Claiming Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy Book 2)

by Nikki Wild

  The room was stocked with the usual spread - beer, wine, liquor, food. What a life, I thought to myself. To have everything mapped out for you, every moment scheduled. I was more of a fly by the seat of my pants girl, and this last week’s schedule had taken some getting used to. I wasn’t sure I’d want to do it for months at a time, though. I thought of Liam, how tired he must be all the time, and yet he never really showed it. He soldiered on, always up for the party and ready to move to the next place. Even if he was a little late getting there.

  I walked out of the bathroom and ran smack dab into Callum.

  “Oh!” I exclaimed, my heart racing with surprise. “Hello, Callum.”

  “Hi, Catherine, how are you?” he asked. His glasses hung on the end of his pointy nose, his short brown hair jutting up in spikes on top of his head. His eyes darted around, looking everywhere else instead of meeting my gaze. He wore baggy, pleated khaki’s and a plaid button up shirt under his over-sized brown suit jacket that seemed to swallow his skinny frame.

  “I’m good, thanks,” I said. “Enjoying the show?”

  He shrugged, “If you’ve seen one Electric Horses show, you’ve seen them all.”

  “Okay…” I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He was such an awkward guy.

  “How is the story going?” he asked.

  “It’s going just fine. I wanted to ask you another question, though. I’m glad I ran into you.” I figured now was as good a time as any to ask about the recipients list. “I had my assistant verify the list you gave me. The numbers that the research organizations quoted didn’t match the ones you provided us. I figured you just sent me the wrong list?”

  “You verified them?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “Well, yes, we have to verify everything before it’s reported.”

  “Well, your assistant is wrong. Those are the right numbers.”

  “Well, I thought that at first, but she got different information from all of them, over a dozen names that you gave me. Are you sure there’s not a mistake on your end?”

  He turned towards the door, ignoring my question.

  “Callum?” I asked to his back, as he walked away slowly.

  He stopped when he reached the door. Slowly, he reached up and turned the deadbolt.

  “Callum!” I exclaimed. “What are you doing?”

  When he turned, I saw the gun in his hand, pointed right me, his gaze now firmly directed my way.

  “Don’t make a fuckin’ sound, bitch,” he hissed.

  Chapter 34

  LIAM

  We were on fire tonight. The best we’d played in weeks, and I was crediting Catherine for it all. For the first time in a long time, my heart was filled with hope, and the constant rage that I felt on a daily basis had subsided. I could breathe, and it was bloody glorious.

  Even if we hadn’t had any groundbreaking discussions and forgiveness wasn’t explicitly stated, the band and I seemed to have once again swept away our differences, and my tendency to be a total ass, to come together and give the people what they’d paid for - a rock show that they wouldn’t soon forget.

  Doing our job and delivering felt amazing.

  And yet, still, throughout the entire bliss-inducing show, I was still thinking about Catherine. The way Catherine’s eyes followed me across the room, the way she watched me move inside of her, the way she saw right through my bullshit and saw the light that even I believed had faded away to nothing. The way she leaned into my touch, the way she opened herself up for me, physically and emotionally, the way her laughter filled my soul with joy.

  The way she devoured my cock like a starving woman.

  The way she pulsed around me when I slid inside of her.

  The way I couldn’t wait to get back to being naked with her in bed.

  My plan tonight was to spend as little time as possible at the party at the Whiskey and get her right back to my place as fast as possible. And tomorrow, we actually had the day off. I was looking forward to sleeping in, waking up with Catherine, and enjoying a lazy day all alone with her, with nobody around, and nowhere to go.

  We left the crowd begging for more, even after three encores. Any other time, I might have insisted on a fourth, but I wanted to get on with the night.

  “Where’s Catherine?” I asked Rhone as we walked off stage.

  “She went to the bathroom a while back, and didn’t come back yet,” she said. “I figured she needed some space or something. She’s probably in your dressing room.”

  “Okay, I’ll find her,” I said. Of course, she was probably resting, I hadn’t really let her sleep too much.

  “Great show!” Ian said, hugging me.

  “Love you, bro,” I said, hugging him back. Talking wasn’t necessary. Apologies weren’t necessary. That’s just how we were, how we’d always been. Hot and cold.

  “You driving to the Whiskey yourself?” he asked.

  “You know how much I love my Jag,” I replied.

  “Well, be careful of those fuckin’ paparazzi twats, they’re brutal in this town.”

  “I can handle those cunts,” I replied. “I’m going to find Catherine and take a quick shower, I’ll meet you all there.”

  Rocket and Rhys and Slade nodded and we went our separate ways. They’d all head over in the limo, but I always insisted on driving myself around when I was in LA. They knew better than to argue with me. Last time they’d tried to get me to do something I didn’t want to, it didn’t turn out so well.

  I walked into the dressing room, my cock already hard with anticipation of laying my hands on Catherine.

  “Luv?” I called, as I entered the empty room. I figured she had to be in the loo. I knocked and waited. Silence. I opened the door and saw she wasn’t there either.

  I walked back into the hallway and ran into Ian and Rhone.

  “Have you guys seen Catherine out here?” I asked.

