Incite

by Heather Leigh

  “Jesus Dax. You need to learn to rein in your strength.” I make an exaggerated wince and he laughs. Needing to do something with my hands, I take one last chance to straighten up my jacket, then we head out to take our places in the next room. Hawke and Gavin and Dax’s family wave from their seats in the first row, across from Ellie’s mum and her step-dad, Miles.

  The string quartet starts playing the song I composed just for today. A surprise for Ellie. It’s an arrangement of Unconscious Devotion that I spun into a sweet, lilting melody. Perfect for her walk down the aisle.

  Kate appears in the doorway at the back of the DK, the same shoddy pub where our band started playing all those years ago. It’s not a large room, so it only takes Kate half a minute to reach the front and take her place opposite me and Dax.

  The small crowd stands and everyone faces the doorway when Ellie steps into view. She literally takes my breath away. Dax must notice because he nudges me with his elbow, “Breathe mate,” he whispers with a chuckle.

  I watch, my heart pounding in my chest, as Ellie makes her way down the aisle. Her eyes shimmer when she hears the music that was inspired by her, no longer bringing up sad memories. It now represents our future. Ellie takes her place by my side and hands her small bouquet of flowers to Kate before turning back to face me.

  “How’s the little one?” I whisper, unable to resist putting my hands on her moderately swollen belly.

  “Doing great.” She grins, the look on her face one of pure love. “Very active today actually.”

  “Brilliant. Let’s get married. I want to start the rest of our life.”

  “So do I, Adam. So do I.”

  “You don’t have to do this with me,” I tell Ellie for the hundredth time as the car pulls through the gates of the sprawling cemetery in the East End.

  She threads her fingers through mine and squeezes my hand reassuringly. “I know, but I want to be here for you. We want to be here for you.”

  Our one year-old daughter is asleep in her car seat, her dark hair framing her delicate features. I never thought I’d love anyone as much as I love my wife, but that all changed the minute Sadie was born. She’s the spitting image of Ellie, except for the shock of the dark, almost black hair that she got from me. The day she was born, my heart grew to make room for both of them to fit perfectly inside. My family. The first real family I’ve ever had.

  We’re only in the U.K. for a few weeks, preferring to spend most of our time at our New York flat. That’s where we consider home. The one we have here in London, that I bought years ago in an effort to keep roots in the U.K., we gave to Ellie’s mum and her husband as a wedding present. Later today, we promised that we’d come over to celebrate Sadie’s first birthday, even though it was last month.

  The driver stops the car in the section of the cemetery where my mother’s grave is located. Just as Ellie had predicted almost two years ago, Danny was arrested and his drug ring was taken down. I hadn’t spoken to him since that day with Dax in the Chinese restaurant, knowing if I had any contact with him after discovering that he hired Callum to attack Ellie, he would be in this cemetery next to my mum.

  Ellie pushed me until I agreed to visit Danny in prison while we’re here in the U.K., saying that I would get closure from confronting him face to face. She was right, and not just because it was satisfying to see that pathetic, useless bastard behind bars.

  While I was there, shouting at him for hurting El, Danny admitted to me that our mother had passed away a year or so back. Drug overdose. I wasn’t surprised to find out how she died. What surprised me was my utter lack of emotion over learning that she was dead.

  “You going to wait in the car with Sadie?” I turn to El. “It’s chilly out there today, Sweetheart.”

  Ellie zips up her overcoat and unsnaps the baby’s harness. “We’re a family, Adam. We’re all going together,” she says with an air of finality.

  Family. I have a real family. Not a fucked up, abusive, shitty family like the one I grew up with. I have a loving, supportive, perfect family like the one I always wanted. They’re my whole life. They travel with me on tour, support me when I’m struggling, make me happy when I’m down. Everything a family should be.

  I lower the partition to speak to the driver and to Duncan, one of the bodyguards I hired to keep my family safe. Even with Danny and Callum in prison, I’m not taking any chances with crazy fans or plain old nutters getting anywhere near my family. I think about my friend Sydney, and how she was attacked by a stalker and the thought makes me shiver.

  “Dunc, apparently we’re all going to get out.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Reynolds.” The large man unsnaps his seatbelt and climbs out of the car.

  Sadie wakes up when Ellie lifts her out of the seat, and she gives me a toothy grin right before she bops me on the nose with her tiny hand, making my eyes water. I take her from El, holding her in my arms as we exit the car and trek across the damp grass. Duncan stays unobtrusively behind us, leaving a respectful amount of space.

  I find my mother’s grave easily, marked by a plain grey headstone that has her name and dates of birth and death on it, nothing else. For a moment, I allow myself to remember the mother I had in bits and pieces, small pockets of normality in between the long stretches of drug use, absence, and prostitution.

  Smiling, I recall the time that she bought Danny and me a pair of cheap kites and took us to the park near our flat to fly them. Mine dive-bombed and splintered into pieces on the ground almost immediately and I burst into tears. She hugged me and told me it was okay, because Danny would share his. We ended up having a great day, Danny letting me hold the string after he got the kite up in the air.

  I sigh at the memory, wondering what my life would have been like if every day could have been like the day in the park. My daughter chooses that exact moment to clutch my hair in her little fist and pull, hard, giggling as I struggle to loosen her fingers.

  “My God she’s strong!” I laugh as Ellie helps me untangle her iron grip.

  By the time we separate Sadie from my scalp, we’re all laughing and she’s got a good chunk of my hair in her hand.

  I let Ellie carry her back to the car, slipping my hand in my wife’s free one so I can stay connected to the most important people in my life. After we strap Sadie back into her seat, and the car pulls out of the cemetery, Ellie leans over and kisses me.

