NicenEasy

by Lynne Connolly

  “Not if we put a disclaimer in front. You know, your opinion only.”

  Sure, then she’d be liable and the company wouldn’t. Did Nancy really take her for such an innocent? Yes, she probably did. As Nancy’s unwilling minion, she’d spent a year keeping her head down and getting on with work.

  “I can do that.” Tears misted her eyes as she stared at the T-shirts she’d carefully folded into her case. Reaching in, she touched one, the one Donovan had taken off her the first time they’d slept together. She might not wash that one ever again. “Okay, Nancy, that sounds good. I’ll snag Donovan for Casterbridge and I’ll work on an outline for the memoir. I’ll get back to you.”

  She blinked away the tears, took a deep breath for courage and turned around.

  She’d never seen Donovan so furious. His eyes snapped cold fire and he looked as if he’d burn her where she stood. “So you want to take advantage of us? Do you know what I just fucking did for you? I resigned. Do you know how hard that was?”

  “Then we’ll need the money,” she said. It nearly killed her to keep the choking despair from her voice.

  His voice turned hard and dark. “Give me your camera.”

  Mutely she handed it over. “How do you know I haven’t downloaded pictures to my laptop?”

  “I don’t, which is why I’m keeping that too. Much though I’d like to grind them into the carpet, I’ll make sure the pictures and whatever you’ve written are securely deleted, then you’ll get them back. Get out.” His voice shook.

  Neither of them could take much more of this, but she could think of no other way. She could argue with him until she was blue about not leaving the band, but he wouldn’t listen. To make him think her a shit of the first order was the only other thing she could think of right now.

  She left her computer case with all the flash drives and the details of her visit on the bed and zipped up her case. “A girl’s got to make a living somehow.”

  Leaning against the doorjamb, he blocked her way. “Why? Why would you do this? Short-term gain? Or maybe you want to be famous too? It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, darling, but you won’t get a chance to find out.” This cold anger was much, much worse than pure fury.

  She wanted him to yell at her, give her a reason to walk out, but he didn’t. Tightly in control of himself, he straightened and moved away from the door. “You mention a word of what we did or what we said in private and I’ll make sure Chick wrecks everything you’ve got. Clear?”

  She nodded, glanced away on the pretext of finding her bag and walked past him.

  She hadn’t realized he’d brought someone else in with him. Head held high, she left the room in frozen silence. The door slammed behind her, a foretaste of what her life would be like from now on.

  The elevator was waiting and she stepped in, trying not to look at the hallway, busy with staff organizing breakfast. Just as the doors were closing, a hand was thrust between them, forcing them to open again.

  Elliott stepped inside and waited until the doors closed. He had his suitcase with him but then he’d planned to leave today. “What the fuck was that all about?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” The sooner she got away, the sooner she could give way to the tears welling up behind her eyes.

  “Yes you do. All that shit with Nancy? You wouldn’t give anybody a kiss-and-tell. And in any case, Casterbridge can’t meet your price.”

  So that was it. “Can you?”

  He met her gaze straight-on, his dark eyes glinting with amusement. “I know someone who could. Not that I intend to ask.”

  Relief surged inside her. At least Donovan didn’t have to worry about Elliott. “No.”

  “Neither do you. My offer still holds. Even more, now.”

  “What?”

  “Come work for me.”

  “Why would you want me?” He’d probably heard every word of her conversation with Duane. Why didn’t he think she was a sleaze?

  “Because you have a good heart, and there’s not many of those in my neck of the woods.” He put a hand on her arm. “I’ll pay for your seat to New York, and that way we can talk more. So don’t even think about saying no. Listen, my mind isn’t clouded by love or passion, and I saw what you did back there.”

  On the ride to the airport, Elliott held her while she cried and then let her mop her tears and blow her nose.

  In the VIP lounge at the terminal, he listened to her. “I couldn’t take him away from the band. He loves them, and more than that, they need him. He tried to tell me they could find other bass players, but I saw them, Elliott. They have a dynamic I’ve never seen anywhere else. The fans would lose out, so it’s not just me, it’s thousands of people.”

  He shrugged. “Their loss. If I thought that was what he really wanted, I’d have blown your cover the minute I heard it. See, I know Nancy and I know you. You don’t belong at Casterbridge and you know it. Don’t you?”

  She couldn’t deny it to this perceptive man. “Yes.”

  “The minute I heard that convo, I knew it was for Donovan’s benefit. And it worked. He was sore from the meeting with the band. He told them he wanted out and left before they could really respond. He wanted you, I’m guessing. Maybe he wanted to take you back into the great room to confront them. Instead, he heard you betraying him. Everyone in that band is real sensitive about privacy. They’re not used to the level of attention they’re getting, not yet. They barely tolerated me, which is one reason I decided to cut my losses and go home rather than stick around to be outlawed.” He scratched his head. “Anyhow, when I arrived with the offer for Donovan, it took me about half a day in that suite to realize they needed him more than I did. You just have to watch them to see how it works.”

  She nodded. “I watched them rehearse and work on a new song. It’s an intimate time for them all and I was privileged to see it. I wouldn’t be just betraying him, I’d be betraying everyone in Murder City Ravens. So he felt responsible.”

