by Julie Archer
WILD TONIC
JULIE ARCHER
Copyright © 2019 by Julie Archer of Jewel & Black Publications
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design: Najla Qamber at Qamber Designs & Media
Editing: Anna Bloom at The Indie Hub
Proofreading: Andie M. Long at Andie M. Long Editing & Proofreading Services
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Julie Archer
Chapter One
Nate McKenna didn’t know what possessed him to gate-crash the wedding party in the hotel bar.
Actually, he did.
Three coupled up bandmates and an ex-wife who was blissfully loved-up with her new partner. Add in an awkward rebound break-up to top it all off, and he was feeling lonely, isolated and, quite frankly, in need of something different.
He had travelled to Leeds to Do The Right Thing.
Hooking up with Rach on tour had provided the perfect distraction from everything else going on with his ex, Poppy, and Parker, his manager. Nate had only seen Rach a handful of times since and knew it wasn’t going anywhere, no matter how much she might want otherwise. He’d survived the stinging slap around his cheek and accusations of leading her on. He stood and took it all, knowing every word she said was true. There was no point in denying any of it. He’d used her. Although, now as he nursed his bruised jaw, he regretted deciding to tell her face-to-face.
Once the deed was done, he wandered aimlessly around the town centre trying to find something to take his mind off things. He ended up in the bar at The Met Hotel, a grand Grade II listed building just minutes from the train station. It was a whole lot grander than the cheap B&B he was actually staying in, with a far more welcoming vibe.
The barman poured him a Guinness as a crowd of girls came in. They were all smart and made up. At least two of them identically in yellow dresses. Nate frowned as he took a first sip of his pint. God, it was what he needed.
“Wedding party,” said the barman as he handed him his change. “They’re in one of the event rooms, although they keep coming in here for other drinks. Clearly the house wine isn’t to their taste.” He rolled his eyes.
A blonde, who was stunning, and without doubt several years younger than him, elbowed him out of the way. “Another bottle of champagne,” she snapped towards the barman.
“Please,” said Nate, automatically.
She turned and stared him directly in the eye. “Who made you head of manners?”
Nate glanced at the barman, his mouth twitching as he tried not to laugh. “I just think it’s polite, don’t you?”
She huffed and turned back to the bar. “Please may I have another bottle of champagne?”
“Is that going on the tab?”
“Please…” She elongated the word, deliberately dragging it out. “And whatever he wants, I suppose.”
The barman popped the cork and handed over the bottle in a fresh ice bucket before looking expectantly at Nate, waiting for his order.
“I believe the words you’re looking for are ‘thank you’.” The blonde met his gaze and her baby blues sparkled at him.
The corner of Nate’s mouth quirked. “Thank you.”
She flashed him a saccharine smile and headed off with her friends.
He watched her go, unsure whether to be flattered or deeply disturbed by her chutzpah. “I’ll have another one of these when I’ve finished this one,” he said to the barman who was still stood watching the altercation take place. “I’m not one to turn down free beer.”
Nate took the opportunity of some rare alone time, to sit and enjoy the peace and allow his mind to wander. The break up with Poppy had affected him more than he’d let on even though he knew it had been the right thing to do. He still loved Poppy, but he wasn’t in love with her and that was the difference. Although, of course, he loved their daughter India unconditionally.
Still, it had hit him hard. Even his best friend, Alik Thorne, didn’t know the extent of how he felt.
Being on his own, with nowhere to be and no-one to answer to was a blessed relief. He allowed himself to relax, chatting with the barman when it was quiet about news, sport, politics, music. Every so often he thought that the barman had clocked who he was and his cover would be blown but he didn’t say anything.
Nate was checking his phone during one of the busier spells when the girl from earlier returned. She went to the other end of the bar, a few people between them, which gave him the opportunity to check her out without her seeing. She was, he admitted to himself, absolutely gorgeous, if not his usual type. She was slim with pert breasts and a cute peach of an arse. Her blonde hair was artfully styled, pinned back at the sides creating waves that tumbled around her shoulders. She was dressed in an expensive-looking silk dress. The colour of lemons, it clung to her body in all the right places, with a skirt that flared around her knees in acres of material. That shade of yellow wasn’t always flattering, but the colour completed her complexion perfectly.
The few people between them at the bar melted away and it gave Nate an uninterrupted sight of her. He glanced down and was surprised to see she was barefoot.
“Can I return the favour?” He waved the almost empty pint glass at her to catch her attention.
She turned at the sound of his voice, those beautiful clear blue eyes on his once again. “Why don’t you come and join the party instead?” She held out her hand and treated him to an inviting smile.
A voice in Nate’s head told him not to be so stupid. It had only been a matter of hours since he’d broken things off with one woman. Surely he needed to be single for more than half a day? Another voice told him to go and have some fun. What harm would it do to go and have a drink or two? It wasn’t as if anything serious would come of it.
