by Nalini Singh
As he watched, Marty flipped open the box and gasped. Loud enough to capture the attention of several people nearby, who peered over to see what had him so excited. “My dear,” he whispered, “where did you find these?” He turned the box so people could see what lay within: cuff links that appeared to be hand painted with a miniature scene that reminded Abe of the traditional Chinese paintings he’d seen in a museum one time.
“My secret,” Sarah said with a smile. “A little bird told me you collect vintage cuff links—the seller told me these are meant to be part of a rare set.”
“They are!” Marty pressed a hand to his heart, his ring finger bearing a dramatic ring set with a square sapphire. “The artist only ever painted a hundred overall. And they’re in the original box too!” In raptures at this point, the other man closed the box and hid it away in the bag before enclosing Sarah in a hug. “Thank you.” It was heartfelt.
Sarah hugged him back, said, “You’re welcome. I’m so glad we got it right.”
Eyes shining after they broke apart, Marty leaned in to whisper, “I’m going to disappear from my own party for a few minutes to put these beauties with the rest of my collection.” Leaving them with a conspiratorial smile, he snuck out through a side door.
Kit and Noah, who’d drifted closer, immediately asked what was up. Kit shook her head when Sarah told her. “How did you know about his collection?”
“He mentioned it in an interview once.” Sarah shifted a little on her feet as she often did to find a comfortable position now that the pregnancy was so advanced.
When Abe rubbed at her lower back, she threw him a smile that made his heart twist itself into a thousand knots. God, he was so gone for her. Head over heels, like that song Noah had written for the new album.
“You’re showing me up,” Kit teased with a mock-scowl. “Did you see Marty hired Florentina Chastain to do a full dessert bar? Her people just brought out peach tartlets with a dark chocolate garnish.”
“Oooh.” Sarah lit up.
Curving his hand over her hip, Abe said, “You want me to grab you a plate of dessert stuff?”
“No. I’ll waddle over with Kit—half the fun is in the choosing.”
Tall and statuesque, Sarah was far too graceful to waddle. Abe watched her as she and Kit wandered over into another room where Abe could just glimpse the edge of the dessert bar. “We fucking lucked out with our women, man.”
“Hell yeah.” Noah raised his champagne glass, his eyes on Kit until she disappeared inside the other room. “You and Sarah, you look good together.”
“I know,” Abe said smugly.
“Modest too.” Noah’s dry tone was belied by his grin. “How’s Sarah doing with the media stalking?”
Scowling, Abe folded his arms across his chest. “Better than I am. She’s got this Zen thing going on—so long as the baby’s okay, she just ignores the vultures.” As Thea had predicted, the media interest was relentless at this point, every damn pap and his dog aiming to get the first images of Abe and Sarah’s child. “Thea told me the tabloids have put a fucking bounty on pictures of the peanut. Some international magazine is offering a million right off the bat for an exclusive.”
“Assholes.” Noah’s lip curled. “You know we’ll all play interference, get you and Sarah out of the hospital without anyone getting a photo.”
“I know.” His friends had stood by him through the worst times of his life; they’d never abandon him or Sarah now. “I mean, I’m going to be a proud dad who boasts about his kid till people are sick of it, but if and when a photo goes online, I want it to be our choice.”
“I get you.” Noah nodded at the open balcony doors. “You want to step out for fresh air? Looks like Kit and Sarah found some friends.”
Abe looked up, saw Kit and Sarah had moved back into view. “I recognize Imani,” he said, identifying Thea’s friend and workmate. “The blonde must be a friend of hers.” Since it was clear Sarah was having fun, he followed Noah out to the balcony.
“You’re gritting your teeth,” Noah pointed out once they were outside, Marty’s pool glowing like a blue jewel just beyond.
“I’m having trouble letting her out of my sight,” Abe admitted. “I get this fucking knot in my gut worrying about her.”
Just like Fox and David, Noah had been at Tessie’s funeral. He understood the fear that gnawed at Abe, that had him jerking awake deep in the night just so he could make sure Sarah was still breathing. But the guitarist didn’t point out that Sarah was healthy and strong, that she and the baby would both be fine.
