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  "It looks fantastic," he said, relishing the way she shivered as his lips brushed against her skin.

  With a superhuman effort, he took a step back and did her zipper up again.

  "You're fine," he said thickly.

  "The hell I am," she muttered, turning to face him again. "How am I supposed to act like a normal person now?"

  She looked at him with unabashed desire. The months in which he had to pretend to be normal around her were a good training. He must not have shown the intensity of the fire which consumed him.

  "How are you doing this to me?" she asked, shaking her head.

  Chapter 17

  Andrew

  HE DROVE FROM THE AIRPORT straight to Orsino North. He tried to clear his head before meeting her. He promised himself not to touch her while they were in the house, or they would not leave.

  Flowers. A small detour to a flower shop took care of that. When the shop assistant asked him what he wanted, he paused.

  "White roses," he said.

  He should have gotten red. He loved her, he wanted her, he should have gotten red. And then he realized. He couldn't start on that path before telling her the truth. He felt a sudden pressure on his chest. He would have to tell her everything.

  "Do you have black roses?" he asked when the lady came back with the bouquet.

  "Yes. Do you want a dozen black roses instead?"

  "No," he said. "Add them to the white ones, please."

  It felt right. Black for his past and white for his hope. His hand was shaking when he took the flower arrangement. It was still shaking twenty minutes later on her doorstep when Vy took it from him.

  "This is gorgeous," she said standing on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. "Thank you."

  He followed her inside the house. She looked so young, in her torn jeans and white t-shirt. Her hair was gathered in a high ponytail with plenty of flyways frizzing around her head.

  "I didn't know where we're going, so I didn't dress up yet," she said.

  "You are very suitably dressed," he said. "I wanted to give you a tour of my studio."

  She grinned at him.

  "You mean I get to see more than your scolding room?" she said with a cheeky smile. "Do you have a spanking room?"

  He swallowed hard, not knowing if he was embarrassed for the way he had lashed out at her when she'd been there or if he was aroused at the thought of spanking her.

  "Too soon?" she asked.

  "You're not making this easy at all," he said.

  Vy's smile froze on her face.

  "What's wrong?" she asked.

  He could see her retreating emotionally. Damn Carter and his mind games! Damn his own behavior toward her in the past! She probably thought he was going to push her away again.

  "I need you to know some things about me. I know this is not the best time, but I don't want to wait. This time, I'm not waiting."

  She sat down hard in an armchair, and he started pacing the length of the Cesaras' living room.

  "It's a long story and it won't be nice to hear. I never told anyone all of this. Maybe if I stayed in therapy longer I would have managed to get it all out."

  "You don't have to tell me anything," she said.

  "Yes, I do," he said. "I messed up more than I thought when I tried to do the right thing. You should know. All of it.

  Let's start with the part that Carter knows and the reason he hates me. We were in high school together. Carter, Christine and me. I was a national TV star since I was 13 so I was pretty full of myself when we met. Christine and I became friends immediately. She was the only person who didn't seem in awe of my fame, and that was fascinating.

  Carter was an oddball. His mother was on billboards all over town, and he was this scrawny kid who hardly talked to anyone. He didn't even dare to look girls in the eye all throughout high school. Christine was a lot like you, and she took him under her wing. It got on my nerves like you wouldn't believe. All of a sudden, she gave part of her time to this weird kid. We were just friends, but I thought I was entitled to all her attention.

  Watching you with Bryce and Marvin... It was like seeing us again."

  He took in a deep breath.

  "The summer I turned sixteen, everyone left town, to spend their holidays on the coast or at their grandparents or whatever exotic things the children of the rich and famous do on summer holidays. I stayed and worked every day on Star Factory."

  That was the moment. The beginning of the end. She was going to be disgusted by him.

  "A fan managed to sneak in through security and she got to my dressing room. I was so high on her adulation, it didn't even occur to me something was wrong. I had sex with her. I can't remember her name. Or the names of most of those who came after her.

  When school started, I went to my classes, but now I was looking at Christine differently. I kept sleeping with any girls who wanted me. My attitude towards Christine started to change. She was still a kid, but I wasn't.

  Carter saw how much it hurt her when I drew back. I made her feel bad about herself because I suddenly didn't value her friendship. I couldn't help it. It didn't give me the same… satisfaction."

  He stared out the window, not daring to look back at Vy.

  "That was ugly, but it's almost easy to explain that part of my life. I was immature. I didn't mean to hurt her. We weren't even dating. That's what Carter knows and that's when he started hating me."

  He sat down, rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head. He raked shaky fingers through his hair.

  "I was approaching eighteen when I finally figured out I should stop sleeping around. When I did that, I realized how unhappy I was. With my life. With my music.

  I reached out and Christine… She took my hand and kept me from drowning. We started to date. I stopped saying yes to anyone else who offered. With my mind out of my pants, it dawned on me that those girls didn't sneak past security. The staff had instruction to let them in.

  I don't even know what would be worse, if they were real fans or if they were girls IBC brought for me."

