Heiress vs Rockstar (Love in Illyria Book 4) Page 10

  That was unfair, she told herself. Bastard though he'd been, he had never actually said an outright lie. Not even in that damn interview. Their relationship was romantic, wasn't it? Unhealthily romantic, but they were pretending to be a couple so... romance!

  She was thinking of old Christmas murder movies all the way from her room to the conservatory.

  Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of Tim Carter standing still, bathed by the moonlight coming from the conservatory's ceiling height windows. He looked so fragile. A thin silhouette, clothed in darkness and moonlight.

  "Come here," he said without moving.

  She couldn't hate him. She pitied him too much.

  "Your father invited me over to your place after we leave here tomorrow," he said.

  She groaned. That couldn't be happening.

  "Isabella called earlier. I get to spend St. Stephen's day with my son."

  Second day of Christmas, boxing day for most people, was also St. Stephen's day. It was a St. Stephen's day miracle. She would be free of him for a day. Maybe more.

  "I'll find a nice way to tell him you can't come," she said. "I'm glad you-"

  He interrupted her.

  "We have a concert at RoH in Larissa on New Year's Eve. I want you to be there."

  She hung her head. That had been a short-lived miracle.

  "I don't want to be there. No one will notice-"

  He interrupted her again, this time using his atrocious lovey-dovey boyfriend tone.

  "Aly-baby, did you forget that it doesn't matter what you want?"

  That pissed her off. He dared to be this insolent with her, in her own house? Her grandparents' house, but anyway, on her turf.

  "No. I did not forget that. I understand why you so desperately need to do this."

  He flinched at the word. Understand. His tone lost its fake honey.

  "Yes. You do understand. I did not forget how well you... understand."

  "Don't you want to start the new year in a less negative manner? Having me there will annoy you. I doubt that you enjoy my discomfort this much."

  "You're wrong. Your discomfort is delicious."

  "And what will you do if I refused to attend?"

  He turned his head to look at her for the first time. His fingers snuck through her Didier-perfect hair.

  "Nothing much. Maybe mention your sterling work at Stratford in an interview."

  She shoved aside the hand that played with her hair. She hadn't expected him to stoop so low. Seeing him with those kids, the fact that he hadn't made a scene to embarrass her in front of them had given her hope that he still had a shred of decency.

  "Fine. I'm coming with you to Larissa," she said. "Who wouldn't want to start the New Year in the coldest damn place in Illyria?"

  "Don't worry about the cold," he said. "I booked us a nice room in the Sinclair hotel in Larissa."

  Wonderful. They were getting to the next stage of their insane fake relationship.

  "Will you expect me to sleep on the floor or something equally humiliating?"

  He smirked and wiggled his eyebrows. She looked around for a candlestick. Damn electricity! How was one supposed to murder a person Agatha Christie style?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Alice

  It turned out that he had booked a suite at the Larissa Sinclair. The bed was so huge they could sleep there with the rest of the Waves with no trouble.

  "I'll take the couch," she said.

  He didn't argue. She hadn't seen TC in his pre-show routine. She went downstairs to the hotel's bar while he changed his clothes. She was half-way through her first Martini when he came and waved her over.

  A limo took them from the Sinclair to the night club. TC and the Waves went backstage to prepare and she tried to mingle in the crowd of people well on their way to getting completely blitzed.

  She had hoped she wouldn't be noticed in the darkness of the club. She wasn't used to the crowd and the strange lighting. Soon she had to go to the bathroom on the verge of throwing up because of the flashing lights.

  Her stomach seemed to have calmed down, but she remained in the stall. The loud volume of the music was dampened. The bathroom wasn't as crowded as the rest of the club. She had her forehead pressed against the cool wall tiles when she heard the women's conversation.

  "The nerve on her! She dares to show her face in public after what she did to poor Isabella."

  "How can she delude herself that TC will ever take her seriously?"

  "She must be good in bed."

  "She's probably very grateful. With that face..."

  "I know, right? Doesn't she see herself? Alba and Isabella are so stunning."

  "And yet he ditched them both."

  "He's going to dump her ugly ass soon enough."

  "Could he be after her money? I thought he'd be pretty loaded himself."

  "Maybe he has some secret vice. Maybe he gambles and he lost all his money."

  "That would make more sense than TC preferring Alice Lewis to Isabella Peters."

  "She's so... plain."

  It wasn't anything she hadn't read online or heard on TV dozens of times. She walked out of her stall and went to wash her hands, ignoring the women's eyes on her.

  When she left the bathroom, she asked a guy wearing the club's uniform where she could smoke, and he directed her outside.

  "There you are," he said.

  She took a drag of her cigarette, trying to ignore the biting cold.

  "Here I am. Indulging my vice."

  "I thought you might have run away."

  "And start the new year with the fear that you find something even more insane to do?"

  "What can I say, Miss Lewis? You inspire me."

  She tried her luck again.

  "Don't you want to enjoy this night? Let me go, and maybe you will actually have some fun."

  "You're not tied down to a chair," he said.

