After Midnight (8 page)

“A problem?”

“One I prefer not to repeat.”

“Then why order anything? Why come in at all? Are you testing yourself?”

“It’s not a test.” He avoided answering her, put off revisiting the ugliest time of his life for as long as she’d allow him to. He wondered how long she’d let him get away with it.

“I don’t understand. What happened to make you change?”

Not long.

“Something must have happened. Most people don’t stop drinking without a good reason.”

She was right about that. He had a reason, a damn good one. “Are you sure you want to hear this? You might not like my answer.”

“Yes.”

Noah leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. He rubbed at a day’s worth of stubble on his chin with his palm before dropping his hands to hang between his knees. “My best friend died.”

“I’m sorry,” she stated quietly.

“Danny Treybourne, our original drummer?” He waited to see whether she knew the name, continued his tale when she tipped her head in acknowledgment. “We grew up together, around the corner from each other, raising hell, chasing girls. We always dreamed of playing in a band, making it big. Though I don’t think either of us ever truly believed it would happen.”

He couldn’t believe he was actually going to share his story with her—tonight of all nights. The night she’d finally broken her silence and talked with him, given him the chance he’d wanted for weeks. Sharing with her the ugliest time of his life wasn’t likely his smartest move.

He did it anyway.

“We were fifteen when we first put the band together—Dominic, Nick, Danny, and me. We spent six years playing the local clubs before we got any recognition, two more before we were signed.”

He recalled the day they signed that first contract—the excitement, the belief in their dream and their music. He could recall exactly what he and Danny had done to celebrate that day—they’d gotten pissed. It was a tradition that continued for years.

“The sudden jump to fame is a hard one. You work your whole life for something, go nowhere fast, and then one day, you’re labeled an overnight success. Anything we wanted was suddenly ours for the taking. Drugs. Alcohol. Women. Bloody hell, the women. Each of us handled it differently, some of us better than others. Me, I took advantage,” he admitted, chagrined. “After all, I wasn’t stupid. Okay, maybe a bit stupid.”

Incredibly stupid. Of course, years later, he saw the mistakes, the risks. He knew how differently his story could have ended. “I was reckless, I admit, we all were. But we never considered the risks. Nothing was going to happen to us, we were invincible.”

She remained silent, allowing him to tell his story in his own way.

“It got out of hand—the drinking, women, and touring. We were touring steadily, city after city after city. After a while, it all blurs together. There were times I don’t know how I functioned, how I got through a show. It got so I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning without a shot of bourbon to get my blood moving.

“One night, I can’t tell you where we were—I put my glass down and looked around. I looked at the mass of people crowding the room and I asked myself, ‘who are these people?’ The room suddenly came into focus. For the first time I realized I didn’t know half of the people about me and those whose names I did know, didn’t know the real me.”

He had her complete attention. She chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip, eyes sober as she looked at him.

“They only saw who they wanted to see. They didn’t see that I was miserable. That I hated the turn my life had taken and was drowning my sorrows in alcohol and meaningless sex.”

“What did you do?” she asked softly.

“What could I do? I got pissed.”

Her mouth thinned. “You got drunk,” she stated in disbelief.

“I did. The night Danny died, I was drunk. Not a big surprise. By that time, I had a bottle in my hand day and night. I didn’t know Danny had started using, that he was mixing drugs and alcohol.”

He’d been too busy fighting his own demons, dealing with his own disillusionment to notice his friend’s.

“I didn’t know...until it was too late. I found him,” he said, his voice tight with anguish. “It was so unreal. It didn’t seem possible that he could be dead. I mean, how could he be dead? He was always so alive. But he was cold when I touched him, pale and unresponsive.”

Danny!

“I tried to bring him back, to will him back to me.”

Don’t do this, Danny.

“I was too late.”

Her eyes glimmered with sympathy. She offered no meaningless platitudes, and he was glad.

“That was it for me. I stayed long enough to fulfill our contractual obligation, then I quit. Quit drinking, quit making music. I went back to London, found a real job.”

“Which you hated.”

“You’ve heard this story?” He brushed his knuckles down her cheek, ridiculously pleased when she didn’t shift away. “I found I could not deny what I am. I’m a musician. So I’m back to making music. Only, this time, we’re older, wiser. It’s about the music now, not the fame. I’d sing to a group of ten as eagerly as a sold-out stadium.”

She studied him for a minute before stating, “I have one problem with your story.”

“Just one?”

“You still drink.”

