Wishful Sinful (Rock Royalty Book 5)

by Christie Ridgway

  WISHFUL SINFUL

  Rock Royalty 5

  By

  Christie Ridgway

  Also Available

  In the Rock Royalty series

  Light My Fire (Rock Royalty 1)

  Love Her Madly (Rock Royalty 2)

  Break on Through (Rock Royalty 3)

  Touch Me (Rock Royalty 4)

  WISHFUL SINFUL

  Years ago, Rolling Stone magazine dubbed the nine collective children of the most famous band in the world “Rock Royalty.” Now all grown up, the princes and princesses are coming back to L.A.’s Laurel Canyon to discover if love can be found among the ruins of a childhood steeped in sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.

  CEO Walsh Hopkins relies on his admin Honey Brooks as his “second brain.” He trusts the efficient young woman with everything—from his company secrets to his social calendar. When a business conference at a beachside resort comes up, of course he assumes she’ll be by his side. But he’s taken aback when his dependable assistant balks at the chance to blend work and pleasure.

  Honey Brooks has been crushing on her boss for years. No way does she want to torture herself further by spending time with him in a romantic surf-and-sand setting. But he overrules her objections and under the tropical sun their platonic boss-secretary relationship takes a drastic turn. They promise each other that upon the return home their relationship will return to normal too… But some promises are impossible to keep.

  WISHFUL SINFUL

  © Copyright 2015 Christie Ridgway

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  ISBN: 9781939286192

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  WISHFUL SINFUL

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Excerpt – TAKE ME TENDER

  Christie Ridgway’s Book List

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Walsh Hopkins took a swallow of his beer, letting the stress of the long work week slide away. There was more to celebrate besides it being TGIF—today his tribe was also reveling in the complete recovery of one of their own. They’d gathered at Payne Colson’s place because this afternoon the man had received a clean bill of health. The doc proclaimed him completely recovered from his race car crash weeks before.

  Payne looked more than pleased with himself—and beyond pleased with the brunette at his side. He’d fallen hard for his Rose.

  Still, Walsh had to give a silent shake to his head. This party hadn’t gone without a crisis. Payne’s older brother, Ren, had faced off with the younger man over his reckless ways, and they’d nearly exchanged blows.

  Years ago, Rolling Stone magazine had dubbed the nine collective children of the most famous band in the world “Rock Royalty,” but if you asked Walsh, some of the princes and princesses could more aptly be described as…

  “A bunch of drama queens,” he muttered.

  Brody Maddox, whose father, “Mad Dog” Maddox, was the lead singer of their fathers’ legendary group, looked over, dark brows raised over his blue eyes. “What?”

  Walsh gestured at the crowd in the living room with his bottle of micro-brew. “The lot of you. Fucking drama queens.”

  Brody’s eyes narrowed. “And you’re…”

  “A man who leads with his intellect, not his dick.” While living at the Laurel Canyon compound where the Velvet Lemons had wallowed in hedonism, basically ignoring the children they’d begotten, he’d learned the consequences of doing the opposite.

  Before Brody could respond, the sound of the front door crashing against the wall seized their attention.

  “What the—” Brody began, but Walsh didn’t hear any more.

  The earth seemed to actually move as he stared at the woman who marched into the living room. Her straight, dark-gold hair he’d recognize anywhere, along with long, thick bangs that met the top frame of the oversized glasses dominating her small face. But the rest of her…

  His efficient assistant for the past two years always dressed in suits. Boxy jackets that matched below-the-knee skirts or sober, sternly-pressed slacks. Colored gray or clay or black, the shades of her clothes were as no-nonsense as Honey Brooks herself. Now, though, she was dressed in colorful spandex: leggings that were splashes of bright pastels wrapped around shapely calves and toned thighs and that lovingly cupped a high, round ass he hadn’t suspected existed beneath her business wear. His gaze moved upward where he was surprised again by the sculpted muscles of her arms revealed by the clinging hoodie plastering her body, showing off a slender waist and narrow ribcage.

  The change of wardrobe disoriented him. He figured she was here for her boss and that he should say something to garner her attention, but the floor continued to pitch like the deck of a ship on high seas. Pressing the heel of his hand to his temple did nothing to alleviate the odd vertigo. His tie had been stuffed into his jacket pocket an hour before, but now he flipped open the shirt button at his throat, hoping that would allow fresh oxygen to reach his lungs.

  Payne’s Rose waved, catching Honey’s notice and allowing Walsh another minute to gather his cool that had gone weirdly AWOL.

  “Hey, can I get you something to eat or drink?” Rose asked the new arrival on a smile.

  Honey ignored the polite request. “Where is he?” she demanded.

  Shit, Walsh thought as the ground once again lurched beneath his feet. She was really pissed.

  “Um…Payne?” Rose asked, glancing around.

  “Pfft,” Honey said, dismissing that name with a flick of her delicate fingers. “Walsh.”

