His blood still rushed through his body. He longed to turn back and take Georgie back to bed, but music is a bitch mistress. Xan Valentine had appearances scheduled.
Boris opened the door to the hallway to let Alex through without stopping, but a shadow blocked the doorway. Alex dug his heels into the carpet, stopping short lest he barrel into Rade, who stood with a keycard in his hand, interrupted in the act of poking it into the card reader.
At the sight of his bandmate, Alex’s shoulders settled farther back, and his throat opened to deepen his voice into Xan’s Northern English, working-class accent. He didn’t unclench his teeth when he asked, “Are you awake already?”
“Oh. Hey, dude,” Rade said. He blinked, his brilliant blue eyes contrasting with the purple tips of his white bangs. “Just coming to see you.”
“Walk and talk,” Xan said, striding past him into the hallway. “Where’s Grayson?”
Rade followed, keeping up as they walked toward the elevator. “He’s still asleep. He had a rough time with the strippers last night. Occupational hazard, huh?”
Of course it was, since Rade and Grayson, The Terror Twins, were living a clichéd rock star lifestyle instead of the one that led to success. “Oh, yeah. I go out clubbing every fucking night. He’ll be at band meeting in a few hours?”
“Oh, sure. He’ll puke and be fine. Worked for me.”
“Fucking fantastic. What do you need from me?”
“I need sheet music for ‘Set Me On The Open Road.’” Rade said.
Their drummer had written that song, and they had debuted it a few weeks before when the need had been great. “Tryp hasn’t transcribed it yet.”
“I want to get a jump on it, just in case we need to perform it again.”
Xan let one side of his mouth rise. Rade sometimes surprised him, showing ambition where Xan thought that drugs and liquor had burned most of it away and strippers had stolen the rest along with Rade’s wallet and stash. “I’ll have him write it out and get it to you.”
“Cool. It’s such a quiet song. I thought maybe I’d set the keyboards to a grand piano to accompany it like Tryp did, but more along the lines of a spare, sere accompaniment, like the desert.”
Xan stopped at the elevator, poking the call button. Boris and Yvonne caught up with them. “That’s a fucking stellar idea, Rade. I’ll make sure he gets it to you soon.”
“Thanks, man. Catch ya later.”
“Sure, man. Later.”
Rade meandered back toward his room while Xan boarded the elevator and slouched against the back wall.
When Xan had first heard Rade play Chopin at a recital in Manhattan, he’d been floored by his virtuosity and the emotion packed into his performance, and he had recruited him for Killer Valentine the next day, a decision he had regretted for years.
Maybe Rade’s appetite for liquor, drugs, and strippers was nearing an end. Maybe he would return to music and become a functioning band member again. When Xan had been writing the first couple of songs, he had worked with Rade during some long nights, and Rade had had good input.
Maybe it could be like that again.
As Xan watched Rade through the closing elevator doors, his body language changed as he slid the keycard into the reader of his own room. He bounced on the balls of his feet and nearly fell against the door, rushing inside.
Xan almost stuck his hand in the elevator doors to shove them back open, hoping that Rade only had a stripper in his room, but he had dallied too long with Georgie and was late for the interview.
INTRUDER
Georgie
For the first time in many, many years, Georgie was bored.
Alex had rushed out with his entourage, and Georgie had gone back to bed, lolling around in the high-thread count, luxurious sheets that felt smooth against her bare legs.
High-end hotels have good linens.
When the sun had climbed up the sky outside the wide windows that looked over the city, Georgie had unsnarled herself from the sheets and ordered room service, since Boris had indeed made good on his threat to damage the pastry selection. Minutes later, a waiter pushed a cart into the living room, silver domes shining in the late morning sun.
High-end hotels could even make egg white omelets taste good.
And then Georgie sat on the couch in the living room of the suite and waited, staring through the wide windows at the early spring haze floating over the city around her.
