Nowhere Left to Run (The Nowhere Trilogy Book 2)

by Kat Mizera

  “No, but if he wasn’t a good guy, I wouldn’t have let her ask him to join the band. She knew I did a full background check on all three of the guys. If I’d found anything suspicious at all, I would’ve nipped it in the bud, one way or another.”

  “Okay, good.”

  “Oh, come on, that’s it? Good? That’s all you’re going to say? This is me you’re talking to.”

  “I’m not sure what you expect me to say. I knew she was going to find someone eventually. She was twenty-two years old when I left her. I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to pine away for me for all of eternity. This isn’t some fairy-tale romance story. This is real life and we know what’s at stake. I made a decision and now I have to live with it. I’m glad she’s moved on. Why should both of us be miserable?”

  Ah, shit. There it was. The slip-up.

  And Sandor had known I would do it.

  Fucker.

  He wasn’t going to patronize me, though. He knew me better than that. He was still my closest friend, even now. Distance and false identities wouldn’t take that from us.

  “I wish there was something I could say that would make a difference.”

  “There isn’t and you can’t, so don’t try. I’m good. Listen, Leni’s waking up from her nap, so I have to go. Be good to yourself. And do me a favor, will you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t call me again unless something is wrong. The only way I get through this is by cutting off all ties to the past.”

  “And your father?”

  “Him too.”

  “Oh, hell, you can’t be serious.”

  But I was.

  “Be well, my friend.” I disconnected.

  34

  Casey

  Life had been throwing me curve balls for the last few years and apparently it wasn’t ready to stop. The discovery that I was having twins was yet another strike in the crazy baseball game that had become my life, and while Jayson was ecstatic, I wasn’t sure how I felt. I was happy they were healthy, of course, and my mother was over the moon. In fact, everyone around us acted like I was carrying the future of the world, two little baby messiahs ready to somehow replace everything we’d lost. Erik, my father, the future I’d thought I was going to have. It was weird. Even Nick thought it was the coolest thing ever. Of course, none of them felt like they were carrying around cinder blocks inside of them.

  Two babies were way heavier than just one and by the time I hit seven months, I was done with pregnancy, babies, and everything else. It didn’t help that Pretty Harts’ first album was selling like crazy. The record company was planning a tour, there were interviews and appearances every five minutes, and mostly, I just wanted to put my feet up. I also had two children at home who were demanding more and more time. Luke was going through a weird phase where he had severe separation anxiety, not even wanting to go with Nick sometimes. And Sasha was jealous. Of the babies. Jayson. The new house we were building. If she could find a way to be miserable about it, she did.

  At some point, something had to give and I hoped it wasn’t going to be me.

  “You okay, babe?” It was late one night in April. We’d done a day of radio station interviews in Los Angeles and then driven three hours home. My back was killing me and I had indigestion, so I’d come home and gone straight to bed. Jayson had gone downstairs to find me an antacid and now he was leaning over me, his eyes shrouded with worry.

  “I’m fine, thanks.” I took the proffered tablets and leaned back against the pillows.

  “Foot massage?” he asked, smiling.

  “You spend far too much time doing that,” I said softly.

  “What else do I have to do? I’m a kept man, after all.”

  I chuckled. “You are not. You got a nice advance from the record company. We’re just living at my mom’s house while ours is being built.” I paused. “Are you feeling weird about this?”

  He hesitated. “Kind of? I mean, yes, I got a great advance, but I had to spend it as part of the down payment on this huge house we’re building, which means I have almost no money left of my own .”

  “You didn’t have to put that much down,” I reminded him gently. “I have plenty of money.”

  “Your money is the reason we got the loan for the mortgage.”

  “We don’t need a mortgage. You wanted to be able to pay your half, and I respect that, but you could have paid me back.”

  “We didn’t need something that big.”

  Ugh. This was an argument we’d been having since we started building the house. I understood him wanting to be able to afford to contribute, to be the man in the relationship, but I didn’t have time for that. “We have four children, a bodyguard, and a nanny we need to house, and I’m tired of living at my mom’s. I’m also pregnant, and assuming everything goes well when these babies are born, we’re going on the road. I’m sorry if this is emasculating for you, but it’s the twenty-first century, Jay. I’d like to think we’ve evolved past that.”

  He sighed, sprawling out beside me. “I’d like to think so, too, but when a middle-class guy like me gets involved with a multimillionaire like you, there are boundaries.”

  “That’s why the band will split everything four ways and our profits are individual, not tied together. That’s why both of our names are on the title of the house. We’ve made every provision so you earn your share of everything.”

  “I know.” He leaned over and rested his head against my stomach. “Are they awake?”

  “Of course. It’s nearly midnight. This is when they come alive.”

  He rubbed his hand over my stomach. “You guys listening to Mommy and Daddy argue about money? I want you to ignore us, okay? We’re just having some growing pains.”

  “The only thing growing right now is my stomach,” I muttered, running a hand through his ever-unruly hair.

  “I know it’s been hard on you,” he said softly. “I’m sorry you’re struggling. But they’ll be here before you know it and then you’ll feel better.”

