by Selena Kitt
“Stop!” Rob insisted. “Sarah, it’s my job to protect you.”
“Who made it your job?” she cried. “You’re not my father!”
“Please, Sarah. Please just… listen.”
“Okay,” she said softly. “I’m listening. What do you have to say for yourself?”
It got quiet and I shrank back, but I couldn’t stop listening. Finally, Rob started talking again.
“Sarah, look… I’m sorry… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t… I didn’t want you hurt.”
“Do I look like I’m not hurt right now?” she asked. I couldn’t see her face, but even I could tell how hurt she sounded.
“I know. I was… stupid,” Rob said. “Look, I’m sorry. I said I was sorry. I just… please, listen to me. Please don’t do anything stupid.”
“Like what?”
“Like…” he paused. I waited. We both did. “Like going to see her.”
Sarah gasped out loud.
“You can’t tell me what to do! I’m an adult—if you hadn’t noticed.”
“I know. Sarah, believe me, I know.”
“Well if you wanted to treat me like an adult, then you would have told me instead of lying!”
“You’re right!” Rob agreed. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t make it any better, Rob.”
“I know. But… Sarah, listen.”
“I’m done listening!”
Uh-oh. I took that as my queue and crept back upstairs, turning out the light and crawling into bed. When Rob came in a few minutes later, I stirred, wondering what I should say. I wanted to ask him about it, but I didn’t want him to know what I’d overheard.
“Everything okay?” I asked, hearing him taking off his jeans in the dark.
“Yeah.” He climbed into bed, spooning me from behind. “Sarah just needed some help.”
“With what?” I held my breath, waiting, wondering what he would tell me. Surely, everything. Whatever had been in the mystery envelope he had forgotten under his plate would soon be revealed.
“Technical difficulties. She couldn’t get the Roku to work.” He shifted, kissing my bare shoulder. “Sleepy?”
“Mmm. It was a long day.” I fake-yawned as he slid an arm around my waist, still too stunned by his response to do much more than give that lame excuse as to why we were in bed at ten on a Sunday night.
But Rob didn’t sense anything amiss. He drifted off quickly and I listened to his breathing become deep and even, knowing the sound of him sleeping. But I couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t tired at all, contrary to my words. I stayed awake a long time wondering why he’d lied to me, why he’d lied to Sarah. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
Not good at all.
Chapter Four
“Can you believe I live here?” Katie threw her arms wide on her back patio as if she could hug the whole ocean, right out in her backyard. And it was, right there in her backyard, even closer than it was at our place. They could walk right out onto a restricted beach and swim if they wanted to, and many people were. They’d invited a bunch of people for the housewarming, and I kept running into celebrities, which was a strange experience. I should have been used to it by now, I suppose, but I found myself tongue tied in front of Justin Timberlake, like some goofy high schooler.
“I still can’t believe I live here,” I agreed, sipping my mojito. I was nursing it, because Kari, the dietician, said drinking your calories was like mainlining sugar. “Isn’t it beautiful? It’s like a dream.”
“It is all like a dream, isn’t it?” Katie nudged me with her knee under the table. She was dressed up in a red Armani dress and I was wearing a Hermes brown silk dress with a pink sash. In the old days, it would have been shorts and t-shirts and we probably would have been sharing a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. “Remember the concert?”
“Like it was yesterday.” I smiled, the image of Rob, my future husband, then just my rock star idol, reaching down to hand me a rose from the stage, filling my mind. What a night it had been, and what a wild roller coaster ride since. “Who would have thought?”
“I know.” Katie shook her blonde head, smiling as her guests whooped and hollered on the beach as the sun began to set, melting like an orange Creamsicle over the horizon. Damn, I was hungry. This whole dieting thing was wearing thin. So to speak.
“Are you happy?” I looked at her thoughtfully in the fading sunlight. Katie had been through a lot since meeting Tyler, not the least of which was dealing with his addiction—and then her own. We had lived in the same house, but we were both so busy with our lives, and our rocker men, sometimes I felt as if we didn’t connect as much as we used to.
