Hard SEAL: A Dark Bad Boy Next Door Romance

by Jessica Ashe

  “When she’s not wearing Naomi’s wigs, she has short hair. She’s also above average height for woman, and does have a bit of bulk on her. She’d easily be mistaken for a guy at night or in baggy clothing.”

  Police show up with medical staff in tow. The second Valerie regains consciousness, she’s handcuffed to a stretcher and taken away. The evening’s far from over. The police split the three of us up and ask for our stories. Obviously, they end up being consistent, and we’re all back at the hotel in the early hours of the morning.

  Lance offers me his resignation two more times before I convince him to go and get some sleep. Emma is with her grandparents, so Damon stays with me at the hotel.

  “I should call Mom,” I say as I’m getting ready for bed. “It’s still early over there, and she needs to know about Dad’s killer.”

  “Wait until tomorrow. You’re exhausted and you need some sleep. How do you feel?”

  How are you supposed to feel when the person who killed your father is caught? I’d long since given up hope of finding him—or her as it turned out to be—so there’s no real feeling of relief. Catching her hasn’t brought my dad back, and has just confirmed what I’ve always known; Dad died because of me.

  Damon’s right, I’m tired.

  “I want you to hold me until I fall asleep,” I whisper.

  “I reckon I can go one better. I’m going to hold you until you wake up.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Naomi

  I extend my stay in England by a week. I want to go straight home to be with Mom, but the police ask me to stay in town in case I need to give more statements. Mom seemed okay, I think. I told her the news over a video call, and she stared at me so blankly that I thought the screen had frozen.

  Things with Damon and I don’t get back to normal straight away. Two days after the attack, and we still haven’t had sex. I think we both know why. Nothing’s really changed. I’m still a celebrity, and Damon still doesn’t want to be one. He’s probably still worried about the impact my fame will have on Emma, and then there’s the small issue of us living on different continents.

  Word gets out about the attack on me in my dressing room. No one makes the link to my father’s death, but newspapers report that the attacker was a crazed fan who posed as a photographer. In a remarkable show of constraint, the media actually leave me alone for a bit. It would be incredibly insensitive for photographers to follow me after what happened with Valerie, but I’m still amazed when Damon and I are able to walk to the pub without being harassed.

  Everyone inside recognizes us, but all we get from them is a comforting smile before they go back to drinking their pint or filling in the crossword.

  “How is Emma settling in at her new school?”

  “She loves it. She has superstar status at school now after the attack. I made her talk to a psychiatrist just in case she was bottling something up, but the shrink reckons she’s perfectly healthy. I’m gonna keep an eye on her obviously, but she seems happy enough. Not as happy as when you’re around of course, but still happy.”

  I smile. “I’ve missed her.”

  “Missed anyone else?”

  “Of course. How are your Mom and Dad?”

  “They’re fine,” Damon says through gritted teeth. “Anyone else? Think very carefully before answering.”

  I don’t say anything, but I reach out and place my hand on his which seems to be more than enough judging by the smile on his face.

  “I’ve made quite a bit of money these past few months,” Damon says. “The good thing about royalties is the money keeps rolling in. Emma and I can live comfortably now.”

  “That’s great,” I say uncertainly. Why is he bringing that up now?

  “What I’m trying to say is, whenever Emma is off school, we can afford to visit America. So long as we can find somewhere to stay that is. You don’t happen to live near Disneyland do you?”

  I laugh. “My Los Angeles place is close enough. Anyway, it turns out there’s a lovely house on the market in London, and there’s a recording studio I’m sentimentally attached to now as well.”

  Damon and I stare at each other until a waiter comes over with our food.

  “Can we really make this work?” Damon asks.

  “If we want to.”

  “I want to. I want to a lot. I don’t care about all the publicity stuff. I will pose for as many Instagram photos as you want. You can keep me on camera twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week if you like. Whatever you want to do, I will do it. I love you, Naomi.”

  The room goes quiet. Actually, I think I’m just blocking out the sound. Everyone else is carrying on their conversations as normal, but they become a dull din in the background. All I hear are the words ‘I love you’ on a loop, crystal-clear in Damon’s smooth English voice.

  Now he’s waving his hand in front of my eyes.

  How long have I been in this trance? Probably about time to snap out of it now. Whenever you’re ready, Naomi.

  “I love you, too. Damon, I don’t need you to be on camera all the time. I don’t even want that for myself anymore. I only put my life online like that because I thought I had to, but now I don’t. So what if a few less people buy my next album—I have all the money I could ever want already. I’m done with documenting my life on camera. That’s not what Dad would’ve wanted.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I nod. I know I’m telling the truth, because right now there’s a stunning plate of food in front of me, and an equally, if not more so, stunning man sitting opposite. Usually by now my hand would be instinctively pulling my phone out of my purse to take a picture of the food and the man with me. Now the only thing in my hand is a fork.

  After dinner, I notice Damon looking curiously over my shoulder.

  “Are people taking pictures?” I ask.

  “No, but the dartboard’s free. Fancy a game?”