  “I hope so.” I stared up at the ceiling as he continued to gently rub my stomach and talk to the babies. We were having identical twin girls and had already decided on names: Jessica and Jocelyn, or Jessie and Joss. Jessie for my father’s best friend from his band, and Jocelyn had been Jay’s paternal grandmothers’ name. He wanted to honor her since he’d lost his father so long ago.

  Everything had happened so damn fast. Again. I wondered what I’d ever done to deserve this kind of insanity, but I was thinking about getting my tubes tied once these babies were born because apparently, I was the most fertile woman on earth. Jay and I weren’t sure how I’d gotten pregnant since we’d always been careful, but there had been a lot of drinking when we first started sleeping together so that had to have played into it. I was trying not to overthink things, wondering if this was fate’s way of forcing me to move on, whether I wanted to or not. I’d been getting there, but the pregnancy pushed everything into hyperdrive. He wanted to get married, but I wasn’t doing that again. Erik had gotten me pregnant and we’d immediately planned a huge wedding. Then I’d married Nick because I was purportedly pregnant with his kid. This time, I was going to be a lot more careful. We could be together without being married. Maybe eventually, but right now I wasn’t ready.

  I’d met his mother and sisters right after we found out I was pregnant. They seemed to like me and I liked them too, it was just an odd feeling being in a serious relationship and pregnant again. Jay said he was in love with me and while I wasn’t in love with him, I liked him a lot and probably even loved him. It just wasn’t the same. If I had to pinpoint why, I couldn’t. He was kind, talented, funny, and handsome. He was a giving, tender lover, adored my children, got along with all my friends and family, and bent over backwards to make me happy. Yet Erik was never far from my mind, as if he was in the room with us any time we did anything that wasn’t music-related.

  Music was my escape, my relief, my happiness. It helped
me forget about Erik, the loss of my father, and even the physical misery of carrying twins. Luckily, there was a lot going on with the music beyond just writing and recording it. A mini-tour was planned in the fall, with limited dates, to get us out there playing live. That would give me approximately three months to get back into shape, which was stressful, but I wasn’t worried about that now. I was more concerned with getting the right people on the team to help us.

  Lance had agreed to be our tour manager and I’d gotten Joe to agree to run security, with Sandor on tour with us, so the most important bases were covered. My mother, Nick, and Tricia had promised to take care of Sasha, and Marisol would come on tour with us with Luke. He was too little to leave behind even though I hated not putting him in preschool, but he was just too busy and too much work for my mother, so he had to come. We were in the process of interviewing a nanny that would be willing to tour with us with the twins, and that was the final piece of the puzzle that had yet to fall into place. We had time, but it would take someone special to handle not just twins but the rigorous schedule involved in touring. It wouldn’t be like the old days, with a different show each night—I’d made sure of that—but it would still be grueling with three kids.

  The only other option was not to tour at all and take the chance that the excitement of this album would die off too soon, and we didn’t want that. Not with a new band that had so much potential. My pregnancy had come at the worst possible time, but we were going to make it work. Profits would be down for Jayson and me because we had so many expenses with a new house, two nannies and the limited number of shows, but we had no choice. It was better than not touring at all, and frankly, I didn’t know what I would do if I didn’t have that to look forward to.

  35

  Casey

  Six Years Later

  The thing about success is that it serves as a fan-fucking-tastic distraction. To life, love, grief, even your family sometimes. And success had come to Pretty Harts in spades. So much, in fact, that sometimes I couldn’t keep up. We’d hit the road and never looked back when the twins were three months old. “Nowhere Left to Fall” became one of the best-selling rock ballads of all time and it had been impossible to stop the avalanche of fame and fortune that snowballed over us as a result.

  We spent almost two years on the road for that first album and then six months at home recording the next one. The second album did even better than the first, the ballad notwithstanding, and the next tour lasted over two years. We finally came home because Luke needed more than a nanny and tutors, and we all needed a break. It didn’t last, though, because the third album took off like a rocket and we were back on the road again.

  A lot of adjustments had to be made because of the kids, but we were making money hand over fist and between Marisol, Nick, and three willing and able grandmothers, we had plenty of coverage. I hated being away from them so much, but we took them all with us over the summer and the twins stayed with us year-round for now. I’d hated making that decision, but Sasha hadn’t wanted to miss out on the fun of high school and now that she’d started college, she needed to do her own thing. At ten, Luke was busy with sports and extracurricular activities so he didn’t want to be on the road either. We took breaks when the kids had fall, Christmas or spring vacations, and we did our best to fly home for special events, no matter how exhausting it was.

  It was summer now and we had the whole gang with us. Tonight we’d played to a great crowd in Nice, France, and we had a couple of days off to go sightseeing. It was our first time here and they seemed to love us. It had been a long summer, and this was our last week on tour. We were heading to the U.K. next, finishing with dates in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Dublin before heading home. We’d decided it was time for the twins to go to a regular school and we had to get them and Luke ready. I liked being part of the process since I was gone so much. I wanted to meet their teachers and make sure they understood that my celebrity and touring schedule didn’t mean I wasn’t involved. Not to mention getting Sasha settled at USC for her sophomore year.

