Perfect Timing (24 page)

“Oh, but I think you’re wrong. If you could just tell me, was it right in the middle of . . . well, you know, before he, um . . .” she said, her finger twirling dramatically through the air.

Wanting to grasp at a fast lie, Isabel was too weary to come up with anything but the truth. “Uh, yes, before anybody . . .” she said, a finger twirling the opposite way. “In the middle,” she said, fingers locking in a demonstrative gesture.

“Hmm, so interesting.” Biting on a nubby nail, her cheery expression grew serious as she stepped from the front stoop, moving toward her car.

“Wait,” said Isabel with the restraint of a hiccup. “Why did you want to know that?”

She spun around, her hair iridescent in the moonlight. “It’s nothing, just a theory.” Tanya’s gaze moved up and down, as if measuring the accuracy of her supposition. “Look, I might not know much. My life isn’t exactly an example of Sunday school morals. I don’t need Mary Louise to tell me that,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “But I have learned a thing or two about men along the way. Most will tell you they love you to get you into bed. A handful might say it afterward. You know, like a cigarette or any other cliché. But the guy who tells you he loves you
in the moment
 . . . when it’s a sure thing. He’s the one who means it.” They exchanged a wide-eyed blink. “For heaven’s sake,” she concluded, “why else would he say it?”

“Tanya that’s . . .” While
absurd
was on the tip of her tongue, “Really?” is what fell from her mouth.

“Really,” she insisted back. “You said he doesn’t mean anything. I heard you. I also know you have a great thing going with Nate. Anybody can see you’re two peas in pod.”

“Meaning?”

“You’re made for each other. You and Nate are the textbook definition of a perfect relationship.”

Nodding along, Isabel’s head jerked to a stop. “I was thinking more an article in
Marie Claire.
”

“However you see it. But there’s something in your voice when you talk about Aidan. I’m sure it’s exactly what you said, that he’s a bygone memory. On the other hand . . .” As she spoke, Isabel inched farther behind the door. “I can also see where it would scare the bejesus out of you. That sound in your voice; it’s not your style, Isabel. You’re all about calm and confident, and that’s not what I heard.” As Isabel began to defend perfection, the three-time divorcée held a hand up. “I’m just saying, according to my theory, Aidan Royce meant what he said.” Heading toward her car, she turned. “Of course, I’ve never had a chance to prove it. It’s never happened to me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Los Angeles

A
IDAN
R
OYCE
ROLLED OVER, BURYING HIS BLOND HEAD BENEATH A THICK
goose-feather pillow. The sun drilled through a crack in the curtains of his hotel suite. He rolled to the other side of the king-size bed, yet the narrow beam of light followed. For seven solid years, that’s the way it went, the spotlight always finding him. “Damn it!” There was that—the spotlight—and the impossibility of sleeping in the middle of the fucking day. Exasperated and wide awake, Aidan swore again, firing the pillow across the room. It made deathly contact with a crystal lamp, sending it crashing to the floor. He sat up and flipped on the light. “Shit,” he muttered, stretching to look at the lamp, which now appeared to be a pile of jagged ice chips. From the bedside table, a full glass of scotch flirted with him. Hurling it instead of drinking it stood a better chance of easing the swell of shit he’d taken to bed.

Though, really, what would be the point?
Housekeeping would only blab to the kitchen staff. In turn they’d zip-line the info to the concierge. From there a smashed lamp would lead to the smashed rock star in the penthouse suite, the story morphing into salacious fact. In the end it would result in the room Aidan Royce trashed, shredding the mattress with a machete for kicks—the one that he carried along with his collection of exotic sex toys. That part would be purported by the turndown maid, who’d become a witness after being offered cash to participate. Inevitably, and for the right price, the tainted tale about the perverse behavior and subsequent tantrum thrown by the Royal Beverly Crowne’s most special guest would be leaked to the media.

Welcome to fame.

Aidan thrust himself flat onto the mattress, grimacing over an image for which he and he alone was responsible. Aside from the one on his neck, Aidan Royce was a six-headed serpent with an endless amount of lives. He sat up, eyes locked on the glass. He couldn’t believe he filled one. What was he thinking? He was damn angry about last night, that’s what he was thinking. Scenes like the one at Pure Oxygen, he didn’t fucking need it. He’d asked Kai Stoughton, road manager turned personal assistant, to look into it. There had to be more. After Kai bailed him out of an L.A. County lockup, in an effort to avoid the deluge of media that had converged on his Malibu home, they decided to check him into a hotel. Maybe, by now, he’d unearthed some answers. A fist pounded to his forehead. Aidan unfurled it, examining the puffy knuckles on one side, the clean fingertips on the reverse. He pumped it open and closed. The bruise was eerily reminiscent, fingerprint scanning an improvement over ink. A substance that had left its mark in more ways than one.

