Dianna watched Fran change before her eyes. It was like one of those morphing videos. Her mother had turned from an indignant prickly cactus to a loving and doting mother. “Nice to meet you,” Jack said, reaching out to shake Fran’s hand while looking at Dianna with concerned eyes. “And you,” Fran said with an eyelash flutter. “Dianna didn’t tell me her neighbor was such a handsome man.” Oh God, kill me now. Her mother was flirting with Jack, which was…awkward to say the least. Jack smiled tightly. “Is everything okay?” Jack asked Dianna, extricating his hand from her mother’s. “Are you feeling any better?” “Oh, she’s fine,” Fran said before Dianna could respond. “It’s just a touch of the flu. She’ll be fine in no time.” Dianna rolled her eyes. There was no way her mother would admit to anyone that Dianna had her period, nor would she admit her daughter had the ‘not real’ disorder of fibromyalgia. Perception was everything to Fran and no one could sho
Jack grunted when he looked at the display on his phone. “Dahlia,” he practically growled when he answered. “Hi Jack,” Dahlia said with a weary sigh. “She wants another chance, doesn’t she?” Jack asked. “Of course she does,” he answered his own question, not giving Dahlia a chance to speak. “How many chances does she expect to get? How many times am I expected to put Riley through this?” “It’s not that simple, Jack,” Dahlia said. “It never is with her,” he growled. “Look, Jack, she had reasons for not showing up last time—” “Excuses,” Jack snapped. “Kara always has excuses.” “Okay, granted. In the past, she has been flakey, but I believe her this time. She wants to see her son, Jack.” “And what about Riley? What if he doesn’t want to see her? Does she even care what he wants?” “She just wants a chance. Can you give her that?” “You told me that last time,” he said. “You told me if she didn’t show we wouldn’t have to go through this
“I want to kiss you,” he whispered, leaning toward her. “Can I kiss you?” “Yes,” she breathed, her breath on his lips moments before he sealed his mouth over hers. He missed kissing her. He knew it was his own fault that it had been days since he’d kissed her, and now that her lips were on his, he couldn’t remember why he’d been intent on pushing her away. Riley shifted between them and Dianna broke the kiss, looking down at Riley first before lifting her eyes to Jack’s. “What are we doing, Jack?” she asked in a whisper. “You keep sending me mixed messages and—” He leaned in and brushed his lips on hers once. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s complicated.” “I know it is,” she said, pulling back from him and putting more than physical distance between them. “It’s complicated for me too.” He quirked an eyebrow. “It is?” She waved the comment away. “I just mean with the game launch and everything. I can’t do serious.” “I can’t either,” he said, looking
“Oh, honey, I wish I could,” Rosie said. “But I have an open house that day. What about one of your sisters?” “They’re doing a spa day together,” Jack replied with a sigh. “It’s okay, Mum, I’ll figure it out.” Jack hung up the call and leaned back in his office chair. Fucking Carter. Jack was certain the guy had somehow known no one was available to babysit, but then scheduled the interview for Jack, anyway. Carter did shit like that just to piss him off, Jack was sure of it. “Who pissed in your cornflakes?” Finn asked, coming into the room and flopping into the chair opposite Jack. “Carter,” Jack replied. “He scheduled an interview with Thomas Blayne from Odinica.” “Are they the ones who are developing VR gaming systems?” Finn asked, sitting forward in the chair. “Yes,” Jack replied, running a hand through his hair. “But it’s next weekend and I have no one to look after Riley.” Finn winced. “I would look after Riley if I could—” Jack waved Finn’s comment away. “It’s o
“Long day,” she replied, forcing a smile to her face. Jack looked at her for a long time before he nodded. “We should talk.” Before she could say anything, Peyton got the attention of the room and started asking about what food everyone wanted to order. Dianna hardly paid attention and just agreed with what everyone else decided on. She was too hung up on the whole ‘we need to talk’ thing. What did he want to talk about? Was he going to call off whatever it was that was happening between them? Was it about tomorrow night? Was there still going to be a tomorrow night after the way she flubbed that text message today? He pressed his thigh into hers, and her anxiety eased just a fraction. She looked up at him and he was looking at her like he could read every single emotion that had crossed her face like it was a pop-up ad. She opened her mouth to speak, but Finn sat beside Jack, taking his attention from her. “Did you find someone to look after Riley?” Finn asked.
