Since it was true, I didn’t bother to deny it. “I just thought we were on this whole ‘no more secrets’ train together. Considering that’s what I was told.” I looked at him pointedly.
He moved closer, watching my face. “Well, there’s a difference between secrets and surprises, am I right?”
Oh, goodie, we were back to the wordplay. I crossed my arms over my chest and kept quiet. My silence made him smile.
He stopped in front of me. When I refused to look up at him, he tilted my chin up so I was forced to meet his eyes.
He said softly, “We’re goin’ on tour. For two months. To Europe. Surprise.”
“Gee, it’s almost better than Christmas morning! Have a lovely trip. I’m sure the Krugermann twins will keep you very entertained.”
His soft laugh irritated me further. What the hell was so funny?
“No, darlin’, you’re not listenin’. We are goin’ on tour. Not just Bad Habit. Us. Me and you. That’s the surprise. You’re comin’ with me.”
Whatever look I had on my face amused Nico no end, because he threw his head back and laughed.
“Whoa. Wait. I can’t go to Europe for two months.”
Nico knelt in front of me, and took my face in his hands. “Course you can. Where I go you go, remember?”
“But I have to work. I can’t afford to take that much time off. Let alone the price of airfare, hotels, meals—”
“Christ. Here she goes.”
“No, I’m serious Nico. I can’t afford any of that—”
“I can,” he said calmly. “Everything’s already paid for. Flights, hotels, everything. Your name is on all the tickets. Band’s havin’ a little pre-tour party next Friday, and I was gonna tell you then. It was supposed to be a surprise. You’re comin’ with me, Kat. We’ll be in Barcelona for Thanksgiving, Florence for Christmas, Paris for New Year’s Eve.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “B-but my mortgage! I don’t have enough savings to pay that in advance for a few months. I used half the money from the video shoot to pay down the loan principal and the other half went to credit card balances—”
“Said everything was paid for, didn’t I? That includes your mortgage.”
My face went hot. I blinked rapidly, sure I’d misheard him. “I’m sorry, I must be hallucinating. I thought I just heard you say my mortgage is paid for.”
Nico leaned in and kissed me. “House is still yours, of course. Keep it, sell it, do whatever you want with it. You just don’t have to worry about payin’ for it anymore is all.”
“How . . . you . . . what?” I couldn’t form a coherent sentence.
Nico grinned. “I might have written down the account number from a statement I saw lyin’ on your dinin’ room table. And then I might have written a check to the bank.”
I couldn’t believe it. I simply could not wrap my head around a word he was saying. It must have been obvious I needed more explanation, because he readily provided it.
“The day the paps showed up at your house. You and the girls went in your bedroom to pack. Your mail was on the table.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t resist.”
My eyes bugged out. “You went through my mail?”
“Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t open anything. That statement was just lyin’ there on top of the pile, beggin’ any passersby to have a look-see.” His grin grew wider. “Further provin’ my innocence, I didn’t even touch the envelope from Magic Moments Sex Toys and Lingerie. Looked like a pretty thick invoice, sweetheart.”
“I can’t . . . Nico . . . I can’t accept that.”
He pushed me back against the bed and hovered above me, gazing down with a look of amusement. “No? And why’s that?” He dipped his head and drew the tip of his nose up my neck, from my collarbone to beneath my earlobe. I tilted my head to better accommodate him.
We were in the middle of a quasi argument, but I wasn’t insane.
“It’s too much! That’s your money, that you earned!”
He chuckled against my throat, making me shiver. “Case you haven’t noticed darlin’, I got plenty of money. And it’s not like I’m throwin’ it away; told you before, real estate’s a good investment. For either one of us.” He gathered my wrists in his hands, pinned them over my head, and settled his weight between my legs. “Next argument?”
I tried to sound very stern. “I’m a grown up. I should be responsible for my own bills.”
“You are responsible.” He nibbled on my earlobe, sending a spike of heat through my core. “And you’re a hard worker. Neither of which has any bearin’ on whether or not I should be able to give you a little gift if the mood strikes.”
