One More Night (Backstage Pass Book 1)

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One More Night (Backstage Pass Book 1) Page 47

by Ali Parker


  "Me too. Hurry the hell up." I cupped his balls and licked up his spine as something burst open inside of me. I was giving myself to him and whatever the fallout looked like... fuck it. I would deal with it.

  "There." He opened the door and turned to grab me, pulling me roughly against him as someone else grabbed me from behind.

  "Hey. Sorry kids." Frank.

  It was as if I'd been dunked in ice water. I yelped and moved into the room behind Ethan. My white dress was translucent at that point, and there wasn't much to hide.

  "What the fuck, Frank? Get out, dude. Shit." Ethan was hot. Pissed in a way I wasn't sure I was comfortable with.

  "I'm sorry. Seriously, but Riley left her cell phone here earlier. It's been going off nonstop. It's from LA. Just check it and make sure everything is okay." He handed it to Ethan and walked off.

  "Here. Check it out while I run us some bath water. I wanna wash you up before I take my time getting intimate with every inch of you." He touched the side of my face and leaned down to kiss me hard once.

  I breathed him in and moved back as he ducked into the bathroom.

  The calls were from Charlotte. What the hell could be so important to blow up my phone over and over again?

  I listened to them as each one got more frantic. I dropped down on the bed and pressed the phone to my ear as my heart beat so hard I grew faint. The last one was enough to make my food finish its trip up my chest and force me to run for the toilet to lose my dinner. I had to get home. Now.

  The sound of her voice echoed in the bathroom around me as Ethan's strong hands pulled my hair from my face. He whispered words of comfort, but I couldn't seem to hear or feel anything other than her voice in my ear as the last message played over the speakerphone.

  "Riley! Pick up the goddamn phone. Pick up." Crying. So much sobbing. Heart wrenching sobs. "It's your mom. She's... she's been in an accident. I'm at the hospital, Riley. I need you to get home. I don't know what to do." She sobbed a little more before the sound of muffled voices filled the line and Charlotte's soft scream bled into another round of sobs. "Oh fuck. She didn't make it. Riley. You need to come home. Your mom... your mom didn't make it."

  To Be Continued…

  Understudy

  Bright Lights Billionaire #3

  Life respects nothing... including fame.

  Riley has finally relented to Ethan's subtle pushing and agreed to a friends with benefits relationship. It would seem the best answer for both of their desires, but life quickly butts in. With her mother having suffered a horrible accident, Riley has to head back to L.A. to deal with the aftermath.

  Ethan works with Frank and Deza to continue filming, but things aren't the same without Riley. He quickly realizes that the pretty young actress has slipped under his skin. He wants more than a professional relationship and the occasional romp in the sheets, but he's the great Ethan Lewis. If he's not single and teasing women with the hope that they might end up his in the end... is he still marketable?

  As things settle back down, Deza decides to bring in someone to help Riley get up to speed, but unexpectedly, it's not a female, but Ethan's greatest nemesis. Riley needed a mentor to study under, but never in a million years would Ethan have dreamed it would be Clayton Welms.

  Chapter 1

  Riley

  She didn't make it.

  The truth of my reality played through my mind over and over as I sat in a coach seat on the quickest flight I could get back to Los Angeles. My fingers were sore from my picking at them, my fidgeting having quickly gotten out of control.

  I'd barely had time to change into something more appropriate for being seen in public before racing off to find Frank with Ethan trailing behind me. He wanted to come with me, but they wouldn't let him. It was better this way. I didn't need to try and hold myself together in the face of yet another loss in my life. I would have tried with him there, but that wasn't fair to me, or my mother. No matter how many battles we had fought between the two of us, to lose her was devastating.

  "Coffee miss?" A flight attendant leaned down and gave me a warm smile.

  I nodded, unable to muster more than a soft murmur, "Please."

  "You're shivering. Should I get you a blanket as well?" She stood back up and waited on my reply, but I wasn't quite sure why she thought I needed to cover up.

