Forever Rockers (24 page)

Drake rolled his shoulders back, seemingly to try and get his tension to ease. “The man’s right. We’re here to talk about this idiot trying to sue my wife for a ridiculous amount of money for something that wasn’t her fault.” He lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles, his eyes glowing with love for me for just a moment before they turned icy and he looked back at my brother. “I don’t want her to have to go through the media circus that will become our lives if this gets out. So I’m willing to name a price if it will glue your mouth shut and I’ll never have to see the stress on her beautiful face again.”

I frowned, surprised at what Drake was saying. What was he doing? I’d told him I didn’t want to give in, that I wasn’t willing to pay their prices. It wasn’t like it would hurt us very much if I had to, but I kept my mouth closed, trusting my husband to do what was best for us.

For me.

Garon’s eyes narrowed, but I could tell he’d smelled blood. “Let’s hear your offer.”

“My sister has some seriously sick connections in every walk of life, did you know that?” Drake lifted a brow at the other man and I suddenly felt a little sorry for my brother. Just a little. “It just so happens that she has a few people in the movie industry who owe her a favor or three.”

“Who’s your sister?” Claudia asked with a nasty smirk on her beautiful face.

“Emmie Armstrong,” Garon bit out at his mother. Obviously Emmie’s name was pretty powerful in more than just the music world circles.

Had Drake talked to her without telling me?

Claudia’s brows rose toward the ceiling. “Who?”

No one bothered to enlighten her as Drake forced Garon’s attention back on him. “One call and I can make all your business troubles go away. One call and I can have you a contract that will give you all the backing you need.
If
you’re willing to leave Angel alone. Or…” He shrugged, leaning back as if it didn’t really matter to him. “Refuse and it will only take one call to make them a hundred times worse.”

“What a load of nonsense,” Claudia said with a roll of her blue eyes. “There is no way your…sister”—she made the word sound as insulting as possible—“can make such a thing happen. No one has those kind of friends in any business.”

Garon’s face had gone pale. “Shut up, Mother.”

“What?” She was surprised at his shaky tone biting at her. “Oh, come on, Garon. You can’t possibly believe the man. He’s just playing with you.”

“I said, shut up, Mother,” Garon snapped.

Her mouth closed but she was shooting hard glares at everyone around the table.

My brother clenched his hands into fists on top of the table. “Who would she call?”

Drake’s smile was full of secrets as he spoke a name that had everyone in the room except for Neveah drawing in a harsh breath.
Holy shit.
With that particular man’s name hanging in the air around us, everyone knew that what Drake had said was true. If Emmie knew the man as well as Drake claimed, one call from her could make or break my brother’s business. I didn’t for a moment doubt that she did know him. Emmie was just as powerful as any of the gods she prayed to.

Why hadn’t he said something to me sooner? I wanted to be mad, but all I felt right then was an intense feeling of relief. Drake was fixing this for me, protecting me. I wanted to climb onto his lap again, but this time I didn’t want him to hide me away. This time I wanted to kiss every part of his delicious body and tell him how much I loved him. Tell my Demon that he was just as much my angel as I was his.

That would have to wait, however; but, as I sat there watching Garon practically stumbling over himself to accept Drake’s terms, I promised myself that I’d make sure he knew before the end of the day.

I’d definitely have to call Linc now. What I wanted to do to my husband right then would not allow our precious angels to be in the house.

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

Emmie

“You have a two-thirty with Petrova’s lawyers. A four o’clock with two possible new hires, and a Skype scheduled with Annabelle at five.”

I barely lifted my head as Rachel read off all the things that I needed to be in the office for after lunch. There was no way I could get out of sitting down with Vadik Petrova’s lawyers. He owned the biggest record label in the country, and he wanted a sit-down with me to discuss what it would take to get Demon’s Wings to sign with him. If I blew him off, I knew I’d be making an enemy—one I couldn’t afford to have.

“What did you think when you looked over the two possible hires’ resumes?” I asked my assistant. Over the years, Rachel had become indispensable to me. Without her, I knew I’d be lost, especially with the way Annabelle and I were expanding the business.

“One has some potential,” Rachel said after a moment. “The other…” She grimaced and shrugged. “It’s at least worth a sit-down to see what they have to offer off paper, Emmie.”