  “No, not at all,” Ian replied. “She’s not in your room?”

  “No, she must have…gone somewhere. I don’t know.” I checked in Rocket’s room, Slade’s room and Rhys’ room, to no avail. I threw up my arms as I walked back up to Ian.

  “She’s gone,” I said. “She probably just walked outside or something.”

  I pulled out my phone and dialed Catherine’s number. No answer. I left her a message and hung up, then dialed Matt’s number.

  “Where are you?” I asked, when he answered.

  “In the production office. What’s up?” he asked.

  “Have you seen Catherine?”

  “She was watching the show with Rhone and then she walked back to the dressing rooms. I didn’t see her after that.”

  “Fuck!” I exclaimed, hanging up the phone.

  “Big D!” I called to him as he walked up. Surely, he knew something. That was his fuckin’ job. “Where’s Catherine?”

  “I don’t know, boss, haven’t seen her.”

  “What the fuck?” I asked, throwing up my hands. Ian and Rhone were standing next to me. “Should I be worried? I’m worried.”

  “Liam, she probably left,” Ian suggested.

  “Why would she leave?” I asked. I was completely bewildered at his suggestion. She wouldn’t have just left me without a word, would she?

  “Why would she stay, Liam? You’re a bloody mess. She got her story. Her week is up. What did you expect?”

  “No, Ian, she wouldn’t have just left. She’s going to the party with me tonight. We already talked about it.”

  Ian and Rhone exchanged glances, and I knew exactly what they thought. That I’d fucked it all up, of course she would leave. But they hadn’t seen the look on her face, the love in her eyes, earlier today. They just didn’t understand.

  But neither did I.

  Where the fuck was she?

  Chapter 35

  CATHERINE

  “Callum, why are you doing this?”

  Stony silence greeted me, his steely gaze focused forward as he drove his car. He’d
forced me out of the dressing room at gun point, hiding the gun in his suit jacket as he pressed me forward down the hallway and into the parking garage. I’d tried to avoid getting in the car, but he’d pressed the gun into my ribs so hard.

  “Callum, please, we can work something out. I don’t know what’s going on, but I won’t tell anyone, if you just let me go. Just take me back, please?”

  He ignored me, flying around the curvy roads. My hands trembled as I tried to figure out what to do. The gun was resting in his lap, pointed right at me. I couldn’t jump out of the car, because to my right were steep cliffs that dropped down into the canyon, and I’d never survive. I thought about my phone, tucked away safely, with the ringer off, inside my purse that was hanging in the closet of Liam’s dressing room. I had no way of calling for help.

  I’d have to talk my way out of this.

  “Is it the donations? I’ll just leave it out of the story, I won’t say a word to anyone, just let me go, please?”

  Still no reaction. Terror gripped my heart, and I tried again, my voice shaking.

  “Callum, why would you want to hurt me? I don’t even know you, and you have my word I won’t say anything about the charity.”

  “It’s not you I want to hurt,” he mumbled under his breath.

  “What? Then who?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? Liam, the fucking murdering prick!”

  I gasped. “Who did he murder?”

  “My sister! Ally! You said he told you all about her.”

  “He did. But he said Ally died in a car accident, years after they broke up.”

  “She did. But it was all Liam’s fault.”

  “He wasn’t even there, it’s not his fault,” I protested. He picked up the gun and pushed it in my face.

  “Shut the fuck up!”

  I clamped my mouth shut and he lowered the gun back to his lap. The car hugged the corners tightly, he was going way too fast, and unlike the thrill I’d received earlier when Liam was doing it, this time I was sure we were going to careen over the side of the cliff at any moment.

  “Okay,” I tried again, whispering, willing my voice to stay calm. “So it’s Liam you’re mad at. Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Look bitch, I’m not letting you go. Liam sealed your fate when he started fucking you. I’ve been waiting for him to find someone he cares about again, so I can take them away from him, just like he took my sister.”

  My heart dropped. This had nothing to do with me, and yet here I was, tangled up in the middle of it. Nobody even knew where I was.

  Fuck!

  I couldn’t just let him kill me.

  I had to figure out a way to talk some sense into him.

  I had to save myself.

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked.

  “To Liam’s.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want him to have the pleasure of watching the person he loves die right in front of him.”

  Chapter 36

  LIAM

  “Look, something’s wrong.”

  “Liam, just accept it. She left.”

  “No, I won’t bloody accept it! Matt, call security, maybe they have surveillance video?”

  “Yes, boss,” Matt said, walking away as he made the call.

  “Liam, this is absurd. What are you hoping to accomplish here?” Ian asked.

  “Are you bloody mad? I’m hoping to find Catherine, you prick!”

  “Big D!” I said, turning to him in anger. “You should have been watching her!”

  “I was watching you, Liam - I’m supposed to protect the band!”

  “Don’t be such an ass! Go look for her - now!”

  “Yes, boss,” he said, sauntering down the hall.

  “Calm down,” Ian said, putting a hand on my arm. “What could have possibly happened to her? Everyone was watching the show. She probably didn’t want a big goodbye.”

