"I'll take care of breakfast," Xan said, heading for the dry store room. She grabbed a box of her own and filled it with coffee, long-life milk, a couple of boxes of cereal and some sachets of jam and honey. She rejected the Vegemite at first, then wondered if Jason might want the vile black spread. After a moment's consideration, she added those, too. From the fridge, she claimed a tub of yoghurt, but there was very little else on the shelves. There'd be a big supply order when the resort reopened next week.
If it opened next week. The chilling thought forced Xan out of the fridge and into the much warmer kitchen. Even with a cyclone coming in, the Kimberley had tropical heat to spare.
Jason had almost filled a second box when Xan laid hers on the trolley.
"If the power goes out, and we're on back-up, the desalination plant and the water pumps might not work. Did you find any bottled water back there?" Jason asked.
Xan's jaw dropped. How come she hadn't thought of that? "I'll go check." She returned with a flat pack of bottled water, wondering if Jason really was as stupid as he'd always pretended. Or was that part of the rock star persona, too?
He was her boss, yet she barely knew him.
"Are you all right with the trolley?" she asked. When he nodded, she added, "I'll go get us a couple of folding beds from Housekeeping."
She swiped open the door to Annette's office, but there wasn't a single bed in sight, folded or otherwise. Xan checked both store rooms, but found none there, either. Stymied, she marched up to the hotel proper, swiping her wristband against every door that wasn't marked with a room number. She found electrical switchboards, firefighting equipment, linen stores and a pungent cupboard full of cleaning chemicals, but no beds until she reached the corridor that housed the library. There, she discovered a store room almost as big as the neighbouring library, filled with portable cots, folding beds and what looked like enough folding tables and chairs to seat a small army. Or a wedding, she thought. Well, that was one less thing to worry about for next May.
Satisfied, Xan wheeled two beds out of the room and let the door hiss closed behind her. She pushed her charges as far as the hotel lobby before glancing outside. Rain battered the path to the games room, with no sign of letting up.
Xan wasn't one to let a little rain stop her, but she didn't want to sleep in a soaking wet bed, either. She grabbed some garbage bags from Housekeeping and used the tape dispenser from Reception to shroud the beds as best she could. Then it was out into the rain, shepherding her wayward charges through the wind until she reached the games room veranda.
Where she found Jason shoving something huge, white and inflatable through the door.
"Just leave those here. I'll get them in next," he said, waving her away. "Better get whatever else you need, because Baz said they just put us on red alert. That means take shelter now."
Clothes. She needed clothes. Xan ran to her unit, snatched up her overnight bag, and sprinted back to the shelter. If she hadn't been well and truly soaked before, she definitely was now. The waterproof bag should have protected her belongings, though. And the resort library's books.
Now there was nothing more to do except find a spot to settle down to wait out the storm. Preferably a comfortable reading nook. And hope that Jason would leave her alone with her book.
Where was he, anyway?
Jason burst through the doorway with a splatter as his dripping raincoat sent water everywhere. He kicked the door shut before shrugging off the coat. "It is officially not safe for humans out there," he announced. "But I hope I brought enough entertainment to see out the storm." He unwrapped the plastic-shrouded bundle in his arms and laid a pile of books on the bar, looking proud of himself.
Aw, how sweet. He'd brought her books. Xan sidled over to the stack, tilting her head to read the titles. "Are all of these for me?" Every single one was a romance of some sort. "Thanks. You could have brought along a few thrillers for yourself, too, you know. These don't look like your style."
Jason opened his mouth, but no words came out. Finally, he shook his head and said, "I'll manage. I brought my guitar. With the storm outside making so much noise, you probably won't even hear me playing, so it won't annoy you."
Annoy her? "I like music," Xan protested.
"Just not mine," he replied, walking behind the bar.
"What makes you say that?"
