Wishful Sinful (Rock Royalty Book 5)

by Christie Ridgway

  “Oh, well, it’s not like the lot of you aren’t gossiping about me all the time,” Brody pointed out.

  “Fuck you.”

  The other man acted as if he hadn’t heard that. “And I’m not knocking your plan. Maybe if you stick to your list—”

  “You heard about that too?” Outrage gathered like a ball of fire in his belly.

  “Well, it’s been a long lunch. Honey and I have gotten kind of close. You know, I’ve always liked her.”

  Who knew your admin had a body that hot?

  Brody had said those words that day at Payne’s when Honey had tried to quit her job. And just now he’d said, Honey and I have gotten kind of close.

  Walsh’s gut burned fiercer. “You keep your distance from her, do you hear me?”

  “But, hey,” the other man protested, “I thought you wanted me to—”

  Walsh hung up before Brody’s voice of reason made him throw his phone at the mirror across the room.

  He couldn’t afford the bad luck.

  But it seemed to dog him anyway. A few hours later, when room service was delivered, he discovered they’d overcooked his steak, sent the wrong kind of salad dressing, and included apple cobbler instead of the cheesecake he’d ordered for dessert. Rather than send it back, he ate the meal as it was, afraid if he called down to the kitchen he’d go off on a rant that had nothing to do with the difference between medium and well-done or vinaigrette and Roquefort. Anyway, the apple cobbler had been excellent.

  Yet his mood did not improve.

  Still sitting at the small table by the window with its view of the National Mall, he looked toward his phone. Staring at the device resting next to his empty bottle of microbrew, he told himself not to call.

  Then he muttered, “Fuck it,” and reached out.

  His hand froze as he noticed the time. Beyond business hours, even on the West Coast. While that had never stopped him from phoning Honey before, things were different now. Fuck that, he thought, and made the call.

  At the sound of her voice, his tension eased, just as he’d hoped it might.

  “Hi,” he said. “Hi, there.”

  “I was expecting your call.”

  The last of his earlier headache subsided. “You were?”

  “Brody said he talked to you.”

  “Yeah.” He took a breath. “Did you, uh, have a nice lunch?”

  That sounded polite, didn’t it? Not like he’d wanted to squeeze the other man’s neck until his ears popped off his head.

  “We went to Malibu Seafood.”

  Walsh frowned. It was their place…well, if a boss and an admin could have a place. He cleared his throat. “What did you order? Was Junie there?”

  She always agonized over the choice between a Louie salad and a swordfish sandwich. He never told her why, but he invariably ordered the one that she didn’t, so she could have a bite or two of the other taste she craved. And the thing was, he didn’t even like Louie salads.

  He listened with half an ear as she gave him an update on Junie, the lunchtime counter person. Then she moved on to news about a couple of the regulars they happened to know. Instead of absorbing the particulars of her conversation, he merely listened to the sound of her voice, murmuring here and there to keep her going.

  Moving to the bed, he kicked back on the pillows and crossed his ankles, feeling relaxed for the first time since leaving Mexico. He let his mind drift there for a moment, recalling the warm brush of the breeze, the scent of Honey’s perfume, and the sweet taste of her pussy in his mouth. His eyes drifted closed, and he placed his palm on the other side of the bed, as if he could will her to appear there.

  “Walsh? Walsh?”

  He jerked out of his half-aroused stupor. “What? Sorry. What did you say?”

  Should he explain he’d been floating away on fantasies of her surprising him in this hotel room? They’d lock the door and only let in room service, uncaring if they sent cobbler instead of corn flakes, roasted chicken instead of chicken noodle soup. It would only matter that they had each other and the big bed…and hang all the stupid meetings.

  “I asked you what you wanted me to do about Lydia.”

  “Lydia?”

  “Your second-date-that-ended-early? When Rose was hurt? You rescheduled Lydia for tomorrow night, and she called the office to confirm since you weren’t answering your cell.”