  "Yeah, right, after blackmailing me to make public my work at Stratford, I'll risk upsetting you in any way."

  He looked at her for a moment, then rested his gaze on the shape of the mountain peaks barely visible on that moonless night.

  "In the spirit of the New Year, you can leave, and I promise you that I will not seek retribution in any way for it. We'll pause our little game for one night. I won't tell the press about Stratford and Will. You can hop on a plane or a train or a broomstick and disappear. I'll catch up with you back in Orsino."

  "Just like that? I can leave?"

  The intermittent lighting coming from the club hid his expression. His voice alone hadn't given her any clues. Was it a trap? Did he want her to leave so he could pretend to have a reason to do something crazy?

  The first notes of Sixteen year old heart reached them. He should be back on stage, to sing the staple Waves song. He reached out to untuck the hair from behind her ear. He let it glide over his hand as he walked backwards, toward the stage. He left her there, without another word.

  Her leaden feet kept her rooted to that spot. Could she trust him? Whatever else Tim had done, he'd never lied to her. They were both lying to the world, but he'd made a point of always being honest with her, to accentuate the contrast the way she had concealed things from him.

  She took a cab back to the hotel, and grabbed the small suitcase she had brought. She was in the bathroom of the private airport outside Larissa when she realized that she was running away. And she had to stop.

  She had to stop lying to herself.

  She didn't let him torture her only because she felt guilty for Isabella. She didn't just let him torture her, she made it easy. Encouraged him. Invited him to do worse. Stronger than the guilt and far more insidious was the truth she tried to bury deep enough to be able to live with herself. Beneath the guilt was the shame that she wanted him for herself. She took the punishment because it kept him close. She relished his obsessive interest in her.

  It had to stop. She knew of one way he would feel sated. He needed the
definite proof that he damaged her. He had ruined her engagement, she was failing her classes, but none of these things mattered to him anywhere near as much as it meant to her. She had to give him the ultimate satisfaction.

  It had to end. Not just his obsession with her. Her own stupid obsessive crush had to end.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Tim

  He didn't know why he was going to his room alone. Beautiful women had offered themselves to him as they did at any concert. He could pick one at random, and take her to his room. For a few hours, he'd feel good. He'd feel alive.

  Then the emptiness would settle in, and he'd leave without saying a word. The void had opened in his chest early that night.

  When the elevator pinged, announcing its arrival, his arm jerked sideways, his palm searching for the small of her back. Alice's emotions fed his starving soul.

  A young couple stumbled in just before the elevator doors closed. They kissed hungrily, unaware of his presence, as if they were the only two people in the world.

  And why not? How many times had he felt the same thing?

  Only when the door of the music room closed, and for a few minutes he and his friend Alice were the only people in the world. His smart and funny and comfortable friend.

  It burned almost as badly as not having Stephen with him. He had lost his son and his friend.

  No. She had never been his friend. She had been an illusion, like the Isabella he had fallen in love with. The real Alice was the one he saw on the cover of magazines. The one who would one day soon take on her role as politician.

  He went straight into the shower, stripped and walked under the cool jet of water. How far he had come from the dingy room the Waves shared in Viaverde, he mused. The bathroom alone was as big as one of those rooms, and instead of flaking paint and threadbare carpet, the walls and floor were tiled with black marble. He had to hand it to the Sinclairs: they knew luxury.

  He towel dried his hair and wrapped a large fluffy white towel around his hips. He padded into the living room and when he heard the knock on the door he understood why he was alone in that room.

  He'd been waiting for her to show up. He'd been waiting for Alice to take this step for a long time, but it suddenly felt too soon. For a moment, he hoped he was wrong.

  She stood up straighter when he opened the door. He stepped aside, wordlessly inviting her in. The smell of flowers, wood and smoke teased his nostrils. It took a conscious effort not to breathe it in greedily.

  Her hair was gathered up in a careless bun, strands escaping it, contrasting with her pale skin. Her elegant neck tempted him. To do what? His hand itched again. He wanted to wrap it around her throat. He fantasized so many times about hurting her, yet never physically.

  "Is this it?" he asked. "You came to declare defeat?"

  "I'm here to tell you the truth," she said. "The last piece of the truth that remains unsaid between us. You probably know it already."

  "Say it."

  Alice

  Tim Carter, half naked, water glistening on his chest, his eyes serious and fixed on her... She tried to hold his gaze, and the room started to spin around them.

  Time to get it all out in the open. She didn't have anything left for him to take any more. But she had one thing she could give him. A last ditch attempt to help him forget her.

  "I've been in love with you for a long time. Never thought I'd meet you. And when I knew I could, I was a coward."

  She paused, gathering her nerve to say it all.

  "I never dared to dream that you could like someone like me."

  Her cheeks burst into flames and her eyelids turned to lead. She closed her eyes and fell silent.

  "Why, little monster? Why couldn't I love someone like you?"

  Love. She hadn't even dared to hope he would like her. Love her? Impossible.

  "I don't know."

  "Yes, you do. You know everything about me. Why couldn't I love you?"

