"And have a pee," Ella added.
"But why are your fans…oh bloody hell, no." The truth hit her like a sledgehammer. "You're stopping here as well."
Nico grinned, and for a brief second she had a glimpse of the man she had fallen in love with.
"'Fraid so, babe."
God, she hated it when he talked like that.
Chapter Five
If her eyes shot out any more sparks he'd be on fire. But, Nico reasoned in silent amusement, it would be worth it just to see her the way she was at that moment. With more animation about her than he'd spied in the last year.
Or longer. It shocked him to think how subdued she'd become over the months before she'd walked out.
"So are you staying here, or is this a ploy so we don't find out where you live?"
"Pu…lease, give me a break and don't diss my intelligence. I know fine well if you wanted to you could find out where I live. In fact knowing you, you have, and someone's been tailing me. How else would you have known I was around? Poor Sam. There she was thinking you were being all nice to sign her arm, not using her for your own ends. I'm a guest here, more's the pity. But then I guess you know that as well."
It was true, he could have discovered her whereabouts easily, but sheer bloody mindedness and a sense of well once she's sunk she'll crawl back to me, had stopped him. He hadn't actively looked.
Now it seemed he was wrong, very wrong. There was nothing of the crawler about Kenna, far from it.
"None of that is true, and you know?" His own usually calm temper was beginning to flare up. "I really don't care if you believe me or not. You chose to think the worst of me. That's your prerogative."
The car drew to a halt flush with a nondescript door, and Nico climbed out. "Come on, follow us or not. Your choice. Walk through the hotel to the front, dance along the river, hell, sleep on the lawn. Or follow me and admire the kitchen. See how the other half live." He led the way through an empty kitchen and toward a service lift. "All your choice."
She harrumphed. "Ha, you wouldn't know an oven if it hit you on the head."
"Would too, it would hurt."
"Children, children." Ella giggled as the lift door opened and the four of them trooped in. "Do you know what you sound like?"
"What?" They both asked at the same time.
"An old married couple." She pressed the button to close the door.
"We are," Nico said.
"We are not," Kenna snapped back. "To be that you have to acknowledge you're married, and do things together, like real people, not undercover super sleuths or sommat. I, as a wife, was invisible."
And therein lies the problem. He acknowledged that now. But would she understand his reasoning or even listen to him?
Judging by the look of disgust on her face, he didn't have a chance.
"Look, you two, can you argue later?" Ella asked. "I'm waiting to know what floor button to press."
"Ours," Nico said.
"Definitely," Kenna said so affably he was worried. "Then I can get out of the lift, your life and la-la land. Nice meeting you—not."
Ella glanced at Nico and he shrugged. She smiled and pressed the button.
The lift moved slowly upward, not rapidly like the passenger lift. As he watched her, Kenna's foot began to tap a staccato tattoo. He remembered how impatient she could be if things didn't go as she preferred.
His lips twitched.
"What? Something funny?"
He shook his head. "Not at all. I just wondered if you thought you could make this thing go faster by thought alone."
"If I could make things happen by thought alone, you'd be writhing on the floor in agony, and I'd be at home in peace."
Nico winced and managed not to put his hand protectively over his cock—just. "Ah yes, home. Where did you say it is?"
"I didn't."
The lift stopped and Ella and Ramona got out. Nico grabbed Kenna's arm to stop her following. "Truce?" he asked softly. "Just long enough to have a drink and a…a catch up?"
"Why?" The suspicion in her voice was evident. "What is there to say?"
"A helluva lot. But preferably somewhere other than a lift. Give me half an hour? Please?"
She stared at him for so long, Nico was tempted to fidget. Rearrange his cock under his jeans—her presence affected that part of his anatomy quite significantly, and not in the shrivel up and hide way either—and check he didn't have drool on his chin. Now he could look at her properly, she really took his breath away.
"Okay. Where?"
He was tempted to say his bedroom, but it wouldn't be fair to tease her. Hell, tease her? I bloody would mean it. In bed under me, over me, any which way with me. Except he wasn't sure his cock still knew how to pleasure a woman and if it did how long it would last.
"We've got an apartment with a communal lounge. Ella and Ramona won't bother us. They'll need a shower and a cuppa before we go down and do our chatting."
