She’d tried to practice Patti’s advice, but it hadn’t been much comfort then.
Nor was it now. Every thought of Patti caused intense pain.
Focus, damn it. Fiona followed the burly Asian guy up the stairs to the lofted space above, grimly intent on keeping her ankles from wobbling in her ridiculous boots. She’d chosen them for the girls-gone-wild sexbot vibe, but they practically crippled her. If she needed to fight or run, she’d be fucked.
And if just staring into a video camera that might have Anton Trask at the other end made her knees turn to jelly, what would the real, flesh-and-blood Anton do to her?
Hoo, boy. Her mind could go absolutely anywhere with that notion, and keep itself happily entertained for hours on end.
It took nerve to get glammed up like this. Not something she did often. Or ever, really. Only when Patti insisted. Patti’s pet project had always been Fiona beautification. Domestication might actually be a better word, come to think of it. Fiona had done her best to be a good sport, but she had to fight conflicting inhibitions.
Jeremiah Paley, the leader of the survivalist cult where she’d grown up, had insisted that women and girls dress in modest, feminine clothing. She’d dressed according to his dictates, but her modesty hadn’t done her any good when Redd Kimball arrived up at GodsAcre. His hot, fixed gaze felt like ants crawling on her skin. Kimball had been lurking around every corner, rubbing up against her. Groping. Pinning her to the wall and whispering flesh-creeping filth into her ear.
She’d tried to just fade away, evade his notice. Hadn’t worked worth a damn.
A deep hesitation to invite male attention had stuck with her ever since, long after her escape. And whenever she tried to push back against that fear, she ended up overcompensating. She overdid it, egregiously. Went all-out sexpot. Put out confusing messages and got into all kinds of embarrassing, sometimes dangerous trouble.
It was more hassle than it was worth.
Patti had despaired of her. She’d tried so hard to teach her clueless country mouse cousin to pass for a normal California girl. The hair, the make-up, the clothes, the laughter, the lightness. Hah. As if.
She pushed down the memories of bouncy, friendly, giggling Patti. Later. That pain would wait for her. Pain was endlessly patient.
Today’s goal was to face Anton Trask and ask for help. There was no need for all this shivering and sighing. The guy’s only sin was in being terrifyingly gorgeous, talented and charismatic. She had a crush on him, yes, but that was hardly his fault. She owed him her life, essentially. But for him, she’d have been married to that dirt-bag Kimball when she was barely fifteen. That would have killed her. One way or another.
‘No’ had not been an option at GodsAcre. What Jeremiah said was law.
She’d tried to run away several times. They’d dragged her back. The last time, Kimball had her publically flogged. She didn’t remember much about the actual event, having blocked it out. But in her nightmares, she remembered Kimball’s glittering eyes as he watched. How he’d licked his lips. Liking it.
After that, Paley’s three stepsons, Anton and Eric and Mace, had taken matters into their own hands. They stole money from the treasury to buy a bus ticket to her aunt in California. Anton had led her through the woods himself, on steep, tortuous paths where they wouldn’t get seen or caught. They zig-zagged over the ridge, down Garrett Creek Canyon and eventually down into Shaw’s Crossing.
Anton had practically carried her at the end, her back hurt so badly. But he got her to the bus station.
And there, to her utter surprise, he’d kissed her goodbye.
Every last tiny detail of that kiss was burned into her memory.
She still remembered his long, dark blond hair blowing back in the wind as the bus pulled away. Those beautiful, muscular bare arms, tanned to gold. Those intense dark eyes, locked onto hers through the glass. Willing her to be strong and tough. Like him.
She’d been in love with him since forever. He was so gorgeous. Tall, strong, whip-smart. When kids hiked down to the swimming holes below the upper falls, she’d stared helplessly at his powerful body when it was wet and gleaming. His sharp cheekbones and full lips. That long, shaggy hair, all different shades of blond, from dark to light.
The bouncer was pushing open a heavy door. The time for frantic second-guessing was done.