  What we’d done so far hadn’t been ideal, but this was our life and we made the best of it. The kids were happy and well-adjusted but we knew we’d have to make more changes now that the twins would be attending a regular school instead of homeschooling. They were six now, Luke was ten, and Sasha was almost nineteen going on thirty. They were a handful but also a lot of fun, even now that one of them was technically an adult. I loved having them on tour with us and we made sure to schedule plenty of days off to explore and do touristy things as a family. It added to the cost, but it wasn’t like we couldn’t afford it, and the rest of the band appreciated the downtime considering how long we’d been on tour.

  “Let’s go to Monte Carlo tomorrow,” I told Jay that night after the show. “We have the time and I haven’t been there in years. We can drop by and surprise Liz.”

  He nodded. “Sounds good. Maybe I can hit the casino for a while.”

  “I want to take the kids sightseeing,” I protested mildly.

  “Yeah, but you and Liz will probably have girl talk for a while and I can gamble while you do that.”

  “You’ve been to almost every casino in Europe. Can’t we just do something as a family for once?”

  He sighed. “Does it really make that much of a difference? We’ve been together the entire summer and they barely pay any attention to me. Sasha’s always on the phone with her friends, Luke is always playing video games, and the twins have each other. They spend, like, half an hour with us before they want to move on to other things. I don’t know why me having one thing I like to do by myself bothers you so much.”

  “I didn’t say it bothered me.” I shook my head. “Fine. Do what you want.”

  Jay loved blackjack and could play for hours. It was one of the only things we ever argued about because if there was a casino nearby, he had to visit it, leaving me alone with the kids. I didn’t mind that, but if he had time to go to a casino, that meant we had a day off and it wasn’t fair for him to do his own thing while I took on all the parenting duties. Especially these days, because Sasha had become a sassy teenage handful. She was technically an adult now, but she was still a little naïve and far too trusting. We were close but she was spreading her wings and had needed me more than the others the last year or two.

  “Casey.” Jay reached for me, pulling me close. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine. You’re going to do what you want anyway.”

  “I promise, just a couple of hours while you and Liz catch up, and then it’ll be nothing but family time.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t believe him, but I wasn’t going to fight with him. It never ended well and I always wound up feeling guilty. Professionally we were a match made in heaven, but personally, things had been going downhill for a while. Mostly because of his gambling, but there were other reasons too and I just didn’t have it in me to work on something that didn’t really make me happy anymore. I pushed those thoughts away as much as I could, though, because our life was pretty damn good otherwise. We had happy, smart, healthy children, a wonderful home, and the best career I could have dreamed of. The fact that we’d been at odds lately wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Not most of the time, anyway.

  We rented an SUV, and with Sandor at the wheel, hit the road for Monte Carlo. It wasn’t far and we’d be there within half an hour or so. Sandor had grumbled about the change of plans, but I’d forbidden him to call ahead to warn the hotel’s security or Liz. We hadn’t seen each other in a couple of years so I was excited to see the look on Liz’s face when she saw us.

  We got to the hotel and Sandor dealt with the valet while I ushered the kids inside. Sasha was busy on her phone and Luke was complaining about being hungry, but the twins seemed intrigued by everything going on around them. It was a big, busy place with lots to look at and I always delighted in seeing the world through their eyes.

  I pulled out my phone and dialed Liz
’s number.

  “Hey, Casey, can I call you back? I’m kind of busy…”

  “Well, too bad. I’m in the lobby.”

  Liz was quiet a fraction of a beat too long.

  “Liz?”

  “I’m sorry, what? You’re in what lobby?”

  “Your lobby, silly!” I laughed. “What’s wrong with you? I’m here with the family and wanted to surprise you.”

  “I’m in the middle of a security briefing—give me five minutes.”

  “Okay, no problem.” I disconnected and looked around.

  The hotel had changed since I’d last been here and it was beautiful.

  “Mommy, I’m hungry.” Luke gave me a sour look and I ruffled his hair.

  “Okay, as soon as we find Aunt Liz, we’ll get food.”

  The twins were getting restless and I looked around for Sandor, who seemed as restless as my six-year-olds.

  “I need to use the restroom,” I told him. “Can you keep an eye on the kids while I go?”

  He nodded. “Don’t make any detours.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. He was still so overprotective.

  36

  Erik

  I was helping Leni get ready for her ballet class when Liz burst through the doors of our penthouse, her eyes wide. I looked up in surprise, frowning.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “She’s here!” she whispered frantically.

  “Who?” I had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Casey!”

  I froze, meeting her eyes with concern. “Like, in the hotel?”

  “Yes! They played in Nice last night and she came to surprise us. She just called and said she was here and wanted to surprise me.”

  “Shit.” I looked around the penthouse and then down at Leni. “Daddy has to go to work, but guess what? You’re going to see some of your cousins.”