Since she had run away from home and changed her name, she had been in college, working her ass off to scrounge enough money for tuition and to save, plus homework and studying and classes, plus running every day to keep from going nuts.
At college, the pianos in the music department called to her from across campus, and every day she woke in the early, dark hours of the morning to answer, playing for hours even before other music students arrived.
Now, she had dropped all her classes and left her laptop behind.
She had run away from her job and her friends.
There wasn’t a piano in this posh hotel room.
She didn’t even have a tablet to read a book on.
Georgie found the remote control on the nightstand beside the tousled bed and turned on the television to a news channel. The world was burning. Bad things had happened.
She turned off the television.
The door slammed in the living room, vibrating through the thin drywall of the hotel’s walls, and a man’s hoarse voice called, “Xan! Where the fuck are you?”
Georgie scooted off the bed, pulling on her musty yoga pants and yelling, “Um, he’s not here!” She opened the bedroom door. “Do you need something?”
The lead guitarist stood in the hotel’s living room, his long black hair was slicked back in a ponytail instead of loose and wild like on the stage last night. He scratched his short beard, and his huge hands clutched the back of the sofa in the conversation group.
He glared at her, hazel eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”
“Georgie. I’m a friend of, um, Xan’s.” It still felt weird to say Xan instead of Alex.
The lead guitarist said, “Xan doesn’t have friends like you. How did you get in here?”
“He does so have friends like me. I was at the concert last night.”
His hands tightened on the white couch, digging into the velvet. “Yeah? Did the roadies let you in here to wait for him? That’s sick, you know.”
“No one ‘let’ me in here. I did the runner and rode in the SUV with him.”
“Where are Boris and Yvonne?” His suspicious tone set Georgie’s teeth on edge. She wasn’t a fucking groupie.
“They went with him to the radio interview.”
He pulled a phone out of his jeans’ pocket. “I’m calling security.”
“Call Adrien,” she said. “He’ll tell you. He waited here with me while Xan went to his appearances last night and got me this tee shirt from the hotel gift shop to sleep in.”
He still held the phone but didn’t dial. “Xan doesn’t bring girls back to his room.”
“He stayed with me for the couple days that you had off. I flew back with him right before the show on his plane.”
The guitarist rolled his eyes. “He doesn’t have a plane. The tour doesn’t even have a plane. I’m calling security.”
Oops. His Grace Alexandre de Valentinois, hereditary Duke of Valentinois and cousin to the next Prince of Monaco had a plane, but he and Xan Valentine the rock star were not the same person. Crap. “Well, just, call Adrien. He’ll tell you.”
“Fine. I’ll call Adrien.” He dialed. “I swear to God, if you’re just another fucking groupie that weaseled her way up here to fuck the front man, I’ll call hotel security so fast and you’ll be out on your ass in two minutes. You might as well get your purse.”
“I’m not a groupie,” she insisted. “We’re just friends.”
“Yeah, you are.” Sarcasm sneered in his voice. “All the girls want to fuck the band and save the co
ndom so they can cry rape, and then we pay them hush money to go away. Unless they get knocked up. Then it’s a lot more money. Xan usually has more sense than to fuck some girl who shows up in his room. Adrien isn’t answering.” He poked his phone to hang up.
“Try again.”
“I’m calling hotel security. What did you say your name was?”
“Georgie.” Damn. Alex probably hadn’t put her on the hotel reservation. She might as well grab her purse and leave a note for him.
Really, she should leave anyway.
“Hello?” the guitarist said into the phone. “This is Cadell Glynn. I’m with the group on the fourteenth floor. I’m in 1401, and there’s an intruder in 1402 who says that she’s registered. I need hotel security.”
Georgie sighed and trudged into the bedroom to grab her purse. Maybe she could brush her teeth with her finger before security got there.
It was better that she got lost out in the wide world, anyway. She had been on her own before.
She rolled up her shirt that she had worn the day before and stuffed it into the top of her purse. Might as well not lose that. She went back to the living room to wait for hotel security.