  Out the corner of his eye, he saw Vy flinching. It was disgusting, but not the part for which he hated himself the most.

  "But wait, there's more," he said in a hollow infomercial-y voice.

  He clenched his fists and forced himself to go on. He stood up, and started pacing again.

  "Someone offered to help me. Someone I admired professionally. She helped me figure out my contract. She took me to her lawyer, and he negotiated me a decent deal with IBC for the first year when I could sign the contract without parental supervision.

  My parents are simple people and they had signed what IBC put in front of them. The money I made on the show helped them keep the house and raise my younger siblings without working two jobs each.

  At eighteen, I moved in with Christine, but I still gave my family most of the money. Christine took a part time job when she started university and I had small projects outside IBC thanks to my new contract."

  The room began to spin. His vision grew dark. It had taken him five solid years of therapy to say this much of the story to his therapist. He had stopped therapy before he told him about Lilah.

  He took a few centering breaths. He had to tell her. She had to know why he'd tortured her. She had to know how much he feared that he would damage her.

  "I was almost nineteen. Same age you were when I first met you. We were working on a song. It was late into the night and everyone else had left. My attraction to her had grown without me noticing. That night… it just happened. I went home to Christine, and pretended nothing had happened. I was sure it was never going to happen again. It couldn't happen again. But it did. And than it happened again.

  I left when I realized I couldn't stop. I ended up on a friend's couch. She had left the show the year before and she was the only helping hand I accepted. She understood better than I could imagine. I told her what I had done. When she told me what she had gone through as a chil
d actor there, I couldn't believe it.

  All this time, I still filmed Star Factory. I still… had my collaboration.

  One night, I went to her place. She invited me in. She kissed me and I could feel all my fear disappear. I was so crazy in love with her.

  Her bed was the only place where I could ignore the rest of the world. That night, she told me she had a surprise for me. When we got to the bedroom another guy around my age was already in bed. She tried to introduce us. I staggered out of that room, and went into the first bar I could find. I drank myself stupid.

  I have no idea how Jeanne found me and managed to get me to her place safely. I felt my heart had been smashed to pieces and nothing mattered.

  Then when I got to work the next day, I looked at that place for real. It turned my stomach. I saw the signs of abuse as if every day before that I had walked around blindfolded. I did what I could, but all of that had been going on right under my nose for years… I went to a human rights lawyer, and threatened them with going very public with the story.

  I was their biggest star. I had grown up in front of people's eyes. I was like a member of the family for everyone in Illyria. They would have believed me. The company took notice. They fired everyone responsible, and we made sure that none of the children would be harmed. More public retributions would have dragged the victims through the papers as much as the predators. Not everyone was abused. Or maybe not the same way.

  I went back to Christine. I never told her much of this. She figured out I was cheating on her. She believed me when I told her I'd be faithful. She gave me a second chance and I never strayed. When she chose to walk away two years ago… I knew it would be hard to keep my head straight. She was my north for so long.

  Diane loved Sing and although I never watched it, when they asked me… I wanted to stay in her life. IBC had changed. At least that much I made myself keep checking. So I said yes to them again. I thought I was strong enough to go back into that place. I was determined to keep my eyes wide open this time. Things seem to be right. I started to relax.

  Then you showed up, and everything started slipping away.

  They had controlled me so easily through sex. I was slowly turning into a sexual predator, like them. Ever since I met you, I can't help thinking that I am like them.

  What happened in the pool house... You were my age when I let a crush ruin my healthiest relationship. I let her games control me and my music.

  The way you looked at me… You made me burn for the first time since I was a teenager myself. I could see myself in you, confusing admiration with attraction. Confusing professional respect with trust.

  When I touched you, while you were dating Bryce, it was like I was in her place. I didn't care. I wanted more.

  I hated Carter for keeping you from me. For being the one who made you stronger. The one who kept you safe. For never telling you what he knew. I hate him for all the things he did right."

  He sat down on the couch, as far from her as he could. He closed his eyes and fought back the rising nausea. There it was. All of it. The only details he left out were the intensity of his desire. His dreams and fantasies.

  After Carter messed with her head every day, would she see this confession as an attempt of manipulation? It was, in a way. Telling her before her date with Ryann, fake date though it was, was his attempt to control her feelings. To do what he could so she didn't get swept away by a perfectly nice guy. He'd been unable to tell her sooner, but he could have waited. If he didn't want to use it to get to her, he could have told her later.

  Later. Was there any later for them?

  Vy

  She wanted to stop him talking several times. It made her sick to her stomach to think of Andrew as a promiscuous teenager. She hadn't liked Star Factory because their music was lame but it looked like an innocuous children's show. That and the fact that she creeped herself out when she started thinking how hot young Andrew King was in later seasons.

  The idea that this man, this good man she knew and loved, had cheated on his girlfriend seemed preposterous. His inability to see abuse taking place in front of his eyes… her first reaction was "How could you not see?" and then she remembered some of the things she had not seen. Things Andrew had thrown in her face after Carter's interview.