  There was nothing to do now but step up to confront her wrath. Composing his expression into neutral lines, he passed off his beer to Brody then moved forward, his movements smooth. Casual. “Are you looking for me?”

  She whirled in his direction. What he could see of her face was flushed, and she was breathing hard, her chest heaving so that he couldn’t help noticing the slice of low-cut, hot-pink top exposed by the hoodie’s half-done zipper.

  Honey Brooks wore hot pink? The thought made his head spin again…or maybe it was the glimpse of the tops of her breasts—breasts he’d never allowed himself to imagine when she was sitting primly at her desk or in the chair opposite his.

  Shoving his hands into his pants pockets, he trained his gaze on her mutinous face. “Is there a problem?” he asked, his tone deliberately calm.

  Honey practically leaped forward. Her clean, soapy scent reached him first, that fresh fragrance that for two years he’d refused to react to, no matter how often he caught himself staring at his computer screen wondering if she used a bar, or if it was liquid she squeezed onto a big sponge she then stroked down her slender neck and over her breasts and between her thighs. Long minutes would be lost while he imagined himself watching her slide bubbles all over
her wet skin.

  Now a sheet of paper was rattled in front of his face, bringing him back to the present and making him blink.

  “Not if you’ll accept this,” Honey said, venom in her voice.

  He could guess what it said. She’d been in a snit ever since he’d explained he needed her presence at his side during an upcoming business trip. Really, her stubborn refusal to go along was unacceptable.

  To make that point, he pulled his hands from his pockets, plucked the sheet from her grasp, and tore the stupid thing in half, letting the pieces flutter to the ground.

  Honey’s gaze dropped down, then lifted back up, her expression registering outrage. “That’s my formal resignation letter. I just typed that up since you said, ‘Not happening’ when I texted you the news earlier today.”

  Her full mouth looked as flushed as her face, and he had to glance away because it had always held an inconvenient fascination for him, too. “You now know my response is the same to your ‘formal’ resignation letter as well.”

  Honey quivered. “Did you read it?”

  “If you can’t see what I did, then maybe you need to get new glasses.” Walsh brushed a piece of non-existent lint from his lapel.

  Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened. Then she snatched those too-big lenses from her face and threw them to the floor where she mashed them with the sole of a sneaker-clad foot. Her gaze snapped back to him, and she fisted her bangs, holding them off her face. “I can see just fine!”

  She had wide, dark blue eyes and her glare could melt steel, but it wasn’t going to bend his will. “Then I’ll expect you in the office at the usual time Monday morning.” Without another word, Walsh turned and strolled out the slider leading to the back yard, shutting the glass door behind him.

  He was trying to smooth out his mood when he heard the sound of someone coming outside to join him. His hands fisted, and he shoved them into his pockets again to hide his reaction. If Honey thought—

  “That was fun,” a man’s voice said.

  Walsh relaxed a little and glanced over his shoulder to see Brody approaching. “Did she leave?”

  “I think we can accurately say she stormed off.”

  Frowning, Walsh considered that. It was all so strange. For two years she’d been the epitome of cooperation and competence. They worked well together, their minds seeming to mesh, often without any speech necessary. But then…

  “I’ve got this long weekend to Mexico coming up,” he said.

  “Good.” Brody came to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him, both of them looking out over Payne’s pool. “Your workaholic ways are sucking the humanity out of you.”

  Walsh turned his head, irritated by the jab. “Screw you. And if we’re going to point out character flaws—”

  “Fine, let’s not.”

  Clamping his mouth shut, Walsh studied the other man. Brody’s twin, Bing, with whom he ran a successful construction company, had shared that his brother had developed a disturbing tendency to go off on benders. He’d be gone for days at a time and return green at the gills and looking as if he’d crawled through dirty gutters to get home.

  Brody had always been considered the good twin, but now he seemed determined to drag his reputation—not to mention himself—through the stickiest mud.

  “Look,” Walsh began. He wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of man, God knew, but since Ren and his fiancée, the Rock Royalty princess Cilla Maddox, had coupled up, they’d worked at strengthening ties among the band’s kids. Maybe he should do his part now. “If there’s something you want to talk about…”

  “Who knew your admin had a body that hot?”

  Fire shot up Walsh’s spine. “What the hell?”

  Brody appeared unperturbed. “You can’t tell me you didn’t notice.”

  “She works for me.” He cleared his throat to disperse the annoyance edging his voice. “I care about how she does her job, not how she looks.”

  “She looks damn fine.”

  Walsh refused to let his temper kindle again. His emotions never got the best of him. It was the secret to his success in business and in life in general. The minute a man started giving in to emotion, he lost the control he had of himself and his world.

  Destructive things followed from there.

  “So tell me about this vacation you’ve got planned.”

  “It’s a business trip.”