“So happy, Bree. God, we’ve been through so much, but…” She sighed, smiling, her face all dreamy. I knew the expression. It was the same one I got whenever I thought about Rob. “He’s kind of awesome.”
“I’m so happy for you.” I don’t think I’d ever spoken truer words. We’d been best friends for so long, had gone through everything together, and I didn’t know anyone who was more deserving of happiness than Katie. If Tyler made her happy—I watched him across the patio, standing next to Rob with a beer in hand and a smile on his face, occasionally glancing over to check on Katie—then I couldn’t argue with that. Despite his flaws, he really was a great guy.
“So, I was thinking…” Katie sipped her own mojito, giving a long, sidelong glance at Tyler with those big, shining blue eyes of hers. “Maybe we could plan a double wedding?”
“A… what?” I sat up straight in the patio chair, gaping at her. Had she just said…? Katie held up her left hand and I could have kicked myself for not seeing it. How could I not? It was a giant diamond!
“Oh my God! Katie, oh my God!” I squealed, and she laughed when I reached over and hugged her, hugging me back. “When? How?”
I saw Rob glance over at us, smiling, brow knitted with an unasked question at my excitement, but I wasn’t going to interrupt Katie’s story about Tyler’s proposal, which involved the premiere of the new James Bond movie, a slideshow, and a kiss from Daniel Craig himself. In the end, I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was already married to Rob. She’d be too hurt and what would be the point? That knowledge was for us—me and Rob. It was our secret. For now.
“I’d love to do a double wedding!” Katie said. “Unless, you know, you want your own special day…?”
“Are you kidding me?” I shook my head, smiling. I’d already had my special day, on a beach in Aruba without her. I could share the big party wedding with her without a second thought. “We’ve always done everything together. Why not this too?”
“You think Rob will be okay with that?” she asked, glancing over at the guys, now laughing about something together.
“Yeah, he’ll be fine with it.” I waved away Rob’s participation in anything wedding. He’d always told me, his goal was the marriage, not the wedding. The latter was my department, and he’d go along with—and pay for—anything I wanted. That sort of carte blanche had me rather shell shocked for a while, until Katie started hoarding Brides magazines and we’d begun pouring through them over a Netflix marathon of Breaking Bad. It was a strange mix, meth and bridesmaid’s dresses, crime cartels and bouquets. For a week, I dreamed about Bryan Cranston in a wedding dress.
“I’m so excited!” Katie was practically hopping up and down in her seat.
“Me too!” I admitted.
I was so excited, I had to reach for a truffle, which I’d been resisting for the past half an hour. They were Daisy’s—she’d catered the whole thing—and so delicious they melted in my mouth. That was the thing Katie and Tyler said they’d miss the most about living with us—Daisy’s food. Not that I blamed them. I might miss it more than Rob if we split up! Okay, not quite, I admitted to myself, glancing over at my handsome husband. He’d dressed up for the occasion. No jeans and unbuttoned t-shirt tonight. He was wearing chinos with a suit coat, a mis-matched look that somehow wor
ked. He looked far more delicious than the food on the table and he made my mouth water.
“Hey, has Tyler said anything?” I looked sidelong at Katie.
We hadn’t talked about it since the big blow-up in Rob’s music room. The wall had been patched and painted, the guitar repaired and restrung, although it probably would never be the same again—but we didn’t talk about the fact that Rob hadn’t gotten his way. He wanted me in Trouble and that just wasn’t going to happen. I knew the rest of the band was happy about that. Nick, Kenny and Jon were out tossing a football in the surf, and I knew the three of them still thought of me as an interloper. But Tyler… he liked me. At least, I thought he did.
“You mean, about Trouble?” Katie stirred her drink with her finger, watching Tyler punch Rob playfully in the shoulder.
“Yeah.” Maybe Katie knew more than I did, because my husband had been rather tight-lipped about it all. “Rob’s been going to the studio, but he won’t talk about it.”
