by Christi Snow
Daniel gave him a weak smile. “Yeah. Completely embarrassed, but okay. God, I know you want out of here, and I’m fine with that. I’m sorry I fell apart at the end, but you need to know that despite my breakdown...” And yeah, that was totally what it had been. Fuck. Daniel swallowed. “Despite that, I had an amazing time tonight. You were incredible. Thank you for coming home with me.”
Austin frowned as he searched Daniel’s eyes. He had to look a mess. “Do you want to talk...” Austin hesitated, “about him? Luke?”
Daniel’s mouth dropped open. “How do you know that name?” he whispered, horror engulfing him. Had he done the unforgivable, too, and uttered another man’s name during sex? Oh, fuck! He hadn’t realized.
“It’s okay.” Austin said as he stroked up Daniel’s bare arm, leaving goose bumps in the wake of his touch. “His name came up...during.”
When all Daniel wanted to do was sink into Austin’s touch for the rest of the night, he was instead faced with how messed up he truly was by what had happened with Luke. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I am so, so sorry. God. Talk about the worst lay ever. Now you have a winning story for that one, don’t you?”
The urge to cry again was strong.
Austin shook his head. “Definitely not the worst. Until then, it had pretty much been the opposite.”
Meaning...the best? “Yeah, well, I messed that up, didn’t I? But thank you. Despite appearances, I needed this tonight. I’m so glad I pulled you out of the audience. Let me call the limo back to take you home.”
Austin shook his head. “There’s no need. I already called for a car. It should be here in just a few minutes, so I need to get downstairs. But first...” He tugged Austin toward him and kissed him. It was a soft kiss, one that said goodbye, not passion. Although with even that gentle kiss, Daniel’s body came alive once again. He really wished he hadn’t screwed this up. He would have liked to keep Austin in his bed for a few more hours or days.
Reluctantly, Austin pulled away from the kiss. His eyes were sad. “I don’t know what happened between you and Luke, but he’s a lucky guy to have your love. Maybe you should call him.” Then Austin turned and jogged down the stairs and out of Daniel’s apartment and life.
Daniel was left regretting so many things...including letting Austin go.
Chapter Six
ELEVEN MONTHS AGO - January
AUSTIN
Austin pulled his rental car to a stop in front of Emily’s Denver, Colorado, Victorian house and peered up at it through the blowing snow.
It’d been three weeks since he’d left Daniel’s loft apartment in the middle of the night, but he hadn’t been able to get him out of his mind as easily. With a little research, he found out that Daniel’s real name was not Daniel Webb. That was his stage name. He was really Daniel Gresham, and he just happened to be kind of related to Austin’s ex-stepsister, Emily.
She’d married Daniel’s cousin, Brady, in what sounded like a crazy-style wedding in Vegas over Thanksgiving. By mutual agreement, they planned to annul the wedding, but last he’d heard, she was hiding out in her house in Denver. She hadn’t even been doing her Hodges Publishing job. Although she eventually would inherit the entire company, the publishing branch had always been her darling within Hodges Media.
So, he’d come here to check on her...and to see what kind of intel he could get on the intriguing Daniel, because looking online, he hadn’t been able to find any hint of gossip about Daniel with a man named Luke.
Austin rang the doorbell. He didn’t hear any sound or anything that might signal Emily coming to the door. Maybe she wasn’t home. He rang it again.
This time a voice echoed from somewhere inside the house. “Hang on. I’m coming.”
Austin frowned at the echo. It had sounded like Emily’s voice, but Emily wasn’t the type to yell inside the house. Elegant and refined—but with a surprising ability to curse like a sailor—Emily almost always had an undefined grace to her. The yelling didn’t fit that.
Then the door flung open and Austin’s mouth dropped open. “Who are you and what did you do with my sister?”
She shook her head at him, which sent her blonde, lopsided ponytail to shaking. A ponytail on Emily? She also had on ragged, dust-covered, holey sweats and not a stitch of makeup. “Austin, what are you doing here?”