  Because the soul of a poet couldn't love an ugly thing like her. She didn't say that. Tim hid his poet soul from the world with the TC mask. She gave him all the other reasons. The things the nasty voice inside her told her whenever he was around.

  "Because I'm rich, and content with my life. I'm boring. I have no all-consuming passion. I don't love music like you do. Because I don't have friends, I have puppets. I'm manipulative. I'm cold."

  His chest rose and fell faster than normal. She had trouble breathing herself. Her attraction to TC hadn't been physical at first. Until that very moment, she hadn't acknowledged it at all.

  "Most of the things you said are stupid," he said. "One of them is completely and utterly wrong."

  He traced her features with his fingertips. The most he'd dared before was to play with her hair or touch her jaw. He was tracing her eyebrows, the length of her nose, her cheekbones. He hesitated before touching her lips.

  "You have passion," he said. "Me."

  "It's not the same," she said.

  He wasn't a hobby of the mind, like history was for her. He wasn't a fire in the soul, like music was for him. In some ways, it was worse.

  He leaned down, and pressed his cheek against her neck. Her pulse throbbed strongly, flesh against flesh. His arms hovered around her shoulders. Her whole body trembled. It took ages until he wrapped her into his arms and squeezed her frantically against his chest.

  She didn't fool herself this was much more than revenge for him. Except maybe healing.

  "Take off your clothes," he said.

  She started at the bluntness of his request. He wasn't even going to pretend that this was anything other than her ritual humiliation. Why couldn't he treat her as one of his groupies? Surely he must have seduced them before fucking them and kicking them out of his hotel room.

  She didn't want to aggravate him even worse or challenge him, but her fingers didn't listen to her. It took her an inordinately long time to unbutton her shirt and unhook her bra. He hadn't as much as pretended to want to help her. Her awkward hands slid the shirt off her shoulders. She hesitated before she let the bra drop as well. With her eyes tightly closed, she unzipped the skirt. Blood was pounding in her ears while the black fabric pooled to the floor, around her feet.

  "You will do everything I ask you," he said.

  She nodded willingly. She would give him this one night to work out his hatred. If she gave him the thing only one man could have from her, maybe he would believe her that she was sorry. Maybe afterward he could go back to not knowing that she existed.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Tim

  "Why did you let me be your first?" he asked.

  Alice shrugged. She wanted to reach for a cigarette, not out of any need to smoke, but because it would give her an occupation. She wanted something, anything, to take her mind off what she had done.

  "Do you think it will absolve you for what you did?"

  She turned her head away from him. Tim gripped her chin and turned her face toward him. She kept her eyes averted, and when the harshness of his touch turned into a caress as he cupped her cheek, her eyelids slid closed of their own accord. She leaned into his touch.

  "You think I'm wrong to hate you?"

  "No," she said. "This is my talent. You, and Vy, and Andrew, you all have your music. None of you would give up music. I can't strip myself from the ability to manipulate people."

  "Our music doesn't lie to people," he said.

  "Of course it does. You can make people laugh or cry when you sing. You can touch their very souls and as such you influence their outlook on life and their actions."

  He traced the line of her hip over the fine cotton sheet.

  "I'm not a strong person," she said. "I need to belong to someone. It felt so good to become King's assistant. To protect him from you. I need to be someone's... something. Anything. I was Vy's sidekick for years. When she left... When I went to Salona alone, and had to build a new life for myself without the people I had known all my life... it was difficult
."

  He let her speak. To shed light over things he hadn't been able to figure out.

  "I loved teaching Isabella. Small things. About wines and cheeses. About meanings behind plays. She was so eager to learn. So committed to improving herself."

  "And me?"

  "But you are unbreakable. What could I do to you? It would be like a cat trying to scratch a block of granite."

  "You make it sound so grand. And I can't tell if you're lying."

  "Let's say I'm lying."

  He rolled on top of her. His weight squeezed the air out of her lungs. His ravenous mouth covered hers. He wasn't kissing her. He was devouring her alive.

  He made love to her all night, and before morning came, he left while she was asleep.

  #

  He had a child he loved with a woman he didn't love.

  He was obsessed with a woman he hated.

  The only constant in his life was a woman who loved another man. Vy had been torn between her loyalties because of him.

  How did he get there? How did he let his life become such a mess?

  He could go on hating Alice, or he could be a grown up and accept his choices.

  Hating Alice was delicious. She was such a responsive victim, it gave him unlimited pleasure to punish her. She broke beautifully. She came at his door and came in his bed. He got the satisfaction to leave her in that hotel room. She gave him the satisfaction. And yet... and yet she must have hurt in the morning when she woke up and he was gone. That humiliation should be enough.

  Then why was he still thinking of her? Why was he the one hurting that he snuck out of the room like a thief? Why did he want back her quiet and relaxing companionship?

  At first he had thought it was because she reminded him of Alba. She was even engaged to a Sinclair. Alba 2.0. Except Alba never managed to calm him down. Alba annoyed him even when he had been in love with her.