“Little gift! Paying off someone’s mortgage is more than a little gift! It’s an act of reckless abandon! I think you could be committed for less! Eight hundred thousand dollars is—”
“Less than I make in a week, baby.”
I’m no genius, but it didn’t take me long to do the math. I sat on this new knowledge for a moment, as my lungs slowly deflated. “Oh.”
He smirked. “Yeah, oh. Next argument?”
“No, wait. Let’s stay on this topic for a minute. This is an interesting topic.”
Nico started to hum “Gold Digger” by Kanye West.
I shoved against his chest. “What I’m saying is that it’s really surprising how rich you are.” I eyed the threadbare Zeppelin T-shirt beneath my palms. “Considering your wardrobe.”
His brows shot up. “You got somethin’ against the greatest rock band of all time? And before you answer,” he added quickly, “you should know that if you say ‘yes,’ I’ll have to strip you down to your skivvies and do very, very bad things to you.”
Lord, how I adored that wicked glint in his eye. And how I adored him. My sweet, badass, generous, volatile, infuriating, wonderful man.
“Yes,” I answered seriously, looking him dead in the eye. “Yes. A thousand times, yes.”
Nico pursed his lips and shook his head, pretending to be disappointed. “Well, I did warn you, baby. Prepare for the worst.”
Then he lowered his lips to mine, and for several hours thereafter, he proceeded to make good on his promise.
We remembered to lock the bedroom door this time.
I awoke to a dark room, dragged from a vivid dream in which Nico and I were getting married on the beach on a tropical island. Lying on his back beside me, he breathed steadily, still asleep. His face was shadowed, but his bare chest gleamed in a bright wedge of moonlight that spilled through the bedroom windows.
We’d returned downstairs after an extended absence to a good-natured chorus of hoots and wolf calls from the boys, who’d made easy work of all the food, proceeding thereafter to consume enough liquor to get a Russian army drunk. Brody sang “Afternoon Delight” with backup from Ethan and Chris, who, according to Nico, did an excellent job of proving why they weren’t allowed to sing backup on Bad Habit’s albums. Then everyone, including me, went back into the studio to tinker and play for several more hours as I gazed on in awe and fascination.
Watching Nico work was amazing. He was a genius with lyrics. Starting with a bare-bones idea, he’d make things up as he went along, doing take after take with a new line here, a different way of vocalizing there. The band was a well-oiled machine, following his lead, the guys playing off one another, having as much fun as they were working hard. When finally they’d get a track just right, they’d record it. Most of them would be re-recorded to master in the record company’s studios, but the band seemed to prefer that the initial creative process take place in the informality of Nico’s studio.
And it worked. Seeing Bad Habit make music was nothing short of magical. Each one of them was a virtuoso in his own right, but it was Nico who was truly breathtaking. I couldn’t take my eyes off him the entire time. He played the guitar like he was making love to it. And every time his gaze met mine, he’d smile a slow, secret smile that I’d feel from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet.
We’d gone to bed after midnight. I wondered what time it was now.
I listened into the quiet for a moment, wondering groggily what had awoken me. I didn’t have to use the bathroom. I wasn’t thirsty, or uncomfortably cold or hot.
Had there been a noise?
I stretched beneath the covers. Turning my head, my gaze wandered around the darkened room. Hmm. Maybe it was that slight throbbing in my temples that had woken me. I’d had quite a few glasses of red wine during the recording—
With a strangled scream, I bolted upright.
Someone was standing just outside the open bedroom door.
“What is it?” Instantly alert, Nico bolted upright next to me. “Kat, what’s wrong?”
“S-someone’s there!” Shaking, I pointed to the doorway.
I might as well have just told him Al-Qaeda was waiting in the living room. In a blur of movement so fast it seemed superhuman, he’d thrown back the covers, bent and retrieved a shotgun from beneath the bed, stood, and cocked it.