Fiona walked into a large, wood-paneled room. It had sleek, essential furniture in black leather and steel. Banks of monitors and electronic equipment were smoothly incorporated into the walls, like the bridge of a luxury intergalactic space yacht.
“Ms. Garrett?”
She jerked around, startled, but the guy who had spoken wasn’t Anton. He was tall and striking in his own right, his big, heavily muscled body dressed in a tailored white shirt and black dress pants. Black hair. A hooked nose, a strong jaw, dark beard scruff. His deep-set eyes were keen and curious as he looked her over.
“Nate Murphy,” he said, extending his hand. “Anton’s head of security.”
She shook his hand politely. “I see. Did Anton ask you to check me out for deadly weapons? I often inspire terror in the hearts of men.”
“Not exactly.” His eyes flicked over her body. “I don’t know where you’d keep deadly weapons if you had them. I won’t search you. Anton said you guys go way back?”
“That’s right.” She just waited, offering no more details.
“So do we,” Murphy offered. “I met him in Vegas a long time ago. He got me a job as a bouncer at a club he worked at on the Strip after I got out of the Marines. I can’t imagine Trask as a kid.”
She made a noncommittal sound. Of course he couldn’t. Anton had never been a kid. Neither had she. But that was nobody’s business.
When she provided no further comment, Murphy opened the door behind him and beckoned her in. “He’s waiting,” he said. “Go on in.”
Fiona took a long, deep breath and jacked up her attitude-o-meter to its maximum setting. Shoulders back. Tits out. Chin up. She strutted past Nate Murphy. A slow, hip-swaying, take-no-prisoners saunter.
The room was dim and long, a black leather living room set at the far end in front of a bar. Low black couches and armchairs, a wide, low wooden coffee table, a dimly geometrically designed hanging lamp that was a modern art piece in itself. A floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the dance club dominated the first half of the room. Pulsing lights from the club flickered against the far wall. She glimpsed the gyrating throng on the dance floor below as she walked in.
The pounding music was barely audible. It seemed a physical impossibility to insulate a room from music that loud and that close, but somehow, they’d done it.
“Fi.” She froze at the sound of his voice. Even deeper and richer than she remembered. He’d been slow to talk and soft-spoken, but everyone had always leaned in and listened to every word. What Anton said had more weight than other people’s bullshit.
She forced herself to turn. Her heart thudded heavily.
Anton sat at a huge desk set into a niche in the back of the room. The dim light from the hanging lamp painted his starkly sculpted face with shadows. His shadowed eyes gleamed, unreadable. She tried to speak, but he beat her to it.
“It really is you,” he said.
You doubted it? Who else even knows I ever existed? They’re all dead. Words whirled in her head, but she couldn’t pick out what to say and what to discard.
Keep it simple, like Patti had said. Keep it light. Hi, Anton. Long time no see. Looking good. How’s life treating you. Nice place you got here.
But no. She had fuck-all to say to him. The cupboard was bare.
She coughed to shake her voice loose. “Hey,” she croaked. “Anton.”
She’d been afraid of this. That she’d freeze, tongue-tied, empty-headed. Just her frantically beating heart deafening her from the inside. She’d hoped adulthood would help.
No such luck.
He was crazy gorgeous. Even more so than she rememb
ered. She missed the long hair, but the thick brush of dark blond stubble cast his chiseled male beauty in sharp relief. She’d been following the buzz on him, ever since he burst on the scene some years back as an up and coming DJ. His rise to fame had been swift. The cover of Billboard, BPM, URB, the article in Vogue, the interview in GQ. The guy was freaking everywhere.
Not that she was complaining. She owned every scrap of info printed on paper.
He’d gotten even more infamous last summer after a steamy, highly publicized fling with a Hollywood starlet, a red-haired It Girl. The affair ended badly. The starlet had complained bitterly. He was emotionally unavailable, the starlet bitched. Elusive. Remote. She’d felt used. Boohoo. Bad Boyfriend, the tabloids blared.
