by Debra Jupe
“I don’t believe that’s going to be a problem.” Darla pushed off the banister, running her hands up and down her bare arms.
“Cold?”
She nodded. “The storm made it feel like winter is here again.”
He shook out of his jacket and draped it across Darla’s shoulders. She almost refused the offer, wanting to remove the coat, and hand it back to him. But his body heat generated from the inside of the material was too enticing. Shane slid his palms over her covered arms, then drew the lapels together.
“Regardless of how you perceive the situation with Eric, he’ll be around.” Shane’s tone almost held a hint of warning as he dropped his hands.
“He won’t. We’re too different.”
Shane chuckled and nodded toward the beach. “Are you?”
Darla followed his direction to capture a blue stare piercing into her. She sucked in a gulp of air with a groan. “Oh no.” Her palms cupped her warming cheeks as she returned Eric’s unreadable look.
Shane bent closer to her and spoke low enough so that only she could hear. “What’d I tell you?”
Darla ignored him and continued to watch Eric. What were the odds two men would show up at the same time? In the middle of the night, no less. The love gods must hate her.
“Thought you’d gone home.” Eric spoke to Shane, though his eyes remained on Darla.
“Too upset to sleep. I needed to walk, and the shore was inviting.”
“I hear you. I’m functioning on caffeine and nicotine overload. The need to get close to nature is necessary so I don’t explode.” Eric paused. “Where are you off to or—?” He sent a sharp nod toward Darla.
“I planned on staying at your place, but I think I’ll go back to my hotel.” Shane glanced at Darla before he stepped down from the staircase. “I’ll be headin’ that way now.” He released a soft chuckle. “You two have a wonderful evening.”
He vanished into the darkness leaving Eric to scowl at her.
Eric finally broke eye contact followed by a solid shake of his head. “Sorry for the interruption.” His voice sounded colder than the icy wind.
A tiny tremor zipped through her veins, then she mentally reminded herself any involvement with the guy would mean swimming into rough waters. “No interruption. I’m just like you guys. I couldn’t sleep and stepped outside for some fresh air. Shane walked by, the same as you.”
“Right. You needed air.” His jaw tightened as he eyed her up and down. “Nice jacket, by the way.” Eric turned away. Pools of eerie streetlights silhouetted his frame. He gazed into the ocean’s darkness, hands thrust into his pockets. He remained stoic, surveying the angry breakers. Waves rushed over the blackened sands and stopped at the tips of his shoes.
Darla stared at him, shocked by the edge in his voice. Did he really think something was going on between her and Shane? And—was he jealous? She might be out of practice, but he acted as if he resented his manager spending time with her. The idea, especially with Shane’s blasé attitude was preposterous.
Darla’s lips twisted as she gazed at him almost innocently. “Does my wearing Shane’s coat bother you?”
****
Hell yes, it bothered him. But not as much as Shane touching her. He didn’t understand why either. Frustration oozed from every point of Eric’s brain. Fury had overcome him when he’d spied what appeared to be an intimate conversation between his buddy and Darla. After everything he’d learned tonight, plus the loss of someone he loved as a brother, these unwanted—what?—feelings for this woman didn’t make sense.
He’d performed in front of royalty, government officials, and hundreds of thousands of people without sweating a drop. He was known for having ice water flow through his veins. His middle name was control. Yet, here he was. Darla Hennessy somehow had him fighting out of control emotions.
“None of my concern.” His voiced hitched a little. “You might want to rethink getting involved with Shane McIntyre, though. He’s not the best choice for smart girl types.”
Darla laughed.
“Did I say something funny?”
“Kind of.” She carefully stepped down the decks stairs, walked across the wet sand, and stopped next to him.
“Laugh all you want. Ignore my warning.” He lifted a shoulder. “Your call.”
“Warn me, huh?” She was clearly still amused. “He pretty much gave me the same advice about you.”
It was Eric’s turn to laugh. Only it wasn’t a humorous one. “I bet he did.” He kicked at a shell with more force than he intended. “The guy’s a player. You should be careful around him.”
