A Seductive Melody (The Kelly Brothers Book 5)
Page 14
Becca’s laughter eased his nerves. She took his hand and led him around the ice. “First time skating?”
“Please. My older brother’s an NHL goalie. We all spent time on the ice growing up.” He pointed to the jagged tip on the blades. “Of course, hockey skates don’t have these on them.”
“It’s called a toe pick.”
“Whatever.” The toe pick caught the ice again, pitching him forward. “Motherfucker!”
Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all.
“You’re doing it wrong,” Becca said, still laughing. “It’s meant to be used like this.”
She let go of his hand and glided out toward the center of the ice, picking up speed as she skated. Then she planted the pick into the ice and jumped. Two revolutions later, she landed on one blade and moved into a fast spin, her elegant arms reaching up into the sky.
He watched her, his chest swelling up with pride. She was beautiful, and he still couldn’t believe she was his.
When she skated back to him, he gave her a lighthearted bump with his shoulder. “Show-off.”
“Hey, five years of skating lessons paid off.” She took his hand again. “Are you ready for your lesson, Mr. Kelly?”
“No, I’d rather circle the rink a few times with a gorgeous woman by my side.”
Her cheeks turned pink. “I work at a magazine. I’m sure we could secure a model for you.”
“I don’t need a model, not when I have you.” He brushed his lips against her forehead.
Her blush deepened, and she bit her bottom lip.
God, does she have any idea how much that turns me on? The blood rushed straight to his dick, and he resisted the urge to suck that lip between his own teeth in a kiss that would make the parents at the rink cover their children’s eyes.
She pushed off with her skates, moving them back into the rink’s traffic. “So, what were holidays like with your family?”
“Chaos.” But as he shared stories from his childhood, he grew nostalgic for the times he’d shared with his brothers. Caleb and Frank were usually the ringleaders when it came to getting them in trouble, but Adam was always the one who kept them from burning the house down or getting arrested. In the end, he wouldn’t trade any of those memories.
He grew quiet and looked down at Becca. A thoughtful smile lingered on her lips, and her distant gaze was far beyond the rink. “What are you thinking?” he asked.
“That your experience was so different than mine.”
If Thanksgiving was any indication, he could only imagine how stiff and formal her holidays must have been. “No food fights over the dinner table or stuffing your face full of chocolate?”
She shook her head. “Jacob is four years younger than me and could’ve gotten away with it, but my father kept me on a tight leash. I was even limited to only one piece of chocolate gelt a night during Hanukkah. But Claire would always slip me a few more when he wasn’t looking.”
“Are you planning on celebrating Hanukkah with them this year?”
She drew in a sharp breath, her entire body tightening. “Not likely.”
He skated halfway around the rink, gathering up his courage before offering to bring her into his insanity. “Would you consider coming home with me for Christmas?”
She pulled him out the traffic and spun around in front of him. “You’re inviting me to meet your family?”
“Don’t act so surprised. You took me to meet yours.” He cradled her face in his hands, his heart pumping full of an emotion he still was frightened to acknowledge. How could he have fallen in love with her so quickly? And yet as he stared into her bright blue-green eyes, he couldn’t imagine not loving her. “I promise to protect you from Jasper. And Frank.”
She leaned forward, perfectly balanced on those damn toe picks, and kissed him. “I may have to consider your offer.”
“What is there to consider?”
“Meeting your mom, for starters.” She slipped back to his side and merged them back into the throng of skaters, her gaze fixed on the ice. “I know I don’t have the best reputation.”
Guilt nagged at him. Her reputation was one of the reasons why he hadn’t told anyone in his family he was dating her. They would jump to the worst conclusions based on her past behavior. “Maybe, but you’ve changed. Besides, we don’t have to tell them until they get to know you first and see how far you’ve come from your former life.”
“Do you really think they’d be able to?”
“Absolutely,” he said, full of false confidence. Of course, Adam would probably order a background check on her, and her mother would pick her apart like the prosecuting attorney she’d once been. But once they got to know her, they’d see all the wonderful things he did.
He squeezed her hand. “They’ll love you.”
Almost as much as I do.
***
Becca made revolution after revolution around the rink with Ethan, still mulling over his request. He wanted her to meet his family. And if his mother was anything like her prior boyfriends’ moms, she’d instantly assume Becca wasn’t good enough for her son and go about proving it. All it would take was one Google search to bring up the mistakes of her past as evidence.
Of course, it was the next step in a relationship—meeting the other family. Most girls would be thrilled at the idea of having Ethan Kelly take them home to meet his mother, but all she knew was fear. She was falling in love with him. Her estrangement from her father made his disapproval of their relationship easy to ignore, but would Ethan be able to do the same if his family hated her?
Ethan remained silent for several minutes before saying, “Sorry to spring that on you, Bec. I just thought—”
She shushed him with her finger. “It’s fine. I’m more nervous than anything else, that’s all.”