“It’s not something I do with regularity.”

“I see you in here pretty regular.”

He grinned. “I order lager, but I don’t drink it. Isn’t that what sparked your question?”

“Then why do you come here?”

“It’s not for the alcohol.”

“I don’t…understand.”

She really didn’t. “Isabeau.” He cupped her chin, smoothed his thumb across her bottom lip. “I come here to see you.”

Her breath hitched. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” She got to him, dammit. He wanted to kiss her. Pull her off her stool and onto his lap in one fluid motion. Bury his hands in her hair and kiss her until she forgot her name.

Instead, he stood, backed toward the door. “You look tired. I’ll let you get some rest.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Yes.” Before he ruined everything by giving into his impulses. “As long as you’re feeling steadier.”

She blinked. Something he couldn’t identify sparked in her eyes. “You never asked your question.”

“It’ll keep,” he assured her, turning the lock.

“Noah.” She rose, walked the few steps to where he stood and put her hand on his forearm.

Her fingers were chilled.

The jolt that arced through his system was red hot.

“You don’t need an excuse to come here, Noah.”

Emotion swamped him. He managed to turn and leave, but once on the sidewalk, he stopped, tipped his head to the sky, and checked the alignment of the stars.

Chapter Five

It wasn’t what he expected.

Noah stood in Isabeau’s doorway, having come up the back steps, as instructed by Clint. Her door was wide open. She was nowhere in sight.

He could see pretty much the entire upper level of the building that housed her bar. It had an open floor plan and wooden floors with a long rag-rug runner that started at his feet and ran down the center of the space. “Isabeau?”

He stepped onto the rug, into her home.

Directly to his left, on the other side of the bar-style counter, was a galley kitchen. The kitchen segued into the dining area, where a long, scarred table sat surrounded by mismatched wooden chairs of varying color. In the center of the table was an oversized vase filled with wildflowers.

An entire wall of bookshelves started just past the kitchen and continued around the end wall to stop opposite him, at a large set of windows. The shelves were covered in books, photos, and whimsical knickknacks. At the far left corner of the room, surrounded by those shelves, was a large, wooden-based bed.

An old brick fireplace occupied the center of the wall to his right. More flowers, red this time, filled the hearth, artistically spilling out into the room. Before the fireplace a brown leather couch with a low back and rolled arms faced a tan fabric couch of modern design. He’d never seen anything quite like it—tan walls and mismatched neutral furniture—tied together with deep, red accents. It was warm, comfortable.

Like Isabeau.

At the far right end of the room, near the windows, a grouping of three theater chairs caught his interest. He started down the rug for a closer look.

“Noah?”

She stood behind him, where he’d just been. Turning around, he faced her, prepared to ask how she’d suddenly appeared.

His brain went soft.

The rest of him went rock hard.

Isabeau was wearing a bikini. Two bright white triangles covered her breasts, attached with a string that tied around her neck and around her back. Large amounts of sun-kissed golden skin lay between her tiny top and her equally tiny bottoms. They weren’t much in the way of bottoms. Slung low on her hips and tied at the sides, he had the feeling that the suit required grooming in an area he probably shouldn’t think about.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” she said, oblivious to her effect on him.

“Clint sent me up.” He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Petite, yet curved in all the right places, she took his breath away. His loins gave a painful lurch, and all he could do was stand there and absorb the shock.

“Does he need something?”

“Ah…” He kept his eyes on her face, away from all that smooth skin. “Who?”

“Clint.”

He cleared his throat. “Right. Clint.” And then because he had to know, he asked, “How can you be darker? The sun’s only been up for—”

“Hours,” she supplied, her eyes bright with amusement. “Of course, with your work schedule as unconventional as mine, perhaps you didn’t know that.”

She smiled at him with an ease she’d never shown around him before. “It’s the Mohican in me,” she explained. “Did it work?”

“Work?”

“To conceal the bruise.”

“I can still see it.”

“Yes, but you know it’s there.”

She turned and studied her arm in the trio of large, decorative mirrors that hung on the wall and his stomach tightened. He was staring again, and suddenly as uncomfortable as a horny teenager. No doubt about it, Isabeau had a great ass.

She was trim, toned, a runner; she jogged past his hotel every morning. He’d never seen the appeal of running without being chased or chasing something. Until now. Her legs, God, her legs were almost as beautiful as her ass. They were long and smooth, and he couldn’t help himself as he traced them all the way to her toes and back again.

“My father is not going to be happy. I’d hoped…”