Or not. She could just leave.
Georgie wove through the living room grouping toward the front door when she heard Cadell Glynn say, “No way. She’s registered?”
Georgie dropped her purse on a wingback chair and flopped down on it.
“Fine.” He tapped his phone. “Seems that you are registered.”
“Adrien must have added me last night. He does seem the by-the-book type.”
“Yeah. So what do you want from Xan? Just a story? Just a bar tale about the time you fucked the rock star?”
“Look, dude. I don’t have to answer any questions.” Georgie stood and puffed out her chest at him. “I’m registered in this room. You’re not. You need to leave before I call security.”
“No one just shows up in our lives unless they want something. People look at us and all they see is deep pockets. They want what we can give them, what we can spend on them, whether we can buy them drugs or fuck them hard up the ass. What do you want from him?”
“Nothing.” Georgie crossed her arms over her chest.
“Xan’s wound tighter than a coil in a nuclear bomb. He can’t have groupies running around his room.” Cadell sighed and pulled out his wallet. “Look, you need cab fare or something? Plane fare?”
“I am dead serious. I swear to God that I will call hotel security.”
“I’m not leaving you here to fuck with Xan,” he said. “He can’t take it. He’s really on the verge of snapping, and you don’t want to be around him when he snaps. He snaps hard.” His voice rose, pleading. “Don’t mess with him, okay?”
Georgie plucked her phone from her purse and texted Adrien, Will you tell Cadell the guitarist that I’m supposed to be here? He’s acting like an ass.
She said to Cadell, “Seriously. Leave. I will call hotel security.”
Cadell’s phone rang. He glanced at it and rolled his eyes. “Now, he fucking calls. Hello? You let some chick into Xan’s room and then registered her?” He listened. “That’s bullshit. He never does stuff like this. Is he on a bender or something?” Cadell listened and turned his back to her, lowering his voice. “Is he okay?”
Georgie sat in the chair again and yanked open her purse, looking to see if by any chance on Earth that she had an emergency toothbrush in there. Lipstick, lip gloss, Splenda packets, birth control pill packet—she pushed that morning’s tablet through the foil and dry-swallowed it—but no toothbrush. Damn.
Cadell hung up and turned back to her. His lips were tight across his teeth, and he smoothed his long hair down to the ends of his black ponytail. “Look, I’m sorry for how I acted, but you’ve got to see why.”
She dropped her purse on the floor. “It’s tough when everybody wants a piece of you.”
“Yeah, and Xan gets it ten times worse than the rest of us. And to be clear, you shouldn’t fuck him over.”
“I’m not,” Georgie said. “I don’t want anything from him.”
“That’s what someone who does want something from him would say.”
Georgie reverted to pre-law student mode. “Yep, but the important points are: number one, I am registered in this room; number two, Adrien just vouched for me; and number three, Xan isn’t here. Can I take a message for him before you leave?”
Cadell glared at her, and then he looked at the floor. “No. No message. I’ll call him when he gets back.”
He spun on his heel and slammed the door on his way out.
Well, that was an exhilarating way to start the day.
Georgie picked up her purse and wandered back to the bathroom, looked in all the drawers, but finally called down to the front desk and asked room service to bring her up a damn toothbrush.
After the excitement of nearly being bum-rushed out of Xan’s room and the thrill of brushing her teeth, Georgie was again left with nothing to do. She scanned her favorite websites on her phone, mostly news and one pre-law students’ forum where her alias was Devil459, but Georgie didn’t do social media.
Not at all.
She didn’t tweet nor even vaguebook about who she was or where she lived. No profiles. No accounts. No guest logins. Nothing.
So Georgie puttered around the huge hotel suite, drinking her bitter, black coffee and looking out the windows at the mid-morning sunlight shining on the city. Spring grass cut vibrant green swaths between the gleaming sidewalks and ebony road lanes far below.
