by Nalini Singh
Sarah made the call then and there.
“Hey, you!” Lola said into the receiver in her big, ebullient voice.
“Hey back,” Sarah replied with a smile. She and Lola had met at an event designed to introduce small LA businesspeople to one another; Sarah had heard Lola laugh and turned with a smile to see who was making such a joyous sound. They’d hit it off right away regardless of the twelve-year age gap between them—and despite Jeremy’s attempts to disparage Lola as “loud and cheap,” Sarah had never stopped nurturing their friendship.
Never again would she focus only on a man. She’d made that mistake with Abe. Oh, he’d never once tried to get between her and any friends she wanted to make. No, it had been Sarah. She’d thought if she concentrated all her energy on Abe, if she gave him her everything, he’d love her.
As far as awful ideas went, it had been one of her worst.
Dropping her purse on the vanity after kicking off her shoes, she settled on the bed for a long talk with her best friend. Flossie padded in to curl up in the sunshine by the window, happy to nap while Sarah chatted with Lola. But though Sarah and Lola normally had no secrets from one another, Sarah couldn’t tell her friend about Abe. Not yet. Not when she could still feel his touch on her skin, still hear the deep, rough murmur of his voice in her ear as he rocked into her body, his own body a wall of heat against her.
She felt too raw inside to expose her emotions to the light.
It was forty minutes later, Flossie still snoozing, that she and Lola finally hung up, having made plans to catch up once Lola was back home.
Sarah stood, was raising a hand to lower the zipper on her sleeveless and beautifully tailored red dress, when the gate buzzer went off, making Flossie bounce up from her position in the sunshine and bolt downstairs. Sarah walked out of her bedroom in a less frantic fashion and headed down the hall to look through the tall, narrow window at the top of the staircase. She could see the gate from this spot, and what she saw today was a familiar black SUV.
Blood rushed to heat her skin, her pulse a hard drumbeat.
Stepping back from the window, she just stood in place for half a minute, arguing with herself. As she did so, her eyes fell on the roses Abe had sent the morning after the wedding, roses she’d deliberately placed on a hallway table rather than inside her bedroom. The blooms were startlingly healthy and joyously red. When she’d first seen them, the bouquet had turned her mushy for a little bit—until she’d reminded herself that Abe was her ex for a reason.
The buzz came again. Flossie barked, as if wondering where she was.
“Don’t be a coward, Sarah.” Smoothing her hands down the front of her dress, she walked downstairs to the control panel in the hallway and pushed the button that would open the gate. She waited to make sure the gate closed automatically behind him.
Abe didn’t appear to have a paparazzi tail, but you never knew with a rock star, especially one as successful and as loved by women as Abe. He was good for the paparazzi’s bottom line even when he was sober. The only good thing about the current situation was that Sarah had never really registered on the paparazzi’s radar even during their marriage—likely because Abe was so rarely photographed with her.
Her hand curled up against her heart.
It still hurt that he’d never been proud of her as Fox clearly was of Molly. The lead singer had been snapped hand-in-hand with his now-wife countless times while the two went about the daily business of living their lives. Picking up something at the grocery store, grabbing a burger, taking a simple walk.
Abe knocked, sending Flossie into paroxysms of exited barking. “Hush, Flossie,” she said and pulled open the door. “Hello, Abe.”
He smiled and bent down to pet Flossie as Sarah’s traitorous dog sniffed at Abe’s jean-clad legs and apparently decided he was okay from the way her tail began to wag. When he rose—after Flossie ran off to play in the enclosed yard—it was with a frown. “You got shorter.”
“What?” She glanced down. “Oh. I’m not wearing my heels.”
Abe’s gaze lowered and Sarah couldn’t keep her toes from curling into the carpet; she suddenly felt bare to the skin when she was perfectly well dressed.
“What’re you doing here?” she asked in an effort to wrench back control of a meeting that shouldn’t be happening in the first place.