"At that party in town, where I got up and played with the band. I've never seen you drink as much as you did that night. And you usually only look that pissed off when you're talking to me." Jason shrugged. "It's fine. Not everyone likes Chaya's style of music. As long as enough people like it to buy the music and keep the band in business, was always what mattered. And me, too, I guess. I had to appear in the media enough so they didn't forget about me."
What to say to that without spilling her guts? "I do like your music. I even have a couple of Chaya albums on my playlist on my phone," Xan admitted. Not guiltily. Half the civilised world could say the same. Chaya was that band you went to when your heart was heavy. When something was wrong and you needed the sort of angsty poetry they used in their lyrics, set to growling, snarling rock music that matched your mood. When you wanted to hit things, but belting out a song felt almost as good.
"So it's just me you hate. Figures." Jason cracked open a beer.
"You're drinking already? You'll be drunk as a skunk by the time the cyclone hits!" Xan exclaimed.
He shrugged. "That's the plan. Too drunk to be terrified." He downed half of the beer, gulping it like a drowning man gasping for air.
Xan checked her wristband. To her surprise, it was a few minutes past noon. Not too early to drink, after all. "Can you pass me a ginger beer?" she asked.
Jason pulled one out of the fridge, flicked off the cap and handed her the bottle. "To surviving the storm," he said.
Xan clinked her drink against his, happy to toast what she thought was pretty much a certainty.
"We've got sandwich stuff for lunch," Jason said. "Bread and whatever else I could find. Fuck, if Gaia hadn't been in that helicopter, we could be having the brewery's lunch special brought out to us, instead of making our own."
Xan drained her beer and figured she may as well ask the question burning her tongue. "What was that exchange about, anyway? The bit where you said goodbye and stuff. It sounded familiar. And why on earth did it make Gaia look like Christmas had come again?"
Jason snorted. "It's a bit from her favourite book. A romance, she says, but it doesn't have a happy ending, so it can't be. Not really. The couple break up at the end."
"Which book?"
"Can't remember the title. Fifty Lashes or something like that. The one they made into a movie recently. All about some kinky billionaire getting obsessed with someone who thinks that sadism and masochism sucks."
Xan coughed out a laugh. "I think you got the title wrong. But did you actually read it?"
He shrugged. "I may have watched the movie."
"So you haven't read the books, and you don't know what happens after the first one," Xan said slowly, understanding dawning.
"More kinky shit, probably," Jason said. "Not my thing."
"You really should have read them all. I bet Gaia did. Romance books in a series don't need to all end happily, just as long as the last book does. I hate to spoil it for you, but in this one...well, the couple get back together."
"Fuck! Really?"
Xan hid her smile as she nodded. "Yeah. So Gaia probably thinks you two have your own happy ending in the works."
"Fuck!" Jason wailed, dragging his fingers through his hair. "I'm going to need more beer, so I forget you said that."
Sharing a cyclone shelter with a drunk rock star. Xan couldn't imagine a worse thing to do with her New Year's Eve.
TWENTY-FIVE
Xan set up her camp bed near the bathrooms, far from all the external windows and doors. Everything was shuttered against the storm, but she wasn't taking any chances. The wind had started whistling, th
en outright howling, and the metal sheeting on the roof rattled almost constantly. She'd turned the radio up, but the only sound it emitted was static. Normally this channel was alive with chatter between the local boat-owners, but today's forecast had grounded even the most rabid fisherman. No one was out in this storm. No one except them.
Jason stood at the kitchen bench, fixing himself a sandwich. Xan had prepared hers already. Now, she stretched out on her bed, flipped open her book and took a bite of bread, bacon, sundried tomato and lettuce. Between the book and her BLT, she hoped she could forget the weather for a little while.
TWENTY-SIX
"Hey, Xan," Jason called. "Are you hungry yet? Dinner's ready."
Dinner? But the book was just starting to get hot and heavy, and the heroine had resisted the hero for so long even Xan had gotten frustrated waiting for them to surrender to the chemistry. It couldn't be dinner time yet. She'd barely finished lunch.
