Rock Dirty (Rock Candy #2) (10 page)

When I remained silent, Hermes stood, wiped his mouth and hands with his cloth napkin, then softly kissed my cheek. “I’ll tell your mother you’re pleased she’s coming. And speaking of you almost being twenty-seven, I’ve set up a celebratory party for you at Jules Verne, and have invited the best of the best. It all came together after the disaster of your opening night. I figured it would help put things back on track. Plus, it’s your birthday. A true reason to celebrate.”

I stared at Hermes. His voice had softened and he seemed to be looking at me with true affection. I had to admit it felt nice that he’d gone to the trouble of organizing a party for me. That he was trying to help me in spite of everything. “That’s very nice of you, Hermes. Thank you.”

He nodded. Then, continuing to surprise me, he softly kissed my cheek. “I’ll text you the details. In the meantime, stay out of trouble, okay?”

* * *

After Hermes left, I took a long shower and brushed out my mop of red hair that tended to get frizzy after long nights out. I brushed my teeth three times and guzzled mouth wash. Then I got to work.

Call me a fool, but Hermes’ news that my mom was coming to see my show to support me had filled me with pleasure and a resolve that this time I wouldn’t let her down. I’d prove to her that I have what it takes to be a success in my own right. I went to work with my team, happy with the progress they’d made. That afternoon, I delivered some shoes that were set to be highlighted in another designer’s show. The retro ‘80s theme complete with neon colors complimented the architectural platforms I’d designed. They highlighted the pinks and greens of the tulle skirts phenomenally and gave it all a surreal funky feeling.

I loved it, and I couldn’t wait to tell Tucker.

I was enjoying talking to some fellow designers at the after-party when I excused myself to find a bathroom. That’s when I overheard Francois LeBeau, the head editor of one of Paris’s premiere fashion magazines, speaking with a group in a corner. The words he uttered cut into my heart and soul as cleanly as a samurai blade:

“Jean-Michael has put on another miraculous show, except for using shoes from Nikki Lorenz. Everyone humored her for a while about her designs because who wanted Anna’s wrath? But, really, there’s no need for designers to throw themselves on a pyre like this. It’s completely ridiculous. She’s a hack, and if the community weren’t so scared of Anna’s ire, they’d admit it too.”

I backed away from the palm fronds separating me from LeBeau and his cronies. Most of them were hangers-on and sycophants, but LeBeau was very well-regarded not just in Paris but throughout the world. If he felt my designs sucked and all the extremes were awful—things I sometimes worried about too—then maybe they did.

Hurrying out of the after-party and out into the street, I didn’t even have a plan. All I did was keep walking. Eventually, through the cold and frustration, I found myself on the Pont Neuf. I tried to remember my time with Tucker. His words. How wonderful it had felt being with him. Instead, what shoved itself into my brain most was how I’d stood on the railing of Claude’s balcony. How scared and reckless I’d felt. How relieved and grounded I’d felt afterward.

I didn’t want to be scared anymore. I didn’t want to be reckless.

But I did want to feel centered and at peace.

CHAPTER NINE

Tucker

I spent the day after
Sacre Bleu
in my hotel room, sleeping and recovering from my night out with Nikki, and trying not to feel pissed that she’d snuck out on me this morning and I hadn’t heard word from her since. I knew she had things to do. Work to attend to. And me being pissed at her for doing that made me worse than a clingy chick.

What was wrong with me? I’ve been known to love and leave more than my fair share of women. Since when did a woman’s independence bother me rather than relieve me? So she’d left without sharing breakfast with me. So what?

I should just be happy that Nik and I had the kind of night that would make anyone jealous. But the fact was, I wasn’t.

Shit. One day after telling her we were about fun and nothing else, it suddenly dawned on me why I was feeling so out of sorts with her for sneaking off. I
did
want more with Nikki. At the very least, I wanted more than just being ding-dong ditched come morning. No, that didn’t mean I was ready for long term, or for wandering the world for the rest of my life with one girl the way Liam was with Abby.