  Brody groaned. “Only you would manage to make a trip to the tropics about business.”

  “I didn’t plan it,” Walsh snapped back. He took in a calming breath. “But we’ve put a consortium together, and the idea came up that we should get better acquainted on neutral ground. You know, make connections outside of corporate offices.”

  He had his own particular target, York Featherstone, whose company’s products were in a similar vein as those Walsh’s own firm developed. York was reputed to be reclusive and set in his opinions, but Walsh thought a partnership might work out well for both of them.

  It was his sole purpose for taking time away from the office for a jaunt to Mexico. It was also why he wanted Honey by his side. She could call up pertinent facts and figures on the fly. That she was an excellent judge of character was an added bonus.

  “Maybe you’ll get better acquainted with your admin.” Brody’s voice was sly. “Under the influence of sun, sand, and tequila you can make a totally different kind of connection.”

  Walsh stared at the other man. “Why do you keep saying shit like that?”

  “Alexa brought up the word ‘makeover’ and Cilla seems all for it. If they hear about Mexico, they’ll want to turn your second brain into a bikini-clad bombshell.”

  Alarm bells were ringing in Walsh’s head. For two years he’d steadfastly managed to ignore everything about Honey besides her business skills

  Except that scent, a voice inside him said. And her mouth.

  He ignored the evil whisper. Every instinct he had told him becoming aware of her as a woman would take the two of them into territory that not only would destroy their professional relationship, but could wreak other kinds of damage as well.

  He should know. He was an expert at blowing things up.

  So yeah, he was going to continue thinking with his big head, not the little one.

  “Makeover,” he muttered. “No way. Nothing better change.” It wasn’t panic that caused the uptick in his heart rate. It was determination.

  Spandex, big blue eyes, Honey’s uncommon ire at him wasn’t going to knock him off balance either. This trip to Mexico would prove he still had control of himself. That he still had control of everything.

  Honey Brooks tugged on the hem of her suit jacket to smooth out an errant wrinkle as the elevator climbed to the top floor of one of the two sleek office buildings on the business campus at 8000 Ocean Avenue.

  Hauling in a breath, she held tight to her determination to put her work situation back to rights. How it had gotten so out-of-hand, she couldn’t precisely say, but she knew she had to shoulder most of the blame.

  A resignation text! A resignation letter! A face-to-face confrontation in front of the assembled Rock Royalty, that gorgeous clan that usually made Honey feel like a humble tabby cat who’d strayed into a gathering of exotic animals.

  The elevator swooshed open, revealing the reception area, its massive metal welcome desk, black leather visitor chairs, and pearlized gray paint giving off an industrial elegance. Her gaze was instantly drawn to the center wall where the logo and company name were displayed. In gleaming stainless steel it read MadSci, after Walsh’s childhood ambition of becoming a mad scientist. The sight of it never failed to make her smile. Even today, with her stomach unsettled and her nerves strung tight, she got a lift thinking of the dreaming boy who’d gone on to become a powerful businessman.

  She passed through the doors behind the reception desk that led to the staff offices. Since it was well before business hours, she was unsurprised to find the area unoccupied and quiet—except for the
low sounds of a man’s telephone conversation at the farthest end of the hall. That was unsurprising too.

  She’d never beat Walsh to work. As usual, he was already ensconced at his desk. From her place in the hallway she could see his shoulders and dark head over his desk chair. He’d swiveled it to so he could gaze out his window as he spoke, most likely to someone on the East Coast.

  Honey stayed where she was, taking the view in as well. The property at 8000 Ocean Avenue was on a bluff overlooking the Pacific, so from her vantage point she could see endless ocean until it seemed to be absorbed by the sky at the hazy horizon line. As a work location it was amazing, and she was foolish for having almost thrown it away.

  The whole episode had been flighty and…and so very female of her.

  Not that she could explain it in those terms to Walsh. He would look at her like she’d grown a second head—or maybe a keyboard might be more apt. Everybody said he considered her another convenient device in his life, like his laptop or his smartphone or his tablet.

  That’s why she’d have to stick to logic when she outlined her reasons for not accompanying him to Mexico. Point out that someone should be in the States to handle any emergency that might come up in his lucrative PSE—personal safety equipment—business. There was a spy-gadget side, too, and who knew what might go wrong there? Even without a full-fledged crisis, she was the best person in his absence to smooth out any glitches.

  It’s what she should have said when he’d told her about the trip on Friday. Instead, she’d just flat-out refused, and he’d acted as if he hadn’t heard her. Rattled, she’d gone into a panic and left early, sending her “I quit” text from her car.

  Argh! Completely unprofessional.

  Something she wanted to rectify immediately—while still not giving in on the trip.

  Because at the notion of accompanying Walsh to a romantic beachside resort, her belly shriveled to the size of a walnut, and every cell in her body advised her in the loudest, strictest terms that the idea was a very bad one.