Finally, she put on her stale tee shirt from the day before, went over to the outlet shops attached to the hotel, and bought herself two more pairs of jeans, two tee shirts, underwear, and gym clothes, all of which she could stuff in the brand new black backpack that she tossed on top of the pile of clothes.
Then she went back to Xan’s suite and stared out the windows.
Her phone rang and, grateful for the distraction, Georgie snatched it up, hoping it was Rae so she could pry some information out of her about Alexandre de Valentinois and Xan Valentine. She slipped her thumb over the screen without even looking at the number and answered.
“Hello, Georgiana Oelrichs,” a woman’s voice said. Her light voice and Russian accent—rolling Rs and flat, short Os—dripped ice down Georgie’s spine.
Georgie didn’t need to deny it this time. Tatiana Butorin knew her cell number. “Yes.”
“Your mother didn’t call us,” Tatiana said.
Orchestral music whined in the background. Georgie thought she recognized Prokofiev. “I told you she wouldn’t.”
“And yet, we hoped she would.”
“I’m sorry.” She was really, really sorry.
“So am I. We’re watching you.”
Sweat frosted Georgie’s skin. “Oh?”
“We have people at your university and The Devilhouse.”
Where Georgie was not, but it sounded like Tatiana didn’t know that yet. Maybe Tatiana’s men hadn’t admitted that they’d lost her yesterday. “I’ve seen them.”
“If you try to run, we’ll follow you.”
“I won’t.”
“We would appreciate that. We’ll be in touch.”
The connection broke, and Georgie powered down her phone.
She had known that the Russian mafia would be looking for her. Nothing had changed. The world was just as dangerous as it had been five minutes ago.
Her hand shook so much that she almost dropped her phone, so she set it on the arm of the couch and waited for Alex to come back because crawling under the bed seemed melodramatic.
BAND MEETING
Georgie
After Alex had returned from the interviews that morning, Georgie stood back and watched him sprint from one moment of chaos to the next, never breaking stride nor his character of Xan Valentine.
At noon sharp, Alex had donned his exercise gear and strode to the gym for a precise ninety minutes of circuit trai
ning. Georgie claimed a treadmill and ran at a distance-runner’s pace for over an hour, covering ten non-existent miles.
Alex sprinted on an inclined treadmill between lifting heavy weights with Adrien and another security guy, both wearing black workout gear because security guys always wear black.
He worked like hell for that hour and a half, going to muscle failure with every set and then sprinting like the hounds of Hell were chasing him.
His workout regimen sure explained why he was so bulked up and how he had dashed up those flights of stairs at the hotel in Paris without sucking wind. Plus, his concerts that he did practically every night surely counted as a three-hour aerobics class.
Afterward, Georgie stretched, lying flat on the mat between her wide-straddled legs, her cheek and chest pressed flat against the vinyl, and caught him watching her. His long, cool glance was too direct to be casual and too sustained for the nonchalant expression in his dark eyes.
After the gym, Georgie worked even harder to keep up.
Alex took a quick shower and had another blow-out and style from Boris, during which Alex consulted with Jonas, the band’s manager, about an upcoming meeting with the A and R guys. Georgie didn’t know what “A and R guys” were, but apparently they wanted demos, though Georgie didn’t know if they wanted demographics or democracy.
After that, Alex strode into the living room to conduct the daily pre-show band meeting.
Yvonne trotted into the suite behind him. Her bright blond hair was still knotted perfectly behind her head, and her lipstick was bullfighter-cape crimson. She informed Georgie that her transcripts were being sent to Emory, reassured her that the paperwork to change her name was underway, and handed her a brand new laptop in a box, an upgraded version of the one Georgie had left in her bugout bag back in her car at The Devilhouse.
When Georgie had thanked her, astonished at all that had happened in three hours, a prim smile had tightened Yvonne’s lipsticked mouth. She remarked, “If I am anything, I am efficient.”
“You really are,” Georgie said, still struggling to hold the wide cardboard box that contained the brand-new laptop.
Wild Thing Page 3