Domination (9 page)

Another public appearance, another dismal suit party,
another night hovering in the shadows watching other people enjoy themselves.
Except she couldn’t disappear in the nude gown. To Josie’s surprise the gown’s
color deepened against her skin and matched the tone of her full lips. Even her
hair looked darker and fuller in contrast.

At least that will distract from my little bear eyes,
she thought, fitting in her contact lenses.

There would be no way Bram could fail to notice her tonight.
She brushed out her hair, letting it fall loose, and regarded herself. It was
hard to tell her life was a disaster. Her skin was clear and smooth, cheeks lightly
pink. He would notice but whether he’d care was a different matter. She stuffed
her keycard into her bodice.

The aquarium glowed like an underwater palace, lit with blue
and green. Champagne flutes sparkled on long tables, the ladies’ gowns caught
the light, a girl in a spangled bikini slowly rotated overhead from her perch
on a suspended crescent moon. It would have been magical if it hadn’t been for
the faint sounds of growling and thrashing coming from one of the side
galleries.

Josie picked up a glass and made her way toward the source
of the noise. Considering what was on the screen in the dark little room, the
small group watching looked sophisticated and very much out of place but they
nodded and chatted with each other comfortably. It was one of Domination’s
videos involving cars, flames and a shirtless, angry-looking Bram. She watched
with interest—no, he wasn’t angry. She had seen him performing like this and
that was all it was, performance. It would pass for rock-and-roll passion to
anyone who didn’t know him as well as she did but his eyes were calm. The truly
furious Bram, lit from within by rage, was a different, and terrifying, animal.
He had a trick—she didn’t understand how he did it—of making those strange
black-and-blue eyes catch fire.

Like that. The opening image of the next video so startled
her she took a step back. Even as the scene changed she could still feel those
eyes upon her, full of judgment. Some kind of shadowy monster appeared. Snakes
slithered out from under a majestic bed, meat rotted in time-lapse on a banquet
table, rain sheeted down on a paint-peeling carousel horse. It was creepy,
beautiful and deeply unsettling. Of course it was. They were playing
her
song, the one Trinity had inspired.

“That was number one with a bullet.” A bespectacled suit guy
nudged her. “The video too, and that’s a lost art. We made a truckload of money
on that song. But it’s only going to get bigger.”

“I can’t imagine them topping it,” she said.

“Not them—him.” He pointed into the corner. “When Jet Slade’s
solo album comes out, it’ll make Goddess of the Nightworld look like Mary and
her lambs.”

She followed his pointing finger. It was Jet, beaming under
his soft curls, a spectacular blonde on his arm. He caught her eye and came
toward her.

“Jet! My million-dollar baby!” the suit cried. “Who’s the
stunner?”

“Oh, Inga? Wait for the first video, you’ll see much more if
her, if you know what I mean.”

The suit leered back and drifted away.

“A solo album?” Josie asked. “That’s what tonight is about?”

“That’s right.” He didn’t bother looking sheepish. “Mostly.
Cut my own deal while Bram works out the kinks in our next one. Idle hands and
all that.”

“Does Bram know?”

“None of his business, is the way I see it.”

“Wow. Looking out for number one.”

Jet shrugged. “One must.”

“And this girl thinks she’s going to be a star?” Feeling bad
for a Swedish supermodel was a new experience for Josie.

“Her or another. What’s the difference? Gotta have birds
hanging all over the star or no one will buy the act.”

“That’s just what it is—an act. How can you do this? It’s
the worst kind of hypocrisy.”

“Ssh! Not a word about that. I had to finesse a thousand
situations and massage a lot of fat egos to get this. Neither your blog nor
your Adventures in Being a Big-Mouth Slag are going to ruin it for me. Do you
hear?”

“Is that a threat?”

He glanced over his shoulder at the industry players
crowding a platter of king crab legs.

“You can’t even dream about the kind of money they have
backing Jet Slade solo. Hell yes, it’s a threat.”

He left her openmouthed and trembling while Bram continued
to spit fury on the screen behind her head.

So she had been wrong about Jet—he had been keeping her
close to buy her silence, not out of motherly affection. She had been right
about one thing though. Men noticed her, some of the women too. Looks of
admiration, envy and query were cast her way as she winded through the crowd,
unsettled. What was the point of wearing the nude gown if Bram wasn’t around to
see it?

Finally she spotted him, black shirt open on his magnificent
chest, hair artily mussed, long, tautly muscled legs washed with undulating
light from a tank of smoothly gliding manta rays. He nodded solemnly at
something a guy in a baseball cap was saying, Trinity beside him looking bored
witless.