Fuck, Nikki and Abby couldn’t be less alike.

Yet…

There was something bubbling up between us and, as nuts as it was after just a few days, especially for someone like me, I wanted her to feel like she could wake in my arms and not be weird about it. I wanted her to be the first face I saw in the morning, at least on nights when we slept together. No, I wasn’t talking exclusivity or moving in, not yet, but I just didn’t want to wake up to an empty bed either. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

Maybe it was because I obviously had my own pride to deal with. I could have texted her at any point today and I hadn’t. All because I wanted her to need me too. Pissed at both of us and supremely confused, I grabbed lunch and headed out, hoping the fresh air would clear my head. Soon, I found myself heading toward Pont Neuf. It made sense I’d be drawn there since I’d been there with Nikki. The girl had an impressive ability to haunt my mind, no doubt.

But was haunting what I needed?

Maybe this was all too much for the both of us. Bad timing given Nikki’s responsibilities with her career and my worries about mine. Maybe I should head back home to LA, and stop whining, even if it was in my own head, about what Liam was doing to Point Break. Hell, there were four of us in the band. Even if Liam ended up leaving, there were avenues to explore and organize. What was the alternative? Just letting it all go?

No way in hell.

For a moment, as I contemplated it, it was what I wanted to do. Go back to LA, where things were simple, at least when it came to where my head was with women. Because let’s face it. This thing with Nikki and me wasn’t bad timing just because of her business responsibilities. She was clearly dealing with hardcore shit. With her slapping that photographer and harboring some serious resentment for her mom, there was train wreck written all over her, and that wasn’t my problem. I was drawn to her, and I liked her, but I had my own band in tatters to think about and a life back in the States.

I’d go to her show first, of course, but then I should go back home. If she were interested in things after that, then she could always track me down. Maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe, like me, she’d rethink the wisdom of the two of us hanging out together. Last night had been a blast, but it had been relatively mild on the party hard scale. I was no one’s saint, and two sinners thrown together would and could create Chernobyl levels of mess and confusion.

But man, with Nikki, images of burning and exploding were a fucking temptation as much as a warning sign.

It was probably a sign of how obsessed I was with Nikki that as I walked on the bridge, I thought I saw her. There, a woman with wild red hair, standing on the fucking wall. The only thing keeping her from plummeting into the water below was her balance. At first, I was sure it was some kind of hallucination. That it wasn’t possible.

Then the woman turned and looked at me, and I’d have known those bright, desperate eyes anywhere.

It
was
Nikki.

Shit, she was going to fall! I sprinted toward her, summoning speed I almost only used to run from screaming fans when cornered in hotels or venue alleys. Reaching up, I yanked her down into my arms, confused as fuck when she pulled against me, as if she wanted to be up there, just dangling above the Seine.

How nuts was she?

“What are you doing?” Nikki snapped, finally breaking free of my grasp but simply backing away instead of trying to hop back onto the railing again.

I wasn’t sure if my heart could have taken the stress if she had.

“What am I doing?” I barked back. I’d just saved her from hospital bills and a lot of broken bones if she’d hit the water at the wrong angle. Why was she so mad? She should be thanking me. If she’d nosedived, then it would have ruined her chances with her show and so much more. “You’re the one trying to jump off a bridge. What the hell, Nikki?”

She stilled then but her eyes continued to bore into mine. Maybe that was another reason I was so attracted to her. I was used to women who kowtowed to my every wish, ones who just wanted to giggle at the right moments and please me, whatever the fuck that meant. The groupies who wanted just one more night of backstage passes never challenged me. With Nik, I had to work to break through her walls.

“I wasn’t jumping. I just like to stand and balance on ledges sometimes.”

