Текст книги "Rock Redemption"
Автор книги: Nalini Singh
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
Chapter 8
Following Noah’s pointing finger, she saw the tiny figure of a lone hiker waving up at them before the man continued on his journey and they flew on. Noah was right—it was stunningly peaceful and freeing up here.
“I heard about your cosmetics deal. Congratulations.”
Fisting a hand against the impact of his voice so intimately close, her pulse rapid, she said, “It’s not a sure thing yet. Papers still to sign.”
“You know they won’t back out. They’d be idiots if they did.”
“I feel like such a fraud.” It was the first time she’d admitted her fears aloud. “I’m no model.” All of Adreina’s closest friends were fellow supermodels, so Kit had grown up around inhumanly perfect people, knew without a doubt that she wasn’t one of them.
“But,” she added, “it’s such an amazing opportunity that I couldn’t turn it down. Harper says it’ll grow my brand, and the money will be welcome.” Kit had earned a good amount with Last Flight, thanks to the profit sharing deal she’d signed in lieu of payment in advance; at the time, no one had expected the movie to turn into a blockbuster, so the contract had been generous.
Unfortunately, being forced into a premature property purchase by the combined efforts of her stalker and the paparazzi had put her in a deep financial hole. She now had a monster of a mortgage; her security team didn’t come cheap either. Neither did the gardening team she’d had to hire to maintain the property. The instant she let things go, rumors would start, and right now she needed to fake it until she made it.
“The cosmetics deal will get me mostly out of my mortgage hole unless something goes horribly wrong—like if I break out in a sudden case of acne.”
Noah snorted. “That’s what airbrushing is for.”
Laughing, she shook her head. “I’m not kidding, it’s in the contract.”
He shot her a disbelieving look. “Acne?”
“Not that specifically—any facial injury or outbreak or general hideousness,” Kit said, her shoulders shaking. “They can airbrush the ads, sure, but if a paparazzo gets a real-life shot of me looking unacceptably rough, there goes my value as a promotional asset.”
If Kit hoped for a renewal after the initial one-year term, she had to make sure she looked good even if she was heading to the gym or popping out to grab groceries. “There’s also an ‘unacceptable weight gain’ clause, but hey, at least my lawyer got the ‘moral turpitude’ one struck out.”
Noah scowled. “You should’ve told the assholes to shove it where the sun don’t shine.”
“Giant mortgage, remember?” She shrugged. “It’s almost like another acting gig for me, and to be honest, the cosmetics people treat me nicer than most directors.”
“You’re fielding movie offers left and right.” Noah angled the plane east in the crystalline blue sky. “You don’t have to do anything that makes you unhappy.”
He was so protective of her, always had been. He’d come to her town house in the middle of the night when she’d freaked out after catching a photographer peering through the window; he’d also made the police take the stalking seriously from the very start. That protectiveness was part of the reason why his betrayal had hurt her so badly. It was as if he’d become a different person that night, a person who didn’t care about her at all.
“That’s just it.” Chest hurting, she looked out the window. “The cosmetics deal will give me the freedom to sign more movies like Last Flight. Not that I didn’t have fun doing the superhero movie, but my heart tends to sway toward script-driven dramas.”
“You’re an amazing actress.” Noah loved watching her on-screen. “Whatever you choose, you make it better.”
“Some scripts can’t be saved, Noah.” An unexpected laugh.
His lungs began to work again. He’d caught Kit hesitating and choosing her words several times during the flight, and her body language… there was distance there. Distance he’d created, so he couldn’t fucking cry about it now.
“Harper got this one offer for a movie about erotic insect-women who wanted to sex men to death.” She was no longer staring out the window, her smile like sunshine. “I was meant to be the insect empress, and oh, I got to wear the ‘diamond’ string bikini.”
Noah tried very hard not to imagine Kit in a string bikini; the last thing he needed was a hard-on. Kit was flat out the sexiest woman he knew. “Tell me you still have the script,” he said, managing to pull off a light response.
“I might have saved it.”
He smiled. “Was that the worst one?” Talking to her this way, it felt like having his Kit back again. “No wait, I want to know something else more.”
“What?”
“Did Hugh make an offer yet?” he said, referring to the owner of the most well-known adult magazine in the world.