  “We weren’t saying goodbye, dammit!” If I wasn’t so worried about Catherine, I would have punched Ian right then. He was infuriating me, suggesting she’d just walked away. She wouldn’t have done that.

  Or would she? A creeping doubt began chipping away at me, and I tried to push it away. I was an arrogant prick, after all. Maybe I was fooling myself thinking she might want something from me besides a quick fuck? Had she done it all for the story?

  I didn’t want to believe it. Fuck, I couldn’t believe it.

  “Boss, they say they don’t have surveillance cameras in the dressing room,” Matt walked back up. “They do monitor the hallways, though. They’re going to check them and call us back. I gave them a description of Catherine.”

  “Thank you,” I said, walking back into my dressing room. “Tell them to hurry the fuck up!”

  I needed to look for her myself, I’d decided. I opened up my closet to find a shirt to wear, and saw her purse hanging there. My heart dropped. I opened it up, and saw her phone lying there, displaying two missed phone calls - one from me and one from her agency.

  She hadn’t left me, after all. She’d never have left her purse behind if she’d planned to bail on me. Which meant she was just off somewhere wandering around the venue. Maybe she was still out lingering in the crowd or something.

  I sighed a huge sigh of relief.

  “Her purse is here,” I said, pulling on my shirt as I walked back into the hallway. Everyone was milling about, whispering to each other. I scanned their faces, and realized they were all looking at me with pity.

  “She didn’t fucking leave me, you bastards! She’s probably just out in the crowd somewhere!” I turned and walked down the hallway.

  “Where are you going?” Ian asked.

  “To find her!”

  “The crowd will tear you apart, Liam, you can’t go out there unprotected!”

  “Watch me!”

  Chapter 37

  CATHERINE

  “You have a key to his house?” I asked, as Callum opened the door. He walked over to the alarm and punched in the code.

  “I stayed here for a little while when I first moved to LA to run the charity,” he replied. He was nervous; the hand holding the gun he had pointed at me again was shaking. I looked around for a way out, something to hit him with, anything at all. Unfortunately, Liam house was decorated in such a minimalistic way, there wasn’t much around at all. If I could get to the kitchen, maybe I could find a knife, though.

  “Callum, I’m sure if you just explained to Liam that there was a mix up with the numbers…” I began.

  “There wasn’t a mix up. I stole it. All of it. I stole millions from him, because he deserved it, but that isn’t what this is about.”

  “You didn’t steal the money from Liam, you stole it from all those kids with cancer,” I replied. Bad idea. He pushed me against the wall, and pressed the gun to my temple. Pain screamed through my head as he pressed into my flesh.

  “I’ve heard enough from you, bitch. Now, shut the fuck up or I won’t wait till Liam gets here to kill you. I’m sure seeing your pretty little brains splattered all over his floor will be enough to do the trick.”

  I nodded silently and willed myself not to cry. I needed to keep my wits about me, stay calm, look for a way out.

  Callum’s eyes were wild and angry, his words spitting out of his mouth furiously, as he pulled me to the kitchen and sat me in a chair. He grabbed some extension cords out of a nearby closet, and began tying me to the chair.

  “Liam’s a monster,” he spat. “He threw my sister away like a piece of bad meat. As if she wasn’t even a real person, with real feelings. She loved that bastard, and he just turned his back on her at the first mention of money and fame,” he tightened the knots on my wrists, the cords cutting into my flesh painfully. “And then, when she died, he still didn’t even acknowledge she existed. All the years, all the interviews, all the chances he blew to memorialize Ally. He could have at least honored her memory.”

  “But he didn’t,” he continued. “Not once. N
ot one fucking word. And then what does he do? He asks me to give away the millions of dollars he earned by fucking her over to some sick kids. What about me? What about my family? What about our pain? Our suffering?”

  He finished tying me up and he stood back to inspect his work.

  “Callum, I don’t think —,” I began once again to try to talk him out of this.

  “Shut up!” he said, disappearing behind me. When I heard the distinct sound of duct tape ripping, my heart sank.

  “Callum, please don’t —,” my words died as he slapped the tape over my mouth. I struggled against the cords, shaking my head, pleading with him with my eyes.

  “Too bad you got mixed up with him,” he said, staring down at me. “You’re a pretty lady. You probably don’t deserve this, but how stupid are you to get mixed up with a bastard like him?”

  He began pacing around the kitchen, looking at his watch.

  “You know, he’s fucked thousands of women. You’re the first one he’s ever had over to his house. You’re the first one he’s ever looked at that way since Ally.”

  “You must have some really good pussy,” he said, towering over me. Fear gripped my heart, and I realized exactly how helpless I was. Up till now, I’d hoped I could talk my way out of it, but now that I couldn’t speak, or move, I knew exactly how fucked I was.

  Liam was my only chance, and he didn’t even know where I was. He must be worried sick about me by now, I thought.

  Callum reached down and pushed the hair from my face, his eyes narrowed as he looked at me.

  “You know, I’d fuck you myself, if you weren’t so tainted from fucking Liam.”

  I groaned, attempting to beg him again with my eyes. He obviously was not swayed, because he walked away, leaving me alone in the kitchen, alone with my thoughts, alone with my fear.