“Okay,” I said lamely, even though it was
so
not okay. My heart was pounding and the adrenaline would be pouring through me for hours to come. When I tried to go to sleep tonight, I’m sure I’d still see Nikki precariously balanced on the railing of a fucking bridge. Fuck, what would have happened if I hadn’t come by? If she’d lost her balance? I just didn’t want to go there even if my mind was playing everything out in 3D.

Nikki crossed her arms over her chest. “I was a gymnast as a little kid, until I was about nine or ten. I feel better when I balance. I get on the edge of things and it literally changes how I think; it makes me feel stronger and more confident.”

“And what if you’d slipped?”

“I wasn’t going to slip.”

I started to pace. My fingers twitched, and I was jonesing for a cigarette too. That would have to come later. Right now? Right now I just needed Nikki to understand she meant a lot to me, and that playing games like that on the damn Pont Neuf was dangerous. Maybe that bitch Anna Lorenz wouldn’t care if her only daughter was hurt in an accidental fall, but I sure would. “I don’t understand why you’d do this. Is this because of the pressure from your show?”

She blinked. “No, of course not. I’ve had shows before. Yeah, I know this is my biggest one yet, believe me I know that, but I’m not suicidal. I’m not some crazy bridge jumper. I just needed a minute to think. I wanted to feel like I could really let go. Before you showed up and with the wind through my hair, I
did
feel like that, totally.”

“I was keeping you from a back brace,” I countered. “I just don’t buy it. You say this is your shot at having freedom or feeling better, but you were risking your life up there, Nikki. Nothing, not your show, certainly not the fact your birthday is coming up, is a reason to risk your life!”

She stiffened, and I knew I’d hit a nerve with her, gotten through at least some of her walls. Her shoulders slumped and the bravado faded from her face. “I—I know that. It’s just, it helps me think.”

“And?”

“And, okay, I do feel more pressure than ever. I wasn’t going to just jump and hurt myself, but I was upset and I couldn’t figure out a release.”

“Why were you upset?”

She blinked rapidly. “I loaned some of my shoes to a designer to be featured in his show. And…”

“And what?”

“Some asshole editor hated my collection, said that it’d be better if the designers stopped humoring me in some backwards bid to please my mom. He said I had no talent, and earlier, Hermes told me my mom was coming to Paris to support me, and she’s never showed up at one of my shows before.”

“Never?”

She shook her head, looking for all the world like a vulnerable, scared little girl.

Fuck her mother, I thought.

“God, Tucker. I’m more than halfway through my twenties, and I’m trying desperately to be more than a laughing stock. I don’t even know if I’m doing that right or not.”

“You are doing that. You’re amazing, Nikki.”

“Well tell that to Francois LeBeau.”

“Francois LeBeau can fuck off,” I answered, cupping her chin with my hands. “So some snot-nosed ass editor
was being catty. He’s probably jealous because your shoes are cool and they look like art. I mean, I don’t know how someone walks in them but heels were never my style. You don’t need everyone’s approval. You can’t have it. No one can.”

“No, but I need to succeed. I’m not a kid anymore and I’m so sick of being Dominique the Disaster!”

“It’s going to be okay,” I offered, wrapping my arm around her shoulders and pulling her in closer to me. “Look, let’s go to your place and pick up a few things. Or is Hermes still there? Was he waiting for you this morning?”

She swallowed hard, and looked back at her hands. “He’s mother’s lapdog and her channel to directly spy on me. He has a key and he apparently thinks he can come and go as he pleases.”

“Then come stay with me.”

Her head snapped up. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Are you sure? I don’t need to be saved. Contrary to what I said at the airport and what just happened, you’re not riding in here like some white knight.”

I snorted because the idea was ridiculous. I was far more the devil on someone’s shoulder than the angel, that was for sure. “I’m not trying to save you, just help you. We’ll grab your stuff and we’ll hang at my place. It’ll be alright. You’ll have me there, and if that’s not enough, then hey, there’s room service. You can’t beat that.”