  “Oh.” He couldn’t even remembering seeing her name come up on the screen. “Could you phone her and cancel for me? I won’t be back tomorrow night.” And he wasn’t interested in another date with Lydia, though he supposed he’d have to break that to her if she continued to call.

  “Jessalyn also wanted me to leave a message for you. Her niece is having a sixth birthday party at the zoo next weekend, and she thought you might like to accompany her.”

  When he didn’t immediately respond, Honey’s voice took on an edge. “I think you’ve dated her four times. She’s the event planner you met at that business launch party?”

  “Right.” A willowy brunette. “I don’t know—”

  “Well you should know.” Honey sniffed. “What with her interest in attending her niece’s party, she probably wants kids. So that makes her a two-fer. An excellent hostess and potential mother material.”

  At her sharp tone, Walsh stiffened. First Reed, then Brody, and now Honey. The day had been too long and his stress level too high for him to hold back his sudden flare of temper. “Damn it, did I ask for your opinion?”

  “No, but—”

  “But you think my plan is stupid.”

  The ensuing pause told him she regretted what she’d said and that she was trying to figure out if she should actually be honest or slither away from the subject altogether.

  “Go ahead, Honey.” He grabbed for calm and cooled his voice. “Tell me what you really think.”

  “Okay.” She sighed. “I…I think it’s ill-conceived. Relying on a list, working off a catalog of requirements—”

  “How is that different from a job listing?” he demanded. So much for keeping calm.

  A moment of silence passed. “Um, that’s it exactly. Becoming someone’s spouse is different from taking a position in their business.”

  His headache was on the rebound. “What makes you an expert on a good marriage?”

  “Because I’ve witnessed what makes a bad one,” she said quietly. “A partnership based on love and respect would be different. Spouses take care of the other when one is sick. Commemorate the day when one has achieved something important. If there’s been a disappointment, a loving spouse will be there with a sympathetic ear or maybe a favorite candy bar.”

  “Candy bar,” he scoffed. “How about a blow job?”

  He instantly hated his crudeness, just like he was hating this whole conversation and the fact that he could only blame himself for it. It was he, after all, who had invited her to speak her mind.

  “That too,” she said equably, as if he wasn’t the biggest asshat in the universe. “But who’s going to offer that to a man who’s essentially selected them like a new hire? And if you can’t see that—”

  “I’ve seen enough,” he interrupted, her patient tone getting on his last nerve. “I’ve seen what happens when a man believes in that pretty story you tell and gives his fucking heart and every drop of passion he has to a woman, then almost loses all he fucking cares about in return.”

  “Walsh…”

  Her placating tone goaded him.

  “You want to know? You want to know the details?” Without waiting for her to answer, he continued. “I was seventeen. Which sounds young, but in Velvet Lemons years, I was more than a man. I’d been fucking for ages and watching people fuck for longer than that. I’d been around groupies and wannabes and mommies who left at the drop of a hat or a dollar my entire life. I thought Freddie was none of those.”

  “Freddie?”

  “Frederica. Her boyfriend brought her to the compound one afternoon. She was ninet
een and he was older, a partier. She steered clear of that stuff and a couple of Sundays just hung out at the pool. It was on those days that Cami and Cilla swam there, and Gwen—Gwendolyn Moon, our mother figure of sorts—”

  “You’ve mentioned her.”

  “On Sundays she insisted that swimsuits stayed on, and she banned booze from the pool deck. I would hang out there, play cards with Gwen, and keep an eye on the little girls with her. Freddie began joining us. And I fell for her, all the way.”

  “She was nineteen.”

  “And I was seventeen going on cynical-as-hell. I knew the score.” Or had he? Walsh shook his head. “Anyway, she still managed to play me. Boo-hoo, her boyfriend was a big old meanie. Boo-hoo, he’d made her give him the money her dead grandma had left her. Boo-hoo, he’d used that money to buy a Lamborghini with all the bells and whistles. And finally…”

  Honey cleared her throat. “Finally?”