Running a hand through a trendy haircut, the contents of his head felt worn and outdated. There was a time when drugs and alcohol would have been the cause and the cure to last night. A tremulous breath pushed out. Aidan dragged his naked body around, sitting in silence. For the first time in a long time he felt like nothing. He raked a hand over his unshaven face, staring at the glass. On the other hand,
nonentity
sounded pretty damn good. Who would know? Hardly a soul knew he didn’t drink. Rule one, if you wanted something to stay private, trust no one—no matter how much you were paying them. Aidan dipped a finger into the tea-colored liquid, swirling the rim until it mimicked a bad sound check. Goaded by the whole fucking mess, he drew the drink to his lips. As the cool glass made contact, numbness a swallow away, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He put it down. Once again, the kid from Catswallow was coming dangerously close to the much ballyhooed life of Aidan Royce.

That was where he’d landed when the earth tilted the other way, catapulting him from his former life into this one. Looking back, he appreciated the cliché of the lure. Women and drugs, they were the means to making the costume fit and a surefire way of banishing the past. A couple of years ago, last night wouldn’t have mattered. Fitz and a team of C-Note lawyers would have bailed him out adding another
“You owe me”
chip to his stack before dropping Aidan at the Beverly Crowne to lie low. Of course, back then, he wouldn’t have lain low alone. Aidan would have conveniently forgotten Miss October, a woman who in that case he would have certainly picked up. He would have whiled away the time with her, and maybe her interchangeable counterpart. The next day, the personal assistant du jour would have quietly whisked her or them away
.
From there he would have gone about the business of being Aidan Royce. It was time-consuming, body numbing, and deceiving from every angle. It seemed to be what the unbridled icon was supposed to be doing. There sure as hell wasn’t anyone objecting—definitely not his ex-wife. Isabel didn’t give a damn about him; Aidan had seen to that. There were no boundaries, not as long as the music sold and stadiums filled. But when the last hints of perfume, ambient aromas of a meaningless existence, faded, Aidan discovered the pit that was the bottom of alone. He came to hate it more than he hated Aidan Royce. And by then, he hated Aidan Royce quite a bit.

It was a crossroads, the place where anyone who had too much too soon swan-dived off the cliff, landing headfirst on the jagged rocks below. It could have easily happened to him. But as Aidan plummeted he scrambled for the brakes, help coming from an unlikely source. Along with his inheritance, enclosed with the check, was Aidan’s own letter from his father, who’d succumbed to AIDS. He’d carried it in the pocket of his tuxedo pants to the gala that night and directly into this life.
“Look what it took for me to earn ten grand. Don’t be your old man, son. Don’t blow it on women, or drugs, or worse. Be something, do something, with it.”
For years he’d remained indifferent, mocked John Roycroft’s use of the word
son
—like he had a right or a clue. But he never could bring himself to throw away handwriting that mirrored his, words that eventually reflected his life. Finally, one good party shy of those razor-sharp rocks, he heeded the advice. Otherwise, Aidan Royce surely would have foundered in his own waste. And that’s what it was, a waste of a life and the complete waste of an opportunity. He started there, fixing what he could, which wasn’t everything since he also accepted the fact that C-Note Music owned about half of who he was. An ironclad seven-year contract saw to that, C-Note being a serpent unto itself. But he could retool his lifestyle, put an end to the extraneous drugs and women. While there was accomplishment in banishing both, the bad-boy persona had adhered like . . . well, like another tattoo. Much to C-Note’s pleasure, there was no shedding an image that loomed larger than the snake on his neck.

His personal reinvention began by taking the $1,120 he left Vegas with and replacing the rest of the original inheritance. By then it was a pittance compared with his fortune. But it was important money, family money, earmarking it as seed money for Aidan Roycroft’s future. From there he didn’t rush but carefully considered what he wanted from life. It was another reason the girl . . . the cop . . . the arrest had so thoroughly pissed him off. Reinvention wasn’t an overnight evolution. It took years to craft the rock star into somebody Aidan was willing to live with, though it was the musician he’d learned to love. Last night was a giant step back, like falling off the wagon. He’d worked hard to stay away from that kind of press. He didn’t need to remind the world—not now. “Wait,” he said, shuffling through the sheets for a remote. Maybe he was too out of touch. Maybe the world had more important things to do than gawk at Aidan Royce. He aimed the remote with magic-wand expectation, and a wave of disappointment lapped over him. He flipped through the channels, finding his supposed drunk and disorderly ass everywhere. He paused on the booking desk scene, where he caught eight solid seconds of his backside, hands cuffed. His stomach lurched and he escaped to the Weather Channel. It was a safe haven as apparently weather forecasters didn’t give an atmospheric shit about Aidan Royce.

