Public Secrets by Nora Roberts
until I tell the guys.”
“I don’t want you to tell anyone about this.”
“Not tell?” Michael pushed a hand through his tousled hair. “How come? The guys’ll just about fall over dead. I’ve got to tell them.”
“No. No, you don’t. I want you to keep this to yourself, Michael.”
“But why?”
“Because some things are personal.” He glanced back at the glaring headlines. “Or should be personal. This is one of them. Come on.” He took the football, fitted it to his hand. “Let’s see if you can catch my bomb.”
Chapter Eleven
P. M. WATCHED THE sea roll up on the sand. Even after a month, it still surprised him that this house was his. The Malibu beach house, his Malibu beach house, had everything the real estate broker had promised. High, soaring ceilings, a giant stone fireplace, acres of glass. In the bedroom upstairs where his lover still slept were twin skylights, another fireplace, and a balcony that roped around the second story.
Even Stevie had been impressed when he’d passed through. It had given P.M. a wonderful sense of accomplishment to show off the rooms, the tasteful furniture, the up-to-the-minute stereo unit he’d had built in. But now Stevie was in Paris. Johnno was in New York. Brian was in London. And P.M. felt very much alone.
There was still talk about a tour when the new album was released that spring, but P.M. wasn’t sure Brian would be up to it. It was nearly two months since that horrible night, and Brian was still in seclusion. He wondered if Brian knew that “Love Lost” was topping the singles charts and had gone gold. He wondered if it would matter to him.
P.M. knew the police were no closer to finding out who had killed Darren. He made it a point to stay in touch with Kesselring. It was the least he could do for Brian, and for Bev.
He thought of Bev, how pale and stricken she had looked on the day of the funeral. She hadn’t spoken a word, not to anyone. He’d wanted so badly to comfort her. He hadn’t known how, and the fantasy he’d had about taking her to bed, tenderly loving her until her grief passed, had shocked him so much he’d been unable to do more than pat her cold, rigid hand.
Angie Parks came down the circular stairs in a pink T-shirt that barely covered her hips. She’d taken the time to add a bit of makeup—a little mascara, a touch of lip gloss. She’d brushed out the knots sleep and sex had tied in her long blond hair, then had carefully arranged it to give it a tousled, bedroom look.
The best way to get what you wanted from a man was with sex. And she wanted quite a bit from P.M.
She glanced around the big, glass-walled living room. It was a nice start, she decided. A very nice start. She’d like to keep it as a weekend place once she’d talked P.M. into Beverly Hills. That was where stars lived, and she had every intention of being a star.
P.M. was her stepping-stone. Her romantic liaison with him had already led to a handful of commercials and a nice supporting role in a TV movie. She wanted better things, bigger things, and was willing to keep P.M. happy to get them.
She was grateful to him. Without the interest that had come her way since the press had picked up on their affair, she might have had to take a turn doing some porno flicks. A girl had to pay the rent. Angie flexed her wrist so that the light caught the diamonds and sapphires in the bracelet P.M. had given her. She wouldn’t have to worry about rent any longer.
She turned toward the glass doors and saw him standing on the deck. As he stood in the early sunlight she thought he looked almost handsome. And lonely. Even a heart as naturally ambitious as Angie’s could feel some pity. He hadn’t been the same since the little boy had died. She was sorry about it, really, but the tragedy had made P.M. even more dependent on her. And the press was worth its weight in gold. A smart woman took whatever opportunities came her way and made the most of them.
She ran a hand over her breasts, pleased that they were firm enough to stand without a bra. She walked up behind him, pressed them against his back as she wound her arms around his neck.
“I missed you, honey.”
He lifted a hand to hers, embarrassed that his first thought had been of Bev. “I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“You know I love it when you wake me up.” She slipped around him, her arms like long, soft ropes. With a little catchy sigh, she closed her mouth over his. “I hate to see you looking so sad.”
“I was just thinking about Bri. I’m worried about him.”
“You’re a good friend, honey.” She played light, quick kisses over his face. “That’s one of the things I love most about you.”
He drew her closer, as always stunned and delighted to hear her say she loved him. She was so beautiful with her big brown eyes and kewpie-doll mouth. Her breathy voice was like music she played only for him.
She only pressed closer when he ran his hands up her legs to knead the firm flesh of her buttocks. Her body was like a dream, long and lush and tanned as golden as a peach. When she shuddered, he felt like a king.
“I need you, Angie.”
“Then take me.”
She let her head fall back, looking at him from under carefully darkened lashes. Slowly, keeping her eyes on him, she reached down, and taking the hem of her shirt, pulled it up and over her head. In the sunlight, she stood erotically naked, her breasts rosily tipped and as golden as the rest of her. He kept his senses long enough to pull her inside the doors before he lowered her to the floor.