“Yep. Hundred grand.”
“Pfft. Total lowball. Hold out for at least nine figures.”
Open laughter. “I don’t think they paid that much even for Abigail Rutledge, and she’s the reigning queen of the A-list.”
Noah was suddenly sorry he’d brought up the topic. The idea of random men jacking off to Kit’s naked body made him want to punch out the lights of every other male in the fucking world. “Would you do it?” he forced himself to ask. “Pose nude for the right money or the right photographer?”
“Nope. And I won’t do nude scenes either—it’s in all my contracts. If the director wants a flash of breasts or whatever, they bring in a body double. No exceptions, and I don’t care if the stance loses me roles.”
Noah unclenched his jaw. “You feel strongly about it.” Good. So did he.
She took a long time to reply, her face pensive when he glanced over. “I love my mom, and I think she has the right to showcase her body any way she chooses.” The last words were soft and fierce both. “But… when I was in junior high, boys in my grade were ogling the nude spread she did at forty-five. It was the ‘Mrs. Robinson’ issue, and it spread through the male population of the school like wildfire.”
Noah suddenly realized he’d seen that spread; every man of a certain age probably had. He was fairly certain one of the boys in his class had tacked it up on the back of the door to the gym locker room.
Feeling a little ill, he shook his head. “Hell, Katie.” The affectionate term just slipped out, but lost in her memories, Kit didn’t seem to notice.
“It wasn’t the first time—she’d done spreads when she was younger, but I wasn’t old enough to be bothered by it then.” She reached up to fix her headphones. “I wasn’t ashamed of her. I think she’s the most astonishingly gorgeous woman I know, and I admire her confidence.” Love and pride entwined. “It was just weird and uncomfortable to know that the boy I sat next to in math class, or the boy who was my crush, would probably go home to jerk off to pictures of my mom.”
“They use it against you?” Noah asked, furious at the thought of her being bullied.
Hugging herself, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “A few snotty remarks, the odd snigger, one dipwad plastering my locker with the spread, but that was it. My classmates were all from prominent entertainment or sports families, so my mom was hardly the first parent to be in the media.
“Drugs, cheating, white-collar crime, public drunkenness, you name it, one of the parents had been busted for it.” She blew out a breath. “But it mattered to me. I want to have children, Noah, and I don’t want any child of mine to ever be put in the position of knowing other kids are passing around naked photos of Mom.”
“I get it,” Noah said, awed by her strength. If that had been him he’d probably have spent his entire school life bloodying noses and breaking jaws. “Good thing you weren’t a boy.”
“I should call you a sexist pig for saying that, but in this case you’re right. Can you imagine going over to a friend’s house and finding nude photos of your mom pinned to the walls?”
Noah shuddered, skin crawling. “Thank God I’m never going to be a father—some of the shit I’ve pulled is insane.” He’d been photographed in bed with three half-naked women for Christ’s sake. It had been for a magazine editorial, but still. “How the hell would I ever explain any of it to a son or a daughter?”
Kit shifted in her seat to face him. “What do you mean you’re never going to be a father?” A pause. “I’m sorry—that was insensitive.”
“No, it’s all right—it’s not medical. I just know I won’t make a good father, so I’m not going to saddle some poor kid with Noah St. John as a dad.”
Regardless of his mood or the demons in his head, he was always very, very careful. The one time he’d had a scare, it hadn’t been because he’d fallen down on the job but because the condom had torn. Thankfully, the groupie he’d been screwing at the time had been on the pill, so he’d dodged that bullet.
He’d put a private eye on her to make damn certain, because if he had fucked up and fathered a kid, he’d have taken responsibility—financially at least. “I’m actually thinking of getting it taken care of permanently.”
“What?” Open shock. “Noah, you can’t do that. What if you change your mind?”
“I’m not a good bet as a father, Kit. You know that.” He met her dismayed gaze. “Would you want me as the father of your child?”
Her face froze. Not saying a word, she turned to stare out the window.
It felt like a punch to the solar plexus. “Exactly,” he said quietly.
But Kit didn’t stay silent. “You could be a great father,” she said without warning. “It’d involve trying and working hard and being accountable rather than burying yourself in whatever hell it is that makes you so angry.” Her words vibrated with emotion.
