by Nalini Singh
His hand was the one that trembled this time. "Just be my friend." Laugh again with him, remind him that life wasn't only nightmares and pain, make him feel as if he could be a better man if he tried hard enough. "Don't give up on me. Please don't."
"I want a promise," she said after too long, her tears having soaked the shoulder of his shirt.
Wary, he looked at her as she sat back up, her eyes puffy and her cheeks shining with the remnants of her tears. There were some promises he simply couldn't make, some promises he was too broken to keep.
Taking a shuddering breath, she said, "Promise me that you'll never again even think of doing what you almost did in that motel room." A harsh demand. "You promise me, Noah, because I can't go through that again."
"I promise," he said without hesitation. "Never again."
Kit grabbed one of the pretty napkins she'd put on the table and wiped her face before dropping her hand to her thigh, her fingers clenched around the napkin.
He waited, his pulse a huge, loud thing that drowned out his breathing.
"Okay," she said, so softly it was less than a whisper. "We'll be friends."
Kit didn't know what she was doing agreeing to be Noah's friend, didn't even know if they could salvage that relationship from the wreckage. But ten minutes later, as she watched him pull the ice cream from the freezer, she couldn't deny the need inside her.
As she'd confessed to Molly, she'd missed him too. So much.
She wished she didn't, would do everything in her power to bury that need going forward. It wasn't the right way to enter into a friendship, but it was the only way she might survive it. "One scoop for me," she said, when he began to dish out the dessert.
"You sure?" A sinful, tempting smile. "You love this stuff."
Butterflies in her stomach, an acute pain in her heart. "I'll get sick if I start eating too much rich food at once--and I already had pizza."
"Right, I never thought about that." Putting a couple more scoops in his bowl, he placed both bowls on the table before returning the tub to the freezer.
The light caught on the gold of his hair, the strands silky and bright and just long enough to slide forward until he shoved them back with a thrust of his hand. She'd always loved Noah's hair, always wanted to touch it. Taking a quiet breath that hurt going in, she forced herself to look away.
Noah wasn't for her, would never be for her.
"So," he said, sliding into his chair, "are you excited about your full-fat latte tomorrow morning?"
She'd made that laughing comment in an interview. It messed her up to know he'd watched it, remembered. "I decided to save the lattes for next week, when my stomach's had time to recover from the movie diet." It was all but impossible to sound natural when her emotions were a black turbulence inside her.
"You know who to call if you want company." Noah's voice was easy, but the renewed awkwardness between them was a living, breathing entity.
Kit didn't know what to say, so she just ate a spoonful of ice cream to cover her nonresponse. "What are you and the rest of the guys planning to do now the tour's over?"
"Work on a new album. We've got some material and ideas already, but it's time to sit down, start putting the pieces together." He shrugged. "Fact is, we could put out an album next week if we wanted to, but it wouldn't be us."
Kit understood what he meant. Schoolboy Choir was so successful not because they released album after album, but because the albums they did put out were stellar. "That song," she said. "About the sparrow. Will it be on this album?" Noah had sung it to her when they'd been friends but had said it wasn't ready for recording.
"No. It's not exactly Schoolboy Choir material."
"What are you talking about? It's amazing." A harsh, beautiful ballad of such heartbreaking vulnerability that it had made her cry.
Noah just shrugged.
Before, she would've pushed, but she didn't have that right anymore. Couldn't have it for her own emotional health. "Well," she said, "if you don't release it, record it for me. I'd love to hear it again."
"You'll just have to put up with me." A devastating smile. "I'll sing it to you anytime you want."
There was a time when Noah's offer would've made her go all melty inside. Now it just hurt.
"Sorry," she said with another forced smile. "I think I'm beginning to fade. Had an early start." It wasn't a total lie; she'd been at the studio at four a.m. as usual, but she wouldn't be going to sleep so soon after eating.
Which, she belatedly realized, Noah knew after her comment the night he'd made her spaghetti. Instead of calling her on it, however, he got up. "I'll help you clean up."