  She was the queen of not noticing things that were under her nose.

  She saw him grow paler the longer she remained quiet. Overthinking had never been one of her flaws.

  "My father was right about you," she said before she thought the words through.

  He flinched and the haunted look in his eyes pierced her, but he looked away immediately.

  "He respects you," she added quickly. "I'm not great at noticing obvious things, so I was clueless about how well connected my father is until Carter yelled at me one time. Anyway, when my father said something like 'I respect someone who came out of that system and acts like Andrew does around young people' he knew what he was saying. He's the only person who reads people better than Alice. I might not objective, but you can trust their assessment. They both think very highly you."

  He kept his eyes resolutely on the floor.

  "I don't like you," she said, trying to get him to look at her again. Instead, his shoulders slumped. "I… I…"

  Her voice creaked like a rusted door. The words she'd been holding back for so long choked her.

  "I'm in love with you."

  She didn't get a chance to see if he looked up because her eyelids snapped shut. After everything Andrew had dragged from the depths of his soul, she owed him the same honesty, but knowing that didn't make it easy. She fell back on humor to get herself out of that spot. She opened her eyes but she studied her shoes while she spoke.

  "After all the heavy stuff you shared, I feel kind of shallow because I mostly like you for your looks."

  He didn't speak, and she couldn't stop yammering to fill the silence. "I always liked your abs and tats, but since you started sporting that beard… I totally lost it."

  That got more real than she had intended. Her stomach clenched and she darted a look at him. He wasn't staring in the middle distance anymore. He was watching her and a corner of his mouth was tugging up.

  "What I'm trying to say is that I have no clue what I should think about what you told me. I know what I feel. I know you're more than a crush. And I remember all too well that you held back each time I threw myself at you. And when you told me you watched me sing… it turned me on."

  She sat down next to him on the couch, close, but not touching him.

  "I'm not the best at taking advice," she said, and took a deep breath, "maybe that's why Carter has to play mind games with me, but there's one thing he keeps telling me. He thinks I should 'do someone'. The only one I wanted to 'do' for two years it's been you. I hope I'm not being too forward if I ask you-"

  The rest got lost in his smoldering kiss.

  "It's an excellent moment to take his advice," he said, crushing his lips against hers when he spoke. "But aren't you supposed to go on your date with Ryann? I heard you two make plans for today at ten."

  She pulled her head away. "Oh, nice try," she said with a small laugh. "The date was at ten this morning. We had a picnic. Lots of photographers around. Good food. He didn't get his shirt on fire, but it wa-"

  The rest of the sentence got lost in a kiss.

  "So, you don't have to go anywhere?" he asked when they paused for breath.

  "I don't have to," she said. "I'd like to, but-"

  He used the same excellent technique to interrupt her. His mouth pressed against hers and his hand fisted in her hair, holding on to her while his skillful tongue explored and taunted her.

  "Do you mind if I take a rain check on the studio tour?" she asked.

  "You don't see me hurrying to leave, do you?" he said, wrapping a long curl of her hair around his finger.

  The rapped expression on his face made her lose the train of her thoughts.

>   "Damn," she said, and started unravelling her hair from his hand. "I have to get back to Salona tonight. I have classes in the morning and I'm fairly sure I'm about to flunk if I keep skipping them."

  His touch did complicated things to her body. The sudden anxiety about her classes decreased when he cupped the back of her head, but another, sweeter tension built up in her.

  "Let me drive you there," he said. "I don't want this to end."

  "If we stop to eat somewhere, we can actually call this a proper date."

  The smile on his lips and in his eyes made him look terribly young. He stood up and offered her his hand.

  "Is that what it takes to qualify as a date?"

  She pursed her lips, and shrugged. What the hell did she know about dating? She'd dated a few guys in high school, then Philippe, and… nothing.

  "It's not how I planned our first date," he said.

  She swallowed hard. He better not ask her how she imagined their first date. She had never gotten around to picturing the date part. Her imagination jumped straight to the… dessert.

  "You can tell me in the car," she said. "If we don't leave in about ten seconds, I'm going to be all over you again."

  He stepped closer and she closed her eyes when he leaned in for the kiss. His breath on her skin made her dizzy. She opened one eye when the kiss didn't land.

  "Were you trying to talk me into leaving the house or…"

  "Come on," she begged. "Help me out."

  He sighed and took a step toward the door.

  "You don't know what you're asking."

  "I'll make it up to you, I prom-"

  "No," he said suddenly serious. "Don't feel like you owe me anything because you have your own life. I can wait."

  "I know you can," she blurted. "I'm the one who had enough of waiting," she said, feeling her cheeks grow hot.

  "Anything you want, my Queen," he said with a bow of his head that seemed only partly playful.

  Did he know what he did to her with that stuff? When Carter had proclaimed her the Queen of Rock on the Viaverde stage, she nearly fainted. That title was her secret treasure. Andrew's words when they left the Jungle haunted her. You'll always be my Queen.