Stealing Gold (The Logan Series Book 4) (10 page)

Pretending
it meant nothing. In exactly the same way she’d ended their marriage, with an
iron-willed purpose that made her appear hard and unapproachable.

He
hovered. He couldn’t help it. When the sun sank in the sky, someone produced a
guitar and started to strum it, and she was right there in the middle of
things, humming along, smiling, laughing, drinking. As though her heart wasn’t
aching, her world hadn’t been turned upside down.

“Will
you sing something, Stacy?” Amanda asked.

“She’s
your biggest fan. You know she has all of your albums,” Sean added.

Amanda
blushed and swatted her husband. “You promised you wouldn’t tell her.” She gave
Stacy a bashful smile. “It’s true. I didn’t want to come over all fangirl, but
I love your music.”

Stacy
smiled back. “What would you like me to sing?”

“Girl
Boy, Your Toy.”

It
was one of Stacy’s biggest hits—a light and breezy upbeat country number, the
lynchpin of her concerts and always demanded from the audience when she was on
tour. Stacy borrowed the guitar, perched on the edge of the picnic table, and
started to play.

By
the time she got to the chorus, most people were singing along. She put her
whole self into the music, effortlessly holding the audience in the palm of her
hand. The song was so familiar Adam found himself anticipating the rise and
fall of the melody, waiting for the riffs. It was a great song, but lacked the
depth, the soul deep personal connection that was so obvious in the new songs
she’d been writing. He wished she’d play one of those instead.

When
the song ended, she handed back the guitar as the party guests clapped and
crowded around her, complimenting her performance.

Everything
was a performance. The way she smiled. The way she laughed, as though nothing
in the world touched her. A good looking young guy handed her another beer, and
she clinked it against the bottle he held in his hand and brought it to her
lips.

Adam
hadn’t moved an inch since the last time she’d seen him, but she didn’t glance
his direction. It was as though he didn’t exist.

The
crowd was thinning out—some people were saying their goodbyes to their hosts.
Adam walked over to Stacy’s side. She was deep in conversation, but her gaze
flickered to him. “Are you ready to go?”

She
smiled her magazine interview smile. “The guys were telling me about a great
session in a pub nearby. We thought we’d go and check it out.”

“We?”

“Yes.
Me, Liam, and Donal.” She waved at her companions.”Why don’t you join us?”

Anger
flashed through him like poison injected into a vein. “Excuse me for a moment,
guys.” He took her arm and walked her a little distance away so they would not
be overheard. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She
jerked out of his grasp. “What do you mean? I’m just having fun with my new
friends.” Her jaw tightened. “What’s your problem, anyway. Are you jealous?”

“Do
you want me to be?”

Her
mouth twisted. “I don’t belong to you. If I decide I want to do something, I
don’t need your approval. And no. I don’t want you to be jealous. We’re not
married any longer, we’re supposed to be having fun with each other. I don’t
need you to be throwing your weight around.”

“You
don’t go anywhere without me.” He jammed his hands into the front pocket of his
jeans. “That’s the deal, remember? I’m your security.”

“Well,
in that case, you can fetch my jacket and meet me at the car. We’ll be
following the boys.” She walked away without a backward glance.

There
were two ways he could play it. Go caveman, and cause a scene, or let her play
things her way and deal with it later. But she could fetch her own damn jacket.

*****

Thank
god she wasn’t a maudlin drunk. She could count the times she’d been drunk
before on one hand, and every time she’d been told she was the life and soul of
the party.

Tonight
was no different. Every single thing she said must be witty, if her companions’
responses were any indication. They laughed, leaned close and looked at her as
though she was the most beautiful woman in the room.

And
she felt like it. Until her gaze fell on Adam, who sat glowering in the corner.

Killjoy
. His thundercloud expression
made her flirt harder, lay her hand on Liam’s sleeve and gaze into his
starstruck face. She was being a bitch. She knew it, but couldn’t stop acting
as though he didn’t mean anything to her. People weren’t to be trusted. Getting
close to someone meant handing them the means to destroy you.

He’d
only offered fun, not a long term relationship with love and happy ever after
attached, but somehow she’d let it become more in her head. She’d given Adam a
scalpel to eviscerate her heart. It was time to snatch it back and strap on her
breastplate.

The
waitress came over again, with her notepad at the ready. She cleared the table,
and jotted down their orders. Then she stopped in front of Adam, and fluttered
her eyelashes.

His
deep voice cut through the background hum. “Can you bring me some coffee?”