"Don't worry about it." A yawn cracked her mouth. "Drat, sorry again."
This time, his smile reached his eyes. "You really are beat." Leaving the dishes, he walked to the front door, her by his side. "Do you think you'll be up early again tomorrow?"
She made a face. "Three twenty on the dot, I'm guessing." It would take at least a week to break out of that rhythm.
"Want to come do something with me?" Shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, he wouldn't quite meet her eyes. "Since we'll both be awake at that hour."
Kit frowned. "What would we do in the middle of the night?" It wasn't until the words were out that she realized how suggestive they sounded.
Thankfully, Noah didn't seem to notice. Rubbing the back of his neck, he said, "I was thinking I'd pick you up at four thirty, and it'd be just before six and getting light by the time we got there."
Kit wasn't certain she was reading him right--Noah was never hesitant or nervous... but he was sure giving that impression right now. "Where?"
Shoving both hands back into his pockets, he finally met her gaze, a slight flush on his cheekbones that floored her, smashing right through her defenses. Noah never blushed. It was simply not in the Noah St. John repertoire. Except he was rocking on his heels and that color hadn't receded.
He was impossibly gorgeous.
"To go for a flight."
Kit felt like a parrot, but all she could say was, "A flight?"
"Yeah, I, um, got my pilot's license, bought a small two-seater plane."
Her mouth fell open. "Since when have you been taking flying lessons? Do the guys know?" No one had ever mentioned it.
"A while." He ran a hand through his hair, gave her that lopsided grin, only this time it held a piercing edge of vulnerability.
At that instant, he looked younger than she'd ever seen him.
"You're the only one who knows. I didn't want to say anything until I actually did it," he added. "Had the license, I mean."
Wonderfully astonished and fighting the urge to kiss him, he was so beautiful right then--so her Noah--Kit just stood there.
His smile began to fade at the edges, daylight swallowed by night. "You don't have to. I just thought--"
"Yes," she interrupted. "Yes, I'd like to." She couldn't kick the gift of trust back in his face... and she'd promised to be his friend.
As she'd already admitted, no matter how much he'd hurt her, her heart would break forever if Noah was no longer in the world. That didn't mean she was going to fall back into the trap of loving him. It was time she said good-bye to a dream that had held her hostage even when she'd believed herself free: beautiful, gifted, broken Noah St. John was simply never going to love Kathleen "Kit" Devigny.
Sliding to the floor with her back to the door after Noah left, Kit stared at the hands that always wanted to touch Noah when he was near and shook her head. Her tears were silent this time, the hot droplets erasing the last traces of the dream.
Chapter 7
Noah managed to sleep that night, thanks to a trick he'd discovered on the Internet. He'd put in a search term in desperation one night and hit on a video of rain falling in someone's backyard, and before he knew it, he was asleep in his chair. He'd woken five hours later with a stiff neck and the video still playing in a loop.
He'd immediately bought
the download.
The rain sounds didn't work every time or even mostly, but they did that night. Thank God. He'd never have risked taking Kit up otherwise. He had an excellent reaction time, but fatigue could dull even the best instincts.
Awake in plenty of time, he showered and shaved, then pulled on his favorite old jeans and a dark gray T-shirt, wondering what Kit would think of his little Cessna. White with blue markings, it was parked in a hangar beside a small private airfield. As far as the sixty-something owners of the airfield and hangar were concerned, Noah was simply another weekend warrior who worked in the city and came to play with his toy in his off time.
He'd deliberately chosen a place that was out of the way, but he'd lucked out with the owners being uninterested in any music but country. Blissful anonymity was the result.
He grabbed his wallet and the keys he needed to access the hangar and plane, then got into the black SUV he kept beside his Mustang--no sense screwing up his anonymity by driving a distinctive car. This early, traffic was light enough that he'd make it to Kit's with time to spare.
His heart beat a little too fast, his fingers tapping on the steering wheel.