“You’re suggesting he wants to play me?”
A gust of wind lifted her curly locks. She shook the wild mane from her eyes, knocking the jacket to the ground, and revealing a lightly colored top. There was just enough light from the street behind to reveal a faint outline of her pert nipples through the thin material. The superb sight sent a low burning jolt inside his belly, and propelled all thoughts of Shane into obscurity.
“He insinuated you weren’t to be trusted either.”
His gaze remained on her breasts as his mouth curved. “I’m not.”
The dim glow caught her surprised expression. She fidgeted, seemingly struggling for words. “I suppose I’m grateful for your honesty.”
“It has nothing to do with honesty. I just don’t play games.”
Again, she appeared to strain to reply. “So what should I do with this information?” She bent to pick up the coat, swung it over her shoulders, and drew the edges together.
“Dunno.” He shrugged as he turned away. “Do whatever you want.”
****
Darla let out a lengthy breath. She wasn’t sure how to proceed. Maybe the smart move would be for her to bid him good night, walk inside, and go to bed. She jerked the lapels tighter.
He bent to catch her gaze. “Jacket keeping you warm?”
“It helps. But I’m still a little chilly.”
His lips turned into a slow easy smile that was somehow lethal and dreamy at the same time. His accent thickened. “Anything I can do to heat you up?”
“You’re going to offer me another jacket?” Darla managed to maintain his level of intonation.
He took a step closer, leaned forward, and rumbled in a deep, low chuckle. “I know of a few other ways to warm you.” His voice filled with a raspy passion she found startling, alluring. He glided his arm around her waist and dragged her into him, fitting their bodies together. Shane’s jacket slipped from her shoulders again, but she was no longer cold. Eric held her tight, letting her know she couldn’t escape even if she’d wanted to.
In a split second Darla found her insides quivered from need. Her hands automatically floated over his chest until her fingers linked behind his neck. She drew his head down. Their gazes connected.
A corner of his lip lifted, his eyes glittered with a knowing tease. Then his mouth closed over hers. Her mind froze. His lips were firm as he kissed her hard and hungry. His tongue filled the inside of her mouth, stroking, teasing, tasting her with a fierce exploration, carrying her away in his desire. His grip tensed around her to draw her in closer. There would be no barriers with this man. He wouldn’t allow it.
Internal heat roared faster than the storm earlier, searing into every single one of her pores. She craved more. The musky scent of his skin, his mouth, the tobacco taste, the way he held her. She wanted all of him.
Abruptly, he broke the kiss and took a step backward. Darla looked at him, blinking in confusion. Disarmed—naked. Her mind whirled in a jumbled uncertainty. She lifted a hand and touched her burning lips.
His gaze skated across the darkness, and then he returned to her with a wicked smile.
He bent to pick up the coat and brushed away the sand. His eyes twinkled as he wrapped the jacket around her. “Don’t know about you, but I’m a bit overheated after that.”
With a step backward, he flicked his gaze to her one last time
before he turned to disappear into the night. “Sleep tight, luv.”
Chapter 7
His world was going to hell. Eric let the door slam behind him as he entered the house. He kicked off his muddy shoes and wrangled out of his jacket, dropping it to the floor, then he walked straight to the bathroom. After a harried search through cabinets and drawers, he found a plastic bottle of antacids. He held the frosted container up to the light fixture. Fuck. Almost empty. The interiors of his gut exploded like a million pound wrecking ball swung inside. He needed something for relief.
Maybe he could drive to the all-night convenience store located several blocks over and pick up some meds along with a pack of cigarettes. He was in dire need of a smoke. Except he was too tired to go anywhere. With a flip of a thumb, he popped the lid, filled his hand with the bottle’s contents, then he shoved the pills into his mouth. He dropped the empty tablet jar back into the drawer, leaned against the bathroom sink, and shook his head.
This evening started out a good one before turning to shit in a hurry. Drake’s death, Dugan’s disappearance, Finn’s revelation, Darla.