Xan glanced at the plate she'd set on the floor several chapters earlier. Only an hour at most. She took a deep breath and inhaled the rich-smelling, cheesy goodness of whatever was going on in the kitchen. Jason could cook?
She climbed carefully off the folding bed, pausing to stretch her stiffened muscles. Maybe she had been reading for longer than she'd realised.
"Good book?" Jason asked.
"Yes," she responded, allowing her curiosity to drag her to the kitchen.
A colander full of gnocchi sent up a curl of steam from the sink draining board, beside an electric frying pan full of what looked like vomit at first glance, but it sure didn't smell like it. She spotted mushrooms swimming in the sauce, amid lumps so smothered in the stuff she couldn't identify them. "What's that?" she asked, pointing.
"Chicken, I think," Jason said. "It was frozen, so I didn't see it had stuff in it until I'd heated it up. By then, I already had the can of mushrooms open, so I added them anyway. You don't mind mushies, right?"
Xan assured him that she didn't mind them, hoping the incredible smell meant all this was actually edible. She popped one of the gnocchi in her mouth and bit down. "Oh my god," she groaned. "What did you do to it?"
"Microwaved it in some hot water until it was cooked," Jason said. "It said it was stuffed with blue cheese. Maybe there's something wrong with the cheese?"
The cheese tasted like it had been crafted on Olympus and gifted by some culinary deity. Xan needed to know the name of the chef who'd made the gnocchi. The stuff was seriously good.
Xan shook her head and searched through the cupboards for crockery so she could have some more. She loaded half of the gnocchi into a bowl, then eyed Jason's sauce. Though it wasn't really his sauce at all – he'd just heated it up and added stuff. She speared a gnocchi with her fork, skimmed it through the sauce and collected a mushroom. Xan transferred the dripping morsel to her mouth. It was even better with the sauce, mushrooms and all.
"Is it all right?" Jason asked.
Xan used a spoon to drown her dinner in sauce. "Mm-hmm." She had better things to do with her mouth than talk.
Behind her, Jason dished up his own dinner. After a long moment, he said, "Hey, this is actually good!"
Silence reigned inside, while the storm shrieked outside. Probably jealous, Xan thought, surprised to find how quickly she'd eaten. She should have savoured it, but it had been so good that she just couldn't stop.
Reluctantly, she forked the last bite into her mouth. After she'd swallowed, she said, "When the resort reopens, I want to know who made that gnocchi. We need to keep that chef here."
Jason smiled sadly. "Always working, aren't you, Xan? I guess that's what you want in someone who manages your investments. Don't you ever have fun?"
"I've barely done any work since the resort closed for Christmas," Xan protested, setting her bowl down. "And I have plenty of fun. My favourite thing in the world is diving and snorkelling. Here, I get to do that every day." She paused. "Well, every day it's not blowing a gale outside. I swear I know every coral bombie in that lagoon, and I still see new things every time I go for a swim. And if that's not enough, I can always take a ride in the jet boat with Baz through the whirlpools. Beats any rollercoaster ride, anywhere."
He looked lost for words.
"Actually, I want to keep that chef here so I can eat that stuff again sometime. I can't afford a personal chef, so the next best thing is to employ great ones for the hotel." Xan found herself reddening. "Okay, it's selfish, I know, but I'd pay for my special dinners. I'm not Meier."
She took a deep breath. "And if this is about how I've never taken a holiday in the time I've been working here, you're right, I haven't. I've been saving them. Look, I've been living in Australia long enough to apply for citizenship. Or permanent residency, at least. I like it here so much I want to be able to live here indefinitely. But the deal is that I have to keep staying here until the paperwork gets approved. When I'm officially a citizen, I can travel again. I'll actually be able to hug my parents instead of seeing them at the other end of a video call."
She dropped her empty bowl in the sink. "You know what? You're wrong. I don't hate you, but sometimes, when you make some stupid, arsehole comment like that, I really don't like you. I think you like your rock star image so much that there is no separation between the persona and the person any more. I hope you do sign a contract for more concerts and albums and whatever else is part of the package. Your rock star antics are wasted on me. I never have been, and never will be, one of your fangirls."