When he glimpsed the lights of an all-night grocery store up ahead, he made a snap decision and swung into the parking lot. He grabbed a cart and got a few things for brunch as well as the one snack Kit could never resist. He wanted this to be a good day for her; to do that, he couldn't allow himself to imagine it wouldn't work, that he'd lost her forever the night he'd done the unforgiveable.
"Wow." The pimply-faced teenage cashier's mouth fell open. "Are you really you?"
Noah didn't perform for the fame, but he also didn't disdain his fans. They were the reason he could be free to live the music inside him; without that music, he'd be dead or huddled in some damn psychiatric ward. "Depends who you think I am."
The teenager gulped. "I recognize that voice and that tattoo on your wrist." Hand trembling, he put down the drink he'd been about to scan. "Wow. C-can I..." He just held up his phone in a wordless question.
"Sure." Taking the phone since he was taller, Noah snapped a photo of himself with his arm around the kid's shoulders, the teenager giving two thumbs-up and grinning so hard his face was about to crack.
The photo-taking attracted the attention of the night manager and the only other clerk on duty. By the time Noah finally left, traffic had thickened as early commuters tried to beat the chaos of LA traffic, but it was still manageable and he arrived right on time.
Kit came out of the house as he stepped out of the car. Dressed in jeans that hugged her legs, flats, and a kind of floaty tunic top in white with three-quarter-length sleeves, her hair in a ponytail, she looked fresh and pretty and like his Kit. Not Kathleen Devigny, Oscar-nominated actress on the way to superstardom. Just Kit.
"I wasn't sure what to bring," she said. "I have my phone and some money. Anything else?"
"No, we're good." He didn't fight the happiness that was sunshine in his blood; Kit alone could make him feel that way, as if he was an ordinary man out with a woman he adored.
"Let me set the alarm. I've already alerted security we're heading out." A glance over her shoulder. "I told them not to follow today."
Noah braced his arm against the top of the SUV, shaken by her trust. "I'll park the SUV in the hangar so no one can get to it while we're in the air." Up there, she'd be safe in his hands.
Five minutes later, she was snug in the SUV.
After grabbing coffee from a drive-through, they drove in silence for over twenty minutes. It wasn't as awkward as dinner had been, but neither was it as comfortable as they'd once been together. Noah had destroyed that. He'd done it deliberately with his eyes wide open. He'd hurt the one person he never wanted to hurt... and he knew without a doubt that it was the best thing he could've ever done for Kit.
No matter what happened from now on, she'd never forget or forgive the cruelty of his actions. It would keep her at a safe distance, where he couldn't hurt her in far more vicious and irrevocable ways. Where he couldn't stain her with his ugliness.
His hand tightened on the steering wheel. "Do you like the superhero movie?" he asked, needing to hear her voice, to have that much of her at least. "I mean, I know the green gunk and early starts got old, but do you have a good feeling about the final product?"
She shifted in her seat, the movement sending her scent his way, the freshness of soap and water licked with a faint trace of her perfume. It was subtle and elegant but with a hint of the earth, exactly like Kit.
"It's good fun, has amazing stunts, and the plot makes sense, wonder of wonders," she said after a thoughtful pause. "There was even some actual emotional acting required." Her tone was a little too nonchalant.
"The script was phenomenal, wasn't it?"
"Yep." She laughed at being caught out. "Great cast too. Even if Cody did keep hitting on me."
"Maybe you should hit back, make him uncomfortable."
"Hah, nothing makes Cody uncomfortable." Sounding more at ease, more like herself, she told him about the stunts she'd done herself. "The best was sliding off a motorcycle. Worth all the time it took me to learn it."
"Jesus, Kit." His fingers squeezed the steering wheel. "That's dangerous."
"That's why it's called a stunt. I ended up with a scraped elbow but no other bruises."
Fighting his instinctive protective response, he said, "I'll be first in line to see the movie."
She didn't ask him to go with her. No surprise. Kit had never asked him to accompany her to an event. He understood why: at first, there'd been too much chemistry between them, the sparks hot enough to burn. Then... then it had become too important.