“Don’t be.” He pulled her into his arms, tucking her hand under his beside the place where his heart beat. “If my brother can introduce his pregnant girlfriend to my mom over Thanksgiving and not land in deep shit, I can definitely bring you.” He paused, his brows drawing together. “Unless you’re knocked up and haven’t told me yet.”
“Oh, good grief!” She tried to wriggle out of his arms, but he held on tighter, laughing the entire time. “Don’t even joke about that.”
“Just trying to show you that you have nothing to worry about.” He placed a quick peck on her lips and let go.
As she spun around, a camera flash caught her eye. Normally, she’d expect families to snap photos of their kids on the ice, but she couldn’t shake the chill that crept up her spine from it. She searched the crowd for its source and spied a man holding a camera with a massive zoom lens pointed right at her and Ethan.
“I think we’ve been spotted.” She gave a discreet nod toward the photographer as they continued to skate, noting how he followed their every move.
Ethan watched him out of the corner of his eye, his jaw clenching.
“Want to leave?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He led her to a bench and yanked off his skates. “I fuckin’ hate the paparazzi.”
“Who likes them?” But the tingle along her spine wouldn’t ebb. There was something familiar about that photographer. She’d seen him before, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember where. Her younger years had been a blur of camera flashes, so it wouldn’t be too much to assume she’d seen him then.
Ethan turned in her skates and herded her away from the rink. “Here’s to hoping we can lose him in the park.”
They made it back to his bike without any more camera flashes. Ethan remained tense and silent as he handed her helmet to her, every inch of him hyper-vigilant as though he was expecting a knife-wielding stalker to rush at them at any moment.
“It’s just a photographer,” she said in an attempt to calm him down.
“I know, but I also know how dangerous they can be when they’re pursuing their targets.” He strapped his helmet on. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’m sorry our date had to end on a sour note,” she said once they reached his loft.
“I’m not.” He propped his motorcycle up in its usual spot and hung his jacket on the hooks next to the helmets. “Besides, it gives me a chance to show you this.”
He pulled a thumb drive out of his pocket and plugged it into his laptop.
She peered over his shoulder as he entered in a password to access its contents. “Top secret information you stole from the Russians?”
He chuckled and handed her a pair of Bluetooth headphones. “Not quite.”
She put them on and was immersed in a world of music. Sweet, yet dark and haunting, it made her pulse quicken even while her hips swayed to the beat. Her breath caught as she listened to the familiar voice sing of finding himself in the darkness and coming back into the light. Unshed tears burned her eyes, and she covered her mouth to keep from blubbering like a baby. She’d always loved Ravinia’s Rejects, but Ethan had taken the music to a deeper, more personal level that tugged on her heart and took her on the journey with him.
Ethan hung on her every reaction until the song ended, his eyes lit up with expectation. Sarcasm dripped from his voice as he asked, “It sucked, didn’t it?”
Laughter overtook her tears, and she playfully punched him in the chest. “Oh yeah, it totally sucked.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him. “Tell me what you really think, Bec.”
“It’s fuckin’ brilliant, just like you.” She threaded her fingers through his hair and lowered his lips to hers.
“So you like it?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And do I get a thank-you for letting you be the first person to listen to it?” He grabbed her ass, the hard ridge of his erection pressing to the lower part of her stomach and heating the desire in her own blood.
“I’m sure I can think of something.”
“So can I.”
He lifted her up, and her legs instinctively wrapped around his waist. One passionate kiss led to another, each more hungry than the last, until he carried her up to his bed and left her completely sated.
Chapter Fourteen
Hilde was waiting at Becca’s cubicle when she arrived at work Monday morning. The weekend had been a blissful haze of passionate lovemaking and music as Ethan slowly unveiled one song at a time to her, but all that came to an end when her alarm bleated that morning.
“I got your text message.” Becca handed Hilde her coffee. “Anything else?”
“Elaine was looking for you.”
Becca glanced at the clock and cursed. She was almost half an hour late. “Was she pissed?”
“When isn’t she?” Hilde took a sip from her cup before continuing. “She made me wait here until you showed up so I could relay her message to you.”
“Which was?”
“She wants to see you in her office. Pronto.” Hilde walked off, drinking her coffee as though there was nothing amiss.
Cold sweat prickled the base of Becca’s spine. Even if Elaine had good news for her, she was not at her desk when she was supposed to be. She stowed her bag, wiped her palms on her skirt, and made her way to the editor’s corner office.
Elaine’s secretary gave her a tight smile. “She’s been expecting you, Rebecca.”
Shit! Not a good sign when the secretary is on alert. Is it too early to start asking for boxes for my things?
She paused at the door, took a deep breath to collect herself, and knocked.
“Come in,” Elaine called from the other side.
Becca swallowed past the lump in her throat and entered. “You asked to see me, Elaine?”
The editor stood at her desk, focused on the papers scattered around it. “Yes, I did. Come here.”
As she approached the desk, her fear multiplied into horror. The papers Elaine was studying were pictures of her and Ethan. Walking through Hell’s Kitchen. At the Wollman rink. At the river. At Gitta’s café. Even of them skiing in the Catskills during Thanksgiving weekend.
