Rocking a SECRET (16 page)

By the time we collapse into sleep, I’ve
lost count of how many positions we’ve been in. All I know is that
I got all those extras he promised me, and I may be crawling for a
week. But it was so worth it.

* * *

Kace

Stella had to go into her real work today,
so I’m here at the loft for our recap meeting on my own. Well, my
mom and Sheila are here, too. I know they’re on my side. Everyone
else is up in the air. Except Chad. Chad definitely hates me. The
feeling’s mutual.

“What the fuck was that with the roses and
kisses last night? We’re a boy band. The fans are pissed.”

“You wanted more fans for yourself, Chad.
Maybe mine will all go to you now.”

“Actually, for as many angry social media
posts there were, there were twice as many posts that thought it
was romantic and sweet,” Marvin says. “And bringing that girl
backstage was brilliant on Stella’s part.”

“She didn’t bring her back for publicity,” I
tell him with a glare.

“Well, it worked out well for you, and us.
The fans saw she’s not just a gold digger, and they like it.”

“Un-fucking-believable. How does everything
always work out for you?”

“I’d say things are working are pretty well
for you, Chad. I mean you’re sitting here with us instead of in a
jail cell.”

“Marvin and your mom don’t want me in a jail
cell, do you?”

“Those tapes are supposed to be
destroyed.”

“Oh, they are. But I still know what’s on
them.”

“You are a sick bastard.”

I mean, seriously? What’s he going to do,
tell everyone my mom and Marvin had some BDSM sex. Would people
believe him? I guess it really doesn’t matter. It would hurt my mom
either way, so I have to suck it up. I don’t have to listen to him
run his mouth, though.

I stand and start to walk away. “Where are
you going, Kace?” Marvin asks me.

“I’ll come back when Chad learns how to act
like a decent human being again. Until then, I’m out.”

“Wait up, man.” I turn to see Brett coming
towards me, with Wayne right behind him. “We’re with you.”

“Yeah, totally,” Wayne adds. “No one should
be messing with your mom.”

“Thanks guys. You wanna order some crappy
food and play video games like we used to?”

“Yeah. That’d be cool,” Brett says.

We all go upstairs and chill for the rest of
the afternoon. We eat and play games, but we also talk. About
everything. I tell them about how into Stella I am, and they tell
me what I’ve missed in their lives the past couple of months. It’s
really nice to get back to just being friends again, without all
the fame bullshit.

We all head down to the theater together,
and that’s when I realize that I haven’t heard from Stella all day.
She probably had a lot to do at the foundation. I still can’t
believe I get to go to sleep every night with a spy in my bed. I
realize that she’ll have to keep secrets from me, and that I’ll
have to be okay with that. I will be. I love her enough to know
that she’ll tell me what she can.

When we get backstage, we all split up to go
to our dressing rooms. I walk into mine, and know something’s wrong
immediately. Stella’s there, but she’s not. She’s wearing a loose
Storyside t-shirt and sweat pants—I didn’t even know she owned
sweat pants. Her hair is messy and she has no make-up on. And then
there’s her feet. She’s wearing flip flops. Something’s really
wrong.

“Stella, love, what’s wrong?”

“Oh hi Kace. Nothing’s wrong. Why are you
asking?”

“You’re…umm…dressed down.”

“Yeah. I wanted to be comfortable while I’m
backstage.”

She’s not meeting my eyes, and so I know
whatever’s going on has to do with me. Is she bored with me? Are we
done? No. She said she loved me, and I know she meant it.

“You won’t even look at me. I need you to
look at me, Stella, and tell me what’s wrong.”

“I can’t tell you, Kace. That right there is
the problem.”

“You would if you could though, right?”

“Yes. In a heartbeat. I swear I would.”

“Then it’s okay. We’re okay. I know what you
do for a living, and that it means you have to keep secrets from
me.”

“It’s not okay, Kace.”

I pull her to me, and hug her close. “It is.
I promise you it really is okay. I love you, Stella.”

“I love you, too.”

“I need to get dressed and go out on stage
in a few minutes, or I’d stay here and hold you all night.”

“I know.”