  As per Damon’s rules, we quickly drink a pint of beer, and then get a second one on the go. There really is no point to playing darts when you haven’t had a pint of beer or two. You might as well be throwing rocks at the board for all the good it does. Sure enough, as I drink my second pint I find myself getting the darts closer and closer to where I’m aiming. I’m still a long way from giving Damon any competition, but at least I’m not doing any damage to the pub’s walls.

  “Holy shit,” Damon says, after throwing the second of three darts. “Two in the treble twenty.”

  A few of the nearby patrons notice his score, and slowly shuffle over, pint glasses in hand, hoping to see a perfect score.

  “How often do you get a one eighty?” I ask. I’m impressed with myself for knowing the lingo, but no one notices.

  “Roughly… never.”

  “No pressure then.”

  Damon moves his shoulders around and stretches out his arms. He takes a few deep breaths, and then decides he wants some more beer. After the beer comes more stretching. We watched darts on the television last night, and the players were getting a score of one hundred and eighty on a regular basis. I guess it’s a big deal for an amateur, but Damon’s antics do still seem a little extreme.

  By the time he throws the dart, he has quite the crowd. They witness the dart land between the first two for a perfect score.

  “Holy shit,” Damon yells. “Holy shit. I’ve done it. I’m never playing darts again.”

  He gets a pat on the back from nearly everyone in the pub, and has to turn down five offers of free drinks.

  Five minutes later, he’s still staring at the darts nestled into the board.

  “This might sound really bad,” Damon says uncertainly, “but… um….”

  “You want me to take a picture and post it online don’t you?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “But I don’t do that anymore.”

  “Just this once. For old time’s sake.”

  I laugh and pull out my phone. Why not? After all, I did post a picture of my dess
ert when Damon disappeared to the bathroom. Old habits die hard.

  Chapter Thirty

  Damon - One Year Later

  It’s a year before I finally go and see Naomi perform on stage, but when I do, I wonder why I waited so long. Sure, her concerts are filled with teenage girls who screech at levels so high all dogs within a mile radius stop barking, however I somehow block all that out when I watch her entertain the crowd.

  She really is phenomenal. I can see why people pay hundreds of dollars for tickets. Even though Naomi doesn’t dance much, there’s still an energy about her performance that makes you think it’s her last performance and she wants to go out with a bang.

  I should also mention that I’m watching the concert from my own private executive box. That does tend to make the whole experience more pleasant, although we’re in America so the drinks served are predictably awful.

  Even in this suite, there’s so much noise reverberating through the walls that I don’t notice Leona walk in until she sits down next to me.

  “Incredible wasn’t she,” Leona says.

  “You weren’t too bad yourself.”

  “Oh please, we both know that she blows me away. That’s cool though, I’m perfectly happy being a warm-up act for one of the biggest singers on the planet.”

  “You don’t mind singing pop music?” I ask.

  “Do you mind writing it?”

  “Not when it pays so well.”

  “Exactly.”

  Leona took some persuading before she agreed to join Naomi on tour. Turns out, Leona isn’t good at taking her own advice. When Naomi and I first got together, Leona encouraged me to make the most of the opportunities that came my way, even if I only got them because of who my girlfriend was.

  The second Naomi saw Leona singing live, Naomi was captivated by her voice. She quickly made a few phone calls, and the very next week Leona had a contract offer from a record company in front of her. She wouldn’t sign it. She thought Naomi was just doing her a favor for me. When I finally convinced her she wasn’t, Leona decided she was too fat to be a pop star.

  Leona finally signed the contract, and her career skyrocketed within months. Truth be told, when Naomi offered her a spot as opening act on her US tour, Leona probably could have rejected it and gone on a tour of her own. In the end, Leona decided to treat this as a warm-up of her own before the real deal next year.

  Turns out, one of the reasons Naomi stays so slim is because touring is exhausting, and Leona quickly shed a few pounds as well. I’ve never cared about her appearance, and judging by her record sales, I don’t think the general public does either. She does look happier now that she’s lost weight though.

  “Who’s looking after Emma tonight?” Leona asks.

  “Mum and Dad came over with me for this trip, so Emma has three grandparents spoiling her rotten tonight.”

  “What does she think of Los Angeles?”

  “She likes it, but doesn’t understand why we can’t just ‘pop over’ to Disneyland. She doesn’t understand that it takes two hours to even get off your own driveway in LA traffic.”

  “The latest rumor is that Naomi wants to adopt Emma.”

  “We’re not quite there yet,” I reply. “It’s amazing what websites invent when there’s nothing else to talk about.”

  After we got back together a year ago, Naomi gave up social media completely for a few weeks. Eventually she went back to it just because she got annoyed with people thinking she was dead, or that I’m a control freak who won’t let her have fun online.

  Now she posts maybe once a day, with the odd picture here and there to keep things ticking over. I don’t care anymore. Hell, I even smile for photos too occasionally. Naomi’s posting online because she enjoys it, not because she feels she has to. So long as it stays that way, I generally keep out of it.