Noah would give anything to stand next to her while she shone bright, but he didn't trust himself to be able to keep his emotions hidden when she glowed in front of him. He was fucking proud of her, and he wanted to tell the whole world. Especially the assholes who turned up their noses and belittled her accomplishments by insinuating that her parents had bankrolled her.
He'd seen her work double shifts at the diner, watched her schlep to audition after audition and come back disappointed but determined to try again. Not once had she fallen back on the Ordaz-Castille name--and since she'd made no attempt to court publicity during her teens, no one had recognized her. She'd simply been another young, hopeful actress.
Kit had earned her place in the limelight, and she'd done it on her own terms.
"Did you like New Zealand?" she said before the lengthening silence became painful, full of all the words they couldn't say to one another. "I never asked."
Because she'd refused to talk to him then. "Lots of water and sunshine, and the South Island's crazy beautiful. Me and Abe, we took off for a week to one of the national parks, did white-water rafting, bungee jumped, even walked on a glacier."
"It sounds incredible." She sighed. "I've always wanted to go down there, never had the chance."
It was on the tip of his tongue to say he'd go with her, that they could hike through the sprawling parks full of snowcapped mountains and pristine rivers, camp under skies so clear you could nearly touch the Milky Way at night. No photographers, no stalkers, nothing but a wild beauty that would suit Kit's grounded nature.
He bit back the offer just in time; she'd agreed to come with him today, but he was under no illusion that their new relationship was anything other than brittle. "You'd love it," he said through the renewed tension in his gut. "If you can swim it, climb it, ride it, jump off it, or hike it, New Zealand's got things covered."
Kit had so many questions about the small country that the rest of the drive passed by without further silences. The sky was beginning to lighten in the east when he punched in the code to open the gates to the isolated, no-frills airfield and drove through to the hangar.
"Here she is," he said once they were inside and by the plane. He patted the side of the Cessna, his nerves in a knot.
It mattered what Kit thought. Always
had. Always would.
"She's not what I expected." Kit ran her hand along the buffed-clean paintwork. "I mean that in a good way." A smile. "I expected a new, glossy plane, but she's got age, character."
Noah took a breath. "Yeah, she's got a few miles on her." Her imperfections were part of why he'd fallen in love with the machine. "I like to think she's seen the world and now she's showing it to me."
Kit felt her heart hitch at the evocative beauty of his words. It was at times like these that it was so difficult to keep her distance from Noah, fleeting moments when he showed her a piece of himself. A real piece, part of the heart he kept hidden so deep that most people never knew it existed. To the rest of the world, he was simply a bad-boy rocker, the most scandalous member of Schoolboy Choir, the one who provided the best photo ops and led the most hard rock lifestyle.
Abe's former drug use had been tabloid fodder, of course--the paparazzi had hounded him when he was discharged from the hospital after his overdose, but Noah's liaisons with endless women made for much prettier pictures, especially when he was snapped with a leggy model, actress, or other woman famous in her own right. If he'd kept a little black book, it would've been overflowing with A-list names, but Kit knew Noah didn't keep any records--a man only did that when he wanted to see a woman again.
"Ready to go up?" he asked, the light in his eyes almost boyish. "Wait, hold on a sec. I bought some stuff for brunch."
As he went to the car to grab the bags, she found herself hesitating. It was early now. If he planned on having brunch with her, that meant they'd be together for hours. She wasn't sure she could handle that, but the light in his eyes, she hadn't ever seen that. Not even their first time around.
She was such a sucker. She had to say no, had to back off before she placed herself in harm's way again.
"Done." He put the grocery bags in the plane, turned. "We can catch the sunrise if we take off now."
Kit inhaled, held the breath before releasing it in a slow exhale. "Noah, I'm--"
Smile fading, he met her gaze, the dark gray of his eyes empty of that bright, unexpected light. However, instead of offering to take her back to the city, he braced a palm against the plane and said, "I'm not giving you up, Kit." His jaw was granite. "You're too important to me."