  I glanced down and brushed my hands over my dark blue shirt. The translucent white dress I had on while playing in the surf with Ethan was in a heap in my room in Rio. Why the blanket?

  "No, thank you though. How far are we from landing? I need to get to the hospital." I started to fidget again, ignoring the pain in my fingers as I picked at my cuticles and watched her intently.

  "We're about thirty minutes out. You should rest." She patted my shoulder. "I'll get you something warm to drink and a blanket."

  I nodded, not having the energy or the strength to question her. Jace or Charlotte would be at the airport to pick me up, even though it was four in the morning. The red eye flight was my only chance to get back to L.A. and try and see my mother before something horrible happened.

  She didn't make it.

  The nagging voice in my head continued to whisper the worlds of finality, but I ignored them. She'd been in an accident, and I would get a chance to see her while the doctors were working on her. Any other reality and I might lose myself in the darkness that hovered around me.

  "Everything is fine," I whispered and glanced over toward the older gentleman sleeping next to me. "My mom's going to be okay. She's just been in an accident and they'll fix her up. She's the strongest person I know. She's the last of us. Just me and her. Darek died in a drive-by and left us. She wouldn't leave me. Plain and simple."

  I yelped as someone touched my shoulder and turned to see the flight attendant watching me with sadness on her face.

  "You okay?" She extended the coffee toward me.

  "Of course." I tried to force a smile, but couldn't seem to get my cheeks to move.

  "Here you go, dear. We'll be there in a few minutes. Just hold tight." She handed me a paper napkin and turned to walk back down the aisle.

  "What's this for?" I called after her. The grumbling next to me let me know that I'd been a little bit louder than I thought with my question.

  She glanced over her shoulder and tilted her head a little. "For your tears, dear."

  ***

  I didn't remember getting on the plane, or flying across the ocean or getting off. I woke up with Charlotte clinging to the front of me, and Jace standing back, his face completely void of color.

  "Hey. What's up?" I glanced around as I put my hands on Charlotte's shoulders and pulled away from her. "What's wrong with you?"

  We were in the baggage claim area at LAX airport. The people around us weren't being subtle at all as they looked my way, their eyes wide with a morbid curiosity.

  "Riley. Are you okay?" Charlotte gripped my shoulders as Jace moved closer and touched the side of my face.

  "She's in shock, Char. Leave her alone." He gripped my hand and pulled me toward the turnstile as bags started to roll out of the opening a few feet from us. His arms felt good around me, his cologne familiar and delicious. "We're going to grab your stuff and take you home, all right, babe?"

  "Home?" I wrapped my arms around him, which seemed to be the only available option seeing how close he was standing to me.

  "Yeah. We'll explain everything when we get there, all right?" He leaned down and kissed the side of my forehead, squeezing me tightly against his strong frame.

  I closed my eyes and pressed my cheek to his chest, trying to remember what part of the last twenty-four hours had been real and which were the remnants of a nightmare. Ethan and I had finally agreed to move from being co-workers into something more like friends with benefits, but...

  "There's her bag." Charlotte moved past us and pulled the bag from the turnstile as I stepped back from Jace and took a deep breath. Why was I here? Surely things would start to
make sense soon.

  Had I been fired from the movie? Was the filming over? No. It had only begun.

  "Everything is so foggy. It's weird." I ran my hands up the sides of my face and glanced down toward the ground. "I remember being in Rio and playing in the rain with Ethan. We were heading back in and Frank grabbed me, shocking me a little."

  "Come on. Let's get her to the car." Jace wrapped his arm around my shoulders and moved us through the light crowd toward the exit. "She's in shock."

  "Shock about what?" I snorted and slid my arm around the back of his waist. "I'm good. I just must have fallen asleep in Rio and not really woken up yet. You know, like when you get in your car and you're stupid tired, but you still drive somewhere. Then you get there and basically wake up, and think, 'how the fuck did I get here'?"

  "Shit. This is bad." Charlotte moved up on my other side and gave me a sad look. "You don't remember getting my phone call?"