  “Boo-hoo, she was living with this son of a bitch when she was really in love with me.” He directed his gaze out the window, but didn’t see the lights of D.C. Instead he saw the stupid kid he’d been, taken in by an earnest attitude and cherry lip gloss.

  “Then she stopped crying and told me about this idea she had. If something would happen to that sports car, which the meanie had registered in her name because of his many DUIs, then she’d get the insurance money and could escape him.”

  “There had to be other ways—”

  “Of course there were other ways. But I was a guy with a penchant for blowing things up, so I had my own idea about how I could help her make a great escape.”

  He heard Honey swallow and could imagine her blue eyes had gone round. “You blew up the Lamborghini?”

  “I blew up the Lamborghini. The next time she and the boyfriend came to a Velvet Lemons party, I snuck down to the gravel parking area and lit up that sucker.”

  Honey gasped.

  “I ran back to the house where I expected to meet Freddie so we could be each other’s alibis. But I didn’t find her where we’d agreed… When I did locater her I learned she wasn’t what I’d thought. I discovered her in the butler’s pantry screwing Hop.”

  “Your father?”

  “That’s right. She’d been banging my dad and she’d been banging me, and then there was the big bang of that car explosion. Unfortunately, I still had a few things to learn in that department. The burning car caught Gwen’s house on fire—the house where the little girls were sleeping that night.”

  “Oh, my God,” Honey said. “But of course they were all right…”

  He thought of seeing the flames through a window and how he’d raced back to the little house, slamming through the front door to wake Gwen and Cilla and Cami. The whole time he’d been cursing Hop and Freddie—and himself for being such a sucker.

  “Yeah,” he said, trying to sound offhand, even as he remembered the smoke and the terror and the guilt. “In the end the Lemons paid off the fire marshal, just like they’d been paying off the police for years and years.”

  Honey was quiet a long moment. “Still…what a frightening and fiery end to your romance.”

  His laugh sounded harsh. “Taught me that love meant getting led around by my dick. I won’t be anyone’s puppet ever again.”

  She was silent for an even longer moment. “Why’d you finally tell me this?”

  “So you’ll refrain from asking me to put a bomb beneath your next boyfriend’s car?”

  “Really,” Honey insisted. “Why?”

  “You asked.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “We were arguing. I lost my head.”

  “Or you wanted to be sure I knew exactly what’s going on inside of yours,” she murmured.

  “What does that mean?” He was weary now, sick of D.C. and long meetings and thinking about the ugly past.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said. “Goodnight, Walsh.”

  Wait! She’d hung up? How could she have left him like this? Honey was supposed to make him feel better.

  But the call had definitely ended, leaving him with nothing but himself and the anonymous hotel room—and the realization that for the very first time, talking to his capable and efficient admin had only made him feel worse.

  Honey let herself into Walsh’s penthouse condo. Late afternoon sun flooded through the windows and it smelled like furniture polish and bleach, which meant the cleaning service had dusted, mopped, and vacuumed per their usual schedule. Good. One of the items on her mental To Do slate was ensuring that they’d been by.

  Of course, it didn’t get past her irony-meter that she had a list of her own. But she’d filled it with admin assistant-type tasks, and she was getting through her days by focusing on scratching them off one at a time. That was proving to be a somewhat effective distraction from obsessing about her siblings’ clashes with their parents—which seemed to be escalating—and obsessing about her still-absent boss.

  The kitchen was her first stop. She set down her purse, noting with approval the gleaming countertops and sink. But the refrigerator deserved a look as well, to make sure something hadn’t spoiled inside. Walsh hadn’t intended to be gone this long. Sure enough, some roast beef slices appeared slimy and a container of potato salad sported a green fur hat. She dumped them in a plastic bag and reminded herself to take the thing with her on her way out.

  As she left the area, she paused to look back at the space. For a moment she could see herself and Walsh, the ghosts of their former selves before they’d jeopardized their platonic relationship, laptops open and papers spread before them on the granite bar, soup bowls and sandwich plates pushed aside. Working Saturdays had never felt like a chore.