So would he usually, but the long overdue talk with Kenna had to come first.
"What about you?"
"You're more important."
She rocked back on her heels. "You really do mean that, don't you?"
Nico nodded. "I really do. I've had a lot of time on my own, and plenty of empty hours in which to think. I've thought and I can say with hand on heart I've been a wanker. In whatever way you want to interpret it." The relief he felt as being honest and upfront about his attitude was overwhelming. How could he have behaved like he did? Nico was ashamed of himself.
****
Did he really mean it? Her expression must have given her away, because as she followed him along the corridor he rubbed his chin with his hand and looked sheepish.
"It's been a long and barren few months. I promised to be yours and yours alone and I've kept that promise."
"Eleven."
"Pardon?" He swiped the key card over the reader and opened the door into an inner hallway.
Kenna could hear water from somewhere and guessed either Ella or Ramona or both were in the shower.
"If you mean what you say, then it's eleven months." One week three days and oh around eleven hours if anyone is counting.
"Eleven months since?" He drew a circle in the air with one finger. "We made love?" Nico opened the door into a plush and comfortable lounge and waved Kenna toward a long deep settee. She sank into the cushions, slipped off her shoes and curled her feet under her. After all, if they were about to have a heart-to-heart, she might as well make herself comfy.
"Ah that's better. Er no." Kenna shook her head. She didn’t want to be intentionally cruel but if they were going to talk she needed to get stuff off her chest first, before they truly began.
Nico looked relived. "Phew, you got me worried there for a sec. So eleven months since what?" He took a bottle of champagne from the cooler and began to twist the metal seal off and manoeuver the cork out. Kenna watched thoughtfully. He wasn't being as smooth or gentle with the bottle as she knew he could be and she'd bet a tenner the contents were well shaken up.
"Eleven months since we had sex. It's ohh, I'd say almost two years since we made love."
The cork popped and champagne spurted everywhere. Nico held onto the table edge as if he were in an earthquake. Kenna fielded the cork, unraveled her legs and reached over to hand it to him.
"Waste of good fizz, Nico." She stood up, took the bottle from his hand and poured what was left into two champagne flutes that had been left next to the ice bucket. There was enough for a mouthful each and no more. "Just as well we're not plonkers. Well, I'm not in any way, and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt."
"Thank you," Nico said, dryly. "There is another bottle in the fridge, but I promised the girls a glass as well."
Kenna hunkered down onto her haunches and peered inside the fridge. "Three bottles and I'm taking one out and opening it. If I'm having a serious talk I'm having a serious drink to go with it." She opened it with a lot less fuss and a great deal more eleg
ance than Nico had, and topped up their glasses. "Plenty left for Ella and Ramona. Where are they?"
"In their rooms. They know we need to talk."
"Then you'd best talk because didn't you say you have fans to go and see?" Kenna sipped her champagne. The smooth, rounded fizz slipped down her throat and she savored it.
"Your health." Nico saluted her.
"And yours, now talk."
The silence was thick and all Kenna fancied she heard was her heart, beating out an erratic tattoo.
"I was an ass," Nico said haltingly. "I was overbearing and didn't listen to you. I wanted things to be perfect. I wanted to look after you so you had everything you wanted. I wanted to be your life, the one you turned to for everything. I wanted…"
Kenna shut him up by putting her hand over his mouth. He, the bastard, sucked and nipped the soft skin of her palm. Exquisite shards of arousal streaked through her body making her nipples tight and her clit tingle and her pussy muscles tightened and relaxed rhythmically.
"Have you heard yourself?" She made herself concentrate on what needed to be said, not how his close proximity made her feel. "You, you, you. There are allegedly two people in a marriage. People, mind you. We had two and a half entities in ours. You, your work, and I was the half. No that's a bit off. More like the unheard, unseen, un-thought of tenth. Did you ever ask yourself, I wonder what Kenna would like? What she wants or needs? And I don't mean sex, Nico. I mean in anything at all? You dictated our life. And ultimately you destroyed it."
Chapter Six
Nico watched her lips move, heard her words and swallowed. God almighty he was not going to cry. He was a man and men didn't cry.
Wrong.
Some men did.