She waved him inside out of the cold.
Stomping the snow off his boots on the welcome mat, he came in. After shrugging out of and hanging up his coat, he pulled Emily into a hug. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
She pulled back and gave him a sad, weary smile, but her bright blue eyes had a hopeful sheen to them. “Not right now, but I will be. Come in and I’ll get you some coffee to warm you up. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
Because he’d wanted to know what was really going on with her. If he’d given her warning, then she might have been able to hide the truth if it were bad. And from what he could see it was bad.
He waved a hand at her appearance. “I wanted the unvarnished truth of why you were skipping out on work.” Then he glanced past the entry of her house. Piles of boxes sat everywhere. “Em, is there something you need to tell me? Does this have something to do with Brady? Did something go wrong with the annulment?”
When she’d first told him about her drunken Vegas wedding that she couldn’t even remember, he’d worried that she’d married someone who’d set out to con her out of her money. As the sole heiress of Hodges Media, her net worth was in the billions.
But it turned out her groom, Brady Gresham, had his own extremely wealthy family and affluent career. Austin didn’t know why Brady had unexpectedly married Emily, but it sure wasn’t for money.
“No, everything is messed up right now, but it will be fine...eventually.” She led him down the hall to the kitchen and poured him a cup of coffee from the already brewed pot. “I’m just trying to sort through my life here so I can be what I need to be.”
He shook his head at her. “You need to explain to me what that means because you’re the most put together person I know, so this isn’t making any sense. Any guy would be lucky to have you and if you have to change to be with someone, you’re better off without them.”
She squeezed his forearm. “That’s why I like you best. Yes, at work, I’m pretty much on top of things, but this is more personal. I spent Christmas with Brady’s family and made some not-so-pleasant discoveries about myself, mainly that I never let the hurt and pain from my miscarriage with Trace go. Until I do that, I’m not the person that Brady deserves to have in his life.”
Austin was desperately trying to keep up here. Trace had been her third—and she’d sworn her last—husband, but that was before she met Brady. “But,” he said slowly, “the annulment went through, right?”
She nodded sadly. “As far as I know, it did. I signed it and left it with Brady. The next time I marry him, I want it to be real. I love him, but I have to put some things to rest before I can be what he deserves. He deserves all of me.” Tears filled the corners of her eyes.
He didn’t know Brady, but he knew Emily and had to believe that Brady had fallen head over heels in love with her to take her home for Christmas, despite the circumstances of their marriage. “Agreed, but knowing you how I do, I’d guess he’d take all of you before you sort all the bad stuff out. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’d want to be here supporting you while you do it. This is a huge risk, Em.” She could lose out on the man she loved.
Giving him a watery smile, she nodded. “You’re right. I just hope and pray that he’ll be able to forgive me for taking this time when I explain it all to him.”
“Are you talking to him? What does he think you’re doing right now?”
She nodded. “We text every single night. I’ve promised him I just need a few weeks to sort through all this. I hope he’ll wait...” Her face creased with worry.
“If he doesn’t, then he wasn’t worthy of your love.” He looked around at even more box
es piled in the corners of the kitchen. “So, explain to me exactly what you’re doing here. It looks like you’re moving.”
Which he had to agree would do her a world of good if that were her plan. When she lost her baby mid-pregnancy, her marriage to her asshole of an ex-husband blew up. Grief had overwhelmed her—over her lost baby, over her cheating asshole of an ex—and she’d kept this huge mausoleum of a house as some sort of penance. That had been four years ago, and even though the house was way too big for one person and was completely her ex-husband’s style and not hers, she’d refused to even consider selling...until now.
So, regardless of how this might look on the surface, this might be a fantastic thing for Emily.
He only knew Brady Gresham in passing, but the fact he could get Emily to live again meant that Austin needed to join the guy’s fan club, maybe even take over as president.