Dianna tried to ignore the pain as she cleaned her apartment. She stripped the bed, scrubbed the bathroom, and even put away her clean laundry. She was nervous about the coming evening; nervous and excited. She had to keep moving, or she thought she would go insane. And still, the pain built. It didn’t help that she pushed herself and ignored the warning signs. She fought back the desire to collapse on the couch and rest. Her brain was too busy to rest, and she wanted her apartment to be spotless for when Jack arrived. She couldn’t relax, no matter how much her body demanded it. The day seemed to crawl by, which was good in one respect—it gave her all the time she needed to clean her house—but it was also bad because it wound her body up in a tight spiral of anxiety. Yes, she’d slept with Jack before, but this felt different. This was planned, not spontaneous like it had been last time. Jack was coming over for sex and there was no way she could paint a different picture. Th
“I like that look in your eye,” he said as he crawled onto the bed between her thighs. “What look?” she asked. “The one that tells me you want me as much as I want you.” His hot mouth found her nipple through the sheer lace of her bra and Dianna let her head fall back and a moan escaped her lips. “I do,” she replied. Her shoulder stiffened. Holding the position was hard and the pain was stealing her attention, so she let herself fall slowly back to the bed, reducing the strain and relieving the ache. Jack followed her down, a low growl of approval in his throat. It hummed against her skin and sent a flood of warmth through her body. Her aches and pains dulled, not completely disappearing, but ebbing away to the background of her mind while those wonderful, lusty hormones overran her nervous system. Again Dianna wished she could produce a synthetic equivalent to use for pain relief. Jack nipped her with his teeth and lifted his head. “Where’d you just go?”
report. Dianna groaned. She ached. Her entire body ached. Even her hair ached. She laid still and tried to catalog everything, sorting out what was genuine pain and what was just pain from lying in one position too long. A soft snore from beside her made her eyes fly open, and she slowly turned her head to see Jack. He was still sound asleep, his lashes kissing the apples of his cheeks and hiding those grey eyes she loved so much. This would be the bit in the story when all her pain miraculously disappeared as she looked at the man she’d fallen in love with…but no. Dianna wished it was that easy. She wished a magic penis could take away all her pain, or an earth-moving orgasm could heal her defective body. She may have moments while in the throes of passion where her pain receded, but there was nothing and no one who could take it away completely. And she was okay with that. Actually, no. She wasn’t okay with that, but she had made her peace with it at least.
6 months later“Are you ready for this?” Anthony asked as they stood outside the courtroom. Talia nodded and gripped Parker’s hand. The judge had called them back in for the verdict on Mark’s trial and she couldn’t deny she was nervous. The weeks spent preparing for the trial and then sitting through the witness statements and being cross-examined by an aggressive defense attorney who made her out to be some sort of diva and ungrateful bitch who was somehow ripping off the father who had done everything for her had taken its toll. And the media beat-up was just as bad. However, not all the media had been on her father’s side. Talia had discovered she had far more supporters than she’d thought. Her fans—the true fans—had gathered in force to support her and she loved them for it. Not enough for her to consider going back into acting, but enough that going through the trial had been bearable. But if not for the constant and unwavering support of Parker, Talia didn’t think she woul
Parker rolled his eyes as he took her hand and stood. “Seal the deal?” “Isn’t that what you said earlier?” He shook his head, his grin still in place. “No, I said celebrate.” “Okay, good. Let’s do that then.” Parker grabbed her and lifted her up, making Talia squeal. He kissed her and she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his shoulders. Stumbling, he carried her to the bedroom and tossed her on the bed with a flourish, making her squeal again. “I feel like we need champagne and strawberries or something,” Parker said, standing with his hands on his hips as he looked around the room. “You mean like pouring champagne in my belly button and licking it out?” Talia asked, lifting her shirt to reveal her navel. Parker cocked an eyebrow. “Hmm…that’s something to think about for a later celebration,” he said. Talia pouted. Parker held up his hands. “I don’t have any champagne on hand,” he protested. “Then I’ll just have to
“You called Isaac,” Parker said when he walked into the apartment. Talia looked up at him and bit her lip. “I did,” she said. “But before you get mad, I didn’t say anything about what happened. And I did it because I knew you wouldn’t say anything to defend yourself.” Parker sighed. “I’m not mad,” he said, walking over to where she was seated, working on her miniature diorama. He leaned down and kissed her. “I’m grateful. Thank you. What you said to Isaac helped.” Talia grinned up at him. “So, they’re going to let you do the article?” Parker nodded. “They are.” “That’s so great,” Talia replied. “So it all worked out.” Parker pulled out a chair and sat down beside her. “Things have worked out for me, but what about you? What are your plans now? Without Mark controlling your every move, you can do anything you want.” Talia dropped her head and fidgeted with her fingers in her lap. “I don’t know what I want to do,” she said quietly. “I don’t think I wan