What he said was, “You weren’t like this the last time around.”
Throwing back the ice water he’d picked up off the tray of a passing waiter, Abe said, “Last time around, I was so fucking scared of loving her the way I wanted to love her that I did everything in my power to fight it.” His hand clenched around the glass. “And I lost her.”
This time around, Abe had no shields, no protective walls. His heart was wide-open.
But he was terrified Sarah’s no longer was.
CHAPTER 37
ENJOYING HER CHAT WITH IMANI, Kit, and Imani’s screenwriter friend, Sarah stayed in the dessert room until her bladder began to protest. That didn’t take long, of course, not with how pregnant she was. Excusing herself, she hunted out a restroom.
The door had a sign on it saying Powder Room, and she thought that a cute whimsy on Marty’s part until she stepped inside and saw the size of the space. It really was a powder room, with seating and mirrors in this section, huge vases of flowers sitting in two corners. The actual restrooms—two of them—were beyond another door.
When she returned to the section with the mirrors, she found it was no longer empty. A lone woman stood in front of the central mirror on the right, touching up her makeup. She had skin the same shade of rich brown as Sarah’s, but that was where the similarity ended.
Where Sarah was tall, this woman was five two at most. Where Sarah was rocking a baby belly and full breasts made even fuller by the pregnancy, this woman had a flat stomach and perky breasts. And where Sarah wore a flowing gown, the other woman’s sparkling silver dress came to just past her butt and could’ve been painted on.
Sarah didn’t feel bad at the contrast. They were both beautiful, she thought, just in different ways. And one day in the future, Sarah intended to find herself a sparkly painted-on dress too. Just to shake things up. Because there was still a rock groupie inside her—even if she was only interested in one particular rock star.
Smiling, she paused to check her own makeup in the mirror. She had her lipstick in her clutch, decided to touch it up. “Stunning dress,” she said to the other woman.
“Same.” The falseness of the single word was so obvious that Sarah had to stifle a laugh.
Some women just couldn’t get over instinctive bitchiness.
“You’re with Abe, right?”
Surprised the other woman had spoken again, Sarah said, “Uh-huh,” and began to apply her lipstick.
“I heard he was clean.”
Not liking the poison already dripping from the woman’s voice, Sarah didn’t dignify the intrusive question with an answer. She finished off her touch-up and, capping her lipstick, dropped it into her glitzy mirrored clutch. That clutch was probably a little too loud, but Sarah didn’t care. She liked how it glittered. What she loved most of all was that Abe had bought it for her a month earlier, for no reason except that he’d passed a store with the clutch in the window and thought she’d like it.
A “just because” present.
It made the romantic girl inside her sigh and melt.
Smiling deep within, she went to leave… and the petite bitch blocked her path.
“You really think he’s into you?” the woman said, her words a sneer. “Fat and pregnant isn’t a turn-on, you know.”
Far from being hurt, Sarah was furious. “What the hell is your problem?” she snapped.
Jerking back, the other
woman clenched her jaw. “He would’ve married me if you hadn’t trapped him the first time around,” she hissed. “No wonder he was driven to drugs.”
“I’d worry about your own drug use,” Sarah said, no longer feeling like being polite. “A collapsed nose isn’t particularly attractive. You should talk to your surgeon about that.”
Leaving the other woman spluttering… and surreptitiously touching her surgically perfect knife blade of a nose, Sarah pushed out the door and made her way to the balcony. Her cheeks felt hot, as did her body.
“Sarah.” Abe’s voice from behind her the instant after she stepped outside. “I was looking for you.”
Breathing in, then out, Sarah was expecting his hand on her hip. Abe had a way of touching her when they were out, branding his claim on her. She liked it. “I just met the nastiest woman,” she said to him. “Petite, black, about five two, tight curls in a bouncy cut, razored cheekbones.”
When Abe looked blank, Sarah wanted to smile in smug satisfaction. Yes, she wasn’t feeling the least bit polite or nice right now. “She said you would’ve married her if I hadn’t come into the picture.”