The bones in his jaw grinding against one another, he didn’t respond.
“You have to make a choice, Noah.” Harsh words. “I made a choice as a child to not let my parents’ lifestyle damage me to the extent that I ended up a druggie or a self-destructive waste of space. Whatever it is that’s behind your behavior, you made the opposite choice.”
How could he tell her that he was surviving, that it was all he was capable of doing? He could’ve been dead a hundred times over by now. It would’ve been so easy to give in, to surrender to the pain, but he’d refused. “I didn’t,” he gritted out. “I made the choice to live.”
He could feel Kit’s eyes on him, incisive and penetrating… and he realized what he’d said, what he’d nearly betrayed. “Look down,” he said, slamming the door shut on the memories that made him feel soiled and desperate and used up. “I’m pretty sure that’s a mountain lion. You can use the binoculars over on your side.”
Kit didn’t reach for the binoculars. “Noah,” she said, her voice soft, private. “What happened?”
“Nothing original.” He tried a cynical smile. “Drugs and all that—I was addicted as a teen, decided to get clean.” It was a lie, but one he had to tell. It was far better that she think him weak in that respect than that she know the truth. Kit couldn’t know. He’d die before allowing that to happen.
Kit knew Noah was lying.
It was as obvious to her as a flashing neon sign. And given that he knew her low opinion of drug addicts, the fact he’d confessed to that to get her to stop asking questions made her blood run cold. She wanted to take back her earlier harsh words, wanted to start all over again. Because she was beginning to understand that whatever had scarred Noah, it had nothing to do with the usual small tragedies of life, the things she’d seen growing up.
It had been something bad enough to make a boy want to end his life.
Shaken and not knowing where to go from here, she folded her arms and stared out at the view. It was far greener than immediately around Los Angeles. “Where are we?”
“Near a private landing field I know.” A short pause. “Actually, it’s mine.”
He’d given her so many surprises today that she took this one in her stride. “So you’d have a place to land where no one knew you?”
“Yeah.” A lopsided smile. “There’s nothing else around for miles.”
She could see it now, a cleared strip surrounded by what looked like acres of trees. “How much land did you buy?”
He just laughed and took the plane down, and as her stomach dived, she allowed herself a moment of weakness and let that rough, masculine sound wrap around her.
A few minutes later, Kit stepped out of the plane and, stretching her legs, took deep drafts of the air. Grass and trees, birdsong and the gentle rustle of leaves in the wind, there was nothing of civilization within sight but the plane Noah had just landed. “Do you plan to build here?”
“I have a small cabin a little bit farther in. Other than that, I think I’ll leave it.” A shrug. “Don’t need anything bigger.” He hesitated before saying, “I was planning for us to picnic nearby, but do you want to go see the cabin?”
Kit knew she should say no, put a stop to the increasing emotional intimacy between them. But this was the first, the only time Noah had invited her to a place that could be thought of as his home. “Yes,” she said. “I’d like to see it.”
His smile, it wrecked her.
“Let me grab the food.”
Taking the smaller bag since he had a picnic blanket as well, she walked toward the trees with him, spied an overgrown path. “You haven’t been here for a while?”
“Not since before the tour—but the cabin should be fine. Unless the squirrels decided to stage an attack. Probably banged the door down with hammers shaped from acorns.”
She couldn’t not smile. “You should write children’s books.” The visuals he occasionally came up with were brilliant.
He erupted into gales of laughter, the warmth in his eyes contagious. “Can you imagine a parent buying a kid’s book penned by Noah St. John?” Not waiting for her answer, he pointed with his chin. “There it is.”
Wrenching her attention from him, she saw a log cabin beside a stream kissed by sunshine. “Noah,” she breathed. “It’s perfect.” The clearing in which the cabin stood was all lush green grass and wildflowers, like an image from a fairy tale.
“The cabin’s not very well put together,” he told her. “I did it and it won’t fall down on us, but it wouldn’t pass any inspections.” Smile fading, eyes shadowed, he looked at the small building. “I guess I just wanted a secret, private place where no one expects anything from me.”
“Thank you for sharing it with me.” It was hard to keep her voice steady when he’d just told her this wasn’t his home.
