When they were in the lift, Aaron let out a breath. “Well, I wouldn’t want to be Mr Rich right now.”“No,” Mirage smirked. “Gabriella is going to rip his balls off.”“He is vindictive,” Aaron cautioned her. “Stay wary.”“Always.”They dropped Will and Aaron back at their offices before taking the limousine to the rehearsal studios. Mirage checked her phone. There was a message from Vice which simply read. “All good?”She wrote back. “Kicked Mr Rich in the balls.”His reply came swiftly, indicating that he and Victor were on a break. “Good girl.”“That Richard guy is a dick,” Alexei commented mildly.“Yeah,” she agreed, sliding her phone away.“My mother wants to meet you.”She flushed. “Does she?” She was not sure what Victor had said about the relationship.“She keeps telling Victor and Vice to bring you to a family lunch.”“There are family lunches?” She was surprised. Vice and Victor had not been to one during the time she had been staying with them.“We try for weekly, but it is r
Mirage laughed breathlessly, her ability to draw in a deep breath limited by the constriction of being slung over Victor’s shoulder. He turned his head and bit her behind, making her shriek and giggle like a maniac.“Shit,” he said. “The door is closed.” He released his grip on his jeans so that he could open the door, and they slid down to his ankles.“Oh, goody,” she seized onto his arse. “Someone skipped their underwear this morning.”He laughed, stepping out of the jeans, and kicking them into the room. “I went for a swim,” he told her. “They are out on a chair, drying.” He lowered her onto the bed and laid his body out over hers, as he kissed her, his tongue stroking against hers. “I do like it when you wear skirts,” he reached between them, pulling her underwear to the side so that he could slide against her intimately and she drew in a shaking breath.“I probably need a shower,” she said. “I have been dancing all afternoon.”“You taste salty,” he dragged his tongue along her co
She slid into the limousine and felt a twinge. Three days so far, she thought with a small smile, at the memory, and her body had not forgotten them. Just the thought of it made her hot, despite her exhaustion. She lay out along the seat as Alexei slid into the back. “You really shouldn’t lie like that when he is driving,” Alexei commented as he put on his seatbelt. “If there is an accident, you would get seriously injured.” She groaned and dragged herself up before dropping into the seat on the other side of the car to Alexei, leaving the middle seat empty. She put on her seatbelt and dropped her handbag onto the spare seat. “So tired,” she told him, leaning her head back against the headrest and closing her eyes. “I am not surprised,” he replied with sympathy as the limousine driver started the engine. “Your schedule is pretty hard core. Radio interviews in the early hours of the morning, photo shoots and TV appearances midday, sound checks in the afternoon, and then the show fro
It took about an hour, during which the news stations had gathered, and crime-scene tape extended around the area. She stayed in the limousine at the behest of the police, until they were ready for her and Alexei to leave. As she moved from the limousine to the back of the police car, she could hear the yelled questions of the reporters rise in pitch, reacting to the realisation that she was there, and saw the flash of their cameras. The police eased the car through the crowd as they pressed their cameras to the windows taking photos. “Idiots,” the policeman muttered. “Are you in trouble?” Mirage whispered to Alexei. “Me?” He looked surprised. “For shooting,” she prompted. He grinned and shook his head. “Nah. It is easy to change plates on a car, harder to hide bullet holes. I did the police a favour. They have taken my gun for forensics, but they will have it back to me in a couple of days. In the meantime, I have my back-up weapon in the safe at the hotel, so it is all good.”
Alexei opened the door to her room and did a quick tour of the interior. “All good,” he told her.“Thanks Alexei,” it no longer seemed odd to have him check her room before she entered it. “Where is the damn light?” She felt for the light switch and could not find it. It seemed that every hotel kept their light switches in different places, designed to baffle her in the darkness.“Here,” he turned on the switch. “Ah, no that is the bathroom one.” At least she was not alone in her bafflement.“It is okay, hotel lighting always makes my eyes funny after a busy day,” she told him. “I will just be brushing my teeth and going to bed anyway.”He shrugged. “Alright, I will see you in the morning?”“Thanks. Goodnight,” she saw him to the door and waited until he got onto the elevator before closing and leaning back against it with a sigh. It had been a gruelling day that had begun very early in the morning with a red-eye flight, followed by radio interviews for the commuters on their way to
“Okay,” she agreed. Victor lingered for a moment as if reluctant to hang up, and she heard Vice’s voice just before the phone disconnected. She sat for a long time holding her phone to her ear as if it held the ghost of their voices, her heart pounding, and then she drew in a deep breath and slid the phone onto the bedside table before picking up the receiver on the landline and pressing the concierge button.“Concierge,” the man answered brightly.“Hi, I am expecting visitors in about two hours,” she said, her voice was hoarse. “Vice and Victor, my producers. Please give them a door key and let them up. I may be in the bath when they arrive.”If he found it odd that she would be receiving visitors or taking a bath after midnight, he did not let on. “Certainly, Miss Mirage.”“Thank you.” She hung up, and sat staring at her phone, its screen blank. A bath, Vice had said.She rose obediently and went into the bathroom, starting the bath whilst she used her cleansers to remove the traces
Victor was woken when his phone rang at eight am. He groaned. Less than four hours of sleep was torturous, he thought, but it wouldn’t be the first time that he and Vice had worked under such deprivation.Mirage was still out, he noted, the sleeping pill still working to keep her in the oblivion of unconsciousness, but he saw Vice’s eyes open a slit and close again as Victor moved. Mirage’s head was on his bicep, so he rolled onto his back and felt blindly for his mobile. Aaron’s name appeared on the screen.He accepted the call. “Hey.”“It is me,” Aaron told him. “I am downstairs.”“It is Aaron,” he said to Vice. “He is downstairs. I will call the concierge to bring you up,” he said to Aaron. “We will order room service. Vice and I are going to need a lot more coffee than this kitchenette holds.”“I have got go cups here,” Aaron said.“I love you,” Victor said easing his arm out from under Mirage. Vice had his arm over her, and he snuggled in closer with a sigh, which was, Victor tho
Victor had just closed the bathroom door when the doorbell rang. He admitted room service and sent them to where Aaron and Vice were both on calls. As they set out the food, he pulled the bed into order, and opened the closet, flicking through the clothing inside. Typical tour wear, he noted. Her crew would have the costumes for stage, so her closet contained two extremes – outfits for interviews and comfortable wear for around the hotel.He selected from the latter and eased into the bathroom. He sat on the edge of the bath and watched Mirage in the shower. She stood unmoving under the spray, her face tilted up into it, and he was certain that some of the water running down her cheeks were tears.He needed to keep her moving, he thought. If he allowed her to dwell, she would disintegrate. It was a double blow, he thought, to her – the threat, and the rape. He did not know how he would hold up under such a thing, but he suspected not as well as she had done so far, and certainly not a