I knew she’d wear red,
thought Josie. Though she didn’t
know they made fabric that could cover someone from chest to toe and still
reveal more than it concealed.
She looks like a vampire. She
is
a
vampire.
They looked like the perfect couple—rock-and-roll royalty. Except
for one thing. Funny, but even though Trinity was hanging around with the
persistence of a gnat, Bram didn’t seem to acknowledge her. She wasn’t drooping
from his arm like Jet’s blonde or making proprietary moves. Maybe he was
counting on her very presence to scare away the competition.

She sure scares the shit out of me.

“Do I know you?” A balding fellow in shiny shoes poked a
finger at her.

“I don’t think so.” Josie tried to move away.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re the Rock Slut.”

Her face flamed.

“No offense. That stunt was great for us—kindled interest in
Domination and got a lot of panties wet. All those little girls wondering if it
was true what they say about Bram Hunter filled up their fantasy tanks. I mean,
look at you!” He beamed. “That’s the best part, see? There’s hope out there for
anyone.”

“Fuck you,” she said, suddenly exhausted. “No offense.”

“Hey, simmer your tits. Your secret’s safe with me. Eighteen
years in this business—I know damn well it wasn’t a publicity stunt. Bucky
Croft is good but he ain’t that good.”

“You have something on your, uh…”

When the man looked down Josie made her escape. The huge
space gave her more room to melt into the crowd anonymously than the wax museum
party had but she couldn’t avoid Kraxis when he stopped her, laying a meaty paw
on one shoulder.

“Chin up, girlie. Shame about quittin’ that blog, but. It
were the most innerestin’ thing about ye, until ye put on that dress, that is.”
He gave her another pat and she reeled away.

A mike tap startled her. Some people had gathered on a small
riser, a smug-looking Jet and his blonde bombshell among them. The mike
squealed and someone called for attention.

Time for the solo album announcement, she supposed. Better
paste on a smile and get her clapping hands ready. If there were such a thing
as karma it would come back to bite him on the ass anyway.

“Ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, the Atomic Records
family welcomes you. As you all may know…”

The speaker was obviously going to be as boring as most
speakers and take twice as long as he needed to get to the point. Just
introducing everyone slated to make a profit from Jet’s deal was so dull she
was swaying on her feet.

She turned away and saw Bram and Bucky speaking quietly. How
had she gone from ecstasy to misery so quickly? Even now, through all the anger
and pain, the sensation that rose through her body was pure desire. She wanted
him. She would never stop wanting him.

He caught her looking and held her stare. Something electric
passed between them.
He wants me too. You can salvage this before it’s too
late. Talk to him. There’s hope for anyone, remember?
she recalled grimly.
Even
mousy little me.

She took a step forward and her field of vision turned red.
Trinity stood before her, glass of champagne in hand, eyes blazing.

“Quit hanging around Bram.”

“I’m a journalist and it’s my job to hang around. And I don’t
take orders from groupies. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

Trinity didn’t budge. “Groupies? Nice try, mouseburger. I
just happen to be his fiancée.”

Conveniently for anyone who tried to outrun a shattered
heart by escaping from a city with an airline hub, there was always a flight
available. Josie wanted to be gone before anyone noticed—fewer questions to
avoid, fewer witnesses to her tears—so she fled the gala, stuffed her things in
the duffel and headed straight to the Atlanta airport.

Two hours until the next flight home. She sipped her coffee
and tried to read the stale news in another city’s newspaper, which always felt
weird. Then again, being stranded in the no man’s land of an international
airport in a full-length gown, running away from an affair with a smoking-hot
rock god, heart broken in a thousand places—it all felt pretty weird.

What she was going back to, she had no idea. Her job had
been hanging by a thread as it was and now she’d fled the tour, handing Warren
reason to fire her on a silver platter.

Let him.
The business was a snake pit of lies,
intrigue, backbiting and fakery fueled by ego and unseemly amounts of money,
and she wanted no part of it. Not anymore.

She had glimpsed the life she did want and that left her
hungry for more. Bram had pulled aside the curtain and let her see the
glittering world beyond, one in which she could be herself, explore her sexual
needs, worship and be worshiped by someone who understood her completely. He
touched her with surprising tenderness but appreciated her feisty side. It
turned him on to see her tussling and spitting venom, knowing every second that
this was a fight she desperately wanted to lose. The red marks where the lash
had stung her still burned bright against her thighs and breasts. When they
faded, so would the reality that for a shining moment she was his girl.

Had she been stupid enough to believe it? And yet he had trusted
her, opened his heart a crack after sealing it shut. If only he could
understand that she never betrayed him. She had only been trying to protect him
by not handing over his private notebooks.

If I could turn back the clock, even to when we were sitting
at the bar, and tell him that…
But she couldn’t. Bram didn’t need to know
she had been asked to spy and compromise him. It was too filthy and sordid,
while what they had—whips, cuffs, fights and all—was pure.