It was a piece of his heart.
Chapter 9
“Let’s sit outside,” she said through the renewed ache in her chest. “It’s so pretty by the stream.” It would also be easier than being shut up in a cabin with a Noah who was acting more and more like the man for whom she’d fallen so hard she was still bruised from it.
Putting down the food, he snapped out the tartan-patterned blanket—dark blue with lines picked out in red and white. Pretty, and one she’d seen before. He’d pulled it from the trunk of his car one day, spread it out in her garden, and lazed in the sun while she finished weeding.
The garden hadn’t been finished then. It was Noah who’d helped her hoe the beds. That day, however, he’d been a complete sloth because he hadn’t slept the previous night. He’d told her it had just been a bad night, and Kit had believed him. It was only later that she’d realized Noah didn’t sleep much at all.
He’d slept in her garden, however, under the shade of the cherry blossom tree that had been one of the first things she’d planted. Giving in to need, she’d watched him. His lashes had been dark against the gold of his skin, his cheekbones defined and his jawline shadowed. There was no question that Noah was incredibly good-looking, but Kit was surrounded by good-looking people on a daily basis, had been since childhood.
It was what lay beneath Noah’s looks that had compelled her: the drive, the passion, the talent, and, she’d believed, the capacity to care. She hadn’t been wrong about the latter. Noah could care, and care deeply, but—
“Kit.”
Jerking, she said, “Sorry, thinking about a project I’ve been offered.” It was the first thing that came to mind as an excuse.
Light reflected into the dark gray of Noah’s eyes. “Anything exciting?”
“It’s the same writing and directing team as Last Flight.” Kit went down to the blanket and began to set out the food. Noah had bought croissants, sunflower and linseed rolls, cold cuts and little miniature spreads, as well as fruit.
Holding up an apple, she raised an eyebrow. “I’m impressed.”
“You should be.” He folded himself down onto the blanket and emptied the other bag. “Juice, water… and cupcakes for dessert.”
Kit gasped at glimpsing the miniature vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting. “Noah!” She pointed a finger at him. “You know I can eat a whole package of those by myself!” Cheap and prepackaged the cupcakes might be, but she adored them a thousand times more than the expensive gourmet versions.
He moved the cupcakes under her nose. “No more painted-on superhero costume.” A wicked smile. “Or I can eat them all.”
Grabbing the package from him, she went to put it aside, then said to hell with it and opened it. “We need coffee.”
“Give me a couple of minutes.” He got up, jogged into the house, moving with a masculine grace that was addicting to watch.
Stuffing half a cupcake in her mouth, she forced her attention to the stream that sparkled under the sunshine. The water was so clear she could see the pebbles beneath, the grass around the edges lush but not too tall. Since Noah hadn’t been by for a while, the grass itself had to be of a variety that stayed short.
She finished the second half of the cupcake, moaning at the taste. Putting the package aside after taking a second cupcake, she peeled off the wrapper and started to eat that one much more slowly. As she ate, she tried to think of anything but Noah. She failed.
“Coffee, as ordered.”
Looking up, his denim-clad thighs threatening to highjack her attention, she accepted the mug he held out.
“Only instant.” He came down to the blanket with his own mug in hand, close enough that their shoulders would brush with another inch of movement from either one of them. “It’s caffeine though, right?”
“Your generator’s pretty quiet.” She’d heard it start up, but it hadn’t been intrusive.
“I bought it online.” A grin. “Had no idea how to work it—and the instructions were in Swedish.”
Even as Kit laughed, Noah knew he remained on shaky ground. It didn’t matter. Not today, not with her joy sinking into his bones. He’d shit on their friendship once, would slit his fucking wrists before he ever hurt her again—and if it took a lifetime to convince Kit, then it took a lifetime. He was in this for the long haul.
“Play that new Carina song,” Kit said when he pulled out his phone to play something in the background.
He cued it up. “Don’t tell Molly I have this. She changes the channel if Carina ever shows up on TV.”
“Can’t blame her after the way Carina flirted with Fox in that interview. But man, the woman has a voice.”
“Do I get any of those cupcakes?” he asked when she reached for a third one after eating the second one with infinite care. He loved that habit of hers—she’d inhale the first one, then nibble at the rest.