  There’s still a nasty side to fame. After everything that happened with Valerie, Lance hired more people and told them to keep an eye out for regular faces. Over the next few months, his team found three more people who were appearing at Naomi’s events all over the world and getting a little too close for comfort. Two of them are now the subject of restraining orders after getting a little overeager during a signing event.

  The old Naomi wouldn’t have dreamed about taking out a restraining order against a ‘fan.’ Fortunately, the new version doesn’t care what people think of her. If she has to upset a few people, then so be it.

  “You want a drink?” I ask, holding out a cheap bottle of beer. “You won’t like it, but it’s probably better than nothing.”

  “No thanks, I’m off in a minute.”

  “You’re not staying to watch the performance?”

  “No, I have a date.”

  “A date? I didn’t know about that.”

  “You weren’t supposed to,” Leona replies.

  “We should get Lance to do a background check and give him the once over.”

  “That really won’t be necessary.”

  “I’m not taking any chances. I don’t want—”

  There’s a break in the music which coincides with a knock on the door behind me. I turn around and see Lance standing there in what for him constitutes casual clothing. He actually has days off now, and is a changed man as a result.

  I wave him inside and pass him a beer which he rejects. “Did you know Leona has a date tonight?” I ask.

  “I did.”

  “Have you checked him out?”

  “Yeah, you don’t have anything to worry about. He has a clean record. Nothing shady about him. Oh, and he could completely take you in a fight.”

  “Do me a favor. Who’s she dating, Wladimir Klitschko?”

  Leona stands up and kisses Lance on the cheek. “Good night, Damon, don’t wait up.”

  Well damn. That could make life interesting.

  Speaking of which—the crowd’s chanting ‘encore, encore,’ which means it’s my cue to get to work.

  Katrina’s hooked me up with a tiny microphone, which I attach to the collar of my shirt and flick the signal to channel two. I can now talk directly to Naomi, although she won’t be able to communicate with me.

  I stand by the glass window of the suite, and watch her walk back onto the stage for the encore. Katrina told me that she drags this out a bit by talking to the audience first and thanking them for coming.

  I tap the microphone, because that’s what people seem to do with microphones. “Hello sweetheart, can you hear me?” Of course, there’s no way for her to talk back to me. “Scratch your ear if you can hear me.”

  Naomi stumbles in her carefully rehearsed speech, and I see her scratch her ear on one of the screens. She keeps talking to the audience, but I can hear the uncertainty in her voice now. She doesn’t even know I’m here tonight, and certainly wasn’t expecting to hear me talking into her ear near the end of the concert.

  “You were incredible out there tonight. So good in fact, I’m even considering buying your next album.”

  Naomi loses track of her speech, but quickly moves on and glosses over it. I don’t have much longer; she’ll start singing again soon and then it will be too late.

  “This last year has been the best year of my life, but it’s also been challenging. I know we see each other a lot, but not enough for my liking. I want more, I want something permanent.”

  Naomi briefly forgets her words again, and there’s a few seconds before she resumes talking.

  “Naomi Price, you’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever met. Will you marry me?” She stops talking to the fans and stands there silently in the middle of the huge stage. “Um, give a big wave to your right for yes, and to your left for no.”

  Naomi frantically waves to her right. She doesn’t know where I’m sat, so she tries to cover the entire right hand side of the stage with a huge wave. She looks absolutely insane, but I love her completely.

  “I’ll leave you alone to finish your performance,” I say with my mouth stretched into
a huge smile. “I’ve got a feeling I might accidentally wander into the dressing room afterwards. I’m always getting lost.”

  Epilogue

  Naomi – One year later

  “Lance, how many times do I need to remind you that you’re not working tonight?”

  Lance has been eying up every guest that comes into our house, and if he sees someone suspicious looking he insists on following them around for a bit. Unfortunately, a lot of Damon’s friends from England count as suspicious looking, so he has his work cut out.

  “I’m not working,” Lance insists. “Just enjoying meeting all these new people.”

  I take the drink from Lance’s hand and smell it. “This is just orange juice. Go put some vodka in there or you’ll be spending Christmas looking for a new job.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lance replies as he goes over to join Leona.

  She mouths ‘thank you’ at me for freeing up her boyfriend. All of my staff have the night off for the Christmas party we’re hosting in my LA mansion. The only people working tonight are temporary contractors: chefs, waiters, and, most controversially, security. Lance didn’t take too kindly to that, but there was no way I was having a Christmas party while making Lance work door duty.

  The party had been Damon’s idea, partly as a good excuse to relax with the staff, and partly to get his friends from England over for an ‘almighty piss up.’ The closest I’ve come to hosting a party was a small gathering after the Grammys, and there were so many staff on hand that day that I never had to lift a finger.

  Tonight, I’m actually working. I’m coordinating all the food and drink, and moving from room to room making sure everyone is having a good time. It’s surprisingly tiring, but people are having fun. I’ve organized a bit of entertainment for later in the evening. It’s the least my staff deserve for putting up with me. The singer I just recorded a duet with is going to pop by and sing a few of her hits at the end of the night. The media still likes to portray us as rivals, but if there is a rivalry, it’s definitely a friendly one.