Abe snorted. “Then she’s high. I wasn’t ready to marry anyone—then boom, I got hit by the Sarah-hammer and that was it.” Scowling, he looked over her head as if searching for the bitchy woman. “She upset you?”
Sarah had no hesitation in answering. “Nope. I was furious, not upset.” She was just touching his chest in a calming gesture when she spotted warm brown eyes and a wide smile heading in her direction. “Molly!”
“Hey.” The other woman drew her into a hug. “I was hoping you’d still be here. We got held up by a breakdown that caused gridlock.”
Fox was already bumping fists with Abe, and pretty soon, Noah and Kit were there, with Thea and David arriving soon afterward. The entire Schoolboy Choir family.
Her family.
Then Lola arrived, Abe having finagled an invitation for Sarah’s best friend and her current plus one, and things turned even more wonderful.
Despite what she’d said to Abe in the limo, Sarah had such a good time that she stayed for far longer than she’d expected. She even danced with Marty, who snuck her away to admire his cuff link collection.
“My husband thinks I’m mad,” he confided to her. “But he still gets me a pair every time he travels. Usually they’re ridiculous, the most chintzy, touristy things—but I adore them.”
Only when her body began to protest did she ask Abe to get them home.
That night, as she lay in bed with him spooning her, she smiled. She’d taken that powder room bitch down a peg and not allowed her to do the same. It had felt good. And frivolous as that incident was in the grand scheme of things, it had reached the fear inside her, as if it was the final piece of a complex puzzle.
Maybe because it had shown her, once and for all, that she wasn’t a hostage to fate, that she had the ability to fight for her happiness. “Abe?”
“Hmm?” Yawning against her, he ran his hand over her belly and up to cup her breast.
Her smile deepened. Fat and pregnant, my ass. She was hot and pregnant, as demonstrated by the rock star in bed with her, one who couldn’t keep his hands off her. “The first time around, with us, I wasn’t confident.”
“You were young.” A pause. “So was I.”
Yes, she thought, he was right. They’d both been so young then, struggling to find their place in the world. She could forgive that young couple, forgive the wounds they’d inflicted. Lifting Abe’s hand, she pressed a kiss to his palm. “Be honest with me,” she whispered in the darkness, confronting a large part of the fear head-on.
“Always. What is it?”
“The drugs—have you felt the need to go back on them?”
Abe blew out a breath. “I’m an addict, Sarah. I always will be.” Another deep breath, another exhale. “That’s the only way sobriety works—if I admit that, if I accept it.” He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “That demon whispers to me from time to time. You know it; you’ve seen me working out at all kinds of random hours. But no matter what, I’ve never, not once, felt tempted to give in. You know why?”
“Tell me.” The words came out husky.
“Because I know the second I touch drugs, I lose you and I lose the right to be a parent to our child. You wouldn’t even have to throw me out. I do not want an active drug user raising our child—so the second I do drugs or take a drink, I give up the woman I love and I give up our child. That’s not going to happen.”
It wasn’t a pretty speech. It was hard and rough and raw, but it was exactly what Sarah needed to hear. Tears rolling down her face, she struggled to turn, laughed midway. “Help me, dammit.”
Abe kissed her instead. Her shoulder, her neck, every part of her he could reach. When she finally managed to get onto her back, he leaned over her to turn on the bedside lamp. “No tears,” he said in a gruff tone as the light washed across her face, but the kisses he dropped on her cheeks were tender, his hand as tender where he cradled her face.
Half smiling, half crying, she stroked his jaw. Her heart ached. “I loved you before,” she whispered, then shook her head when the light in his eyes began to dim. “I thought then that I could never love you more… but I do.”
Fighting the fear that clawed at her, trying to hold her back, she said, “The man you are now, he’s the man I dreamed of all my life.”
Shuddering, Abe buried his face in her neck.
He didn’t speak for several long minutes, his breath jagged.
“Abe?” She put her hand on the back of his head… and she realized he was trying not to cry. This big, strong man was struggling not to cry because she’d told him she loved him. She’d never been that important to anyone.
Her own tears began to fall again.