Talia pulled back from the kiss. “Don’t you think it was pretty selfish of me not to sacrifice myself for you?” she asked. “No,” he said, reaching up to tuck some hair behind her ear. “What you did wasn’t selfish, it was survival. There’s a difference. Me expecting you to sacrifice yourself for my job would have been selfish. Are you doing what you need to in order to survive? Not selfish. Not in the slightest.” “It feels selfish,” she mumbled, leaning her forehead against his. “I feel like I need to do something to make it up to you.” Parker cupped her face. “Talia,” he whispered. “This is not some quid pro quo thing. There will be times when you will save me. I have no doubt about it. That’s how relationships work. It’s swings and roundabouts. There is no big tally sheet in the sky and nobody is keeping score.” “I just don’t want you to feel resentful—” Parker cut off the rest of her sentence with a kiss. “How could I be resentful of the fact that I get to have you in my l
“She’s asleep,” Parker said, coming into the living room from his bedroom where Talia had finally succumbed to sleep. He slumped onto the couch beside Stephen and laid his head on his father’s shoulder. Anthony looked over at him from where he was sitting, going through some paperwork on his laptop, and Carter paced, not able to sit still. “I take it the article came out,” Parker said. “Yeah,” Carter replied with a sigh as he raked his hand through his hair. “It’s going to do us some damage,” Parker said. “Maybe,” Carter said with a shrug. “Maybe not.” Parker frowned at him. “What does that mean?” “It gets your name out there,” he replied. “It will drive people to your blog.” “Fucking hell, Carter,” Parker exploded, jumping to his feet. “Seriously? You think this is a good thing?” “I didn’t say that,” Carter replied. “I just said it wasn’t necessarily damaging to us.” “And what about Parker asked. “The article would have tanked that de
Anthony had filed a police report as soon as he arrived in the city. “Their hands are tied,” Anthony said with a sigh. “There is no evidence of force and as she recently hid from the public because of a scandal, we have nothing to say she isn’t doing it again because of the latest issue.” “But can’t they force her to at least speak with them? To check that she’s okay?” Parker asked. “As far as they’re concerned, she has just gone into hiding again,” Anthony reiterated. “Until we have something to say otherwise, they can’t do anything. This has the potential to be a high-profile case because of who she is, so if they make a big deal about it and it turns out to be something innocent, it might blow up in their faces.” “That’s bullshit,” Parker growled, pushing up from his seat to pace around the room. He hated that he was sitting there doing nothing while Talia was trapped in her father’s house. It was torture to know where she was and yet not be able to get to
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Talia said. After Mark’s big reveal the night before, Talia had been left to sleep off the effects of the sedative he’d given her. The fucking bastard. He’d locked her door so she couldn’t get out and the window was too far from the ground for her to escape that way. Not without breaking something, anyway. Which Talia wouldn’t have minded, except with the way she’d been feeling, the thing that got broken might very well be her head, and she was kind of attached to it being in one piece and remaining on her shoulders. So Mark had stalked her and Parker and then kidnapped her and drugged her and imprisoned her and he was under the impression that he was perfectly within his rights to do so. “I’m doing this for you,” Mark said. “Your mental health is at stake here.” “The only threat to my mental health is your arsehole behavior,” Talia snapped. They were sitting in the sunny kitchen at the table and Mark was trying to pretend that it
Carter clicked his fingers. “The original photos, the ones that were taken when you took her out to look at the miniature street art.” Carter turned to Parker. “You were in some of those photos. Your face was blurred, but that could have been done after the fact.” “So he’s been following me?” Parker asked. “You and Carter. Both would be my guess,” Jack said. “So he’s been following us, but how did he know I was sending a car to pick her up?” Parker asked. “Have you noticed anyone following you?” Carter asked. Parker shook his head and then paused. “What?” Carter asked. “What’s that look?” “It’s probably nothing,” Parker said. “Just say it,” Carter said. “I was speaking to Talia just before I went into the meeting he said. “When I hung up from the call, I bumped into a guy…you don’t think…nah. It can’t be. This isn’t some espionage movie.” “Could he have overheard your conversation?” Jack asked, leaning back in his chair and looking up
Parker was on a high. By all accounts, Atticus was on board with his proposal. Isaac just wanted to check in with the rest of the band before giving him a definitive answer. That was fine with Parker. Things would go much more smoothly if everyone was in agreement. The last thing he wanted was a hostile environment and if any of the members had misgivings about the proposal, then he would walk away. It would hurt, but he would do it. For this to work—for everyone involved—there had to be open communication and a willingness to participate. Without that, Parker may as well give up now. He climbed into his car, cursing the parking ticket and flapping on his windscreen. Getting out again, he grabbed it from under the windscreen wiper and shoved it into his glove compartment. The Playbook could pay for that. It was the price of doing business, after all. He turned the music up loud as he navigated through the heavy traffic toward his apartment building. He couldn’t wait to tell Ta