“Hmm.” She counted the remaining cupcakes with an ostentatious concentration that made him want to kiss her.
Fuck. He could not be having those thoughts about Kit.
“Well, since you were smart enough to get a twelve-pack,” she said, her tone serious, “I suppose I can spare a couple.”
Ripping off the wrapper after she handed him one, he ate the whole thing in a single bite. “Cheapest gift I ever bought.” He tried to stare at the stream, but it was impossible not to look at her when her absence had been a hole inside him nothing could fill.
“So cheap yet so delish.” Licking at the frosting, she picked up her coffee and took a cautious sip. “Not bad for something that’s been in the cottage for so long.”
“Makes you wonder what chemicals are in it, doesn’t it?” He took a second cupcake. “Just like I wonder what’s in these cupcakes—you know they don’t expire for months, right?”
“I don’t care. Not when they taste this good.” Fourth cupcake finished, she rested by drinking more coffee. “So, the tour was successful?”
“Yeah, it was good.” Schoolboy Choir had sold out shows across the country, added extra dates. “Glad to be home though.”
Hands cupped around her coffee mug, Kit said, “You have any specific plans for the new album, or are you just going to jam and figure it out?”
“We want to stretch ourselves.” It was time to go back to their roots, dig for the music that made their souls burn.
Frowning in concentration, Kit turned her body toward him. “A change in direction?”
“No, just… growing.” It was the one way in which Noah could grow. Music had always been his freedom, perhaps because he’d found it afterward. There was no taint to it. “Did you know Fox and I started to learn music together?”
Pure delight in Kit’s smile. “At boarding school?”
“Yeah. It was the one class in which we always behaved. Mr. Denison was convinced the other teachers were making up lies about us being troublemakers.” He chuckled. “We send him tickets to our concerts when we pass through Houston—that’s where he lives now—and damn if he doesn’t always attend.”
Sitting cross-legged on the picnic blanket, Kit peeled the wrapper off a cupcake and gave it to him before taking one for herself. “He must be proud of you.”
“I think he is.” Far prouder than either one of Noah’s parents. “Last time he came backstage, he brought his wife and told her how Fox and I were the only two students he’d had who wanted to learn to read music so much that we used to haunt his office.”
“You didn’t meet Abe and David till later, right? When you were thirteen? I think I remember David saying something like that once.”
Noah nodded. “Yep.” Unlike Fox and Noah, David and Abe had families who loved them. They hadn’t been shipped off and forgotten… or hidden.
In Abe’s family, boarding school was a proud tradition; his folks had come to see him every visitation weekend, had taken him home each vacation.
David’s folks hadn’t been able to visit that often—Alicia and Vicente Rivera hadn’t had the funds for it. But David had received the best care packages, full of home-baked goodies, a letter, and articles his family had clipped for him from neighborhood papers. Those care packages had grown bigger after the four of them became friends, Mrs. Rivera including enough for Noah, Abe, and Fox as well.
She’d even written them all.
If Noah’d had a choice, he’d have gone home with Abe or David come vacation time. Either one of his friends’ families would’ve opened their doors to him and Fox. But he hadn’t had a choice. Noah’s father couldn’t stand to look at him, but he wasn’t about to be accused of neglect. So Noah had to go home.
The only thing that had made it bearable was having Fox with him—his friend would’ve rather gone to David’s or Abe’s too, but he’d always said he wanted to go home with Noah.
Noah would never forget that act of loyalty.
“Did you like boarding school?” Kit’s husky voice cut through the memories.
“It was better than home.” Kit knew he had a dysfunctional relationship with his mother and father. “That was how I thought of it at first, but after a while, yeah, I did enjoy it. Mostly because of the friendships.” Quite frankly, he wouldn’t have made it the first month, much less the first year, without Fox.
His need would’ve made him feel unequal in the friendship, except that Fox had needed a friend just as badly for different reasons. If Noah had parents who, in public, acted as if he mattered, all the while ignoring him in private, Fox’s mother had flat-out abandoned him for her shiny new family.
So they’d become one another’s family, brothers not by blood but by choice.