Darla. What the hell was he thinking? He’d kissed her. His life took another major plunge, one to where he may never recover. Instead of working on rectifying the situation, his attention stayed on her. If he’d taken the street route as he intended, the kiss wouldn’t have happened.
He had to loop back to check out the person on her deck and satisfy his curiosity. Well, he found satisfaction all right. If he hadn’t kept enough of his sanity to break away after the one kiss, he’d have lost all his senses and taken her on the beach.
And what was she doing letting Shane touch her that way? Eric already had the answer. Shane was a total ass when dealing with women. The two of them together perturbed the hell out of him. Then he wondered why he cared.
He struggled to swallow. The meds morphed into the equivalent of a mouthful of compressed chalk swollen between his jaws. He gulped several times. The mass caught in his throat. Too big to force down.
He fell to his knees and leaned over the toilet. After taking a deep breath through his nose, he tried to exhale in an attempt to dislodge the oversized glob, but he gagged instead. With the edge of his palm placed under his diaphragm, he gave his gut several hard thrusts. The blockage finally broke free. He spit the grit into the commode, and then dissolved into a choking fit.
“You okay?”
Eric looked up.
Blaine stood in his bathroom doorway. His expression appeared wary as he studied Eric. “Sounds like you’re dying in here.”
Eric swallowed, hacking a “Yeah, I’m fine,” and sat back onto the floor.
Blaine leaned against the frame and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re doing better than me, mate.”
“I meant I’m not dying from the overload of antacids I tried to inhale.” He reached to a rack above his head, ripped the towel away from the bracket, and swiped it over his mouth. “If you’re asking me if I’m okay from the ass-kicking we’ve just discovered from our visit with Finn, then no, I’m no good at all.” He wadded the towel into a ball and flung it across the room. “Please tell me Finn is playing one of his sick jokes.”
Blaine gave a shrug followed by a heavy sigh. “I wish.”
“I don’t understand how we were so stupid.”
“Don’t know either.” Blaine rubbed the back of his neck and stared at Eric. He appeared to be in a dazed fog. “But we were.”
“You say it almost too easy.”
“To be truthful, this news has stunned me. Once Finn accused us of taking his money, my gut told me something was up. Only I didn’t think things would be this bad. The realization hit me probably ’bout the same time you figured the problem out too. I couldn’t breathe. My chest got tight. I was scared I’d pass out.” Blaine’s skin flushed from the memory. “Sorry I left you on your own, but I needed out of there. The tension filled Finn’s house the moment we stepped inside. Seemed to get worse the longer we stayed. I’m surprised you hung around as long as you did.”
Blaine was right. The pressure was high when they arrived. Finn expected them to not only apologize for their behavior toward him during their final performance, which they did, but he also wanted the two to write him a check to return funds he was sure the band had stolen from him throughout his span with the group.
Which they had not. After calming Finn down, they convinced him they hadn’t taken his money. To help him out, the men spent several hours assessing the shape of his accounts, and then they examined his income. They realized Finn was correct. The compensations he should have been paid for his time as lead singer of Raging Impulse wasn’t there.
“I tried to quiet Finn a bit, although Richard being ’round didn’t help the situation. I hate that guy.” Eric shook his head. “He despises me too.”
“I think he dislikes all of us, including his own brother.” Blaine nodded. “Finn’s an ass, whereas Richard is scum. I can’t believe we kept him around for as long as we did.”
“If he wasn’t such a spineless perv, I’d suspect him of working for Dugan.”
“You mean as his hit man?” Blaine bit his bottom lip. “Yeah, I could believe that.”
“But I don’t think Richard’s our problem. We have to deal with the fact Finn is now our ally. I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Anyway, after I left him, I took the long way home by walking the beach. I wanted to clear my head. Maybe come up with some ideas on how to fight this.”
Eric did his best to put away his reflections of Darla Hennessy. The mention of his trip home brought on a rush of memories of her. He needed to get this woman out of his head. There were too many other issues to deal with right now. He rose from the bathroom floor and walked into his room. Blaine trailed close behind.
