached for her.
“You did?” Josh turned to Lauren, staring at her with open awe, and Nick’s chest squeezed. “That’s epic.”
Nick laughed, dropping Josh’s hand. He didn’t want to. He didn’t know what he wanted to do, but breaking contact wasn’t it. What if he never got the chance again? What if his son was ripped away from him before he even got the chance to hold him?
“I’ve downloaded all your
albums,” Josh said, his face alight. Nick could almost see the excitement sparking through him. “Legally, of course. And I just started teaching myself how to play ‘Gotta Run’ on my guitar. It’s a hard fucker to get the chords—”
“Josh,” Lauren’s voice drew out the boy’s name, turning it to a firm warning.
Josh ducked his head, cheeks turning redder. “Sorry, Mum.” He grinned at Nick from under the shaggy strands of his thick dark hair. Hair that drove the girls crazy with distraction, Nick suspected. “I mean, it’s a hard song to get right.”
Nick chuckled. “You’re telling me. In fact, I think I said something very similar to your mum when I was writing it.”
Josh gaped at Lauren, and Nick couldn’t help but smile as her cheeks filled with a faint pink tinge. He’d written the entire song, his very first Australian number one, in bed with her one lazy summer weekend. Neither of them had been dressed. Her lips had travelled his chest, his stomach, his cock as he’d scrawled the words and notes down on loose sheets of paper. His temperature had risen with each caress, his heart thumping as she played his body like an instrument. She’d brought him to the brink of orgasm over and over again, teasing him with fulfillment when he finished each chorus, only giving it to him when the song was done and his cock so hard, so fucking hard he shot his load the second she slid down his length. He shifted his feet at the memory of that weekend, his groin tightening. And by the look of Lauren’s flushed face, the way her breath grew quicker, she remembered it too.
Oh, Nick, you had it all. Why the fuck did you let it go?
“Is that your helicopter near the soccer fields?” Josh asked, and Nick blinked, yanked back to the here and now. “Freaked us all out when we saw it. Rhys reckoned it must belong to some drug lord camped up in the mountains.”
“Really, Josh?” Lauren rolled her eyes, shaking her head, her cheeks still flushed with a heat Nick wanted to feel with his lips. Christ, he wanted that. That and so much more. “Drug lords? That’s your reason for a helicopter turning up here? I think I’m cancelling our satellite TV subscription.”
“I didn’t think that. Rhys did. I said it probably belonged to the dude Mr. McGimmons had been selling his race-horse stock to. Said the dude finally realized the race horses couldn’t run for—”
“Josh!”
Nick laughed again, giving Lauren a grin. He couldn’t help it. The whole situation made him feel…feel…fuck, it made him feel alive. “It is mine,” he answered. “Well, I assume it is.” He turned and gave the silent hovering Aslin behind him a questioning look. “You didn’t just steal someone’s chopper, did you, As? It is mine, yes?”
Aslin’s expression—calm but at the same time serious—didn’t change. “It’s actually Wolfmother’s. Yours wasn’t filled up.”
Josh laughed. As did Lauren. A genuine laugh, relaxed and soft and so perfect, so musical Nick’s stomach clenched. And it hit him. He wanted this. Being a family. Being a part of something more than just a life of empty hotel rooms and soulless award shows and superficial people at superficial parties. He wanted this. Her. Josh. Laughter. Love.
Life. Real life.
The life fate had offered him the day he met Lauren.
He wanted it. All of it.
“Okay, hot shot.” Lauren’s humor-laced voice stroked at his senses and he blinked, his throat tightening when he realized she wasn’t agreeing to his unspoken desire but talking to Josh instead. “Time to go wash up for lunch.”
Nick felt his pulse quicken. She was going to tell him to leave now. He could see it in the way she looked at him. The smile for her son still played with her lips, but her eyes were guarded once more. Guarded. Unreadable. She was going to tell him to leave and he didn’t want to. Not at all.
Josh gave Nick a wide grin. “Are you staying?”
I’m not going anywhere, Josh.
The answer formed in Nick’s mind. At the very moment a solid thud sounded on Lauren’s front porch, followed by a muttered curse.
Aslin ground out a muttered word that may have been fuck. He flicked Nick a dark scowl. “Holston.”
Nick cocked an eyebrow.
With a slow smile, Aslin turned to Lauren. “If it’s okay, can I ask you to put up with the rock star here for a while longer? Just while I deal with the moron outside? I’d rather get Holston out of the road before Nick walks back to the Cricketer’s Arms.”
