by Karina Bliss
“It’s the stress of the job,” the PA said defensively. “But maybe Philippa’s right. You don’t need to read this.”
“I have no intention of reading it.” Elizabeth presented her with the apple. “So all those articles I discovered saying you and Zander’s ex were engaged in daily catfights for his affections…?”
“Lies.” Dimity polished the Red Delicious on her white jeans. “Stormy wouldn’t have lasted a day if I’d wanted Zee.”
“They didn’t get on,” Philippa murmured.
“She was a doormat.” Dimity bit into the fruit with strong white teeth. “At Zander’s beck and call twenty-four seven. I’d never let myself be taken for granted like that.”
“So you do take days off,” Elizabeth said. “I’d started to wonder.”
Philippa coughed.
Realizing her faux pas, Elizabeth chose another Red Delicious from the fruit bowl.
“My point is,” Dimity said between chews, “tabloid gossip passes through the colon very quickly. Within twenty-four hours, the photo will disappear from the homepage of all the celebrity spy sites.”
About to take a bite, Elizabeth paused. “Homepages?… No, don’t tell me. I don’t care. When Zander arrives, tell him I’m waiting in the conservatory.”
“You can resist a peek that easy?” Dimity raised a brow.
“Why give it energy? And no one I know is likely to see it.”
“Good attitude.” Philippa applauded.
“I’m looking at the big picture,” Elizabeth replied. “Tapping into my third eye.”
The two women looked at her blankly. Chakras were clearly not discussed in this house. “I have got to stop giving that man the benefit of the doubt,” she muttered as she headed to the garden room. Now it was 11:10. She texted Zander a reminder.
After the library, the conservatory was her favorite room. Mullioned windows soared two stories to curve in a half dome against the house. Potted palms, topiaries and ferns enhanced the effect of a stylized glasshouse while the space was made comfortable with rattan furniture and floral cushions. A rug softened the slab stone floor. Sitting in a fan-backed wicker chair with her laptop, Elizabeth could look out to the jacarandas casting a lacy border of shade around the lawn.
Munching her apple, she returned to transcribing yesterday’s interview.
“You can’t prepare for going from a nobody one day to a somebody overnight.” The huskiness in Zander’s voice always sent a shiver down her spine when she first heard it. “All the doors open, all the ladies willing, meeting your music heroes. It was great to be special again.”
“Again? When had you stopped being special?”
The interesting thing about replaying their recordings was picking up the telling pauses she’d missed first time round. Elizabeth scrawled in her notepad: Dad’s illness pivotal?
“I mean the center of attention again,” Zander finally replied. “I’d backed myself and won. I’d always had self-belief, but approval to a twenty-year-old male is like a fright to a puffer fish. My ego inflated to ridiculous levels.”
“Some say it never came down.”
“It’s healthy, I grant you.”
Her cell chimed a text and she paused the recorder, hoping for a message from Zander. But it was her sister Marti.
Ignore it. I’m telling everyone here to.
She’d become so engrossed in the material it took Elizabeth a moment to remember what it was.
I am ignoring it she responded, amused that her highbrow sister had been trawling gossip sites. Making a mental note to tease Marti later, she restarted the recorder.
“In your wildest dreams did you ever imagine being this successful?”
“None of this was luck. I set out to conquer the world and I did.”
“What drives you now?”
“Conquering it again.”
“Gotcha,” she muttered, making a note. Here was the essence of her subject. Marauder. Viking.
On tape, Zander was still speaking. “Musicians are the Marie Antoinette of the digital revolution. Our songs are pirated the moment they’re released. Bands used to earn their living through album sales, now we rely on touring and merchandise… Listen, we’ll have to pick this up later. I have a meet with Jared.” Rage’s bass player.
“But we have a second hour scheduled.”
“He’s tied up after today and we need to finalize some tour stuff before—”
Elizabeth stopped the recorder before she heard herself begging. No, that was untrue, she had voiced her concerns with unruffled professionalism.
Picking up the apple core she opened a window and hurled it across the lawn.