The
waitress chatted, jutting out her hip a little and flashing him a flirty smile.
As though he was a particularly delicious unattached male she might like to
meet later.

Adam
grinned at whatever the blonde was saying. The top couple of buttons of his
shirt were open, revealing the tanned column of his neck, and the color
emphasized the blue of his eyes. He looked damned good, and the waitress
obviously noticed.

“Adam,”
Stacy said loudly so he would hear.

His
head turned her direction. “Stacy?”

She
pointed to a door at the back of the room. “Join me for a moment?”

With
a grin at the guys, she stood, wavering on her high heels for a moment before
feeling steady enough to make it across the room. She took a deep breath, and
put one foot in front of the other, cutting through the crowd.

“Did
you want me for something?” Adam took her elbow.

“I
thought you should accompany me to the ladies room.” She stopped and rested her
hand on a door marked
fir
.
“As
you’re my security, and all.”

He
crossed his arms and the corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. “Okay.”

Damn,
what would it take to get a reaction from him? “So you’ll wait here? I won’t be
long.”

“I
know.”

She
pushed open the door.

Four
unzipped men facing urinals turned her direction on hearing her gasp.

“Next
door, love,” one said, zipping himself up and walking to the hand basin. “You
want
mná.
”

Face
burning, she turned around and somehow made it out of there without falling
over.

Adam
was just where she’d left him, leaning against the wall.

“I
suppose you think that’s funny?”

He
grinned. “It was pretty funny.” He waved at the next door. “Be prepared for a
wait; three women have just gone in.”

She
brushed past him.

When
she exited fifteen minutes later he was still waiting, sipping from a mug of
coffee.

“I
thought you were supposed to be guarding me, not wandering back to the table
for your coffee.”

“The
waitress brought it over. She didn’t want it to go cold.”

“I
bet she was trying to keep something else hot too,” Stacy mumbled under her
breath. “Like the flirtation.”

Adam
drained the mug and placed it on a table nearby. Then he stepped so close only
a piece of paper could fit between them. “I’m tired of this. Aren’t you?”

It
was late. The alcohol flooded her bloodstream, building a headache at her
temples. All around them people were talking, laughing, having fun, but she
couldn’t ignore the bitter taste in her mouth, in her soul, any longer. She
nodded. “I want to leave.”

Chapter
Eleven

The
following morning, Stacy’s cell phone rang while Adam was downstairs making a
bacon sandwich and reading the papers. Eventually she answered it, and after a
while she walked slowly into the kitchen. She looked worse than he’d ever seen
her.

Her
hair was flattened on one side where she’d slept on it, and she squeezed her
eyelids closed, blocking the sunlight streaming through the window.

“Coffee?”
He gestured to the full coffeepot.

She
grimaced. “Aspirin?”

“I
left it out for you. Next to the toaster.”

She
shot him a smart-ass look, and dosed herself. “That was the head of Star
Records.” She poured coffee and sat. “Demanding I make a statement about
Lester.”

“Saying
what?”

“That
I’m distraught that my manager and friend is in hospital.” She held the side of
her head with a grimace. “He even thought it would be good if I fly out there,
and appear at his bedside.”

“What
the hell? Doesn’t he know what that snake did to you?”

“He
knows. But the world doesn’t. Clint reckons it’s important that I take control
of this, that I tell the least damaging story possible and provide the right ‘optics.’
He says that we’ve been lucky so far that the investigation hasn’t come to
light, and that the last thing we need is bad publicity. He says we should do a
deal with Lester and retreat with my reputation intact.”

“What
do you think?”

“I
think he’s full of shit. Lester is a goddamn parasite who doesn’t deserve to
get off the hook for what he did.” She dropped her head into her hands. “Clint
wasn’t happy. He went on and on about how his artists don’t create bad
headlines, only good ones. He reminded me that he calls the shots and he has to
deal with me direct, now I don’t have a manager any longer. I told him I had
more songs written, and he shut me down like I was a troublesome kid explaining
why I’d missed a curfew.” She swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “He told me his
songwriter had reworked my songs to make them fit my style and that he’d send
them over for me to approve.” Her hands shook. “I couldn’t get through to him.
It was as if what I thought didn’t matter.”

He
wanted to help. To  make her worries go away, but even if he’d ever had the
right to interfere, he didn’t have it any longer. Dealing with yet another
dominant male in her workplace was something she’d have to do alone.

