Staged Read online

  “You’d rather our sales be that shitty than admit Sam Baily is toxic and a crook and has no one’s interest at heart but his own?”

  “Exactly,” Max said.

  Man, Max sure did not like to eat crow.

  “I guess we’ll find out in that audit,” Steve said, knowing better than to pick a fight with Max. It didn’t get either one of them anywhere.

  “Right. Have fun in Boston, or wherever you end up, and tell Zach I said hey.”

  How did he know he was with Zach? Probably because Steve was always with Zach. “Will do. Keep me posted. I should be home within the next couple of days.”

  After he hung up, he turned to Zach. “Did you hear that?”

  Zach grinned. “Sam’s really done it this time. He touched Max’s money.”

  “Nobody fucks with Max’s money.”

  “And you can finally tell Max you told him so.”

  Delight shuddered through Steve’s body. “You have no idea how good that will feel.”

  “A hell of a lot better than being fucked with a rusty-nail bat.”

  “Unless you’re into that kind of thing.”

  Zach cocked his head to one side, bangs sliding to cover one eye. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “Actually, no, I would not.”

  Their pilot’s seductive voice came over the intercom. “We’ve been cleared for takeoff,” Jordan said. “That means turn off your phone, Steven.”

  He would never tire of listening to that gorgeous British accent of hers.

  Steve took a few seconds to send a text to Roux before shutting off his phone, and then he settled back in his seat for the short flight to Boston.

  Eleven

  Several pairs of hands reached for Roux’s phone when a text came through a little before nine. Sage had the fastest fingers.

  “Is it from him?” Azura asked, looking over Sage’s shoulder.

  “Yep,” Sage said, her gaze lifting to Roux’s.

  Roux shrugged as if she didn’t care that he’d finally had the decency to text her back, but her heart had started hammering the moment the text tone had sounded.

  “Well?” Mama Ramona said from the doorway between the kitchen and the enormous dining room where they were playing a rousing game of Monopoly. “What does it say?”

  “See you soon,” Sage read.

  “He’s coming here?” Iona said, eyes wide.

  “I told you he would,” Raven said, elbowing Roux in the arm.

  “Isn’t anyone else concerned that he’s a stalker?” asked Mitzi, who had somehow become a high school senior when Roux hadn’t been paying attention.

  “He can stalk me any day,” Azura said.

  “He’s not a stalker,” Sage said, clasping her hands under her chin and fluttering her eyelashes. “He’s in love.”

  Roux rolled her eyes. “We scarcely know each other.”

  “I think that’s about to change,” Iona said. “It’s really going to suck when you have to dump him before the tour starts.”

  Iona’s stare was hard and could easily be mistaken for a warning. It wasn’t a warning, was it?

  “Puh,” Mama said, setting down the refilled bowl of chips and reclaiming her spot in front of a huge collection of Monopoly property cards. “A tour lasts but a few months. Love can last a lifetime. True love lasts even beyond death.”

  “Mama!” Roux said. “We scarcely know each other.”

  The endearing yet mischievous grin they knew so well spread across Mama’s aging face. “I think that’s about to change.” She copied Iona’s sentiment and punctuated it with a saucy wink.

  “Well, maybe I don’t want to see him,” Roux said.

  Everyone—from seven-year-old Margaret all the way up to the septuagenarian that headed their patchwork family—laughed until they were breathless. Roux wished this cat had never left the bag. Her family could be merciless when it came to teasing one of their own.

  On her next trip around the board, Roux landed on one of Mama’s hotels and went bankrupt, which gave her the out she was looking for. “I’m pretty tired after that long drive today anyway,” she said. “I think I’ll turn in early.”

  “I guess Steve is mine, then,” Azura said. “He’s the kind of guy who needs someone who knows how to party.”

  “This is why he likes our Roux so,” Mama said knowledgeably—as if she’d met the guy and knew how he ticked. “She is good and pure inside and out. I never have to worry she will get into trouble. A man wants that when he is ready to settle down.”