He kissed her when he raised his head, his thumb stroking over her cheek. And he kissed her and he kissed her. She felt her bones liquefying under his touch, and when he lowered his hand to between her thighs, she shuddered and held on to him as he played her body like a fine instrument. Pleasure rose in a heavy wave.
She surrendered, gave in.
TWO DAYS LATER, SARAH SCOWLED at Abe when he said, “Let’s go out.”
“I’m in my pj’s and I want to stay that way.” It was only six p.m., but Sarah had decided eight months of pregnancy gave a woman a certain latitude—especially after she’d spent an hour on the phone with a particularly demanding client.
Pressing his hands on the sofa on either side of her, Abe smiled that heartbreaker smile. “Please.”
She gave a huge sigh, though butterflies danced in her stomach—damn but the man was sexy. “You’ll owe me big-time.”
“Done.”
Getting up and dressing in a pretty jersey dress in a vibrant shade of orange that Diane had insisted on buying her the last time they went shopping together, she called down to where Abe waited in the downstairs hallway, Flossie by his side. “Shall I put on proper makeup?” She’d brushed on enough to feel ready, but it was just the lightest touch.
“No, but take some.”
Huh? She went to open her mouth, then thought to hell with it and put some makeup in a little carry bag. As she zipped it up, she paused. Was Abe planning to take her somewhere? Bubbles of excitement skittered under her skin. Maybe—she bit her lower lip—he’d ask her to marry him again.
She knew she was the one who should ask since she was the one who’d effectively turned him down by never giving him an answer, but the romantic girl in her clung to the dream of being asked by the man she loved. “Should I take some clothes?”
“No, I already packed for you.”
Her mouth fell open. “Did you pack purses to match the clothes?”
“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”
Laughing at his insulted tone, she padded down the stairs with the makeup kit and her current everyday purse. “Here, put this with the other stuff.” She handed the makeup bag to him. �
��Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“Nope.”
Sarah decided to go with it. “One last adventure before the peanut arrives?”
“Something like that.” Abe helped her into the passenger seat of the SUV, then went around and tucked her makeup kit into the luggage he had in back.
Flossie was already in the backseat. When Sarah asked if Flossie was going with them, Abe told her their pet would be jumping off at her favorite doggie hotel. “Don’t stay up too late,” Sarah told Flossie as Abe locked up the house.
It was as they were pulling out of the gate that she frowned. “Hey, where are all the photographers and reporters?” They’d been on her like white on rice for months, would hardly disappear when she was only weeks away from giving birth.
Abe’s grin was smug. “We have good friends.”
“What did you get them to do?” Sarah pushed at his arm when he just chuckled. “It must be one heck of a photo opportunity if they drew away the entire crowd.”
“Oh, it is.” Abe smirked. “You can read all about it in the tabloids tomorrow.”
Amused by his smugness, Sarah decided she could wait and settled in for the ride after they dropped off Flossie. Of course, she had to keep making him stop so she could visit the restroom, and they’d only been gone maybe two hours when he pulled into what appeared to be a little family-style hotel.
“Here?” Wildly curious, she took it in. The hotel was pretty and old-fashioned with its wooden frame and climbing roses, and even as they stopped, a well-dressed couple stepped out as if to welcome them.
Opening her door, Abe got her safely on the ground. He grabbed their bags with the help of the male half of the couple she’d seen—who turned out to be the owners—while the woman walked with Sarah. “We’ve put you in a downstairs room,” the other woman said with a smile. “I know when I was pregnant, climbing stairs got old fast.”
“Tell me about it.” Sarah patted her abdomen to reassure the peanut of her love; difficulty with stairs or not, Sarah adored her and Abe’s baby.
“Here we are.” Opening the door to what proved to be a lovely suite decorated in rich blue and white with creamy yellow accents provided by roses placed in a glass bowl, the other woman walked in. “We prepared a little tray of snacks.” She gestured to where that tray sat on a coffee table with curved wooden legs. “Just light things—crackers and fruit and chocolate. Our kitchen is full-service twenty-four hours, so just pick up the phone when you’re ready for dinner.”