And a bonus to that was he might just get to see a glimpse of Daniel along the way.
LATER THAT NIGHT, AUSTIN got his first chance to bring up Daniel.
“You should see the family compound they have just outside of Aspenridge,” Emily gushed. “There are at least twenty separate cabins on this huge plot of land up on top of the mountain. It’s like something you would see in a Hallmark Christmas movie. And the entire family commits to spending two weeks together there every year like a huge family reunion. It was magical.”
Austin nodded. “They’re lucky to have so much extended family that they can do that.” With their parents’ constant influx of new spouses, neither one of them had ever had that kind of familial foundation to rely on. “Speaking of extended family, I got to attend a Veiled Lies Christmas dinner theater show right before Christmas. I understand the lead singer is one of Brady’s cousins.”
Her eyes lit up. “Yeah, Daniel. I hit their last concert in New York before the holiday.”
That concert had been just a few nights after the one he attended. He’d considered going, but thought that might make him too stalker-like since he would have gone alone purely hoping to see Daniel again.
She got a funny look on her face.
“What?” he asked. “Not your style of music?”
“No. The band was great. It was the after-party that proved maybe I’m too old for concerts. I don’t know... There are just some things I don’t need to see from Brady’s family. Seeing his cousin get a blowjob in the middle of a backstage party would be one of those.”
Brady’s cousin...Daniel.
The sick, nauseated feeling hit Austin quick and brutal.
Fuck.
He was just one of many to grace Daniel’s bed.
Of course he was. Daniel was a rock star. Austin had been an idiot to think what happened between them might be anything more than exactly what it was...a one-night hookup.
He tried to laugh it off so Emily wouldn’t catch his devastation. “Eh, that’s the rock-and-roll lifestyle, right?” His voice sounded weak, pathetic. He cleared his throat and shook his head. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t let it matter. “He’s young and I’m sure, horny. You can’t blame him for taking advantage of the perks of being on stage every night. Adoring fans, right?”
Emily wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, I know you’re right, but other than that, Daniel’s a good guy. He and Brady are close.”
Austin nodded like it didn’t matter to him. “Hey, it’s still early. Let me help you pack up the library tonight.”
And tomorrow he’d figure out how to forget all about his one-night encounter with Daniel Gresham.
Chapter Seven
TEN MONTHS AGO- FEBRUARY
DANIEL
A loud explosion rocked the small plane as they turned to make their approach into the small airport on the outskirts of New York. They were suddenly in free-fall. “What the fuck!” he screamed and turned to his cousin Brady.
Brady had his phone clutched in his hand, frantically typing. “I think we hit something.” Brady’s voice sounded panicked. “I think the engine blew.”
Daniel clutched at the arms of his seat. They were going to crash. The plane plummeted downward.
When the initial explosion happened, his phone flew out of his hand. He had no idea where it might have gone in the small cabin. Who would he text goodbye to anyway?
Luke hated him.
And hell, if Austin even remembered him, he probably hated him, too, for ruining a perfectly good fuck.
Suddenly the plane rolled, and they hit...something. Daniel’s head slammed up against the side of the plane and horrific pain ricocheted through his legs as the fuselage seemed to fold in on itself.
Water couldn’t be that hard, could it?
Frigid, rolling water gushed into the cabin. Daniel frantically searched for Brady in the chaos. He was still in the seat beside him, his head lolling. Oh god, let him just be unconscious, not dead. He grabbed Brady’s seat belt and unclipped it and then looked down to do the same to his.
He froze, gazing down at his legs. Blood poured from...stumps. He swallowed convulsively as the plane hull shuddered and tilted.
They had to get out of here or else they’d both drown in this plane. For a second he considered that that might be a blessing, but then he looked over at Brady. Brady couldn’t die. Daniel couldn’t let him.
Already the frigid water reached his chest stealing his breath. He couldn’t worry about the fact that all the water was vivid red with blood. He grabbed Brady and pushed the two of them toward the hole where there used to be a cockpit. He had no idea where the pilots could be.