“They’re recording. That’s all I really know.” She shrugged, quickly changing the subject. So quickly it worried me a little. “So, you really opened for Jimmy Voss?”
“Oh my God, Katie, I wish you could have been there!” I exclaimed. I’d been so disappointed that night, when Tyler showed up without Katie on his arm.
“Ahh, I know, I was sooo sick. Tyler told me all about it.” She gave me a sad little smile. “But it sounds like you’ve really caught the performance bug!”
“I’m addicted, I admit it.” I nodded, my eyes shining with the memory.
Standing on stage in front of thirty-five hundred people at the Palladium, opening for legendary blues rocker Jimmy Voss, had been the most surreal experience of my life. Being on stage with Trouble, when they’d gone on tour in Europe, had been incredible. The crowds were even bigger there, but I’d been playing and singing with Rob then, with the rest of the band behind us. Being on stage, all by myself, was a unique experience. Addicting was putting it mildly. It was electric. I craved it again the moment it was over, when Rob pulled me into his arms backstage and kissed me and told me how amazing I was.
“You’re gonna be a super star, bay-bee!” Katie grinned and gave me two enthusiastic thumbs up. That just made me laugh. I didn’t know about that—couldn’t even contemplate something so crazy—but I did know that I loved it. Being on stage, playing music, was intoxicating.
“Probably not.” I waved her prediction away. “But it’s sure a lot of fun.”
“You definitely look like a super star.” Her eyebrows went up again for the second time at the Hermes dress and Jimmy Choo heels I was wearing. I’d gotten used to wearing expensive clothes. My closet was now full of them, thanks to Rob’s credit cards and Arnie’s bevy of personal shoppers. I’d let them pick out all the clothes, because I just had no idea where to start. Now I walked around looking like Celeste all the time.
“Have you been working out?” Katie’s gaze went to my legs, which I had to admit looked damned good, even though the hem of the dress barely came to mid-thigh. The heels helped.
“Arnie hired me a personal trainer.” I groaned at the memory. My whole body ached after the first day. I laid in bed moaning like I’d been beaten while Rob tried not to laugh. Bastard. He had a six-pack and didn’t have to do a damned thing to keep it, except play racquetball with Tyler, but me, I had to deal with a stomach that had been stretched with a growing baby.
David, my personal trainer, had said something about ‘losing baby weight’ on our first meeting and was shocked when I burst into tears. When I told him why I was crying, he told me that his wife, too, had lost a baby, stillborn at term, the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. He showed me a picture of him, James, so perfect and still, dark little rosebud mouth, just like Esther. We were part of a club no one ever wanted to be a member of—the dead baby club. It was a ghastly club, but we had something so deep and profound in common, it created an instant connection.
“He’s a sadist,” I complained, making a face.
“Poor Bree.” Katie sounded sympathetic, but she laughed.
The truth was, David was already a good friend, and the more he pushed me, the more I liked him. Rob had objected to a male personal trainer at first, but when I told him about David losing baby James, and then Rob had met him—David came to the house because Rob had a fitness room complete with weight bench, elliptical, and small indoor pool—he had relented. Rob wasn’t really the jealous type, but he was protective, watchful. It was like he had to sniff out any guy who came near me to make sure I was safe. David had passed the sniff test.
“And I’ve given up wine and cake and Doritos,” I went on, making Katie laugh even more. She, more than anyone in the world, except maybe Rob and Daisy, knew how much I loved cake! “But I refuse to give up chocolate.”
“I don’t blame you!” Katie snickered. “Chocolate makes life worth living.”
“Hey, I saw that baby grand piano when we came in. Did you buy that?” The living room was like a showcase, French doors opening off the foyer with its curved staircase, laid with white carpet, high, vaulted ceilings and a gorgeous chandelier. But the only thing in the room was the piano.
“No, it’s Tyler’s,” she explained. “It was in storage.”
“I want to play it!” My fingers had been itching since I’d glimpsed it on the way in. “Why is it the only thing in the room though?”