Evidently he was one of them. Nico gulped, sniffed, turned his head away from Kenna, so she wouldn't notice and wiped his eyes and the tears that streaked his cheeks. It was a pity they didn't stop there and then.
She hadn't been nicknamed ‘eagle eyes’ as a kid for nothing. He remembered the silly name and the way she'd explained it to him when they first met. "I was one of those nerdy kids who was interested in everything, with a memory for silly little facts and I noticed stuff. They called me ‘eagle eyes’ because I saw things other people didn't. It came in quite handy for blackmailing the bullies."
Of course she had seen the tears; there were enough of them. If it hadn't been so disgusting he'd have wiped his nose on his sleeve. Instead he'd have to sniff until he got to the tissue box, or grabbed some loo roll from the bathroom.
Nico hesitated, stiff backed, for her to comment and say something crass or mocking. He should have known better. Kenna just fished in her pocket and handed him a linen handkerchief. Nico remembered it was one of what she called her foibles. "There's nothing better than a soft linen hankie when you've got a cold, instead of that prickly paper they call tissues. They make a slightly pink nose redder than Santa's coat."
"It's clean."
Nico nodded. Of course it would be. "Thanks." He blew his nose and cleared his throat. "I ah…oh hell, this is so fucking hard to say."
She shrugged. "Then don't say it. No one's forcing you." The telltale pulse in her neck jumped erratically and gave away her tension. He hoped it meant she was as concerned as he was that they sort out the fucking mess he'd made of their lives.
I've made, not her, never her. He could understand that now.
"I'm forcing me," he said vehemently. She blinked at the passion in his words. Nico hoped she recognized his sincerity and how important it was to him that he showed her why he was as he was. If afterward nothing changed, well at least he'd been open, honest, and tried.
Please god, let it work.
"I want to try and at least explain why I'm like I am. Not make excuses, but explain." He hoped she understood what he meant. "I have no excuses, only reasons." Would she accept the difference? Nico gently pushed Kenna back onto the settee, pleased when she didn't argue or get straight back up. He snagged the champagne glasses, handed her one and sat down beside her, sideways on so he could give her his full attention.
"May I?"
Kenna shrugged. "Why not?"
"Generous as ever, babe."
Her eyes narrowed. "Before we go any further, rock-boy, major no-no. Do not call me babe—ever again. Oink, oink. I bloody hate it."
Nico blinked. Rock boy? Euk. "You never said."
"And when did I ever get the chance?"
She had a point.
"Okay, you hate babe. Personally I thought babe was cute."
"Pigs are pigs. I'm not a pig. Except where mushroom soup or sticky lemon pudding is concerned. Okay, carry on." She lifted her wine glass and took a sip.
"Mush…?" He never knew that. Nico was suddenly conscious of how little he did know about his wife. All of a sudden, he desperately wanted to know more. Everything. He didn't even know what her favorite flower was.
"What's your favorite flower?" Nico blurted the words out and wasn't at all surprised when Kenna looked bewildered at his chance of subject.
"Daisies, why?"
"Mine's bougainvillea. I just wondered."
"Fair enough, I like that as well, but daisies are so sweet and delicate, they just work for me."
Her throat rippled as she swallowed her champagne, and his throat contracted. God, she had a way of making him forget what he wanted to say. "Er right, no babe and no rock boy. Yes?"
"Yes."
"So…shit, I hate people who start sentences with so, or well, but, oh and but… Shit, I'm babbling." Nico stopped speaking and waited until his pulse calmed down a little. "Well, argh… why I, sorry but this bit is about me, why I'm the way I am. Genetics."
"Pardon?" Kenna lowered her champagne flute from her mouth. "Genetics made you selfish? Pull the other one."
"Genetics made me think I had to do everything. To protect and serve my wife. It's in my genes."
Kenna looked toward his crotch, where a large hard bulge stretched the denim, and raised her eyebrows.
"I can see that."
"Yeah, that's the effect you have on what's in my jeans. But my attitude is due to the 'g' genes not the 'j' ones. To cosset and cherish her and spare my wife, my love, from the humdrum everyday things I could do instead. I have money, so why should you work? I have worries, don’t pass them on. Men sort these things. A stalker is threatening me? Make sure Kenna doesn't know and make sure she has someone watching over her when I'm away."