I nodded and lowered my head back to the piles of work scattered across my desk. “Good. Push my Skype with Annabelle back to six and call Nik to let him know I’ll be working late tonight.”

Feeling Rachel’s eyes boring down on my head, I finally lifted my gaze again. “What?”

“Shouldn’t you call Nik yourself?”

I clenched my jaw. “No. It’s better for everyone involved that I not speak to my husband right now.”

Her eyes widened. “But…”

“Just tell him, Rachel. I’m not really in the right frame of mind to speak to him.” I dismissed her by turning my full attention back to the work at hand and didn’t lift my head again until I’d heard the door shut behind her.

Tossing my pen aside, I leaned back in my chair and turned to look out the window. I hadn’t talked to Nik in over a week. Hadn’t let him in our room, hadn’t let him touch me, hadn’t so much as kissed him. I worked late to avoid him as much as possible. I was still pissed he’d gone behind my back and helped Dallas drug me.

It didn’t matter that I’d slept for ten hours straight after drinking that nasty-ass tea that they had roofied me with. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t remember dreaming or having a single nightmare during that much needed sleep. I’d woken up feeling refreshed, but more pissed off than I could ever remember being in my life.

Tears burned my eyes and I furiously blinked them back. I couldn’t cry right then. I had shit that needed taken care of. Work didn’t stop simply because I was having marital problems. It didn’t stop for anything or anyone.

Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to get back to work and switched off thoughts of Nik and his betrayal.

The day seemed to go by quickly, but at the same time dragged. I ate dinner at my desk after talking to Annabelle over Skype and then finished up the hundred-plus files cluttering up my desk. The next time I looked at the digital clock on my desk, I saw that it was after eight.

Biting back a curse, I started gathering my things. I’d been late getting home every night that week and I needed to tuck Mia in. Avoiding Nik had a few drawbacks. Like missing out on what was going on in my children’s lives. Blowing out a frustrated breath, I grabbed my bag and headed out.

The entire floor was dimly lit at that time of the evening. Rachel and the rest of my employees had gone for the day. I was probably one of the few people still left in the building. Grimacing, I realized I probably should have called Roger to pick me up, but I’d rather have had him with Mia than myself.

The elevator seemed to be taking forever to arrive and I debated taking the stairs, but my feet were killing me and I was getting one hell of a headache. So I stood there, tapping my foot impatiently as I waited.

There was a slight
ping
as the elevator finally arrived and I readjusted my bag on my shoulder. The doors opened and I started to step on, only to have all the air knocked out of me when I realized that someone was already inside. I sucked in a harsh breath when my sixth sense went crazy and I glared up at the only man who could trigger it.

Nik’s hands grasped my shoulders and pushed me out. “Were you going to even come home tonight?” he demanded as he released me, but only long enough to take hold of my hand and pull me down the corridor to my office.

“Where did you think I was going?” I snapped. “I wanted to be home in time to tuck Mia in and kiss Jagger.”

“They’re both spending the night at Jesse’s tonight,” he assured me as he slammed the door to my office and then paused long enough to lock it.

I jerked my hand free and turned to glare up at him, my hands planted firmly on my hips. “Why are you here, Nik?” I’d been avoiding him, but he’d been avoiding me too. Maybe it had been for the best, but it had stung more than a little that he’d gone out of his way to not speak to me, and that he hadn’t even tried to fix things between us like he normally would have after one of our arguments.

He crossed his arms over his hard chest, a mirror of my own furious look on his face. For a split second I couldn’t help but think how sexy that look was on him. And then I realized I was standing there lusting over the man and that just pissed me off even more. “I figured you’ve had enough time to sulk about the sleeping pills. It’s time we had it out, don’t you think?”

“Sulk?” I tossed my bag aside, suddenly more pissed off than I’d ever been with my husband in all the years I’d known him. “You think I’ve been sulking? Feeling betrayed by my husband for drugging me is just sulking? You are such a fucking asshole, Nikolas Armstrong.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I probably am. And if being an asshole gets you to sleep, and wipes away some of those damned dark circles under your eyes, then I’ll continue to be an asshole until my dying day.”

Gods, I wanted to smack his sexy face.

Or kiss him.