For the first time in his life, Nick sent out a silent thank you to a member of the paparazzi. Perfect timing, Holston. Remind me to send you a Ferrari.
“Fuck, yeah,” Josh burst out. And then stared at his mother, eyes wide. “Shit. Sorry, Mum.”
Lauren gazed at them both, her expression as ambivalent as her eyes. She pulled a slow breath, the action making her breasts rise, pushing them against the soft material of her pyjama shirt. Nick felt his groin stir, but he shut down the response, putting the memory of those perfect, lush breasts from his mind. Just.
Aslin raised his eyebrows. “Ms. Robbins?”
“Okay. As long as the rock star is fine with toasted-cheese sandwiches.”
Nick couldn’t stop his smile. “The rock star is.” And Lauren knew that. They’d been his favourite winter indulgence from as far back as he could remember, his specialty whenever he cooked for them both, and the only meal he’d requested on his birthdays.
“Excellent.” Josh’s grin split his face. “Can I call Rhys, Mum? Ask him to come ’round?”
Much to Nick’s amusement, Lauren lifted an eyebrow at their son—their son, Christ he loved the sound of that. “Do you really want to share Nick with Rhys, Josh?”
Josh studied her, snapped his gaze to Nick, narrowed his eyes, eyes the very grey as Nick’s own, and then swung back to Lauren again. “Next time.”
Nick burst out laughing.
“I’ll be back in a while, Nick.” Aslin put a hand on his shoulder, fixing him with a steady, pointed look. A look that told him not to waste his time.
With a nod at Lauren and a wide grin at Josh, the man pulled open the door and crossed the threshold in one giant step. Nick heard Holston’s muttered curse followed by feet scrambling on the wooden porch, and then Aslin closed the door behind him, leaving Nick alone with the two people who meant more to him than he could ever express. Now if only he could be given the chance to do so.
He swallowed, suddenly completely unsure what to do next. His stare found its way to Lauren’s face, to her soft lips, her clear blue eyes. For the first time he noticed fine lines at their edges, lines that told him of a life lived without him. They looked beautiful on her. Beautiful and secretive and compelling. Once again, he was overwhelmed with the need to place his lips to her face, to trace those tiny lines with his kisses. To explore her beauty with his lips as he smoothed his hands around her waist and pulled her to his body, as he held her close and rediscovered everything about her he’d never forgotten.
“Mum?”
He started at Josh’s voice, his heart racing when he saw Lauren do the same thing. She blinked, licking her lips, her hands flittering to her face as she dragged her stare from Nick’s.
“What’s up, Josh?” There was a tremble to the words, a strained need Nick felt all the way to his core. As much as she tried to deny it, and she did, he could see it in every nuance in her body, every ragged breath she took. She was as affected by him as he was her.
Affected? Huh, don’t you mean undone? Undone and remade and turned inside out?
“Why are you wearing only your pyjama shirt?”
Her cheeks turned scarlet. “Err…”
Nick choked back a laugh before it could escape him. Thankfully, Josh didn’t seem interested in the answer. “Can you sign something for me?” he asked Nick instead. “I’ve got your first album on CD in my room. Every time I play it Mum tells me to either turn it off or put my headphones on.” He slid Lauren a quick sideward glance. “I don’t think she likes it much.”
“That’s it, Josh,” Lauren crossed the
small space between them in two steps and snared him in a head lock, a hilarious move considering he was almost as tall as Nick. “You’re in sin-bin. Go. Now. And don’t come back out until you’re clean and ready to be nice to your mother.”
Josh laughed, squirming out of her grip and shoving her away with a gentle push. “Yeah, yeah. I’m going to have a shower. Try not to be too embarrassing in front of Nick while I’m gone.” He turned his grin on Nick, and for a split second it was like looking in a mirror from fifteen years ago. The eyes, the hair, the face not yet a man’s but not really a kid any more. Even if Nick hadn’t known who Josh’s father was, that grin, that cheekiness, would have screamed it loud and clear. It was enough to make his head spin. And his chest heavy with a powerful, indescribable pride.
He was a father.
“You’ll still be here when I get out?” Josh asked. An anxious tension fell over the boy and Nick could see, as desperately as he was trying to play it cool, Josh was more nervous and excited then he was letting on.
A chuckle bubbled up inside Nick’s heart. Like mother, like son.
He gave Josh a wide smile and said the words he knew to be truer than any he’d uttered in his life. “It’s okay, mate. I’m not going anywhere.”
Josh balled his fist. “Yes.” He grinned at his mother again and was gone, half-running, half-loping down the hallway until he ducked into a room to his right and was gone from Nick’s sight.
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