“I don’t understand,” Eric seethed. “We are the highest selling teen band of all time. Twelve number one records plus seven top-selling albums. We were on the road almost every day for eight years. Our concerts sold out, including standing room only. The T-shirt and merchandising sales alone should’ve made us enough money to retire on and live comfortably for the rest of our lives. We also were to be paid residuals for our song writing, not to mention compensation for the music we published. What the fuck happened to it?”
“Good question. There should be some major royalty checks from our record company too.”
Neither spoke for a full minute.
“Seems unreal we’re broke. All those years, now we’ve got nothing to show for the work we’ve done.” Eric tracked to his closet. He opened a small trunk and rummaged through. He lugged out a thick folder, then carried it to his bed. Sitting on the side, he sifted through the pages in the file. “I checked in my bank account this morning, I had plenty of cash.”
“Same here.” Blaine picked up a binder he’d evidently left on Eric’s dresser when he’d come in earlier. He settled on the opposite side of the mess of paperwork. “I went over my contracts after I got home.”
He held open a marked place in the notebook and pointed to an area for Eric to examine. “I found the exact clause in every one of them. It’s in small print, like we discovered in Finn’s. I bet you’ll find the same in yours.”
Eric glanced over at the passage Blaine indicated. “Yeah, I’m thinking that too.” He returned to his papers, taking several minutes to research before he nodded with a frown. “Here it is.” He tapped the paper with a forefinger. “Same as yours, same as Finn’s.” He shifted on the bed and stared at Blaine. “Dugan maintained power of attorney over all of our assets. We unknowingly signed every penny over to him.” His grimace deepened as he released a massive sigh. “This means he went into our investment and bank accounts at will. I’m guessing he cleaned each one of us out before he closed them down. Now he’s disappeared with nearly all of our cash.”
“You said he’d be coming after us. What better way to get to us than take our holdings. He left enough in our principal account to last fo
r a time while we were none the wiser. Now he can hide anywhere in the world and live off our millions.”
“And use our money to hire someone to get rid of us. How’s that for poetic justice?”
Blaine’s mouth twisted. “Bastard.”
“That he is. But we already knew that, didn’t we? Yet we trusted him to act in the band’s best interest. We were fools.” Eric gathered his documents and straightened them before he put them back into the binder. “I’m sure we’ll get a better idea how this all happened by looking up this stuff online. We may find out if he took everything at once or a little at a time. Except, he probably pass-coded those accounts so I don’t know if we will be able to get in.”
“More than likely he’s shut ’em down, but we should check anyway.”
Eric glanced at Blaine. “Did you call Mitchell?”
“I did talk to Mitchell. He’s pretty upset about Drake, and this news makes things even worse. He’s gonna investigate on his end and let us know what he finds tomorrow. Though he figures he’ll get the same results.”
Eric slammed the folder shut. “Shit. I can’t believe we were so damn gullible. We should’ve watched our money closer.”
“Look, I know we’re troubled over this, but still we can’t go kicking ourselves over something that’s already done. It’s not an excuse, except we were young when we hooked up with Dugan. We come from meager backgrounds. None of us knew much about investment management, because we didn’t have any money to worry over. Like you said, we always assumed Dugan took care of our finances.”
“Oh, he took care of them all right.”
“He did. Once we got a taste of having cash all the time, we never thought we’d need to bother ourselves over money.” Blaine rolled off the bed. “Why would we? We were a huge success. Dugan always made sure we had enough in our pockets. We assumed there’d be plenty.”
“True.” Eric motioned to the folder. “Except us being naïve about investments isn’t a good excuse. We could’ve become smarter. It was clear early on what Dugan was. We looked the other way on a lot of things. Our minds were on making it big and he was doing that for us, so who cared about his outside activities. My parents were against me getting into the music business, but I told them I planned on following my ambition regardless. My dad suggested a lawyer review every document before I signed anything. In the beginning, I couldn’t afford one. After I had the money, I didn’t want to bother. We were too busy. So I lied. I said I handled things as a way to blow him off. He’s gonna have a say after I give him this news.”