  Azura scowled. “We can’t all be goody-goody. Besides, I don’t think settling down is what Aimes has in mind, Mama. Here, let me show you a picture of him.” She opened up a screen on her phone and began searching online.

  “Good night,” Roux said loudly, getting a few mumbled responses from the girls and women crowding around Azura’s phone.

  “Oh,” Mama said, a hand fluttering over her chest. “This one is trouble.”

  “Which is why I didn’t call him until you all talked me into it. Now he’s coming here and . . .” She couldn’t freaking wait to see him. Ugh! Why? He was trouble. She shouldn’t court trouble, but damn, she wanted trouble to court her. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Me too,” Raven said. “Good night.”

  Everyone was still ogling online pictures of Steve when Raven followed Roux out of the dining room and slid shut the ten-foot-tall wooden pocket doors behind them.

  “Let’s get you ready.” Raven grabbed Roux by the wrist and tugged her up several flights of stairs to the room they’d shared as teens. It was still decorated with Raven’s death metal posters and Roux’s colorful daisies. The house had eight bedrooms, so Mama said this one would always be waiting for them whenever they needed to come home. As an orphan, Roux needed that stability. Mama had recognized that need before Roux had. She’d never met a better, more selfless, understanding person than their mama.

  Raven threw open their closet. “Something sexy, but not too obvious,” she said, sorting through a rack of clothes they’d left behind. They could wear the same size tops, so there was a large collection to choose from. Raven had more ass and shorter legs than Roux, so they could also share skirts and dresses, but not pants.

  “I’m not dressing up for him,” Roux said.

  “Yes, you are,” Raven said. “He’s going to all this trouble to see you. The least you can do is make him realize with a single glance that the effort was worth making.”

  “Do you really think he’s coming here?” Her belly quivered from nerves or excitement, she wasn’t sure which. Maybe both.

  “For sure. Why didn’t you call him sooner, you damned idiot?”

  “He’s only interested in one thing, and though I’m interested in that too, sex with the hottest guy on Earth isn’t enough of a motivator for me to put our careers at risk.”

  “First of all, yeah, it is.” Raven gave her a pointed look before shoving a black T-shirt into her side of the closet and pulling out a black sweater. Raven’s entire wardrobe was black. “Second, do you really think all he wants is sex? I don’t think the man has a hard time getting laid.”

  Which did not make her feel any less nervous. She was no virgin, but she wouldn’t call herself overly experienced either.

  “He obviously sees something special in you,” Raven continued, shoving the black sweater back into the closet and pulling out a black button-down shirt. “You just have to let it sparkle.” Raven held the shirt up to Roux’s chest, her head titled to one side. Her eyes lifted to meet Roux’s. “You do like him, don’t you?”

  “I think so.” Her hands clenched, and she squeezed her eyes shut. “Yes. I do. I don’t want to, but I really do.”

  “He’s scorching hot.”

  He was, but that wasn’t what had her out of her head. “I don’t think he lets many people get close to him, so he let me see parts of him that many don’t get to see—”

  “Such as his dick?”

&nb
sp; Roux swatted at her. “In the short time we were together, he made me feel like I could be someone special to him. I know that sounds stupid.”

  Raven grinned. “I think it’s cute. Take off that sweatshirt,” she said. “And consider burning it. It makes you look frumpy.”

  “I love this sweatshirt.” She’d had it for at least ten years, and it still chased away the chill that often permeated the bricks of the big old brownstone. Roux took off the ratty blue garment, but she dropped it on the end of her bed rather than setting it ablaze.

  “Ugh! Not that bra.” Raven closed one eye, lifted a blocking hand, and turned her face away from the sight of Roux’s less than sexy underclothes. “I suppose your panties are equally granny.”

  “White cotton,” Roux admitted. “He’s not going to see them anyway.”

  “Just in case.” Raven hurried to Roux’s old dresser to sift through her underwear drawer. “Have you shaved recently?”

  Roux snorted. “You really think I’m going to get laid, don’t you?”

  “Not think,” Raven said, removing a rather skimpy black bra and panty set from Roux’s I-never-actually-wear-these drawer. “Hope.”