At which point Zander had assured her earnestly that he shared her worry they were falling behind. But he could see the light at the end of the tunnel if she could be patient a little longer. Their work together topped his priority list; he was totally committed to the project.
So charming, so sincerely apologetic that she ended up feeling like a bitch for laying another burden on his overloaded shoulders.
Something about her sister’s text niggled at her. Elizabeth sent a follow-up message. What do you mean, everyone?
As she waited for a response, she wrote Brother & drugs in her notebook and frowned at her watch. One o’clock.
Her cell chimed, once. Twice.
Saw it on TV news ten minutes ago, replied Marti.
Find someone 2 sue! From her NY agent.
Over the next half hour, incoming texts arrived in a steady stream.
Shame on them!!!
We think you’re perfect as you are.
Do you fancy him?
Haven’t seen it and not going to look she mass-texted in reply and received a second deluge.
No. Don’t!
Good for you :)
Very wise!
Forty-five minutes after assuring Dimity of her willpower, Elizabeth looked.
The photo was grainy, taken through the storefront window. The boutique owner had been a helpful hoverer, quick with a suggestion or second opinion and hauling Elizabeth to the wall-length mirror outside the tiny cubicles for a better view. Somehow she’d been talked into trying on a leopard skin tankini with a plunging halter saved from indecency by a bronze ring holding the two lycra triangles together.
In the photograph, she was frowning over her shoulder into the mirror and pulling the fabric down to cover her butt cheeks.
It wasn’t a bad shot—simply a winter-pale thirty-five-year-old sharing a private moment of insecurity with anyone on the Internet.
Rocker Zander Freedman’s latest biographer, Elizabeth Winston, wonders if her “bum looks big in this” while trying on swimsuits. Is she hoping to catch the eye of her new boss? If so, the redheaded academic needs to do more research. Rage’s frontman dates blond double Ds, not under-endowed PhDs.
She was surprised how much it hurt.
Chapter Seven
Zander read his biographer’s polite-yet-firm text reminding him of their interview and pocketed his cell. A warm breeze stirred his hair and created diamond-shaped patterns in Jared’s kidney-shaped swimming pool. Reclining the sun lounger, he tipped his Stetson over his eyes.
Elizabeth was definitely taking this project more seriously than he wanted her to.
Generally it didn’t take long to train people—girlfriends, colleagues, employees, family—not to expect too much of him. He had the process down to a fine art. Agree to the rules and then break them. Little disappointments leading to a growing realization and then a resigned acceptance that relying on him was a bad idea. At which point everyone relaxed into a relationship devoid of unrealistic expectations. No hurt feelings, no drama.
A squawk beside him made him lift his hat. He adjusted the sun umbrella to angle shade over a bouncer contraption that reminded Zander of the scary pod in The Matrix—if it had been padded in a jungle fabric of friendly monkeys and parrots.
“Better?” he asked the baby.
&nbs
p; It stared at him with brown eyes as round as the turning keys on its daddy’s bass guitar.
“So,” he said, sensing it expected something more of him, “you’re a baby. How’s that working out for you?”
Its lower lip began to wobble.
“No crying.” Zander squeezed the monkey toy clinging to the handle of the bouncer, making it squeak. Squeak? The manufacturers clearly weren’t interested in encouraging zoologists.
The wobble spread to the baby’s chin and dimpled cheeks and Zander glanced anxiously toward the house. How long did taking a toddler to the john take? Scanning the bouncer for another toy, he saw a switch on the frame and flicked it on. The whole thing vibrated like a bed in a cheap motel, startling him into a laugh.
A sob escaped the baby, then another, deep and heart-wrenching.
Surrendering to the inevitable, Zander unbuckled the straps and tentatively settled the infant on his lap. What was its—his—name? “Rocco, it’s okay. You won’t be a baby forever.” His voice caught Rocco’s attention, the sobs turned to shudders. Zander patted the tiny shoulders. “You know that nothing looks more ridiculous than a badass rock star with a drooling tot, don’t you?” How long since he’d last held one? Not since his teens, when his neighborhood had been full of kids minding kids, or having them.