And there were all the videos online. Shows, festival clips, interviews. Commercials for athletic shoes, whiskey, champagne, luxury cars, men’s cologne, high-end sports watches. She watched them obsessively, sucked into his hypnotic, complex rhythms of his dance mixes. She had her many favorites saved on the desktop of her computer for quick and easy reference. Her secret addiction.
Anton leaned back in the chair, his gaze inscrutable. As was his custom, according to all the magazine articles, he was bare-chested beneath his jacket. His chest was densely covered with tattoos. The black satin jacket was cut perfectly for his broad shoulders.
Jeremiah Paley had hated tattoo art with a fiery passion.
Anton opened a desk drawer and took out a remote, pointing it at the glass viewing area overlooking the club. She heard the muted hum of a motor, and hanging vertical blinds marched across the window, sliding into place to cover it completely.
The colored flickering light vanished. The room felt suddenly smaller. Breathlessly intimate. Another gesture with the remote, and a pool of light flicked into being, all around her. A recessed bulb in the ceiling, right above her head.
Like a spotlight. As if she was the floor show, performing for an audience of one.
Patti’s advice flashed through her head again. How to talk naturally to men. How to combat being shy and tongue-tied.
Just pretend he’s naked.
Oh, man. In this case, Patti’s classic advice was a terrible idea. Once she thought it, she couldn’t unthink it. And her brain just went apeshit.
“What’s with the outfit, Fi?” he asked. “It’s a little much.”
Fiona glanced down at her ensemble. He was right, but she would die before she could admit it. “It’s a dance club,” she said. “Jeans and a tee-shirt would’ve stuck out. I wanted to blend in.”
He laughed under his breath. “It’s not working,” he said drily. “Sorry.”
“I don’t consider other people’s opinions when I choose my clothes,” she said. “I got enough of that back at GodsAcre.”
“So this is rebellion? A fuck-you to the Prophet’s tight-ass memory?”
She gazed at him without speaking for a moment. “I don’t make decisions based on the past,” she said. “I wear whatever I want. My life is not a reaction to my past. That gives them power over me even after they’re dead.”
He inclined his head slowly in acknowledgement. “True enough,” he said. “But you’re not comfortable in it.”
She couldn’t in all conscience deny it, but goddamn him for noticing. She resisted the urge to tug the skirt further down over her thighs. Since there was nothing to tug.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m never comfortable anyway.”
His eyes turned her inside out. No one looked at her that way. She was used to being checked out, but guys mostly looked at her ass, her lips, her chest. She had a force field for that. Shields up. Their gazes bounced right off her.
Not Anton. Her shields didn’t work on him. His eyes sliced right through her defenses as if they weren’t even there and penetrated, straight into her soul.
“I’m sorry,” Anton said.
“About what?”
His eyebrow tilted up. “That you can’t be comfortable.”
Crap. She didn’t want him feeling sorry for her. She wanted to have this interchange from a position of strength. And standing in front of him under the spotlight like merchandise on sale at a brothel did not help. “Could we go sit down?”
“I’m good here.”
Hmm. So much for common courtesy. “Well, I’m not.” She threw her shoulders back and refreshed the attitude, ratcheting it back up a few notches as she strolled toward his desk. She circled his desk with her best in-your-face swagger. “I’ll just sit down right here, then.” She perched her butt on the desk in front of him.
Anton shifted back, one leg crossed over the other. Black leather lace-up boots. Faded jeans clung to his thickly muscled legs. He was so strong. Muscles rippling as he moved in the chair.
Oh, boy. At this range, the effect was overwhelming. Now she could smell his cologne. Feel his body heat right on her skin. The subtle field of male energy about him enveloped her completely, making her short hairs prickle up all over her.
Anton exuded an aura of things about to happen. Danger barely averted. Total combat readiness. Raw, seething sexual energy. It beat against her senses like a high wind.
She was spellbound by the sharp angle of his jaw, the sensual shape of his unsmiling lips. His beard scruff glinted dark gold. Those wary eyes never wavered, constantly assessing, re-evaluating. Dark, thick slashing brows. He was everything she remembered, just bigger, stronger, hotter. More of everything he’d always been. Too much to process. He made her dizzy.