  Well, Raven could just keep on hoping, because Steve was going to get the “we can be friends talk” if he did show up. And Roux couldn’t understand why he actually would. Or how. She supposed millionaire rock stars had resources unavailable to her.

  Raven was putting the final touches on Roux’s makeup when the doorbell rang a little before eleven. Roux tried to sit still so a wayward mascara wand didn’t jab her in the eyeball, and she forced herself to consider how rude it was to show up at someone’s house at this hour, but her entire body was bursting with excitement and anticipation.

  “Now aren’t you glad you’re going to greet him like this”—Raven waved a hand down the front of Roux’s body like a game show hostess showing off a top prize—“instead of wearing a rag of a sweatshirt and no makeup, and with bed hair?”

  Roux hopped off the chair she’d been sitting on for the past half hour, gave Raven a quick hug, and said, “I love you forever no matter what.” She rushed to the bedroom door, yet once there, she took a deep breath, then another, to settle her suddenly jumbled nerves before turning the knob.

  In the foyer several flights down, Mama was speaking in her teacher voice—loudly and very pronounced. “It’s a little late, don’t you think?”

  Roux couldn’t help but grin. Mama would never let him get away with inappropriate behavior. She wouldn’t care who he was.

  “Truly sorry about that, ma’am,” an unfamiliar male voice said.

  Roux’s elation took a tumble down the stairs. Steve had gotten her hopes up for nothing. The jerk. He must be pissed at her for not calling, and this was his revenge for her cowardice, which he probably thought was a slight. She had to admit that from his perspective, her lack of contact would seem that way.

  She turned back toward the bedroom, and Raven must’ve read the disappointment on her face, because she gave her a sad look of pity. Her sister had gone to all that trouble to make her look presentable for nothing.

  “Can I at least tell her good night?” Steve’s voice carried up the stairwell, and Roux froze. “I’ll come back in the morning like a civilized human being.”

  “Let me see if Roux’s up for company,” Mama said, her voice stern. “You two wait right there.”

  Roux gave Raven another quick hug, wondering why there were two guys in the foyer asking to see her—she’d never felt so popular—and forced herself not to race down the stairs like one of the Brady Bunch. For one thing, she’d break an ankle in the shoes Raven had talked her into wearing. For another, she didn’t want to seem too eager.

  Cool, calm, collected, she repeated to herself as she slowly navigated the stairs. She met Mama on the second-floor landing.

  “You have a visitor,” Mama said loudly enough so that Steve and whoever was with him were sure to overhear. “Would you like me to send him away?” Mama winked.

  “It is pretty late,” Roux said, squeezing Mama’s elbow and working hard to keep the excitement out of her tone. “Who is it? Is it important?”

  “I’m not sure. Some man from California. Says his name is Zach.”

  Zach Mercier was here! Holy fuck noodles. Roux loved Twisted Element. She licked her lips and smoothed her palms over her fitted blouse. “I don’t know any Zach.”

  “It’s Steve,” he called up the stairwell. “Don’t make me come up there and get you.”

  Mama covered her mouth to lock a laugh inside. Roux figured they’d teased him enough and moved to the railing to look down into the foyer.

  “Oh, hey, Steve,” she said, her hair swinging forward to brush against her face. She pushed it back impatiently. “What are you doing here?”

  He didn’t respond. He just stared up at her as if a miracle were unfolding before his eyes. Had he always been this gorgeous? His dark eyes this mesmerizing? His jawline that strong? His hair that touchable? Lips that kissable? Throat that lickable? The butterflies flitting around in her belly kept her from shifting her gaze any lower. She tried swallowing them down, but that only made them spread, until even her fingertips and toes were tingling. What in the world was wrong with her? Was she having a damned stroke?

  “I’ll be right down,” she said, stepping away from the railing and giving herself a mental and physical shake. She had not expected the silly crush of hers to intensify in his absence.