“Because the extent of my experience with interior decorating is picking plaids to go with polka dots.” Katie snorted. “I swear, it’s going to take me ten years to furnish this place.”
“Nah. You’ll fill it up in no time.” I knew this was true just based on living with Rob. We had not only incorporated all my stuff from storage, but we’d added to it. And now we were going to have Tyler’s wing of the house—four rooms and a bathroom—to redecorate. “But I’m gonna miss you being in the same house.”
“Me too.” Katie smiled sadly. “And this place… it’s beautiful, but it’s so big. It’s like living in a palace.”
“That’s because you’re my princess.” Tyler came up behind Katie, leaning over to slide a hand through her thick, blonde hair, fisting it so he could pull her head back and kiss her. It wasn’t a sweet, chaste, “we’re in public” kiss either. It was a long, passionate, oops-I-think-I-just-saw-some-tongue sort of kiss. I looked away, seeing Rob approaching with a beer in hand.
“So, I hear congratulations are in order, Mr. Cook,” I said, smiling at Rob as he leaned down to kiss me. His kiss was just on my cheek, nothing so blatant as Tyler and Katie’s public display of affection. We were an old married couple already.
“What?” Rob blinked over at his bandmate in surprise. “Did we win another Grammy, and no one told me?”
“You haven’t told Rob?” I raised my eyebrows, looking between Katie and her new fiancé.
“Oh… uh… yeah…” Tyler gave Katie a long look and I got the message right away. She wasn’t supposed to tell me yet. So why was she wearing the ring? That made no sense. But maybe Tyler just didn’t want her to tell me before he told Rob? They were best friends, after all. I’d probably made a mistake in mentioning it.
Katie waggled the fingers of her left hand in Rob’s direction and his jaw dropped.
“You’re engaged?” He blinked at Tyler, his hand, resting on my shoulder, squeezing so hard I winced. “What, are you just trying to catch up to me?”
“Yeah, that’s my goal.” Tyler rolled his eyes, something in them growing dark. “I’m going to follow you around the rest of my life, imitating everything you do.”
“I was joking, man.” Rob smiled and winked, trying to take the sting out of the comment.
“Yeah, I know.” Tyler shrugged.
“Seriously, congratulations!” Rob went around my chair to put his arms around Katie, who accepted his hug with the smile of a woman who was so happy she wasn’t sure her feet were touching the ground.
“Thanks,” she whispered, kissing Rob�
�s cheek. “For everything.”
Rob squeezed hard once more before releasing her and then turned to Tyler. The two men embraced, patting each other on the back, smiling like goofballs when they parted. They both looked like the cat that ate the canary and I wondered if they were both thinking that they got the better girl. The funny thing was, they were both right.
“By the way, feel free to play the piano.” Tyler took the chair beside me as Katie and Rob started talking. “I bought it with my very first Trouble check.”
“Must have been a big check.”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “Arnie wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“He’s clearly good at what he does,” I agreed. “He really knows how to create the whole Hollywood package. I had no idea so much went into making a band.”
“You have no idea.” Tyler snorted, glancing around as if someone might overhear. “You know he cherry–picked the band, right?”
“Trouble?”
“Yep.” He nodded sagely. “Rob had to fight to get me in. Arnie didn’t want me.”
“He didn’t want you either?” I felt a little better that I wasn’t the only one.
“He didn’t want anyone to compete with Rob’s pretty face.” Tyler rolled his eyes. “He picked Nick, Jon and Kenny because he knew they’d never question him and none of them were the type to want to take the lead. He didn’t want anyone the girls would go too crazy over. He knew Rob was going to make or break the band.”
“So why didn’t he just let Rob go out as a solo artist?”
“Because Rob wanted me to be in the band.” Tyler shrugged. “He wanted me along for the ride.”
“So, he fought for you?” I asked softly, glancing over at the way Rob leaned in to say something to Katie, the soft, caring look in his eyes. He was always willing to put himself on the line for someone else.
“Just like he fought for you,” Tyler reminded me.
“Yeah, well…” I made a face. “Arnie won.”