Unexpectedly the baby smiled, a wide gummy smile that disconcerted Zander so much he smiled back. “Yeah, you’re cute, I’ll give you that. But don’t get complacent. You’re the smallest kid in the sandpit of a rock marriage now.” Jared and Kayla thought they could keep it real, but Zander had seen too many couples fall apart under temptation and adulation.
Gurgling, Rocco grabbed the chain around his neck and shook it vigorously.
Zander had warned Jared before offering him the job, but the younger man had waved his caution aside. “Kayla and I are solid,” he’d said with such Eagle Scout naïveté that Zander had seriously considered going with his second choice.
But the guy was a genius on bass and had a sexy geek vibe that would appeal to a younger demographic. And Zander always put the band’s interests first.
Carefully, he removed his chain from the baby’s surprisingly strong grasp. “If you want a remotely normal life make good friends with your grandparents and for God’s sake, stay tight with your big sister, someone to share this fuc…sideshow madness with.”
Rocco made a grab for Zander’s hip flask on the adjacent table and he slid it out of his reach. “So enough about you, let’s talk about me.”
Still straining for the flask, Rocco whimpered and it occurred to Zander that he might be thirsty. He couldn’t see a bottle in the bouncer. What the hell. He gave him the flask, steadying it against the rosebud mouth. “It’s water, but don’t tell anybody.”
“Mommy doesn’t like you holding him,” said a high bossy voice and Rocco’s big sister Madison staggered into view, her small feet slid low in Mommy’s stilettos, the heels slapping her sturdy calves with every step. She was a cacophony of color in a pink bathing suit, purple goggles, a rainbow bathing cap and puffy lime-green water wings.
Zander grinned.
She scowled. “Are you here to take Daddy away?”
“Nope, there’s another week before we tour.”
The chocolate button eyes behind her goggles remained hostile. “I wan’ him to stay home.”
“Daddy’s gotta work to pay for those shoes,” Zander said. “Does Mommy know you’re wearing her Jimmy Choos?”
Glaring, she clip-clopped away as fast as she could toward the house.
“I won’t tell,” Zander called but the little girl only lurched faster.
He looked at the baby on his lap. “I definitely need to work on the under-five demographic. But we’re cool, right?”
Rocco gummed the top of Zander’s hip-flask and a trail of drool slid down the engraved silver. Yuk.
Zander had spent the last hour patiently talking Jared out of taking his wife and kids on the next tour leg. “It would be exhausting and frustrating for all of you,” he reiterated to Rocco but the baby began fussing again, little high-pitched squeaks and grumbles. Wait, what was keeping Jared if his four-year-old was roaming free? Shading the baby’s bald head with his Stetson, Zander strolled toward the house, pausing at the patio doors to take his flask from the baby and tuck it into the back pocket of his jeans.
“So what you’re saying,” said an unseen female, “is that you don’t want us to come now.” Kayla. Dammit, he’d intended leaving before Jared’s wife came home. “I thought we were in this together.”
“We are.” Jared’s voice.
“Then what’s the problem suddenly?”
“There are huge demands on my time besides performing. After shows we don’t get back to the hotel until two a.m. and we’re too wired to sleep until four, so that means sleeping through the mornings. In the afternoons there are interviews and sound checks. Most of the time, you’ll be alone with two little kids to entertain. And how will they cope with constant traveling?”
Zander smiled. Almost word-perfect. Moving out of earshot, he looked at the baby. “Normally I’d run at this point, but I’m guessing I can’t leave you on the doorstep?”
As if offended by the suggestion, Rocco screeched. The arguing ceased abruptly. Zander strolled through the living room and into the kitchen. “Your baby wants something,” he said. “Best I can tell, it isn’t me.”
“Jared left him with you?” Surrounded by half-unpacked grocery bags, Kayla shot a reproachful look at her husband.
Zander grinned. “What was he thinking?”
Her cheeks reddened. “I didn’t mean—”
Passing Rocco to his daddy, he waved her explanation aside. “Babes or babies, I can’t be trusted with them alone.”