Chh-chh!
It was a sound that froze my blood to ice water.
Nico hit a switch on the wall beside the bed, and the room was flooded in light. The doorway was empty.
“Someone was just there,” I whispered, trembling all over. I pulled the covers up to my chin. “I’m sure of it. They were right there.”
Nico’s voice was steady. “How many?”
I swallowed, tasting the sour bite of fear. “One.”
We both listened hard for a moment. No sound came from beyond the doorway. The hallway was dark.
“Get into the bathroom and lock the door. Take the portable phone from my nightstand and call 911.”
I moved as fast as I could, crawling over his side of the bed. “What are you going to do?”
“Get in the bathroom. Lock the door. Call 911.” His voice was low and hard.
Terrified, I obeyed him without further question. I grabbed the phone, stumbled in blind panic into the bathroom, and shut the door, locking it with fumbling fingers. My hands shook so badly it took several tries for me to dial 911.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
Trying to keep my voice low, I hissed into the phone, “Someone broke into our house!”
The operator read off Nico’s address. “Is that correct, ma’am?”
“Yes! Please send someone as soon as possible!”
“Can you describe the situation for me please, ma’am?”
I gave the operator as much information as I could recall. It wasn’t much. I’d just seen a dark figure in the doorway. There hadn’t been enough light to make out what kind of clothing he was wearing, let alone describe his features.
“How can you be certain it was a male, ma’am?”
That stumped me for a moment. “I just thought from the size of the person. The height. It didn’t seem like a woman.”
The operator made a sound that indicated she didn’t think a person awakened from a dead sleep in a dark bedroom could be trusted on the matter of whether or not the intruder in her home was a man or a woman. “Do you wear corrective lenses, ma’am?”
I’d been pacing, but stopped short. There was something about this operator . . . something in her attitude . . .
“Wait. Were you working the morning of Saturday the twenty-third last month?”
A faint, weary sigh. “Let’s get back to your emergency, ma’am. Is there anyone else in the home with you? Any minor children or—”
“Oh my God! It is you! You’re the lady who took my call when I was being attacked by the paparazzi!” I recognized her now. That faintly bored, put-upon tone. The I’d-rather-be-anywhere-but-here sigh. I’d know that voice anywhere.
Jesus Christ, what were the odds? Ten million to one?
“I need to talk to your manager.” I began pacing, chewing my thumbnail.
The operator had the audacity to sound insulted. “Ma’am, please try not to panic—”
“I’m not panicking!” I shouted, exactly like a person who is panicking.
“A unit has been dispatched to the address, ma’am,” said my nemesis firmly. “Now I need to get more information from you so that when the officers arrive they won’t mistake anyone else who might be on the premises for the intruder.”
A brief, horrifying vision of Nico being shot dead by police made my jaw snap shut. I managed to control myself, but only just. “Okay, yes. Ask me, ask me. What else do you need to know?”
There followed a laundry list of questions, which I answered to the best of my frazzled ability. When she started asking about weapons, I grew even more panicked.
“Uh, yes. We do have a weapon. My boyfriend does, I mean. A shotgun.”
“Is your boyfriend the homeowner, ma’am?”
“Yes.”
“His name, please?”
“Nico. Nico Nyx.”
There followed a silence so total I thought the line had disconnected. Then the 911 operator cleared her throat. “I’m sending additional units, ma’am. What is Mr. Nyx wearing?”
I knew it! This broad gave preferential service to famous people! If I ever had to call the police again, I’d say I was Kim Kardashian. I’d probably have five hundred cops on my lawn in three minutes.
“Black boxers. But the police will know it’s him because he’ll be the one holding the really big gun.”
That tidbit didn’t faze her. Now that she knew who she was dealing with, she had her game face on. “Please stay inside the dwelling in a safe spot until the officers arrive. If you see the intruder again, do not attempt to engage him. Where are you inside the house, ma’am?”
I told her. She asked a few more questions, each more detailed than the last, until she’d apparently exhausted all of them.