“Hello, you,” he murmured.
His silky tone made her shiver. She braced her hands on the edge of his desk, fishing desperately for something to say that wasn’t please just take me now.
“I was hoping to catch one of your sets tonight,” she said. “They say you do at least one set at one of your own clubs every week. I read that in Billboard.”
“Not this week. I took time for personal business.”
She didn’t say a word, just waited. To her surprise, he actually answered the unspoken question. “I was in Shaw’s Crossing for a couple days with Mace and Eric.”
That startled her. “For real? God, why?”
“A funeral. My foster father, Otis Trask. He’s the one who took me and Mace and Eric in after the fire. He died last week. A stroke.”
Her gaze dropped. “Oh. I’m so sorry to hear that. My condolences.”
He nodded in acknowledgement. “In any case, I’m scaling down the performances. I do a set once or twice a week at my own clubs. Some festivals. Hand-picked. I prefer to focus production work now. I’m sick of all the traveling, the crowds. The bullshit.”
“Clubs in Portland, Seatle and San Francisco,” she said. “Plus the production company. And all the advertising work. It’s really something, what you’ve built.”
“Yeah, I’m diversifying these days. Opening up in Vegas and Chicago next year.”
“I saw you at Coachella once,” she told him.
“Really?” His eyes widened. “Why didn’t you come backstage to see me?”
She laughed out loud. “My ass. Do you have any idea the quantity of screaming, desperate girls were waiting to come see you after that set? The whole world wanted a piece of you that night.”
“You would have jumped right to the head of the line if you said the word.”
“That’s gratifying,” she murmured. “Thanks for deigning to receive me tonight.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You follow this kind of music? I wouldn’t have thought electronic music would be your thing. You don’t strike me as the clubbing type.”
If you’re the one making the music, then hell yeah I follow it. “I’m a big fan,” she said. “I don’t like crowds, so I don’t do clubs or dance floors much, but I listen to some of your sets all the time. I listened to last year’s Tomorrowland set all last summer whenever I went jogging on the beach. It was awesome.”
His lips curved briefly. “Thanks.” He gestured toward the hidden viewing
window. “You heard that kid downstairs. The one doing the opening set. What do you think?”
She considered the question for moment. “Not bad. He’s high energy, and he’s got them dancing, but there’s room for the sound to grow when the headliner comes on. The crowd will be primed for the peak set. It’s good work. Disciplined. He’s got brains.”
He nodded. “My conclusion exactly. He’s playing his cards well.”
“You’re giving him his first break?”
“Yeah. I like to giving space to new talent,” he said. “Let them struggle and sweat now. It’s their turn. I’ve already paid my dues.”
“That’s good of you,” she said.
“Good business. An investment in the future.”
“Of course. Excuse me for implying that you have a heart.”
He rolled his eyes with a noncommittal grunt and declined to answer that.
Fiona ran her finger up the gleaming length of a fountain pen that adorned his desk. “Pretty,” she said. “Very fancy. Solid gold, I assume.”
“Of course.”
“Ever written anything with this? A love note, a contract?”
“No.”
“Just for show, then.” Her eyes landed on a bronze statue in the corner, lit with its own dedicated beam of carefully angled light. Some tormented looking nude. “That, too, I expect. Looks expensive.”
“It was,” he agreed.
“So you’re into art appreciation? Classy. Goes with your image.”
A perplexed line appeared between his dark brows. “Which is what?”
“Inscrutable bad boy genius. Pop stars and Hollywood A-list actresses love to fling themselves against you and smash themselves to pieces.”
“I’m an artist, businessman and producer,” he growled. “The rumors are bullshit.”
“Hmm. Remember all of Jeremiah’s sermons? His favorite theme? Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. Then I read in GQ about your fleet of luxury cars—”
“It’s not a fleet. You actually believe that gossipy shit?”
Hmmm, she’d scored one. Gotten under his skin. “Where there’s smoke…”
Headlong: The Hellbound Brotherhood Book Two Page 25