Right now, he had to focus on getting Brady out of the plane alive.
He took a deep breath just as the water covered their heads and dove toward the hole, grasping hold of Brady with all his strength, and praying the whole way that he had the strength to get them out before the plane hull plunged into the bottom of the ocean taking them with it.
As they exited the plane, for a moment Daniel panicked. In the swirling water, he didn’t know which way was up, but then a piece of metal from the plane floated by. He followed it, kicking to propel them through the water even as what was left of his legs screamed with pain.
Mind-numbing agony engulfed his body, shooting up through his groin and torso. He automatically opened his mouth to scream, swallowing a gallon of ocean water. Everything hurt and he could feel his brain getting foggy. He had to keep hold of Brady in the freezing cold water. Already, his limbs felt numb, which with his legs was probably a good thing.
They burst through the surf. Daniel gasped. “Brady!” The man was still and limp in his arms. He didn’t know if Brady was alive or dead.
A piece of metal from the plane floated on the surface. Daniel grabbed hold of it, trying to make sure that Brady’s head was above water at the same time.
“Brady,” he yelled again.
This time Brady sputtered, coughing and spitting out water.
Oh, thank fuck.
But then Brady sank into the water. No! Daniel grabbed him and hauled him up onto the big piece of metal. “Hold on! You aren’t...going to...die out here.” His teeth chattered, making it hard to speak.
Brady blinked and blindly reached to grab hold of the metal piece, allowing Daniel relax a tiny bit.
“Do you...think the pilot...managed...a distress...call?” Brady asked. He was deathly pale.
“Don’t...know.” Lethargy rolled over him.
“Daniel!”
He jolted awake and almost sank under the roiling water. “Whu...”
It was so hard to move his mouth, open his eyes, to care.
Brady shook hold of the arm holding the two of them together. “Stay awake. You’re bleeding. You hit your head. What else hurts?”
“So cold. So tired...” It didn’t matter anymore.
“I know,” Brady said. “But we have to...keep fighting.”
Why? Daniel didn’t have anyone special in his life, not like Brady who had Emily.
“Tell me...” Brady yelled again, “about
Luke.”
Daniel’s chest hurt. He didn’t know if it was because of Luke or the cold water.
Luke.
He’d messed that up so much.
“Love him,” Daniel whispered, the truth breaking his heart. He’d hurt Luke so badly and that had caused him to hurt another good man...Austin. Another regret. “Tell him...sorry.”
Sorry for hurting them.
Sorry for betraying Luke.
Sorry that he’d ruined anything that might have been between Austin and him.
He’d never be able to make it up to Luke, and he’d never see Austin again.
Those were his biggest regrets as darkness took him under.
LUKE
Luke had been on his way to the airport to pick up Brady when his heartbeat ratcheted up, and a horrific pain seized his chest.
Frantically he jerked the car to the side of the highway, ignoring the beeping and blaring of angry car horns around him.
He stumbled from the car and around to the passenger side before he violently lost his lunch.
Standing there panting, he took stock. What the hell had just happened? Had he just had a heart attack?
It felt like someone had ripped a vital part of his soul out through his chest.
His hands shook, and his legs felt weak. He wasn’t sure if it was safe for him to keep driving.
Before he could make a plan, his cell phone rang. The caller ID showed Scott Gresham, Brady’s dad.
A sick feeling settled low in the pit of Luke’s stomach. “Mr. Gresham?” his voice croaked.
“Luke, there’s been an accident. Brady and Daniel’s plane...” his voice cracked on the words, “dropped from the radar. They think it crashed into the ocean.”
With those words, Luke’s world crumbled around him.
AUSTIN
Prescott came into Austin’s office without knocking and looked pale. “Is Ms. Hodges still in the building?” Emily had been here rocking the Hodges Media world on its ass and Austin couldn’t be more proud of her.