“After the show, though, it’s cuddle time.
Okay?”

“I’d like that.”

“Me too.”

I’m not lying. Yeah, I want to ravish her
every time I see her, but I also love to just hold her in my arms.
I can tell that’s what she needs from me tonight. So that’s what
she’ll get.

I have to do after show interviews and take
pictures with high rollers from the hotel, but I get back to my
girl as soon as I can. I saw her during wardrobe changes and gave
her quick kisses, but I can’t wait to have her in my arms. Even
though I’m still sweaty from the show, she hugs me tight and
doesn’t want to let go. Whatever she’s keeping from me has to be
bad. But I’ll help her through it.

We make it upstairs without too much trouble
from my fans, and I carry her to the couch. “Are you hungry?”

“A little.”

“You want your usual?”

“Yes, please.”

“So formal. Where’s my dirty girl?”

That gets me a smile. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Being sad and emotional. You just had
another great show. You should be celebrating.”

“Any time I’m with you is a celebration. And
I don’t expect you to be happy all the time. We’re for real,
Stella. That means I’m here for good, bad, and everything in
between. Always.”

“Me, too.”

“You can do one thing for me, though, if you
don’t mind.”

“Sure. What do you need?”

“Can you leave that shirt on? It’s all kinds
of hot to see you in my band shirt.”

“Yeah. I can do that.”

She leans up and kisses me softly, before
settling back into the couch. I order food and then wrap myself
around her as we wait. The night is quiet and sweet, and honestly,
there’s no place I’d rather be.

Stella

The secret I’m keeping from Kace is eating
me up inside. It’s been a week since I found out. A week of me
trying to act normal around him, and failing. He’s been amazing
through it all, which makes me feel even worse. After the first
night where he just held me, we’ve gone back to making love. But
it’s slow and sweet now, nothing like how it used to be. He’s
treating me like a piece of china that might break, and honestly, I
feel as if I could.

This secret is too much. It’s too wrong. I
begged Reina, and then Jane, to let me tell him. I know they
sympathize with me, but since he’s not our client I can’t tell him.
His mom needs to do it. She’s been avoiding me since the day we
told her we’d seen the whole tape and we knew what she was hiding.
She can’t hide forever, though. Kace needs to be told.

All within a matter of weeks, I almost quit
my job and then was worried about being fired. I was being rash
then, but I’m not now. I
will
tell him soon if Vivian
doesn’t. I have to. There’s no future for us if he doesn’t
know.

“I know what you’re thinking, Stella,”
Mallory says as she walks into my office. “You cannot tell
him.”

“They called you in to convince me, huh?
You’ve been racking up the frequent flier miles with me
lately.”

“I’ll be here whenever you need me. For
anything. You know that.”

I do know that. Mallory has been like a
second mom to me since I was recruited. I love her, and I hate to
disappoint her. But I know I’m going to.

“I can’t live with this secret. It’s too
much.”

“You’d risk the possibility of bringing down
the entire Society in order to keep one man from leaving you?”

“Don’t do this. Don’t try and make me feel
guilty for being in love.”

“If you’re feeling guilty, it’s because you
know I’m right. Vivian has said that if you tell Kace, she will
expose us.”

“Kace could do the same thing when he finds
out. He’s going to hate me.”

“Yes. He will. I’m not going to try to
sugarcoat this, or lie to you. But I don’t think he’ll give away
our secret. And that has to be what’s most important for us. You
know that.”

Oh yeah, I know it. It’s not bad enough that
Reina and Jane have hammered it into me, or that they had Mallory
fly in. Every single one of my friends has come to me and told me
that the whole is more important than one. So, I get it. Really, I
do. But it doesn’t make it any better for me.

“Just go, Mallory. You being here isn’t
going to convince me one way or the other.”

“One, Stella. I want you to think about the
fact that even one woman or child could be harmed because we
couldn’t function if we’re exposed. And then you decide if telling
Kace what you know is more important than that life.”

And that’s the crux of it. I couldn’t live
with myself if the Society was exposed. But can I live with myself
when Kace hates me? There’s only one right option, but it’s still
wrong for me.