“Your classmates must’ve pulled a few interesting stunts,” he said, and, when Kit answered with a wry nod, he asked another question. He wanted to hear her speak, see her smile… fix what he’d deliberately broken.
It had been a strange, oddly wonderful, and terribly painful day. Kit didn’t know quite how to process it, so she just shoved everything aside as she’d been doing since the moment Noah picked her up. Living in the moment was the only way she could deal with this.
“Thanks for the flight,” she said as they headed to the car early that afternoon. “It was beautiful.” No lie there, no need to watch her words.
“Anytime,” Noah answered with a smile before his phone went off. “Give me a sec.” His expression darkened when he saw the name on the screen, his answer a brusque “Yeah?”
Walking on to give him privacy, Kit was nonetheless aware of the curt nature of his conversation. He’d unlocked the SUV using the remote by the time she got to it, so she climbed inside and put the picnic blanket and the detritus of their meal in the back.
His jaw was set in a hard line when he got in, white lines around his mouth. “Did you want to stop anywhere on the way home?” he asked after driving out of the hangar, getting back out to lock it, then sliding into the driver’s seat again.
“No.” Kit knew she should keep her distance, but that wasn’t who she was when it came to people she cared about—and hell, that was the wrong direction to take. She couldn’t care about Noah, not that much. But she did. Despite everything, she did, and it was tearing her apart. “Bad news?”
Blowing out a breath, he turned on the music.
Kit kept her silence though frustration churned inside her. He’d always done this with certain questions. Just ignored them. Back when they’d been close, she’d excused it as him not wanting to talk about things that were too personal. Only later had she realized that she didn’t really know much about Noah beyond his current life. Except for the odd comment about his troubled relationship with his parents, his entire past had been a no-go zone.
As a result, she wasn’t expecting him to speak, was startled when he did.
“It was my father.”
Kit took in his rigid shoulders, the hand gripping the steering wheel with bruising force. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing. I’ve been ordered to show my face at some charity gala they’re sponsoring not this Saturday but the next.”
Kit frowned. “You don’t do anything you don’t want to do, Noah.” Anyone who’d had even limited contact with him knew that.
“Yeah, well, he brought my aunt Margaret into it. Aside from Emily, she’s the only person with an actual heart in my family, and she’s the head of the charity.”
He had mentioned his aunt once when Kit complimented him on a shirt he was wearing. He’d said it was from his aunt—she couldn’t remember why they hadn’t spoken more about it, but then Noah was very good at distracting her, intentionally or not. “So you’ll go?”
His hand tightened further on the steering wheel. “Yeah. Fuck.” Exhaling loudly, he seemed to consciously flex his fingers before curving them around the leather again. “I don’t suppose you want to subject yourself to a couple of hours of social torture?”
Kit froze.
“Shit, sorry.” Noah shoved a hand through his hair. “Forget that. No need to ruin your Saturday night too.”
There it was, the out she needed. But she also saw the angry tension in his body, and she remembered the syringe and the motel room and her terror at the thought that she might lose him forever. “I’ll go,” she said before her mind could override her heart. “The idea of rocking a glam gown will motivate me to move during my sessions with Steve.”
Kit liked to eat, but given her profession, that meant she had to stick to a strict exercise regimen—including a two-hour session booked for later today. But even though she’d been known to call her trainer Macho Steve, the Evil Personal Trainer, she generally enjoyed the workouts. “Plus my being snapped at a big event will make my publicist happy.”
Noah’s responding glance was unexpectedly grim. “How about if you get caught being my date? What’s Thea going to say to that?”
She shrugged. “I’ve been photographed with the band so much no one takes any hookup rumors seriously anymore.” That wasn’t quite true, but her PR person could spin it that way.
Thank God Thea had decided to take Kit on as a client. Thea hadn’t really had the time, not with handling Schoolboy Choir and a few legacy clients, but when she saw Kit beginning to drown under the deluge of publicity after Last Flight, she’d stepped in.
“You sure?” Noah returned his attention to the road, his shoulders no longer as stiff, his jawline relaxing. “It won’t be fun.”
Kit’s heart tried to read hopeful, romantic things in Noah’s response to the idea of her company. She shut it down with teeth-clenched will. “That’s what friends are for.”