  “Adam…”

  I pull back so I can look into the gorgeous face of my wife, her cheeks pink from the cold and her blue eyes flashing with mischief. “Yes Sweetheart?”

  “How do you feel about adding to our little family?” I look down and notice that Ellie has her hands splayed out on her still-flat belly.

  “Are you trying to tell me something?” I grin, hoping that she’s saying what I think she’s saying.

  “What do you think of Lucas if it’s a boy?” Her eyes glitter with a mixture of joy and a hint of sadness.

  “You want to name him after your dad?” Ellie nods and blinks away the tears. I gather her in my arms and hold her close, sliding one hand over hers on top of her flat stomach, “I think it’s brilliant. I love you.”

  “I love you too,” she whispers.

  I finally have everything I ever wanted. My band, my music, my wife, my daughter, a baby on the way… for a poor kid from the East End, everything turned out pretty okay.

  chapter 42

  Ellie

  The noise of the crowd is so loud, I can hardly hear the directions being given to us by Adam’s assistant, Justin, a quiet, hardworking kid.

  “You okay, Sweetheart?” Adam leans down so I can make out his voice over the screaming.

  “Yeah, fine,” I lie. My heart is thrumming faster than I thought possible and my eyes are scorched from the bright lights of the cameras.

  “I’ve got you, no worries.” Adam grins at me and splays his hand protectively over my huge belly, which causes the paparazzi to go wild. I smile up at my husband, knowing
that he’ll take care of me.

  Slipping his hand in mine, Adam follows Justin up the red carpet, stopping whenever we’re told to stop and pose, speaking to the different reporters at designated places, laughing with the other guys in the band when we meet up for a group photo.

  “You didn’t tell me how exhausting the Grammy’s are. I’m knackered already and the show hasn’t even started.”

  Adam gives me a playful smirk before leaning down for a quick kiss. He tilts towards my ear so I can hear him, “I wasn’t seven months pregnant any of the times that I was here.”

  “I should hope not,” I joke. “That would definitely cause a ruckus of enormous proportions.”

  “Just a few more hours and we can fly straight home, Sweetheart. Sadie’s waiting for us.” Adam’s eyes meet mine and I sigh. I know the love he has for me is genuine, it runs so deep that it shows with every word, every touch.

  “Okay, home sounds brilliant.”

  I flick on the telly and run through the channels, looking for Sadie’s favorite program. When I see Adam on the screen, I stop and turn the volume up.

  “Dada!”

  “Yes love, that’s your dad.”

  Sadie grins and stuffs her poor teddy bear’s ear in her mouth.

  “Ugh! I look enormous!” I scowl at the screen and put my feet up on the couch.

  “What do you expect, Sweetheart? You are in fact seven months pregnant.” Adam comes into the room with my mug of tea and sits down, pulling my feet into his lap.

  “I didn’t expect to look like a bloody beached whale, Adam!” The designer made a custom dress for me out of a beautiful light blue chiffon, which was gorgeous when I put it on. They say the camera adds ten pounds, well, if you’re pregnant it seems as if that number quadruples.

  “You don’t look like a whale, El.” Adam rubs my sore feet while Sadie runs over to the telly and smashes her dirty hands all over it.

  “Mommy! Dada!” She points at us as they re-air an interview we did at the Grammy’s last night.

  “Yes love, that’s us,” Adam tells our daughter.

  Sadie comes barreling over and throws herself onto his lap. She’s such a daddy’s girl, it’s beyond adorable. Watching Adam interact so sweetly with her brings tears to my eyes more often than not, even more so now that I’m pregnant and hormonal.

  The screen cuts to Adam and the guys on stage performing, then to them accepting their award for Best Album. When the program switches to another artist, I click off the telly and sigh, closing my eyes so I can enjoy my foot rub.

  “Want to go to the park today?” Adam asks.

  “Adam…” I whine, “we just flew in last night after standing on that bloody carpet for hours in horrible heels. Aren’t you tired?”

  He chuckles, “Well, I wasn’t wearing heels, so no, I guess I’m not.”

  I laugh with him and pretty soon Sadie joins in, her high-pitched giggles ringing through our New York flat.

  “Maybe you’re right, we should stay in and recover. Have family time.” He puts Sadie on the floor and leans over me, dragging a finger down my cheek. “You looked gorgeous last night, Sweetheart. You’re always the most gorgeous woman in the room.”

  I reach up and run my hand through his hair until it rests on the back of his neck. “I love you.”

  He tilts his head and brushes his lips across mine, “I love you too El. We’ll do the park tomorrow. Today, we’ll stay home so I can spoil my girls.”

  Home. With Adam. The boy I met in first period in a shabby school in Lower Clapton so many years ago. We’ve been through so much to get here, it’s impossible to imagine doing this with anyone else. We still have so much to look forward to, a future together, and I can’t bloody wait to see what happens next.

  Acknowledgements

  Well, another book, another page of people to thank.

  Obviously, I have to thank my husband, Brian. For his infinite patience while I hunch over my computer at all hours of the day.

  Next, I have to give shout outs to my lovely Betas, you know who you are ladies! Plus, my new British Beta, Michelle, who helped me out with my British slang.

  Of course, I have to thank all of the lovely bloggers, without whom no one would know of my books. Props to you for all of your hard work and dedication. We self-published writers would be nowhere without you.

  Lastly, I want to thank everyone else in my life who supports my writing endeavors. My family, friends, fans, and countless others.

  Thanks for reading,

  Heather

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  Books

  Sphere of Irony (a rock star series)

  Incite — Adam

  Strike — Dax (coming soon)

  Defend — Gavin (coming soon)

  Entice — Hawke (coming soon)

  The Famous Series

  Relatively Famous

  Absolutely Famous

  Extremely Famous

  Suddenly Famous (a novella)

  Reluctantly Famous (a novella)