  Mama squeezed her arm. “It was the same for me when I found Emilio. The rush. The yearning.” Emilio was the husband Mama had lost long ago but still loved to this day. “Don’t keep him waiting.”

  Roux had always wanted to experience such a heady romance, but the very idea of finding it with Steve Aimes was terrifying. She’d have to wait for another once-in-a-lifetime attraction to come along; how rare could it be?

  She used the handrail to descend the stairs, not trusting her stupidly trembling knees to keep her on her feet. He stood at the foot of the stairs—Zach background noise behind him—and watched her, never once taking his eyes from hers. That was probably why she forgot that the bottommost step was ever so slightly higher than all the others and therefore ended up pitching forward when her foot hit the foyer floor.

  Steve’s hands shot out to steady her, but instead of helping her regain her footing, he pulled her body against his and tilted his face into her hair.

  “Did you do that on purpose?” he murmured to her.

  “What? Trip and make an ass of myself?” No, but now that she was pressed against the heat of his hard body, she was glad for her lapse of grace.

  “No. Make the whole world stop so you could walk down those stairs.”

  An amused huff escaped her, and she leaned back slightly to look into his eyes. Her clever retort died on her tongue as she got lost in the warm brown of his gaze.

  “Kiss him!” a young voice squealed from somewhere above.

  “Yes, please put him out of his misery,” Zach grumbled from near the front door.

  “Caroline, to bed!” Mama said sharply. The scampering of several sets of feet was punctuated by copious giggling and then by two doors shutting.

  Roux wanted to kiss him, but there was an awkwardness between them that she was sure was the result of too many prying eyes.

  “So what brings you to Boston?” she asked, finding the mental facility, or perhaps stupidity, to stand on her own and put some space between them. His hands shifted to her lower back, not letting her get away.

  “You have to ask? I’m a huge White Sox fan.”

  Roux grinned at him. “Our team is the Red Sox.”

  “You’re all the red I want to see in Boston.”

  A strangled gagging sound came from near the door, and Roux peered around the fine specimen in front of her to find Zach Mercier trying to choke himself to death. His hair was shorn short except for a long section at the top tied back into a short ponytail that bounced theatrically wit
h the motion. Roux laughed.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your famous friend?” Roux asked, her gaze shifting back to Steve’s face. He was still staring at her in that way that made her feel all tingly inside.

  Steve blinked and then twisted to look behind himself. He waved at Zach. “That’s the cab driver. He needs to wait outside.”

  “I told you that you wouldn’t need a third wheel when you got here.”

  Zach approached Roux with an extended hand. When Roux accepted it for a friendly shake and Zach brought it to his lips instead, he earned a well-placed elbow in the ribs from Steve.

  “I’m Zach, and you must be the gorgeous redhead who has my friend here making a complete ass of himself. You think you know a guy.”

  “Roux,” she said, sliding her hand free of his and for some strange reason resting it on Steve’s hip.

  Footsteps descended the staircase behind her, and knowing Mama Ramona’s familiar gait from years and years of her walking each floor to check on her girls after they were all supposed to be asleep, Roux stepped out of Steve’s arms and turned. She didn’t feel that she was doing anything wrong—not exactly. It was more out of respect for her foster mother and the rules that she’d followed since she was taken in that made her put distance between herself and the man. It wasn’t easy, considering his energy drew her like an electromagnet.

  “Perhaps your guests would like some refreshments,” Mama said before she even reached the foyer.

  “Right!” Roux said, spinning toward the hall beside the stairs that led to the kitchen and dining room at the back of the brownstone. She felt like a flustered teenager with the first boy she’d ever had a crush on visiting her house for the first time. She was sure that if Steve had found her at her own apartment rather than at her childhood home, their intimacy would be progressing into a heated inferno by now. So maybe it was a good thing that they had a chaperone or two. She doubted she could have kept her head on straight or her clothes on at all if she were alone with him. And she sure wouldn’t be able to have the “let’s be friends” chat, whenever she managed to get around to it.

  “Would you like something to eat or drink?” she asked, looking at Zach. Because she was afraid she’d sound breathless if she looked at Steve.