  Probably because she’d been falling in love with him at the same time.

  Sighing, she continued on toward the bedroom, taking a quick glance at the expansive living area. The piano sat in the corner, dark, sleek, and secretive, just like its owner had been until their last conversation.

  She now understood his determination to find a wife in such a premeditated manner. Passion had betrayed him once, and he wouldn’t trust it again. She’d been listening too when he referred to “mommies who left at the drop of a hat or a dollar.”

  While she had Lucy and Jeb to love and who loved her back, he’d grown up without anyone gifting him with that unselfish emotion.

  It tempted her to tell him her true feelings for him, but she’d also figured out why he’d finally related the story about Freddie, his father, and the burning Lamborghini. It was a warning after the long weekend they’d spent in Mexico―Don’t love me because I’ll never offer that back.

  In his bedroom, she halted again, taking it in. It was a space new to her—she’d never had occasion to get a peek until now, when she was tasked with packing up more clothes for him in D.C. The king-size bed crisply covered by a dark cotton duvet didn’t surprise her, nor did the glimpse she could see of an attached bathroom done in gray and black granite. But the wall filled with framed pieces of sheet music made her eyes widen, especially when she recognized the hand that had penned the notes.

  Walsh wrote music.

  Could she be wrong?

  She drew closer to study them and confirmed her guess. It was definitely his handwriting and definitely his name scrawled at the bottom of each page. He’d titled the piece “Canyon Fire,” and the crowded notes that jumped up and down the staff gave the impression to this layperson it had been written by someone full of rampant emotion and unrestrained impatience…qualities that didn’t seem to fit the Walsh she thought she knew so well.

  Had he extinguished this impassioned self when the flames of the car fire went out? Or was all this still somewhere beneath his tailored suits and elegant ties?

  The sound of the front locks turning made her stomach jump. No real intruder, a guard in the lobby checked IDs against a list of approved guests, but who—

  “Honey?”

  She blinked and headed toward the entry. “Brody?” />
  He shut the door behind him, a big box under his arm. “The security guy downstairs told me you were up here.”

  “Walsh needs some more clothes in D.C. I’m going to overnight them.” When he headed for the bar in the living area, she followed. “What about you?”

  “We share a beer-of-the-month club subscription. It’s delivered to the construction company office.” He hefted the box onto the surface above the beverage cooler. “I figured he might like to have some new brews chilling when he gets back.”

  “That’s nice.”

  Brody paused in placing the bottles in the racks in the refrigerator.

  “It’s more of a peace offering,” he said, with a wry smile. “We didn’t end our last talk on great terms.”

  Although everyone considered this man the “good” twin, again he surprised her. It was such a thoughtful gesture. “You Rock Royalty guys are all hard to figure out, did you know that?”

  “No way.” Brody smiled over his shoulder again. “Let me clear it up for you. Ren is the bad ass. My twin, Bing, is the unrepentant bad boy. Reed is the resident brooding recluse, Payne our daredevil, and Beck the adventurer. Walsh is our only true still waters…though lately his surface has seemed more than a little stirred up.”

  “He told me about the bombing of the Lamborghini,” she blurted.

  Brody straightened, his blue eyes narrowing. “That was a long time ago.”

  “Not to him, I don’t think.” She thought of the music on his wall. “The fire didn’t reach the girls and Gwen though, right?”

  “No. Didn’t touch them. Walsh was the one who ended up in the hospital.”

  “What?”

  “He didn’t tell you he ran inside and got them out?”

  She shook her head. “How…bad was it?”

  “Like you said, Cilla, Cami, and Gwen came out just fine. Walsh spent a few days in the hospital suffering from smoke inhalation.”

  Her chest tightened. “That part he kept to himself.”

  “Still waters,” Brody repeated.

  Honey glanced at the piano in the corner, then gestured to it. “Does he play?”

  Brody hesitated.

  “I always assumed the previous owner left it here or something.”