No. Smacking him would make me feel better.

But so would kissing him.

Fuck. I hadn’t kissed him in over a week and all I wanted was to wrap my arms around him and hold on.

After I slapped him.

“Emmie, have you slept since the funeral?” I turned away from him—and the inner struggle I was having—and he let out a pained groan. “Damn it, baby girl, don’t you see that you need help?”

“I’m fine,” I muttered and sat down on the edge of my desk. I was exhausted because, honestly, I hadn’t gotten much sleep since Todd Jones’s funeral. The ten hours I’d slept that day had been dreamless—completely devoid of any nightmares. But since then I’d been fighting the damn things even during my waking hours. It was getting to the point that the dreams weren’t just memories, and what had actually happened sometimes felt like an actual dream compared to the way the details seemed to morph.

Mia never getting found. Gabriella dying. The blood…all that fucking blood.

I shivered at just the thought.

“You aren’t fine. You’re making yourself sick. Have you even looked in a mirror lately, Em? You are pale as a damn ghost and I can see your fucking bones. Your bones, baby. And those circles under your eyes make you look like someone has been using you for a punching bag.” He shook his head. “Baby girl, you can’t keep doing this to yourself. Let me help you.”

I wanted to be strong, wanted my tone to tell him I didn’t need anyone’s help. Instead my voice came out as barely a whisper. “I…I don’t need help.”

Nik stepped forward and caught both my hands in his. His ice-blue eyes were full of loving concern as he looked down at me. “Yes, baby girl, you do. This isn’t good for you. It’s not good for any of us.” I shook my head but he was quick to stop me from saying another word. “It’s not good for Mia, Emmie.”

That stopped me. “M-Mia?” I could feel the blood draining from my face. No. No, please no. She was fine. She was safe.

Wasn’t she?

“Yes, Mia. She’s been feeling your anxiety, Em. She hasn’t been getting much sleep either. Whatever you’re feeling, it’s flooding over into her emotions too.”

All the air seemed to be forcibly pushed from my chest and it took me a moment to catch my breath. There was probably nothing he could have said that would have made me take a harder look at what was happening to myself. Nothing but tell me that what I was torturing myself with every second of every day was hurting our daughter.

Fuck. I didn’t want that for her. Couldn’t handle the thought of Mia hurting like I did, of her being scared and anxious because of me. I was the parent. I was supposed to keep those things from touching her. From the second I’d known she was growing under my heart, all I’d ever really wanted was for her to grow up happy, to have the life I’d never had as a kid. I didn’t want her to know about the evils in the world, didn’t want her to see the bad things that other people were capable of.

Yet, there I was, letting her see firsthand how fucked-up the world was. I was showing her exactly what a fuckup I was as a mother.

Tears burned my eyes and suddenly I couldn’t see as they clouded my vision. “I-I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t…” I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”

Strong arms wrapped around me and a small fraction of my stress faded.
Fuck, I missed this.
Nik’s lips pressed against my temple as he pulled me against his chest. A sob caught in my throat and I grabbed on to his shirt, holding on with what little strength I still had. “It’s going to be okay, Emmie. I’m going to help you,” he promised as he rubbed his hands up and down my spine. “I love you so much, baby girl. Let me help you.”

Blindly, I nodded. “Please, Nik. Please. I can’t…Mia doesn’t deserve this. She’s just a baby. She shouldn’t… Gods, I’m so sorry.”

His arms tightened. “You don’t deserve it either, Em. It kills me that I can’t just take your pain away, that you have to live with the nightmares. You are so precious to me, sweetheart. I can’t live without you. Stop making me.”

“You…you and Dallas drugged me,” I whispered brokenly.

“Of course we did. You needed some sleep. I was hoping that when you woke up, you would have a more open mind about talking to a therapist, but it backfired.” He pulled back to look down at me. Lifting a hand, he wiped away a few of my tears and I saw that his eyes were over-bright with his own. The sight of his tears was like a sharp stab to my heart. “I asked Dallas and Axton for help because I wanted to make sure it was safe for you. I never would have done something like that if Dallas had said no. I was just so fucking worried about you. You couldn’t even focus. I’m sorry, baby. If I’d known that it was going to drive a wedge between us like it did, I would have come up with another way to help you sleep.”