  "About what?" I glanced between her and Jace as my stomach started to turn. Panic raced up the center of my chest and left me a little lightheaded as we finally made it to Charlotte's car. She got in the front and after muscling my suitcase into the trunk, Jace helped me into the backseat and moved in beside me.

  "About your mom, baby." Jace pulled me toward him and snuggled me like he used to when we were kids - when we thought we might actually be in love.

  I snorted. What a fucking joke that was. We were nothing but sex buddies, but I had no complaints. He was Channing Tatum's body double, only a little taller and a whole hell of a lot more cocky. His blue eyes held no hint of the playfulness that they usually did as I turned my head to glance up at him.

  "What's going on with my mom, Jace? Stop dicking around and someone help me fill in the gaps. I don't remember anything." I curled up against his chest, but kept my eyes fully on him.

  "I will. When we get to the apartment, okay?" He kissed the tip of my nose. "How was the filming going? You didn't let Mr. Rich-britches take advantage of you?"

  "I was going to, but Charlotte called about my mom being in an-" All the air in my lungs left in a soft scream. Memories rushed back in, slapping me around as I tightened my grip on Jace. "I need to get to the hospital. I need to go now!"

  Charlotte glanced back with tears running down her face. "It's too late now, Riley. I called at eight last night."

  Her sobs drove despair deep inside of me. My mom was gone. I'd known that back in Brazil. Jace rubbed the side of my face and whispered soft words that I couldn't make out, but I was too overwhelmed to really try.

  How could my mom have died? "What happened? Tell me what happened, Charlotte."

  I pulled from Jace and popped the headrest next to my friend as sadness bled to anger. Why did I keep losing people I loved? Was it my fault? I knew my mother was hanging out with the wrong people, but I'd done nothing about it. I was still pissed at her for losing the house and giving away half of my shit, which she promised she'd dropped off at Charlotte's.

  Charlotte yelped and jumped, pulling the car to the side as she did. "Stop it!"

  "Hey. Get back here." Jace gripped me tightly again and pulled me into the backseat, wrapping his arms around my chest and his legs around mine to hold me in place. "Just relax against me. Char and I are here to take care of you. Let us."

  "I want to know what the fuck happened, and I wanna know now." I turned and narrowed my eyes at him. "Now, Jace Dillon, and don't you fucking lie to me."

  "Your mom was in a car accident, Riley. We don't know much, but the guy driving the car was loaded up on cocaine and your mom was full of the shit too. They hit another car on Pacific Coast Highway. I have no clue where they were going, or what they were up to, but the lady in the other car died on impact, as did the sorry bastard driving your mom around."

  Charlotte stopped the car and turned around to face me. "They took her to the hospital to try and save her, but she had a head injury that didn't give them much hope. They called the house and I rushed up there after calling you and then Jace. He came right away. It was... it was so horrible."

  Jace reached for the door. "She's in a better place now, baby. I know it's going to be hard-"

  "How do you know where she went?" I tried to pull away from him with no avail. "What if she went to hell? What if she went nowhere? What if she's trapped in her body forever?"

  "Awww... Fuck." He opened the door and manhandled me out of it, picking me up and carrying me up the stairs to the apartment as I flailed against him. Something about being able to stand on my own two feet seemed so important in the moment.

  "I'll get the door." Charlotte moved around us and opened the door as I continued to fight.

  "Let me go. I need to get to the hospital. She's not here at the apartment. Let me go!"

  "I'll take her to the bedroom. Get a glass of water and some sleeping pills if you have any." He reached up to grab my hand and yank it off the doorframe as I latched onto it and pulled from him. My legs gave out underneath me as I sunk toward the ground.

  "I have to go up there, Jace. Don't you understand?"

  He knelt in front of me and touched the side of my face. "She's not there, baby. She's gone now."

  "But I didn't get to say goodbye, or that I'm sorry." My voice broke as a long sob left me. "I need to say I'm sorry."

  "For what, Ri? For what, baby?" He picked me up and held me like someone might a two-year-old child.