Calmer, he tossed the remote aside, wondering where Kai was. He wanted out of that hotel, and he sure as hell couldn’t do it without security. With the heavy drapes drawn, Aidan realized he didn’t have a clue about the hour, the internal clock of a rock star never in sync with real time. He found the clock, which he’d kicked under the bed. Late afternoon. Aidan reached for his cell. No call from Kai, just messages from his people and from Fitz. No doubt he was calling to revel over a media-induced surge in sales. Good or bad, Fitz would squeeze every bit of energy out of the situation. Hell, no doubt the other messages were requests for an exclusive with
Maxim
magazine, maybe a sit-down chat with Piers Morgan.
“Tell us about the new woman, Aidan—the one from your wild ride. A former Playmate. More your type, wouldn’t you say? Last we heard you were engaged to Anne Fielding, that stunning attorney of yours . . . What’s she say about all this?”
Aidan squeezed his eyes shut and his imagination closed. Deleting the messages, his finger hovered over one from Anne. What
would
she say about all this? He could tell her he’d been punk’d or that he’d simply reverted to the Aidan Royce of old. Why not? Clearly the world had tuned in to watch him fuck up. Either way, he had to call her. Before he could dial, Kai’s ring tone intervened. “Where are you?”

“Outside your fucking door. I’ve been banging on it for ten minutes. Wanna let me in?”

“On my way.” Aidan rose from the bed, avoiding the trail of glass as he grabbed his pants, forgoing a shirt. The living room of the suite was equally dark, drapes drawn. He turned on a lamp, making his way. On the other side of the penthouse door was Kai, who looked as if he’d been present for last call—an image that was permanently adhered to him. The former bass player for an ’80s mega band, Kai was a pro, who, in many ways, lived the rock ’n’ roll existence Aidan strategically sidestepped. He’d ridden his wave of indulgence and when he finally washed ashore he’d turned to the business end of music, managing tours for some of its biggest acts. Hired to do the same for Aidan, he’d recently segued into a more personal role. Having been there, done that, Kai got it, and Aidan appreciated it. “You look like hell,” Aidan said.

Kai’s hand grazed over gray stubble and tour-weathered skin. He was the vintage version of
rock star
. “You think?” Kai strode across the room, opening enough drape to confirm a sharp but aging sun. “Take a look at yourself by the light of day.”

It was the other thing Aidan liked about Kai, his blunt, sometimes necessary, candor. Squinting into stinging light, he recalled his unhappy glance in the mirror. He pressed forward. “What did you find out?”

“Not much more than the media’s version of things. That you and Miss October were about to make an evening out of it when you decided to reenact a scene from
The Fast and the Furious
.” At the well-stocked bar Kai surveyed the wall of liquor. “Aidan, I’ve got to ask. Are you sure it wasn’t more than you thought? The Breathalyzer did register .12, and I know what that Porsche tops out at. I saw the cop’s face, which is hard to miss since it’s on every damn channel.” He turned on the TV, easily finding a visual. “Mind telling me where you learned to land a punch like that?”

“Inherent, apparently,” Aidan said, recalling the Catswallow event where he’d discovered as much. He pumped his fist again. The television focused on the officer’s swollen mouth and missing tooth, but it was a different rerun that looped through Aidan’s mind. His hand scrubbed around the snake on his neck, resting there. In the span of two paces he was at the bar, reaching for the gin.

“Hey, take it easy.” Aidan grabbed the bottle, staring wild-eyed at Kai. The déjà vu in his head made one of them seem hugely out of place. “Whatever went down last night, it’s not worth it—you know that.” Kai knew a lot, but he didn’t know everything. While he was angry about last night, Aidan’s unease had nothing to do with the current event. “Even if it’s true, your lawyer will handle it, which brings me to the main reason I’m here. I thought you’d want a heads-up that—”

“I wasn’t drunk,” Aidan defended, pushing the bottle away. “You know that.” Kai nodded at the undisturbed bar. “It was a long studio session, the guys convinced me to go blow off some steam. And not for nothing, but where were you?”

He looked sheepishly at his employer. “I got a last-minute call. The Fray was trying out some new material at a small club. Their bassist was out of town; they asked me to sit in. I’m sorry, Aidan. Had I been there, none of this would have happened.”

He didn’t begrudge him the lure. Hang around and watch or be part of the rush. “I was just asking. It’s not your fault. When you took this job I made it clear you weren’t my fucking keeper. I take care of me. Anyway, I can’t explain the Breathalyzer or the girl’s story. We were talking . . . just talking when her boyfriend, the club owner, assumed it was more. He threatened her, grabbed her by the arm . . . hard. He was twice her size. She asked me for a ride. I couldn’t walk away, leave her there. And if you call doing sixty in a forty a high-speed chase . . . Well, yeah, then I guess that’s what it was. But the cop instigated the fight, threw the first punch. Not that it will matter. Not that anybody’s going to believe me.”