  “Do you have any copies of the pictures left? A smart operator would have had two or three backups and one in the cloud.”

  “No. I never planned to use them for anyone but myself. But I could let him think I did, couldn’t I? He told me that he was going to give up the band for me. How long before he blamed me for that? And if he never did, how long before my guilt ate me up? He was born to play bass. He might think the drawing works for him, and it does, but it’s a hobby. He has this romantic notion of fulfilling a childhood dream, but life doesn’t always work like that.” She shrugged, her lips turning into a wry smile. “I’m living proof of that. My dream of becoming an editor morphed out of reality, and when I found myself doing it, it wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t fit, you know?”

  Elliott nodded. “Why not another publisher?”

  “I could. But I don’t have much of a record yet. I was planning to go back and work until I had a solid two years’ experience.”

  “A reasonable plan,” Elliott said. “If you work for me, you get a chance to make the contacts you’ll need to build a strong career in the business.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But,” Elliott continued, “it won’t take long for him to work out you didn’t mean it. He could quit and come for you.”

  She stared at him, startled. “I thought I’d punched all his hot buttons.”

  “You did. He’s not stupid though. You did it a bit too convincingly.” He touched her hand. “You got him in a vulnerable moment. He’ll work it out. So, baby girl, part of my reason for employing you is to keep Donovan happy. If he knows you’re secure, he’s more likely to stay with me. He’s hot property right now, agents will be tripping each other up to get to him. But you don’t get to work with him at the agency. I deal with him personally. Always.”

  “That’s fine by me.”

  “If I keep him happy, I’ll get more out of him. If I pushed him for that contract, I’d get it, but working at that pace isn’t for everyone. I don’t think it woul
d work for Donovan.” He shot her a grin. “I don’t intend to give up on him. I want more books, but he can take his time. Less money but better for him. I tried to tell him that, but he was all fired up. He wanted it all now.”

  She sighed. “I know. He’s really impatient when he’s made up his mind. I never expected that from him.” She met his gaze. “Donovan the man is so much more than Donovan the rock musician.”

  “I know.”

  By the time they reached New York, she felt better. Still wretched, but improved from the wet rag she’d been when she left the hotel. She could do this. It would take one painful day at a time, but she could do it.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Where is she?”

  Donovan’s low growl interrupted Chick’s concentration on his fucking laptop. He took his time looking up. “Who?”

  “Allison J. Bartz. Where is she?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “I just fucking do, okay?”

  Chick leaned back, his arms folded over his chest. “If you’re afraid she’ll publish the happy snaps she took, don’t be.”

  “Why should I be? I took her camera and her laptop. Which I hope you sent back once we deleted them.” Donovan told himself it was because he didn’t want her coming back with complaints but he knew he was lying to himself. Why else would he have taken copies of the pictures for his own computer before he destroyed them on hers? Why would he have spent so long looking at them, seeing himself from her point of view and sometimes the other way about when he’d taken the camera off her? There was nothing X-rated, much to his sorrow. He’d have liked a reminder of that lithe, beautiful body and their wicked games.

  “Yeah, I sent them back. She should have them by now.”

  “Which means you know where she is.”

  Chick nodded. “I wanted to keep tabs on her in case we needed to serve her. So far, nothing.”

  Donovan grunted. “It would take a while.”

  “Would? What happened to will?” Chick made a shooing gesture to the security man in his office who was presumably flapping his ears too hard. The man left.

  Once they had the room to themselves, Donovan admitted, “It doesn’t sit right. What I heard that day doesn’t jibe with the woman I got to know.”

  “You’re hot property, kid. You’ll get targeted by better than her. She got a few things, sure, but I can put out that fire, no problem.”

  “I don’t think there’ll be a fire.”

  Chick shrugged. “That’s why I’m here. To protect you trusting innocents against the big, bad world.”

  Donovan sniggered, the nearest he’d come to a laugh all week. Since she’d left, really. Just as well Murder City Ravens didn’t specialize in happy party music.

  Only the band had noticed his lack of yuks, and most of them had put it down to a bad breakup. They’d ride it through, just as they’d ridden much worse things in their time. After all, breaking up with a girlfriend of one week didn’t compare to nearly dying from a drug overdose as Matt had done once, did it?

  A shame it felt like that to Donovan.

  He couldn’t forget her. Every morning he woke up and reached for her. It didn’t matter that she’d never been in this bed, in this town. She’d spent a week by his side, making love, listening to him.

  It had taken him two days to realize that his hypersensitivity about honesty hadn’t helped him when he’d heard her talking to scuzzy Nancy. Or, for that matter, that his mother’s, “It’s a shame, she was a nice girl,” had more to do with her desire for him to give up the band and settle down rather than any concern for his actual welfare. Or for any concern about Allie, come to that.

  Through it all, even when he’d wholeheartedly tried to believe that Allie had targeted him so she could make a quick buck and some notoriety by shacking up with a rock musician for a week, thoughts had niggled at the back of his mind. Her reticence for them to be seen together in public, for instance. Her discussions with him in the early hours of the morning, about thinking hard about what he really wanted. And her horror when he told her he wanted to give it all up for her. He’d handed her the gravy on a plate. She could have leeched off him to her heart’s content, but she’d walked away. Left him to the band and his music. She’d lied, thrown herself on the pyre for him. No way.