  "For not being enough after Darek. If I'd been enough she wouldn't have turned to her drugs and her old ways. She would have fought against it for me. She would still be here."

  "That's not true and you know it." He kicked the door open to my bedroom and moved us up onto the bed as memories doused me in darkness.

  "I didn't get to say goodbye," I murmured against his chest and closed my eyes. Nothing made much sense in the anguish I was experiencing. I'd have given up my dreams, my future, my stupid movie deal for just a few minutes to tell her goodbye.

  She was all I had left, and now... I had nothing.

  Chapter 2

  Ethan

  I couldn't get her out of my mind. Like she'd poisoned me the first time we met and now I was slowly being consumed by the idea of us together. Where was she? Back in L.A. yet? How was she? The drama from the night before left a million questions running through my mind.

  Frank had basically pushed me back as he and Deza got Riley out the door and into one of their cars. I understood why I couldn't go with her, but seeing her fucked up, pale as a ghost and shivering uncontrollably broke something inside of me open. I'd spent my whole life not giving two shits about anyone but myself and now... She'd messed that up. My selfishness was at stake.

  "That and my sanity." I moved my arms to position my clasped hands below my chin as I laid on my stomach in the darkness of my room. It was near lunchtime, but there was no reason for me to get up and moving just yet.

  I'd want to check in with Riley, but the last thing she needed was to hear from me, no doubt. By the sound of things, her mother had been in an accident and hadn't survived. I wasn't sure if there was a father figure in the picture or siblings. If she'd mentioned any to me, I'd forgotten. It wasn't information I needed to get into her panties and so I'd discarded it. I was horrid, but honest with myself at least.

  The knock at my bedroom door was ignored as I closed my eyes and let out a long exhale. The pain of losing someone wasn't something I was intimate with, but I only had to imagine the earth opening up and swallowing my older brother, Liam, whole. Terror and anguish danced in tandem in my stomach as I thought about losing him. Or Deza. Or Riley.

  "I know you're awake. It's after twelve. Lunch is in the kitchen, and it's a toasted sub. You're going to have to eat yours cold." Deza's voice was both stern and caring. She couldn't be a total rascal to me no matter how much she tried.

  "Go away," I whispered and pressed my lips to my hands. I wanted so badly to be the kind of man that would steal the keys to one of the cars, race to the airport and fly back
to L.A. I could find Riley at her house and pull her close, kissing away her cares and telling her that I would be beside her no matter what, but it was stupid. I was stupid. My whole fucking life was a movie. I wasn't about to turn the only romantic attraction I'd had in forever into something rehearsed. I couldn't. No matter how much the voices in my head told me to.

  "I'm coming in. Cover yourself up." The door behind me opened and I tossed the covers off my lower half, leaving my incredibly white ass on display.

  "It's a full moon. Come on in." I stretched out my arms in front of me and humped the bed a little, causing my ass to giggle.

  "Ethan!" The door closed and the sound of Deza's curses left a subtle smile on my face.

  If nothing else in my life made sense, I could count on my agent and best friend to be easily disgusted by me and my love for nudity.

  A combination of muffled voices moved outside my door, both masculine, and I couldn't help but get up. I could hear Riley's name being mixed into the conversation and needed to know how she was. I wouldn't overdo the drama too much, but Frank was more than aware that Riley and I weren't just coming back for a night cap and an evening of telling ghost stories around the fireplace. She'd been wrapped around me when he pulled her back to tell her about her phone.

  I got up and pulled a pair of shorts over my hips, buttoned them and walked out into the hall. Paul and Frank were disappearing around the corner into the kitchen. I ran my fingers through my hair as I followed them silently.

  "Did you get Ethan up?" Frank.

  "Yep. He's awake and showing his ass like he always does first thing in the morning." Deza snorted as I rounded the corner.

  "You're lucky I wasn’t laying on my back. I'd have ruined you for that big ugly black man you've got a thing for." I stopped by the counter and picked up a bag of chips, opening it and popping a few into my mouth.

 

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