I don’t hug Mallory when she leaves, and I
don’t smile at any of my friends when I walk out of the building a
few hours later. I need to find Vivian and convince her to tell
Kace. He’s going to be angry at her no matter what. But she could
save me if she wanted to.

When I corner her at the loft, I realize
that she has no interest in helping me. “You have to tell him,
Vivian.”

“No. I don’t.”

“How can you keep this from him? From both
of them?”

“This isn’t your business.”

“I love him. And I’m going to lose him when
he finds out I knew about this and didn’t tell him.”

“So go ahead and tell him. Then Marv and I
will hold a nice little press conference and tell the world about
you and your friends.”

“We help people. Lots and lots of people.
You’d destroy us out of some crazy pretense of revenge? Because it
wouldn’t just be me you’d hurt.”

“I’ll do whatever I have to in order to keep
what you learned from Kace.”

“Like convince him to keep Chad in the band?
That bastard blackmailed him with pictures of you. Kace protected
you, and now he has to sing alongside him. And all because you
refuse to tell him the truth.”

“I love my son, Stella. I can’t lose
him.”

“So sit down with him and explain it. You
have to know that Chad’s a loose cannon. He could tell him at any
time and then we’d both be collateral damage.”

“I’m keeping Chad happy.”

“Oh my God. You’re sleeping with him?”

“Like I said, I’ll do whatever I have
to.”

“Vivian, no. Don’t do this to yourself. Kace
loves you. He’ll forgive you.”

“I can’t take that chance. And it’s just
sex. You have no place to talk when it comes to sex.”

“I never slept with someone because I was
forced to. You shouldn’t either. I can’t believe Marv is going
along with this.”

“He doesn’t know,” she tells me quietly.

For the first time, I hear the pain in her
voice. It was missing when she talked about the secret she’s
keeping from Kace, but it’s there now. Because she’s in love with
Marv. Who coincidentally just filed for divorce, because he loves
her, too.

“This is going to be so bad when it goes
down.”

“And now you know why I can’t tell Kace. If
I did, Chad would make sure I’d lose Marv, too,” she says as she
slips by me and goes out the door.

How can she not see that it’s all going to
happen anyway? Chad is the last person on Earth that any of us can
trust. He’s going to tell Kace the secret, and he’s going to tell
Marv that he’s fucking Vivian. It’s just a matter of when. Heaven
help us all when he decides to bring down the queen on our little
chessboard full of lies. It’s going to be game over for us all,
with no one winning.

I go over and open the boxes of new clothes
that were sent for Kace. He has a few formal events coming up, and
I find that several of the designers have sent gowns for me, too. I
guess they’re assuming I’ll be going with him. I hope I will.

“That’s hot,” Kace says, coming up behind me
and wrapping his arms around me, as I’m holding one of them up.
It’s long sleeved and black, with sheer panels swirling all over
the top from front to back. Basically my nipples would be covered,
but the rest of my breasts and most of my stomach and back would be
exposed. “What’s it for?”

“Some of the designers sent me things, too.
In case you decide to take me as your date, I guess.”

“Of course you’ll be my date. And I
definitely vote for that dress. If I have a vote.”

“You always have a vote, K. Although I do
love to surprise you.”

“I love all of your surprises.”

I set the dress down, and turn in his arms
to face him. “I haven’t been much fun lately.”

“Honestly? No. You really haven’t. But if I
was only interested in fun, I’d still be grabbing a different
groupie every night.”

“Do you want to go bowling?”

Their show is dark tonight, and I want to
give him some fun. He deserves it. And I need some more good
memories to file away for when it’s all over.

“I’d love to go bowling with you. Are we
betting?”

“We could,” I tell him with a smile.

“I’m a really good bowler. I think I need to
disclose that before we make our bets.”

“Are you now? Well, I’m pretty good
myself.”

“So we may be equally matched. This should
be fun.”

“Definitely.”

“Oh. I just thought of something. Not to
brag or anything, but we might get mobbed if we go to a bowling
alley.”

“We would most definitely get mobbed at a
public alley, Mr. Rock Star, but I was planning on taking you to
the one in my building.”