Xan felt an inexplicable urge to cry, but she forced the tears back. "I'm going to bed. Please turn the lights off over that side of the room, and keep the noise down."
TWENTY-SEVEN
As Jason washed the dishes as quietly as he could, he racked his brain to work out what he'd done wrong this time. He'd made dinner, and Xan had liked it, so it couldn't be the food. He was even doing the washing up, so it couldn't be that, either. He'd let her read without interrupting her.
He still had all his clothes on, and he hadn't played golf, slept with anyone, crashed anything, broken anything or thrown up. Yet.
But even on his best behaviour, he'd still fucked up somehow.
"Are you angry about what I said to Gaia?" he asked.
No answer.
"Or that I'm here with you instead of recording my next album?"
In Xan's dark corner, bedsprings creaked. "I don't care about your career, or whether you ever choose to record another song. I don't care what you say to your girlfriend, either."
"You know she's not my girlfriend."
Xan snorted. "Fine. Fangirl, then."
This was about Gaia. "You're the one who told me to be nice to her, back when she was trying to buy the island. From the moment I first met her, I wanted to tell her to fuck off and not come back. I still do." Jason snatched up a tea towel and rubbed it furiously against the electric frying pan.
"Do you hate all the women you've slept with?"
What kind of question was that? "No. Not a single one. Not even...well, okay. Maybe I do hate Gaia for what she did to Flavia. I wouldn't sell someone out to the press. And she never wanted me. She wanted a fucking gigolo. Someone who'd do everything she wanted in bed, not...not...what I usually do with women. Women who want me."
"The rock star." Xan made it sound like an insult, instead of the awesome job it was.
"Yes, the fucking rock star. Which I was, and I will be again one day, when everything's signed." What he'd do without Angel to write the songs and both Jo and Angel to make sure everything went smoothly at concerts, he didn't know. He'd play with other musicians if the girls didn't want to go onstage any more, but how the fuck was he supposed to be Chaya's front man, rock star extraordinaire, by himself?
"Why haven't you signed? Your agent or manager or whatever she is calls a couple of times a week. I've heard Philly talking to her at Reception, saying you're not taking calls. You never take her calls. Is it because you're too lazy to work, now you have your private island?"
Jason glared into the darkness where he knew Xan could see him, even if he couldn't see her. "You wouldn't understand."
"Try me."
He moistened his dry mouth. "You wouldn't. You only see the face of the band. The albums, the concerts, the media coverage. You see me, all over everything. But I never...I was only..." The words spilled out. Stuff he'd never said to anyone, because who would listen? Who would even believe him? How it was Angel's band, not his. How the girls only tolerated him because he was the band's pretty face, the one they could hide behind. They relied on him to bring in the fans, all the while laughing behind his back about how he did it. How he couldn't stand to disappoint his fans, couldn't say no, but that only meant there were more girls trying to get into his hotel room the next night until it was everywhere he went. That tantric sex course...
"What?" Xan demanded, rearing back in her seat. Somehow, while he'd been talking, they'd ended up sitting together at the bar. "You did a tantric sex course? With who?"
"By myself!" Jason snapped, setting down his empty beer. "I gave a fake name, because I didn't want anyone to know I was doing it. Didn't want people knowing the big rock star didn't know the first thing about giving a girl a good time. It's not fucking instinctive. It takes practice. Lots of practice."
Xan laughed. "Oh, so that's what you call it. You weren't just sleeping with anything in a skirt. You were perfecting your tantric sex skills."
Stung, Jason protested, "It wasn't like that! Not for them. Even the instructor said I was good."
"So, you became a tantric-trained rock god, which no girl could refuse. Such a hard life." Xan drained her ginger beer.
"I never asked them." Jason's voice was barely audible above the storm.
The Rock Star's Wedding Page 9