“There
must be some PR firm spinning Lester’s story.” He read from the headlines: “Stacy
Gold’s manager attacked while on holiday in Bali. His condition rated critical.
Country star yet to comment.”

Stacy
reached for the paper. “Condition critical?” She scanned the newsprint until
she found the entry. “I guess he may not live long enough to get justice.” Her
eyes were cold. Her mouth squeezed together into a tight line. She glanced
over. “You think I’m hard for not caring.”

“I
think you’re in denial of the fact you do care.” He placed his hand over hers. “There’s
nothing wrong with caring. You’d have to be inhuman not to.”

“I’m
inhuman then.” With restrained force, she pushed back from the table and
stalked to the window. “I can’t believe you of all people are defending him. He
destroyed our marriage.”

“He
had a part in it, but you’re the one who refused to talk to me.” Anger
compelled him from the chair to stand behind her. “We could have repaired our
relationship if you hadn’t written me off. We had something. Something real.”

She
spun and stared at him, anger and recrimination blazing in her eyes. “It wasn’t
just me. You were to blame too.” She pushed at his chest, forcing him to take a
step back. “I know you were angry because I wouldn’t talk to you after you
accused Lester. I get that. And I’ve tried to understand why you thought
screwing someone else was the answer to your frustration. I haven’t brought it
up. But when you did, that signaled the end of our marriage to me. That’s why I
filed for divorce.”

She
meant every word. The raw hurt in her eyes couldn’t be disguised. But her
accusations were ludicrous.

“I
never so much as looked at another woman while we were together.”

Her
hands curled into fists. “You’re lying about it? Why would you even do that? I
told you I’ve worked though it.”

“It
didn’t happen.” He gripped her upper arms and shook her—not hard, just enough
so she looked at him again. “It didn’t happen,” he muttered urgently. “If
Lester told you I did, he lied to you.”

She
wriggled from his grasp. Hugged her arms around herself as if building an
impenetrable barrier that he couldn’t breach.

“Lester
was having you followed.” Her eyes glittered with tears. “You met a blonde,
took her to a motel, and stripped her clothes off. I’ve seen the pictures.”

“You
can’t have seen pictures, because it didn’t happen.” His mind was everywhere,
trying to puzzle out how she could have been fooled—how she could have believed
he was capable of doing such a thing. The answer, that Lester must have
doctored photographs of him somehow, made no sense. “Tell me what these
pictures showed.”

“You,
leaning close to a woman in a bar. You, kissing her neck. You and she entering
a motel room. A picture taken through ratty blinds of you both half-naked.” Her
voice broke. “I didn’t want to believe it, but pictures don’t lie.”

It
struck him then, looking at her tearstained face, that this was always going to
be more than a casual affair between them. He cared enough to fight for her. To
make her see the truth, to put himself on the line and risk getting his heart
broken again, because damn it, they needed to try again. Loving her was painful,
but losing her again unthinkable. No matter what the cost, she was everything.

He
grasped her chin and forced her to look at him. “Pictures lie,” he insisted. “It
takes money, but a skilled manipulator can make anything look real. I never met
with a woman while we were together. I never kissed her, or took off her
clothes.” A sour taste was in his mouth. He’d pushed her to show leniency to a
man who had been so determined to keep them apart, he’d constructed an
elaborate web to force them apart. To destroy their marriage.

“Do
you have any of these pictures?” The only way she’d believe him was if he could
somehow prove his innocence.

“Lester
had them in the safe in his office.”

He
strode to the table and snatched up her cell phone. “Call that FBI guy.”

*****

Stacy
didn’t know what to believe, except that she had to get away. “I need some air.”
Without a backward look, she escaped into the back garden, striding across the
grass to lean over the low back wall. Could Adam be telling the truth? He was
an intelligent man, and when those photographs surfaced, if he were lying, he’d
be caught out instantly. The possibility that Lester had gone so far to break
them up was stunningly callous.

And
the fact that she’d let him, without confronting her husband with the evidence,
damning. Adam kept telling her that the way she handled things—by running away,
by building walls around her heart to protect herself—was wrong, but the urge
to run, to avoid everything and escape was so strong her palms flattened on the
long flat stones at the top of the wall, as if considering vaulting it.

She
breathed in and out, commanding her body to calm. A month ago, she’d been on
tour. Confident about her career and looking forward to returning home. Now,
she had neither. The persona so carefully constructed over the past decade was
crumbling, and there was nothing to replace it. Without her music, who was she?
Events were conspiring to fade her into nothingness, were stealing Gold.