She smiled. Despite the mommy uniform of trainers, yoga pants and baggy T-shirt that hid the few extra pounds only women obsessed about, she still nailed the former homecoming queen’s smile—all dazzle and congeniality. Considering she’d signed Jared up for Rage’s auditions, Zander had expected her to be more stoical about their separations.
“What do you think about me and the kids coming on tour?”
“Has Jared explained that the band has to come first?”
“Yes, of course, only—”
“Then it’s nothing to do with me,” Zander said smoothly and turned to Jared, who was dropping a tender kiss on his baby’s downy head.
Zander was surprised by a slight pang. Except he didn’t do pangs. Or kids.
“I’ll leave you to handle it,” he said to Jared, his tone that of a general to a lieutenant. Quell the uprising.
* * *
Strolling to the conservatory, Zander glanced at the tabloid Dimity had thrust at him on his arrival. From her frown, he expected something nasty. Instead he was pleasantly assailed by his biographer’s booty. She wasn’t a woman he associated with leopard print; it must be the contradiction that momentarily made him think, hot. Then he saw she was trying to cover up all that creamy flesh and reverted to his original assessment. Terminally conventional, for all her intriguing hints of wild times.
“Cute swimsuit,” he said casually, throwing the newspaper on the glass coffee table beside her. “I hope you bought it.”
She didn’t look up from the laptop on her knees. “No need to be kind.”
“I’m never kind.” He’d thought her rigid posture was due to pissiness at his lateness; now he realized she was humiliated. “You must have factored in press interest when you took this job.”
“I expect to be photographed when I’m with you, but not by myself. And not like this.” Elizabeth moved her teacup and saucer over the photo.
“Look on the bright side.” Zander sprawled in a wicker chair opposite, dropping a couple of the floral cushions to the floor. “You weren’t naked.”
She bit her lip. “Shall we get to work?”
Zander frowned. “Don’t let it matter, Doc. It’s not personal.”
Gla
ncing away, Elizabeth said lightly, “Not personal to imply I have a fat ass and no boobs?”
“And if you were skinny with big tits, they’d have suggested you were anorexic with implants. It’s not personal.” The wicker frame dug into his shoulders and he retrieved one of the cushions. “I’ve had more face-lifts than Joan Rivers—God rest her—and enough hair implants to cover a Yeti. Wonder where all those socks disappear to, the ones that get lost in the washing machine? They’re stuffed down my pants to give me a bigger dick.”
She laughed.
Better. “These guys make their living spinning stories of excess, drama and broken dreams.” He propped his boots on the edge of the table. “Learn the rules and you can turn that to your advantage. Get publicity for a tour, a new album,” he grinned, “a memoir. Think of the relationship as—what’s our word again? Sympathetic. No, that’s not it.”
“Symbiotic.”
“There you go. This was probably a one-off anyway, simple opportunism.”
Elizabeth looked hopeful. “You think so?”
“A crush on me is boring unless you start haunting Victoria’s Secret and sex shops.”
“I’ll revise my shopping plans.”
Zander grinned.
Elizabeth figured now was as good a time as any to begin their overdue interview and switched on the recorder. “You’re a sex symbol.”
“Thanks for noticing.”
“What’s it like being objectified?”
“Easier for a guy, we’re allowed to age. And even hungover with a three-day beard we’re still considered hot.”
“Just how vain are you?”
“Nowhere near as bad as I used to be.” Shrugging off his leather jacket, Zander dumped it over the arm of the chair and added ruefully, “Probably because I need too much work these days to stay pretty.”
“Specifically what is that work?”
He resettled into the cushions. “Haven’t you bounced back from embarrassment?”
Elizabeth looked at him steadily. He’d been late, very late. Again. She was through going easy on him.
Zander’s grin faded slowly as he appraised her. “Daily workout, regular facials,” he said abruptly. “My brows have been shaped and a deep frown line Botoxed here.” He touched the upper bridge of his nose. “Despite speculation, I was actually born with this mouth. I’m on something to keep my hair thick. It may fall out if I stop… I’m too scared to find out. Tattooed eyeliner to make my eyes pop.”