Elaine looked up, her sharp eyes boring holes into her. “You’ve been holding out on me.”
Becca tried to speak, but her throat tightened, strangling her.
“I asked you to give me celebrity dirt, and all this time, you’ve been sitting on the story of a lifetime.” She held up a picture of Becca kissing Ethan.
Her voice shook as she asked, “You’ve been spying on me?”
“Of course.” She dropped the photograph and went back to her chair. “When your father mentioned that you’d brought Ethan Kelly home for Thanksgiving dinner—”
“My father told you we were dating?” She knew he didn’t like Ethan, but this took it to a whole other level.
“Don’t interrupt.” Elaine’s words were sharper than a samurai’s katana. “And yes, I had lunch with your parents last week, and they told me all about your new boyfriend. I wouldn’t have believed them, but they showed me these pictures.” She tapped the ones of them skiing.
“I knew what a huge story this would be, so I sent Armando to follow you.” She waved her hand over the rest of the photographs. “You’ve been a very busy girl.”
Becca sank into the chair across from Elaine, regretting the bagel she’d downed for breakfast that now churned in her stomach like the Hudson in a nor’easter. “What do you want, Elaine?”
“You’ve been asking to write a story, and now I’m giving you your very own assignment.” The editor steepled her fingers and sat back in her chair. “I want a tell-all exclusive. Ethan Kelly is an enigma, and since the death of his bandmate, he’s gone even further underground. Yet you seem to know him quite intimately.”
The answer formed on her lips before she even had a chance to think about it. “No.”
“Journalism is all about the big story, the one that will captivate the public and sell newspapers and magazines and bring clicks to websites. And I’m sure thousands of women would eagerly buy a copy of Moderne if it contained an exposé of Ethan Kelly. I want details of his battle with addiction, of his new album, of his reaction to his bandmate’s death.”
“I won’t do that to him.”
Elaine made a tsking sound with her tongue. “And that’s why you’ll never succeed at journalism. It can never be personal. It’s always business. You can’t let your emotions interfere with the story.”
She winced at the coldness of Elaine’s comments. If that was what it meant to be a true journalist, she wanted none of it. “But he’s my boyfriend, not some stranger on the street.”
“He’s a public figure readers want to know more about.” Elaine leaned forward on her desk, her expression turning into one of impatient tolerance. “Rebecca, dear, the only reason I’ve kept you here as long as I have is because I’m good friends with your parents. When your father mentioned to me that you wanted to become a serious journalist, I nearly laughed my head off. But since he asked me to help you out, I agreed to offer you a job. So far, you’ve lived up to my expectations.”
Judging from the way Elaine looked down her nose at her, those expectations weren’t set very high to begin with.
But the sting of Elaine’s assessment was nothing compared the harsh humiliation of the truth. The only reason she was there was because of her father. It didn’t matter that she’d worked her tail off to graduate from NYU’s Journalism Institute. To the entire world, she would always be Becca Shore, heiress and fucked-up party girl.
“I’m giving you a chance to prove me wrong, Rebecca.” She held up a photograph from the ice rink. “I want a story on Ethan Kelly in my in-box by Friday afternoon. If you can’t do it, then don’t bother returning to work on Monday.”
She dropped the picture and shooed Becca away. “You have your
assignment. Don’t disappoint me.”
Becca’s knees shook as she rose from the chair, but she forced herself to leave in a calm, controlled manner. Somehow, she made it out of the corner office without losing it. The nausea refused to relent, though, and she wound up making a dash to the nearest bathroom to lose her breakfast. Hot tears followed, and she hugged the toilet while her frustration vented.
She needed this job. If she lost it, she’d be forced to become dependent on someone else again, and every fiber of her being recoiled at that idea. But her conscience refused to allow her to keep her job by betraying the man she loved.
There has to be some middle ground. There must be.
Her tears dried up, and she turned her energy to finding it.
***
Ethan stared at the timeline on the white board in front of him, the end of a dry erase marker pressed against the corner of his mouth. In the past, he’d always let someone at his record label handle the details of a new release. Now, he was in charge.
The hard part was over. He’d finished an album he was proud of in record time. But a whole new realm of unfamiliar territory loomed in front of him. When should he announce the new solo album? How? Website? Press release? Should he slip a sample to a local radio station?
And of course, once he went public with the news, the simple life he’d enjoyed while hiding would come to an end. He’d have to make appearances on TV shows and at concerts. People would recognize him on the streets after that, and he’d be faced with more instances like Friday night.
The inside of his wrist burned, flowing up to the back of his neck. A cold sweat prickled his skin. His muscles clenched, and his gut wrenched. The craving blindsided him with enough force to make him stumble back in his chair. Several minutes passed as he concentrated on the air moving in and out of his lungs, thankful for each breath that he drew in. He could beat this, just like he’d had dozens of times before. He just had to remind himself all the other things that filled the void.