"You what?" Kenna sprang up off the settee and stood in front of him, her hands on her hips. Nico watched her fingers twitch, and then clench into a fist.
Oh shit, maybe I should have kept that quiet? However, he had decided if he was being honest, he had to be one hundred percent open.
"You fucker." Kenna actually growled. In any other circumstances it would have sounded sexy as hell, but now he just wondered if it was a prelude to violence. If it was, he wouldn't blame her.
"You had a stalker and kept it quiet? Gave me some sort of security cover and didn't tell me? Sheesh, shit and bollocks. God almighty, give me that wine." She picked up her glass and drained it. "How could I know? I might have seen him, her, them and thought I was the one stalked. What planet were you on?"
I never thought of that.
"A scared for you one. For myself, I wasn't bothered. It comes with the territory. But some women might—might—I add, have taken it on themselves to blame you for removing me from their dream list of maybe just maybe. I daren't risk you. Now I can see what a twat I was and how, as you once said, so far up my arse all I did and said was shite, but you see it was all I knew."
"To be a control freak?"
He shook his head, unsure how to explain. "More of a nurturer, or a carer. Like my dad was to my mum. It was what she expected and he thought was her due." He twirled his champagne flute between his fingers, and watched the pale pink liquid slide over the glass and fizz gently. "Mum is Italian, Dad is three quarters Greek, and his dad was Welsh. They were both br
ought up where a man did everything for his wife and she only had to worry about doing what he wanted. I supposed it rubbed off on me."
"Imbibed it in your mother's milk?"
Nico smiled. "Something like that. But, well…oh hell, this sounds so bloody stupid, I'm almost scared to say it. You'll think I'm such a moron."
Kenna took his glass from him just as he accidentally tilted it almost to a point where the contents would spill all over her.
"I think that a lot of the time, anyway, so what's new?"
Her tone was humorous and he almost thought there was some tenderness there. Should it give him hope? He decided to think so. After all, any little bit of positivity was better than none. What was it his mum said? Think positive and don't send negative waves.
"Go on, carry on and say it," Kenna said. "Let's face it, it can't be any worse than the 'my wife doesn't work, no reason, that is my decision and there is no leeway' crap you spouted at monotonously regular intervals. I've pulled up my big girl panties, you can do the same with your big boy boxers."
Nico took a deep breath, closed his eyes to do what?—pray maybe?—and swiveled in his seat to look straight at Kenna once more.
"I was so bloody proud when you said you'd marry me. I didn't want to share you. I wanted you to be the part of me that wasn't public property. I know when we met you had no idea who I was and I loved that. Oh bollocks, it's all I, I, I again. However it is me at the moment, sorry."
She smiled, and put her finger to his lips.
Do not suck, nip, or nibble. Not the time.
"Yeah, it is you, so no need to apologize, just spit it out." She moved her finger.
Bugger, I liked that.
"I was so relieved that you saw me the person—not me the rock star," Nico continued, pleased his voice didn't sound as breathless as he felt. "I didn't have to put on that part of me, and yeah, I didn't want to worry about you hearing all the negative and hurtful crap people say."
"But Nico, I hear that anyway." Kenna took hold of his arm, just above the elbow and squeezed it. "I've got ears and I can listen. To people in the street, on the bus, and on the radio. I have eyes and I can see and read. TV and newspapers love gossip, and scandal. It sells papers, gives people something to chat about around the water cooler. That's part of life. The part you wouldn't share. Husbands and wives should share the good and the bad. I get you wanted to protect me, but in doing that, well you locked me away in your version of the gilded tower. And seriously, I'm a big girl and like I said, I pulled up my big girl panties ages ago. Believe me, I can kick ass as well as any bloke, and enjoy doing it if the situation warrants. Both metaphorically and physically. If I'm your wife, I'm your wife, warts and all, pub brawls and paternity suits, skinny-dipping in the Caribbean Sea with another bloke and any other alleged misdemeanors. By the way before you ask, I don't believe any of it. Well…" She opened her eyes wide, winked and sniggered. "Except the skinny dipping bit. Who was the bloke?"
The Rock Star's Wife Page 3