It was Warren who did all this, Warren and whoever had
hacked into her laptop in the first place. Someone had been sabotaging her
since the day she joined the tour, starting with the almost-missed bus from
Austin. Who disliked her that much? Who was always skulking off, making phone
calls and refusing to come out and play with the rest of them?

Varian. He’d been a dick from day one and hadn’t said a word
to her since, just picked at the chipping black polish on his nails, glared and
slept through bus trips.
Varian, that mopey bastard, if I get my hands on
him…

“Hey.”

Varian, the mopey bastard himself, towering over her in his
black leather duster. Had she conjured him up with her rage?

“You. Haven’t you done enough?”

He shook his head and slumped into a hard plastic chair next
to her.

“More than enough. I’m tired and sick and I can’t live like
this anymore.”

He sure sounded tired and sick. She had never seen a paler
person. His skin looked so thin it was almost blue. Josie was appalled but
curious. “Live like what?”

“Haven’t been around us much, have you? Maybe you have but
didn’t notice. We’re good liars—the best. Lie to ourselves mostly but it doesn’t
matter who gets flattened under the steamroller, long as we get what we want.

“You think you’re so different, so special, your star shines
brighter than those junkies in the gutter.” He spoke softly, as if to himself. “But
at the end of the day you are them and they are you. Junkies, addicts, drunks
are all the same. The gutter’s wherever you are, because everything you touch
turns to shit.”

“I’m not sure I’m the one—”

“I saw you leave the hotel so I followed. If you’re going to
L.A., I want to come too. I have to get into rehab or I’m going to die.”

“Why are you coming to me for help?”

He coughed alarmingly into his hand. “You’re the only normal
person I know.”

She had absorbed Varian’s rabid partying as part of the rock-star
lifestyle, never thinking he could be out of control—that any of them could be.
He managed to keep it together onstage, play guitar, show up for photo shoots.
Who knew he was a black hole of need inside?

And yet he’d found the energy to mess with her.

“You don’t know me. You did everything possible to sabotage
me. First changing my address so I never got Bucky’s message about the bus in
Texas.”

“I never. Why would I do that? You think an addict takes
note of anything outside himself? I’m the most selfish motherfucker alive.”

“But Jet said, after the band meeting in Austin…”

He let out a hollow laugh. “Dunno about that. I had a dealer
waiting so I could load up for the road.”

“And hacking into my computer. Someone had to get into my
room to do that. You weren’t there the night we all went out in New Orleans.”

“Somewhere on the east side of town in a gutter, my home
away from home. Someone did these things? Who told you?”

“Well, Jet—” She closed her mouth. Shit. Who had told her
Varian hung around after the band meeting? Who had broken into her room with
ease? Who resented her place among the band of brothers because he had to fight
so hard to keep his own? If Varian had a motive it would be that he was just an
asshole. And he didn’t seem like an asshole—he seemed like a desperate, ill,
fundamentally lonely guy.

Jet, on the other hand, had a motive. As well as means and
enough selfish ambition to fuel a rocket.

Varian had taken the coffee from her hand but she hadn’t
noticed. He sipped it and made a face. “Jet, yeah. I do know he made a phone
call telling someone to come join us. Overheard him while I was being sick one
day. I think it was in Baton Rouge but can’t be sure.”

“To who?” She could guess and the thought turned her
stomach.

“You know how vampires need to be invited in?”

“Trinity.”

Varian let his head tip back. The harsh lights above made
flat discs of his eyes. “Thank your little friend for resurrecting the
she-monster. I doubt she’ll last any longer than the last time she clawed her
way out of the grave but it keeps our name in the press for a bit. Long enough
for me to do my stint and get clean.”

She remembered the studio where the song had been recorded.
Bram had met the love of his life in New Orleans and gone back to be with her.
Of course Jet must have gotten the idea as they pulled into Louisiana,
wondering what mischief he could stir up to unseat Josie. And he figured out he
had a nuclear bomb in his pocket that would take a single phone call to
detonate.

“That little shit!”

“You’ve been believing the wrong people. There’s no trusting
Jet Slade.”

“It’s too late to do anything about it now that they’re
engaged.”

“Told you, check your sources. Bram doesn’t want to marry Dracula’s
daughter.”

Duh.
It had been Trinity herself who’d told her.
Varian might be a junkie and a mess but he had her pegged—she’d believed the
wrong people all along. Still, she’d let it get this far…

“I can’t go to him. He hates me.”

“Let me see your ticket.” He scrutinized it, sweat popping
on his brow even in the air-conditioned waiting area. “Hour and forty. Time
enough to get you off the flight and me on it.”

“I told you, he—”

“Cares enough to hate you and that’s saying something.”