He slid off the stool and took her hand. “Sure, why not?”
It wasn’t long before Nate decided he made the right decision.
The room where the wedding reception was being held was tastefully decorated in golds and creams, with pale pink and white flowers. The circular tables, that would once have been organised with place names and settings, were artfully untidy, half full glasses and the remains of the coffee and petit fours course littered the crisp white tablecloths. A space had been cleared at one end of the room for dancing. Nate watched the dancers, where the bride and groom were whipping up a storm with assorted family and friends.
His mystery woman smiled at him. “What’s your name?”
For a moment, Nate considered playing the lying game. In the past, he and Alik had both prete
nded to be each other when the moment suited. Nate cast a glance around the room. He doubted whether any of the wedding guests would have even heard of Blood Stone Riot, let alone know who he was. There seemed little point in hiding his true identity.
“I’m Nate. And you are?”
“Clementine, although my friends call me Clem.”
“So I can call you…?”
The blonde grinned. “Clem.” She grabbed his hand again and led him towards the dance floor to join the others, just as the band switched to a slow number.
Clem moved in close to him. They’d barely had any sort of conversation and here she was, pushing herself against him, although he couldn’t say her body felt bad pressed against his. Maybe she did know who he was after all. Instinctively, he drew away, freezing a little.
As if sensing his discomfort, Clem pulled back.
“Ooh that’s embarrassing.” She smiled and shook her head, her blonde waves bouncing under the lights. “Let’s go and get another drink instead.”
She led him in a different direction from the bar and into one of the adjoining rooms. This one was empty except for tables and chairs stacked up against the wall. The music from the main room could still be heard, albeit somewhat quieter. There was, however, a long bar down one side, with pretty much every kind of drink that Nate could think of.
“Are we meant to be in here?”
Clem shrugged. “I’m pretty sure Tim’s family have the whole hotel for the night, so yeah.” She lifted herself up onto the bar, her shapely legs dangling in front of her and Nate realised she was still barefoot. “We’ve got the whole place to ourselves. What do you want to drink?”
As Nate scanned the bottles, Clem swung herself over the wooden bar top. She helped herself to a bottle of tequila and unscrewed the lid, sipping directly from the bottle.
His mouth curved into a smile. Tequila was his favourite.
She passed it to Nate and got back up on the bar, twirling and dancing across its top. Nate watched her enjoyment, trying to remember the last time he felt so carefree.
He couldn’t.
He took a huge slug of the tequila, wondering how Clem had known it was one of his weaknesses. Clem was definitely not Poppy nor Rach. His mind was telling him not to go there. It seemed his heart and dick had other ideas. He reached up and took her hand, holding it as she skipped up and down, giving her the bottle every now and again. The longer they continued, the more unsteady on her feet she got. As she reached the end of the bar, Clem span round, stumbled and fell right into Nate’s arms.
“I’m so sorry!” Her speech was slurred.
Nate couldn’t help but smile. She was light as a feather, her blonde hair all mussed up. “Don’t worry about it.”
Clem looked up at him, her eyes half closing. “Thank you for saving me. I could have fallen and hurt myself.”
“Think of me as your knight in shining armour.” Nate leant forward, instinctively moving towards her lips.
As he was about to kiss her, the door burst open.
“Clem! There you are!” A tall brunette, dressed identically to Clem, entered the room. “We wondered where you’d gone. They’re just about to start serving bacon butties.”
Clem slid out of his arms and reached into his pocket for his phone. She nestled in next to him and snapped a couple of pictures of the two of them and then tapped out a text message, sending the shots to that number. “That’s my number if you fancy seeing me again.”
“But I don’t live in Leeds.”
She flashed him a wide smile. “Neither do I.” She swept out of the room followed by her companion, with a swish of her lemon skirt, not looking back.
Nate stared after her. That sass. He knew he would see her again.
Chapter Two
When Clementine Cameron awoke, she wondered who had implanted a jackhammer into her brain.
Why had she thought it was a good idea to mix champagne and tequila?
She groaned and pulled the covers back over her head, closing her eyes, trying to gain some brief respite from the pain. The phone on the bedside table shrilled and Clem winced. She reached a hand out and picked up the receiver, bringing it to her ear.
“Hello?” she croaked.
“Clem! Have you seen the time? We should have checked out over an hour ago!”
Her friend Leona’s voice went straight through her head. Clem opened her eyes and found her mobile, groaning as she stared at the screen. It was after midday and their train back to London was in little over half an hour.
“Where are you?”
“I’m trying to shove all my stuff into my suitcase and shower at the same time. It’s not going well. I’ll meet you downstairs in ten minutes?”