She let him do whatever he liked, enjoying most of it, adding a few calculated groans and cries when she thought it appropriate. It wasn’t that he didn’t excite her. He did, in a mild sort of way. She would have preferred it if he’d been a bit more forceful, put a few bruises on her.
But P.M.’s chunky drummer’s hands were almost reverent as they skimmed over her. Even when his breath began to chug and the sweat began to roll, he treated her like fine glass, too considerate to put his full weight on her, too polite, even in passion, to ram himself into her and make her cries sincere.
He took her gently, with a steady rhythm that brought her just inches from full satisfaction. He lay on her only a moment, while he collected himself and she studied the glossy wood of the ceiling. Ever mindful of his weight, he rolled aside and cushioned her head with his arm.
“Oh, that was wonderful.” She stroked his damp, pale chest. Always practical, she knew she could finish herself off when she went upstairs. “You’re the best, honey. The very best.”
“I love you, Angie.” He let his hand linger in her hair. This was what he wanted, he realized. All that crazed, nameless sex had never been for him. He wanted to know, when he went on the road, that there was someone waiting for him, at home, or in those miserable hotel rooms. He wanted what Brian had.
Not Bev, P.M. assured himself on a painful twinge of disloyalty. But a wife, a family, a home. With Angie, he could have it all.
“Angie. Will you marry me?”
She went very still. It was everything she’d hoped for, and it was happening. She could already see the casting agents scrambling for her—and the huge white house in Beverly Hills. The smile lit her face. She nearly laughed with it. Then, taking a deep breath, she shifted. There were tears in her eyes when she looked down at him.
“Do you mean it? Do you really want me?”
“I’ll make you happy, Angie. Look, I know it can’t be easy being married to someone who’s part of what I’m part of. The tours and the fans and the press. But we can make something for ourselves, just the two of us, that’s ours, only ours.”
“I love what you are,” she told him with complete honesty.
“Then will you? Will you marry me, and start a family?”
“I’ll marry you.” She threw her arms around him. A family was a different matter altogether, she thought as he lowered her to the floor again. But as the wife of P. M. Ferguson, her career had no place to go but up.
BRIAN DIDN’T KNOW how much more he could take, kicking around the big house day after da
He was on the phone nearly every day, hoping Kesselring could give him something, anything. He needed a name, a face that he could vent his helpless fury on.
He had nothing but an empty nursery, and a wife who drifted through the house like the ghost of the woman he loved.
And Emma. Thank God for Emma.
Rubbing his hands over his face, he pushed back from the table where he’d been trying to compose. He knew if it hadn’t been for Emma over the past weeks, he’d have gone insane.
She was grieving too, silently, sadly. Often he sat up with her long past her bedtime, telling her stories, singing, or just listening. They could make each other smile, and when they did the pain eased.
He was terrified every moment she was out of the house. Even the bodyguards he’d hired to see her to school and back again didn’t take away the gut-knotting fear he felt when she walked out the door.
And how would he feel when it was time for him to walk out the door? No matter how much he missed his son, the day would come when he needed to go back to the stage, back to the studio, back to the music. He could hardly tie a six-year-old girl around his waist and haul her with him.
And there was no leaving her with Bev. Not now, and not, as Brian saw it, in the near future.
“Mr. McAvoy, excuse me.”
“Yes, Alice.” They had kept her on, though there was no child to nurse. She nursed Bev now, Brian thought and dug a cigarette from the pack he’d tossed on the table.
“Mr. Page is here to see you.”
Brian glanced back at the table, the scatter of paper, the jumble of lyrics and half-phrases. “Bring him on in here.”
“’Lo, Bri.” With one look Pete took in the evidence of a man struggling to work without much success. Balls of paper, a cigarette smoldering in an overflowing ashtray, the faint scent of liquor, though it was barely noon. “Hope you don’t mind me popping ’round. I have some business and I didn’t think you’d care to come in to the office.”
“No.” He reached for the bottle that was never far from his hand. “Have a drink?”
“I’ll hold off a bit, thanks.” He sat, trying for an easy smile. The mood between them was stiff and uncharacteristically formal. No one seemed to know how to behave around Brian, what questions to ask, what questions to avoid. “How’s Bev?” he ventured.
“I don’t know.” Remembering his cigarette, Brian plucked it out from among the butts. “She won’t say very much, won’t go out at all.” He let out smoke with a long, uneven sigh. When he looked at Pete there was both a plea and defiance in his eyes. The same, Pete thought, as there had been years before when Brian had come to him, asking for management. “Pete, she sits in Darren’s room for hours at a time. Even at night, sometimes I’ll wake up and find her in there, just sitting in that bloody rocking chair.” He took a swallow from his glass, then another, deeper. “I don’t know what the hell to do.”
“Have you thought of therapy?”