  “So where is she?”

  “New York.”

  “Back at Casterbridge?” Working for Duane or Nancy?

  Chick glared at him. “You really want to know?”

  “I really do.”

  “She’s working for your so-called literary agent, Elliott Moore. They left together last week in the same taxicab. How’s that for collusion?”

  “You think Elliott will publish a kiss-and-tell?”

  Chick’s attention went back to his screen. “I’ve just been checking out his site. From his client list, that doesn’t seem to be his style, but anyone can change, especially when there’s serious money in it for them.”

  “He won’t.” That was one thing Donovan knew for sure. “Elliott’s in it for the long haul. He reckons that although publishing’s changing, there’ll always be room for a good agent. He’s never let me down.”

  Chick’s upper lip went up in a sneer and he folded his arms across his massive chest. “You fucking think so? When he went behind my back to offer you a contract to leave the band?”

  Donovan shook his head. “He didn’t do that. He couldn’t tell you first, because that would have been a breach of agent etiquette. He had to pass on the offer to me.”

  “Did he tell you to take it?”

  “No. He left it up to me. A few days ago he called me to see if I’d come to any conclusion.” Realization struck him. “He didn’t mention Allie though.”

  “He wouldn’t. Doesn’t want to lose you.”

  “Or doesn’t want to lose her.” Just like him. “Maybe he wanted me to ask if he knew where she was. After all, they went to the airport at the same time.”

  He’d let her down. It had taken this long to understand what she’d done. Exactly what she’d done. He’d been too busy to work it all out. What with flying to L.A. preparing for the two concerts at a venue much larger than the one in San Francisco, and fending the questions of the numerous journos Chick threw at them, not to mention the live appearance on the Today, Tonight show, he’d hardly had time to do more than his job and fall into bed at the end of every day.

  The night before he’d overheard the conversation with Nancy, Allie had asked him if he was really sure about his decision to give up the band. She hadn’t seemed happy with his decision to leave, something he’d briefly ascribed to her choice to make money out of their affair. After all, if he wasn’t in the band, then he wouldn’t be as bankable. Then he’d offered something better—to give her even more money by living with her.

  But that didn’t make sense. Something had niggled him right from the start. He had no proof of anything, one way or the other. Everything was open to interpretation more than one way, even her decision to take the job Elliott offered her instead of going back to Casterbridge. Her old publisher had announced a takeover by a larger concern. As it happened, Nancy was one of the layoffs. The arguments that had run through his head the last few days and the ones he’d woken up with today had told him something. They didn’t matter a hill of fucking beans. He loved her, he still ached for her, wanted her. His body and heart knew what he’d let his reason obscure. She wouldn’t betray him and the band in that way. She just wouldn’t.

  “Get me a ticket to New York,” he said, making a sudden decision.

  “Why?”

  “Why do you fucking think? I’m going to talk to her. She wouldn’t do it, even if she could.”

  “She could’ve put the information in the cloud. She would have done, if she had any sense.”

  Donovan grunted. “Yes, and that’s another reason why I need to talk to her.” Because she’d have put a few teasers up by now, surely, if she meant to go public. “What’s on
the calendar?”

  “An appearance at the Swan Song show, and then we’re flying to Barcelona.”

  “Swan Song’s filmed in New York, isn’t it?”

  Chick grimaced. “Yes. I was thinking of canceling.”

  “Don’t. Chances are I’ll make it. If I don’t, you can manage without me one night. I’ll be in Barcelona.”

  “You sure?”

  “Fucking positive, man.”

  *

  Allie closed the door to her apartment and went into the kitchen to put on the coffee. If she kept going until bedtime, she usually made it without thinking about him too much and slept four hours. Maybe six, if she was lucky.

  At least the job with Elliott meant she could continue living on her own. Apartment sharing would have been hell right now. Bursting into tears at stupid times didn’t work for roomies. She’d already had to switch her mascara to a waterproof one. Anger had joined sorrow, but following the stages of grief, it would pass. It had to, because she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life in mourning for just over a week of it.

  But as often as she told herself to pull herself together, she woke up some mornings with tears already in her eyes. That despite landing on her feet with Elliott.

  She’d enjoyed the call from Duane, which Elliott called her in to listen to. The memory of that kept her going at some of her lowest points. Duane accused Elliott of poaching and of employing the competition. Elliott politely pointed out that he was an agent and not in direct competition. In fact, he might send some business Duane’s way in the future. At which point, he winked at Allie and made her smile. He also said that what had made up Allie’s mind was the phone call in which Nancy had offered to buy a kiss-and-tell memoir. Duane went cold at that point, asked for details, and that was when Allie realized Nancy’s days were numbered.

  After he’d hung up, Elliott stared at her, speculation in his gaze. “Actually,” he said, “there’s a lot of money in that band. If someone could get them to do an authorized account of the tour, it’d sell and sell.”