“Using then discarding me, Sarah? Tut-tut.”
“Abe.” This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He wasn’t supposed to pursue her. Abe didn’t pursue women. Not even his wife.
“Nice dress,” he commented, hand braced on the doorjamb. “Sexy, but all business. You had a meeting about your company?”
Sarah didn’t quite know how to respond. No man ever asked about her business—Jeremy hadn’t cared, and all her employees were female. It had simply worked out that way, but she was glad for it. She wanted to give women like her a chance. Women who were alone and friendless and struggling in this big city.
“Yes,” she responded when Abe just waited patiently for her answer. “With my accountant.”
“Yeah? Business good?”
Again, Sarah hesitated. Why did he care? Abe had no interest in business, that she knew full well. “You want to go into partnership with me?” she joked in an effort to find her feet. “Doing your due diligence about the company’s finances?”
His smile was sudden and gorgeous and it still made her chest squeeze so hard. No one had a smile like the keyboardist for Schoolboy Choir.
“I suck at business. That’s why I have finance nerds to handle it.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “You do keep an eye on what they’re doing though, right?” He hadn’t when they’d been together. Back then, she hadn’t been confident enough to offer to take on the task, hadn’t known she had the potential for that kind of skill. The night classes she continued to take regularly had shown her different, shown her that she wasn’t the “stupid, brainless brat” her mother’s boyfriend had so often called her.
“Yeah, I check things now that I’m sober,” Abe said, his deep voice slicing the dark memories in half.
He leaned in a little closer at the same time, his body blocking out the outside world. It should’ve made her want to step back; it didn’t—it made her want to place her hands on his chest, raise her lips to his and taste him as if she had every right to kiss this man when he came to her door.
As if he were hers.
Abe’s physicality had always spoken to her own. That was the one place where they’d never had any problems.
“You eaten?” he asked as she fought with herself to stay in place, to not give in to the tug between them.
“No,” she answered. “I haven’t been home that long.”
“I know a place.”
Sarah’s toes curled deeper into the carpet, her battered heart skipping a beat. “I…” Shaking her head, she reminded herself how this had ended the last time around and knew what she had to say. “I think it’s better if we aren’t seen together.”
That gorgeous smile faded as if a cloud had passed across the sun. “Right.”
“I don’t want to be sucked back into the media storm that surrounds you,” Sarah found herself saying, hating that she’d stolen his smile, regardless of whether that was the only sensible decision she could’ve made. “They’ll start saying we’re getting back together and following me and…”
“Yeah.” Abe pushed off from the doorjamb, dropping his hands to his sides. “You’re right. I’ll go before the bottom-feeders sniff me out here—just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Sarah fought the part of her that so badly wanted to ask him to stay, to say that they could just hang out at her place. Those words she could never say—because one thing had become clear to her: Abe was her deepest weakness.
He still held the power to hurt her more than any other man on this planet.
ABE MANAGED TO KEEP HIS DISTANCE FROM SARAH for the next seventy-two hours. That didn’t mean he didn�
��t think about her. He damn well did. He dreamed about the smooth beauty of her skin under his hands, the way her breath turned ragged when he stroked her just right, how her thighs tightened around his hips when he thrust into her.
He’d been waking hard as a rock and having to jerk off in the shower to take care of it. But their sexual chemistry wasn’t what kept him awake at night. It was the memory of her laughter during the wedding and afterward. She’d glowed with happiness as she danced, her eyes sparkling.
Abe hadn’t seen such joy in her smile since the first months of their marriage, and he knew he was responsible for snuffing out her light. No fucking wonder she didn’t trust him anymore. A woman like Sarah rarely gave her trust, and he’d shit all over that precious gift.
Plowing his gloved fists into the punching bag in front of him on the morning of the fourth day, he blocked out the other sounds in the gym and attempted to lose himself in the rhythm of the mindless action. It worked for about a minute before his mind filled with Sarah again. Her shy smile when he gave her a compliment. The way she’d sit curled up under his arm and read to him on lazy summer days.