“I
need a plan.” Speaking the words aloud took her one step back from the
precipice of panic. Everyone was telling her what she had to do, but the only
voice she should listen to was her own.

She
turned away from the view, and went back inside.

Adam
had disappeared, and the door to the room he used as an office was shut.

Good.
Right now she didn’t feel she could face him, didn’t want to talk any longer
until she had a solution to some of her problems. She opened her laptop and
constructed a detailed email to Agent Black, explaining that Lester had photographs
in his safe that she believed may form part of a blackmail scam. Because it was
blackmail, if they were faked in some way, and asking for access to them.

He
may not be able to crack Lester’s safe. Her mind picked at the problem.
How
else can I find out?
The answer came to her in remembered fragments. Apollo
had dated Lester’s secretary for a while. The same secretary whose last salary
check had bounced, and been finally settled from Stacy’s bank account.

She
opened a new email to Apollo, explaining what she needed, and why.

Now,
music
. Only
one thing soothed her when she was in a state, and listening through the tracks
she’d already sent Clint at Star Records and the new songs she’d written might
help.

She
plugged in earphones, found a notepad and pen, rearranged the cushions behind
her back, and pressed play. She scrawled ‘1’ on the page, and listened to the
first song. When she’d listened to all of them, a new melody teased, and she
reached for her guitar and started to play in fits and starts, until she had
the bare bones of the song.

She
recorded the melody into the computer. Tried lyrics, singing them softly,
teasing out the form of the new creation.
Too fast
. She recorded a
slower version, mentally composing keyboard and bass guitar parts to add, then
scribbled music notation.

Eventually
all the different aspects twisted together into a song full of emotion. She
recorded the lyrics, and listened to it again.

The
door cracked open, and Adam took a step into the room. His fingers tapped
against his jean-clad leg as he listened, his eyes never leaving her own. When
the song drifted away into silence, he walked over and sat next to her. “I like
it. You wrote that today?”

She
nodded. “I have eight tracks now, I’ll need twelve for the album. I hope these will
be enough to get them to sign me to a new contract.”

“Does
it matter so much to work with Star Records? Couldn’t you switch labels?”

He
looked tired. His usual bright and happy demeanor had taken a beating, and even
the smile he’d given her earlier held a hint of sadness about it. He’d never
lied to her, even when it would have been to his benefit to do so, and if those
pictures were manipulated somehow, if they didn’t really show her husband
making love to another woman, she’d thrown away their relationship for nothing.

“I
don’t know. They’re the biggest. And the best. Being one of their artists has
always been a cachet in the industry.”

“You’ve
been one of their artists, and you’ve been working for them, but have they been
working for you?” He rubbed the back of his neck, and the desire to reach out
and touch him welled out of nowhere, impossible to ignore, impossible to deny.

She
rested her hand on his knee.

His
gaze drifted to her eyes, flickered to her mouth. “It’s safe to go back to
them. Safe, and comforting. Because you know them, and they’ve been in control
of your career since you had one. But things are changing. Things have changed.
You have to make your own decisions now. You have to be true to the person you
are.”

I
will make my own decisions.
She pressed her hand to his jaw, feeling the warmth and strength there. If she
chose Adam again, and then learned he’d lied it would destroy her. But her mind
and her heart were resolute, set on a path which might lead to happiness, might
lead to destruction.

She
leaned close enough to touch her mouth against his.

*****

One
brief brush of her mouth. Hardly enough. But the accusations and
misunderstandings between them lay like a cold stone in his chest, tainting the
taste of her.

So
when she eased a breath away, he didn’t follow. “Did you call the FBI guy?”

A
swift intake of breath, and the air between them shifted. “I emailed him. It’s
Sunday, he’s half the world away…” Her hand slithered from his hair to her lap
to entwine with its partner. “There won’t be an instant answer. I think on the
scale of desperate world matters, whether or not Lester faked photos will
barely register.”

“It
matters to you. It matters to me.”

It
mattered more than anything. In the hours since she’d told him, it had been
necessary to reevaluate everything. There had been a reason she’d ghosted him.
A good reason, if it had been true.

And
even believing he would do that to her, she’d started something with him again.
Not because she didn’t care, but because, like him, she couldn’t avoid the
heat, couldn’t break the connection between them.

“I
want to go to bed with you.” He stroked the full swell of her bottom lip. “I
want to forget all this shit, ignore the rest of the world, and build a cocoon
with only us inside.”