“Would you like me to stay on the line with you until the officers arrive?”
“No.”
“All right, then, ma’am—”
She kept talking, but I’d already hung up. I had no desire to speak with her for one second longer.
Within ten seconds, the phone rang. I jumped, heart pounding. “Hello?”
“This is nine-one-one operator LaTanya Jackson, to whom am I speaking, please?”
“It’s me! Kat Reid! You just talked to me!”
“Ma’am, are you all right?”
I stared at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes were wild. My hair was mussed up. I looked like I’d been on a three-week bender. “Of course I’m not all right! There’s some kind of weirdo in the house and my boyfriend is chasing after him with a loaded shotgun!”
I heard a sound like fingers drumming on a desktop. “You shouldn’t hang up on nine-one-one, ma’am. We don’t know if it’s because you’re in imminent danger and have to put down the phone—”
“Nobody called me back the day we hung up on you when the paparazzi were stalking me!”
She didn’t have a pithy comeback for that one. “If you need to hang up, please let me know.”
I ground my teeth so hard I thought they might shatter. “I’m hanging up on you now, LaTanya. Okay?”
LaTanya sniffed. “Okay. Thank you, ma’am. Please remember to identify yourself to officers—”
“Good-bye!” I clicked off the phone. Well, at least I wasn’t afraid anymore. I was just pissed.
I heard sirens.
Unfortunately, the view on this side of the house overlooked the city. If I wanted to see the cops pull up, I’d have to go out of the master bedroom and cross the hall into one of the other rooms that overlooked the driveway. But I had no idea where Nico was at the moment . . . or where the intruder might be, either.
I decided I wanted to stay right where I was.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. After twenty minutes, my nerves were shredded. I was just about to throw open the door and make a run for it when Nico knocked on the closed bathroom door.
“Baby. Open up.”
When I did, Nico pulled me into a brief, hard hug. “You okay?”
I nodded. “What did the cops say?”
“They wanna talk to you for a minute. Put somethin’ on.”
Hurrying to the clothes I’d left in a pile on the floor beside the bed, I dressed quickly while Nico pulled on jeans and a T-shirt.
“Did they find anyone?”
“No.” He paused to run a hand through his hair. “Went through all the rooms. Nobody’s here but us. You sure you saw—”
“One thousand percent sure,” I said firmly.
“Okay, baby,” he murmured, drawing closer. He gave me another hug. “C’mon downstairs.”
Nico took my hand. I followed him silently through the house, which was now lit up like a Christmas tree. Lights blazed in every room, making me feel safer, if not entirely safe. Even though Nico assured me no one was in the house but us, I was still frightened.
What if they’d forgotten to check a closet? Or behind a bathroom door?
A cluster of uniformed officers were conferring in the foyer. They turned when we neared. One of them, the one in charge I gathered, nodded to me. “Miss Reid?”
“Yes.”
Nico stood behind me, his chest touching my back, his hand warm support on my hip. I leaned into him, grateful for his strong presence.
“Reynolds.” The lead cop offered his hand, and I shook it. Then he got right down to business. “Can you give us any information about the intruder’s appearance? Clothing? Height? Anything like that?”
Officer Reynolds looked like he’d been on the job a hundred years. The others with him were much younger, but he had a weathered face, iron gray hair, and sharp eyes that didn’t miss anything. I trusted him immediately.
“It was too dark for me to see much of anything. He was just standing there right outside the door.” I swallowed. “Watching us.”
“You’re sure it was a male?”
“Women don’t stand like that. Legs open, arms a little away from the body, like a bodybuilder. Plus with the height and build . . . it was a man.”
Reynolds nodded thoughtfully. He glanced at Nico. “How many people have your alarm code?”
“No one. Just me.”
Reynolds’s gaze snapped back to mine. “Well, you got a problem, then, son. We just spoke to your alarm company. They said someone disabled the system by entering your code into the keypad in the garage. Got the code right on the first try.”
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