Hard on the heels of that memory came one of him throwing her books in the pool in a drug-fueled rage. She’d been sobbing as she tried to save them.
“Fucking bastard,” Abe muttered, talking to his past self. He punched the bag so hard that it threatened to swing back right into his face. He didn’t care. He deserved to have his face beaten in.
Ripping off his gloves afterward, he showered, then went straight to a bookshop.
It was too little too late, but now that he’d remembered his asshole behavior, he couldn’t just leave it. Ball cap pulled low, he wandered the aisles… then realized most people here didn’t care who he was; they were more interested in the volumes that lined the shelves. He spent an hour inside the murmuring quiet of the store, searching for the titles he remembered seeing on their bedside table. She’d definitely read him Jane Austen.
He couldn’t remember which one though, so he bought the entire set.
And there was this one romance novel she loved and had read over and over again. He’d teased her it would fall apart in her hands one day. She’d just smiled and read him a paragraph that she’d told him was part of her favorite scene. What the hell had it been? Yes, that was it. In the end, it turned out the store didn’t have that book in stock, so he bought her a bunch of new releases featuring people with dogs or puppies on the covers. He definitely remembered seeing covers like that in their home.
After spotting it in a display, he added in a nonfiction book about a woman who’d set up her own company while nearly flat broke and who was now a millionaire. At the counter, he paid extra to have the books wrapped up and packaged.
He’d called his car service earlier; the driver shot him a funny look when he put the package in the passenger seat and gave him Sarah’s address. “I’m a courier now?” the stocky middle-aged man asked, having worked long enough for Schoolboy Choir that he was a friend. They’d all missed his calm demeanor and total trustworthiness when he broke his leg recently and had been out for a while.
“Best in the business,” Abe responded.
The other man snorted. “I’ll get it to her now.”
Blowing out a breath after the gleaming black town car pulled away, Abe went to where he’d parked his SUV and got in. He didn’t want to go home to his empty house, but he didn’t want to barge in on his friends either. David and Thea, Noah and Kit, they needed time alone. As for Molly and Fox, while the newlyweds were back home after a short wedding trip, having postponed their honeymoon until later in the year, Abe wasn’t about to bust up their love nest.
Gabriel and Charlotte probably wouldn’t have minded the company since they’d been doing the sightseeing thing, but the other couple had flown back to New Zealand twenty-four hours earlier—after inviting all of them to their own wedding.
His phone buzzed right then.
Picking it up, he saw a message from Fox. Molly and I are at that Thai place with the noodles you like. We saved you a seat if you want to join us for lunch.
Fuck, he loved his bandmates. On my way, he messaged back.
Starting the engine, he tried not to obsess over if Sarah would call him after receiving his long overdue gift. Hell, he’d be content with her throwing the books at his head. All he wanted was for her to talk to him, to let him show her he wasn’t that guy anymore, the one who’d destroyed them both.
CHAPTER 16
SARAH SAT ON THE FLOOR of her living room, books spread out all around her.
Having worked nonstop for days, she’d given herself the afternoon off. First, she’d gone to see her son. The anniversary had rolled around again, and though she hurt, this month wasn’t one of the bad ones. She’d talked to him, told him about her day, left him with a kiss.
Her plan for the rest of the day had been to get into her pj’s and curl up on the couch with Flossie to binge-watch a favorite television series. Then had come the buzz at the gate that made her heart thunder and her skin flush… and the delivery of a most unexpected package.
I hope you’re doing okay today. Say hi to Aaron for me. I’m sorry I threw your books in the pool. I was a dick. – Abe
Sarah stared at the note card again, still not certain she was reading it right. The first two lines, they turned her throat thick, but the rest… He’d been so high that day that she’d have bet her business he had no memory of the ugly incident. Sarah had never forgotten it: she could still feel the wrenching ache of the sobs that had overwhelmed her as she tried futilely to fish out books that had been well and truly drenched.