If she wanted to get home, Clem knew she didn’t really have an option. “Sure. I’ll be as quick as I can.”
Reluctantly, she pushed the duvet off and shuddered. She needed to feel clean and the five minutes she had to wash her hair and shower wouldn’t be enough. It was going to have to do. In super-quick time, she was ready. She stuffed her lemon-yellow bridesmaid’s dress and previous day’s clothes back into her Gucci holdall, gave the room a quick sweep and, satisfied that she had all her belongings, headed towards reception.
The lingering smell of a cooked breakfast invaded her nostrils and immediately her stomach rolled and heaved. Hangovers really did suck.
Leona was already there, seemingly fascinated by something on her phone. Her dark hair was piled messily on top of her head and she was dressed in yoga pants and a huge sweatshirt. She waved the device in Clem’s direction. “Have you seen the messages on those pictures you posted last night? Who was that guy?”
Clem shook her head; she was barely awake and dressed, there had been no time to check her social media. She waited patiently for the receptionist to finish talking to one of the concierges, tapping her manicured nails on the desk. The receptionist was shooting her the side-eye and Clem was sure she was deliberately drawing out her conversation.
“Excuse me?” she asked, after a couple more minutes with no movement. “I need to check out, I have a train to catch. It was room one fourteen.”
The receptionist sighed and turned her attention to Clem. “Ah, yes. I’m sure if you had checked out at the correct time, you wouldn’t be in danger of missing your train. Let me get your bill for you.” The seemingly sweet tone of her voice belied the underlying sarcasm. “If everything is in order…”
Clem scanned the bill, noting the charges for two bottles of tequila. At least that went some way to explaining why she felt as horrendous as she did, even if she couldn’t quite remember ordering them. “That’s fine,” she said, pushing the sheet of paper back towards the woman.
It felt like an eternity as the receptionist tapped in the payment details and took her platinum card, raising one eyebrow as she did so.
“We hope you enjoyed your stay at The Met Hotel, Ms Cameron, and look forward to welcoming you again soon.” The woman beamed at her.
The change in tone instantly made Clem think that the receptionist had taken one look at the name on the credit card and nailed exactly who she was. It happened more frequently since she’d joined the reality show Pretty Rich Things. The show followed a cluster of both self-made and inherited up-and-coming twenty-somethings as they made their own way in the business world. As the face of up-and-coming fashion brand Stelle D’Oro, not to mention one of the major shareholders, she was beginning to get recognised more and more. Not just by the people who bought the garments, but by people who watched the programme. While the Cameron family had the money to invest, Clem herself had been involved in much of the process, working with the designers on everything from t-shirts to underwear. The small, yet exclusive, online range was gaining in popularity with each episode that went out.
“Come on, Clem, we don’t want to miss the train,” called Leona. “I can’t be doing with hanging around the station for another hour to get the next one.”
T
he two of them half-ran, half-walked to the station, which was thankfully less than five minutes away. They crashed through the ticket barriers and found the platform where the train was waiting. The guard ushered them on and slammed the door behind them. As they made their way along the train to find their seats in First Class, the train lurched away.
“Phew!” said Leona. She made a big show of flopping down into her seat.
Clem shoved her holdall onto the rack above the seats and sat down opposite Leona. “Ugh. How much did we drink last night?”
Leona laughed. “The rest of us, not so much. You, well, you were sharing a bottle of tequila with a very handsome man. Who, by all accounts, is apparently quite famous. You still haven’t checked your messages yet have you?”
Searching through her handbag for her phone, Clem found it had run out of battery while she’d showered and packed. No wonder she hadn’t seen any notifications. She rummaged around trying to find a charger and plugged it in. Within moments, the device sprang into life and with it came what seemed like a million messages. She found the pictures she had posted of her and Nate and stared at him, as if seeing him for the first time. Her memory of him didn’t disappoint, he was utterly gorgeous: scruffy blond hair, verging on long; amazing blue eyes; and a body to die for.
As she scrolled through the comments and read some of them, her need to throw up old tequila grew stronger and stronger, not only attributable to her hangover. It seemed that Nate wasn’t just some bloke that happened to be in a hotel bar the previous evening.
No.
He was Nate McKenna, lead guitarist with the rock band Blood Stone Riot.
What the hell had she done?
“Well? Are you going to see him again?” asked Leona.
Luckily, Clem was spared having to find an immediate answer as the train manager came through with the refreshments trolley.
“Can I get you anything from the buffet car? We’ve got hot and cold sandwiches and I can offer you tea, coffee, wine or beer from here?” he asked.
Clem hoped that a bacon sandwich, strong coffee and a can of full-fat Coca Cola would help her, although the urge to drink something cold and alcoholic was suddenly extremely tempting.