“You mean a psychiatrist?” Brian pushed away from the table. The ash from his cigarette crumbled onto the rug. He was a simple man, from simple people. Problems, private problems, were handled privately. “What good would it do for her to talk about her sex life and how she hated her father or some bloody thing?”
“It’s just an idea, Bri.” Pete reached out a hand, then dropped it to the arm of his chair. “Something to think about.”
“Even if I thought it might help, I don’t know if I could get her to agree.”
“Maybe she just needs a bit more time. It’s only been a couple of months.”
“He’d have been three last week. Oh, Jesus.”
Saying nothing, Pete rose to pour more whiskey into Brian’s glass. He handed it over, then eased Brian into a chair. “Do you hear anything from the police?”
“I talk to Kesselring. They’re no closer. That makes it worse somehow. Not knowing who.”
Pete sat again. They needed to get past this thing, all of them, and move ahead. “What about Emma?”
“The nightmares have stopped, and the cast comes off in a few weeks. She has school to keep it off her mind, but it’s always there. You can see it in her eyes.”
“She hasn’t remembered any more?”
Brian shook his head. “Christ, Pete, I don’t know if she saw anything or just had a bad dream. It’s all monsters with Emma. I want it behind her. Somehow we’ve got to put it behind all of us.”
Pete paused a moment, considering. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here. I don’t want to push you, Bri, but the record company would very much like a tour to commence with the release of the new album. I’ve put them off, but I wonder if it might not be good for you.”
“A tour would mean leaving Bev, and Emma.”
“I realize that. Don’t give me an answer now. Think about it.” He took out a cigarette, lighted it. “We can go through Europe, America, Japan, if you and the lads are willing. The work might be just what you need to help you through.”
“And it would sell plenty of records.”
Pete gave a thin smile. “There’s that. No pushing an album over the top these days without touring. Speaking of records, I signed that new boy on. Robert Blackpool. I think I mentioned him.”
“Yes. You said you had high hopes.”
“And so I do. You’d like his style, Bri, which is why I want you to let him record ’On the Wing.’”
Simple surprise had Brian pausing before he drank again. “We always record our own music.”
“So you have, thus far. But it’s good business all around to expand a bit.” Pete waited a moment, gauging Brian’s mood. Because he sensed it was more responsive than he’d expected, he pressed on. “You pulled that particular piece from the last album, and it suits Blackpool to the ground. It wouldn’t hurt to have a new artist record a ditty you and Johnno turned out. In fact in this case it’ll only enhance your reputations as songwriters.”
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his hands over his eyes. It didn’t seem to matter. “I’ll run it by Johnno.”
“I already have.” Pete smiled. “He’s agreeable if you are.”
BRIAN FOUND BEV in Darren’s room. Though it cost him, he went inside, trying not to look at the empty crib, at the toys neatly sucked on the shelves, at the huge teddy bear he and Bev had bought before Darren had been born.
“Bev.” He laid a hand on hers and waited, fruitlessly, for her to look at him.
She was too thin. The bones in her face were too prominent for elegance now. The luster in her eyes her hair, her skin was gone. He found himself gritting his teeth to keep from grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her until life bloomed in her again.
“Bev, I was hoping you’d come down and have some tea.”
She could smell the liquor. It turned her stomach. How could he sit and drink and scribble his music? She took her hand from his and laid it in her lap. “I don’t want any tea.”
“I have some news. P.M.’s gotten himself married.”
She looked at him then, a flick of a disinterested glance.
“He was hoping we’d come out for a short while. He’d like to show off his house at the beach and his chesty new wife.”
“I’ll never go back there.” There was such quick, angry violence in her voice, he nearly stepped back. But it wasn’t emotion that stunned him nearly so much as the look in her eyes when they met his. Loathing.
“What do you want from me?” he demanded. He bent close, gripping both arms of the rocker. “What the hell do you want?”
“Just leave me alone.”
“I have left you alone. I’ve left you alone to sit in here hour after hour. I’ve left you alone when I’ve needed so badly just to hold on to you. And at night, I’ve left you alone when I’ve waited for you to turn to me. Just once to turn to me. Goddamn you, Bev, he was mine, too.”
She said nothing, but the tears began. When he r
“You can’t bear me to touch you,” he began as his fury built. “You can’t stand me to look at you, or speak to you. Hour after hour, day after day, you sit in here as if you’re the only one who hurts. It’s time to stop, Bev.”
“It’s easy for you, isn’t it?” She snatched a blanket from the crib to press it to her breasts. “You can sit and drink and write your music as if nothing happened. It is so bloody easy for you.”
“No.” Weary, he pressed his fingers to his eyes. “But I can’t just stop living. He’s gone, and I can’t change it.”
“No, you can’t change it.” The helpless grief welled up to rub the wound raw. “You had to have the party that night. All those