Abe, meanwhile, had moved on to throwing the pool furniture into the shimmering blue water.
Her fingers trembled as she picked up a leather-bound copy of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. It matched the other Austen novels he’d sent her, the set a lovely reissue packaged for collectors. Beside the fancy collector’s editions lay cheerful paperbacks with laughing couples and/or dogs on the covers.
She stifled a wet laugh. He’d clearly chosen those at random, but it was cute that he’d remembered she liked romances with animals in them. Half the time when she’d read to him or talked to him about her favorites, she’d thought he was mostly asleep. It hadn’t mattered—she’d just liked being with him.
The most surprising book in the package was the one about the entrepreneur who’d gone from rags to riches on stubborn grit and sheer determination.
It gave her a funny, fluttery feeling in her tummy to realize Abe really did take her business endeavor seriously. It wasn’t mockery, not when he’d gone to the effort of choosing these other books with her likes specifically in mind. He’d thought she’d like the book because she was an entrepreneur too.
Her eyes burned.
Putting down the book in her hand, she took another look at all of them, then got up and put the books neatly onto the “to be read” section of the bookshelf in her living room. Like so many booklovers these days, Sarah read a lot electronically—she loved being able to inhale a few pages on her phone while she was stuck in a queue or waiting room, loved even more that she could download a book any time of day or night—but she still also cherished printed books, always bought the print editions of her favorites, adored curling up with a paperback on a Sunday afternoon.
Maybe because to her books represented education and comfort. Security.
She loved walking into the room and seeing her favorites, complete with spines broken from how often she’d read them. Her books held so many memories—this one, she’d first read while her stomach was in knots the night before she went to sign the papers that would officially create her company. And that one she’d been given by Lola on her last birthday.
Today, as she arranged Abe’s gift to her satisfaction, she patted the spines of the leather-bound editions, smiled at the paperback covers.
Picking up the torn wrapping paper and the note card afterward, she put the paper in
her recycle bin before returning to the couch and to Flossie. One hand lying on the warm bulk of her dog, she turned the card over to look at the image on the front. She hadn’t paid much attention to it earlier, more focused on Abe’s strong black scrawl on the other side.
It was a drawing of a fairground.
Sarah’s breath stuck in her chest for a long second. She’d asked Abe to go to a fair once. It had been toward the end of their marriage, when her husband was home so rarely it had felt as if he was actively avoiding her. That night, he’d turned her down to party with the guys instead. She’d gone to the fair alone, had ended up sitting in her car watching other couples walk by arm in arm, laughing and excited to be together
Had he remembered? Or was this just chance, the note card grabbed at random off a stand at the counter when he went to pay?
More importantly, what did she do about it?
Her hand went to her phone, but she hesitated, the memories of her awful loneliness while she’d been with Abe holding her in place. Curling her fingers into her palm, she picked up the television remote instead.
She had to keep her distance if she was to have any chance of protecting her battered heart. Because this Abe? The one who sent her flowers and books and who dropped by to make sure she was all right? He was more dangerous than the man who’d broken her to pieces.
ABE ATE, TALKED, MANAGED TO SOUND NORMAL enough that neither Molly nor Fox saw anything amiss, but all the while he was waiting for his phone to buzz. Even after he returned home around ten that night, following a jam session that had ended up turning into an impromptu dinner at Noah and Kit’s, he was poised to grab the phone.
An hour passed, two.
Sometime after midnight, he finally accepted that Sarah wasn’t going to call him.
His jaw clenched as he sat on the edge of the bed, his muscles rigid and his emotions black and twisted. Before, he’d have gone for the drugs, tried to drown it all out. If he didn’t feel, he couldn’t hurt. Today he went to the baby grand piano that sat beside the glass doors that led out onto the patio. He stared at it, his soul aching.