Nicola Marsh - Sex, Gossip and Rock & Roll

‘What’s wrong?’

Luca was beside her in an instant, his concerned expression warming her heart and showing her there was more to him than lazy smiles and practised charm. She couldn’t tell him the truth, that she didn’t believe a word he said, so she blurted the first thing that popped into her head.

‘Indigestion.’

She rubbed her chest to add authenticity and his eyes narrowed, shrewd, assessing, disbelieving.

Luca knew how to call a bluff. He’d been doing it his entire life.

‘Anything I can do?’

‘No, I’ll be fine.’

Her bottom lip gave a convincing quiver and before he could stop himself he reached out and cupped her cheek, his thumb stroking that wobbly lip into calm.

‘You sure?’

A tiny sigh puffed against his thumb; that one small vulnerability had him yearning to bundle her into his arms.

Crazy. He didn’t do cuddles. He did hard and fast sex all night long; the kind of sex that didn’t beg questions or require answers, the kind of sex that satisfied without complicating matters. Right now, he’d give anything to have that kind of sex with the woman staring at him with guilt in her big green eyes.

Some of what he was thinking must’ve shown on his face for she shuffled to her right, a subtle move to put some distance between them.

‘It’s not so bad. I’ll live. So let’s try this again. What are you doing here?’

‘Already told you. Pop fired some jackass who lost the company a stack of cash and asked me to step in on this tour. Apparently Storm Varth is potentially worth a small fortune if his comeback takes off so the books need to be balanced right.’

‘Why the hell would he ask you?’

His eyebrows shot up at her blunt question as she belatedly clamped her lips shut.

‘I know a thing or two about companies.’

‘Like how to sweet-talk receptionists and influence female CEOs?’

‘Like how they run, how they can increase profit margins, how they can tighten outlays.’

Surprise widened her eyes. He liked that, catching her off guard. She viewed him as a flake that travelled around the world, lolling on beaches doing little else.

If she only knew: being in the public eye constantly, pretending to like people who were essentially self-serving and didn’t give a damn about doing anything for anybody else unless it got their greedy mugs in the glossies, dating a string of vacuous celebs to further his cause … It was damn hard work and becoming increasingly tough.

He’d done it for years now, ensuring charities were financially viable, especially those with underprivileged kids—the kind of kid he would’ve been if it hadn’t been for Hector’s generosity.

With every dollar he took from the rich who could afford it, with every dollar bestowed on those kids who needed it, he released some of his pent-up bitterness at the past. He still had a long way to go.

‘You did a finance degree?’

‘Economics and marketing at uni. Stuff like that interests me.’

Or more to the point, how companies could invest in his pet projects, the things that really mattered.

Her astute stare bored into him and he sat back, clasped his hands behind his head, the epitome of a guy who didn’t give a damn. And he usually didn’t but there was something about this woman, some indefinable quality that made him want her to like him.

‘You really are an international man of mystery, aren’t you?’

He winked. ‘That’s Petrelli, Luca Petrelli to you.’

Her mouth relaxed into a soft smile, kicking him in the guts. Or lower to be precise. That kiss in the car had been a mere prelude. Those beautiful lips, the lush full bottom lip, begged to be kissed. Repeatedly. All night long.

She stood abruptly and he mentally kicked himself for letting his thoughts drift south when they’d been getting along, establishing some kind of fragile rapport.

‘Thanks for dinner. It was great.’

‘My pleasure.’

Her gaze locked on his, his last word hanging in the silence between them, promising so much if she’d let herself go.

She wanted to; he could see it in the pulse beating frantically in her neck, in her slightly parted lips, in the shimmer of her eyes.

Then she blinked, straightened and the invisible thread holding them spellbound vanished in an instant.

‘See you in the morning. Eight sharp.’

‘Eight it is.’

She managed a tight smile at his half salute before diving for the safety of her bedroom.

Beautiful Charli could run but she couldn’t hide. The spark between them was intangible but it was there and he had every intention of creating a few more before this tour was out.

CHARLI stretched her neck from side to side, trying to work out the kinks. Stupid hard pillows. Though she knew the pain in her neck had more to do with her constant tossing all night while mentally rehashing conversations with Luca—and remembering him in that damn towel—than any pillow.

She didn’t want to like him, didn’t want to feel anything for him, but after that thoughtful dinner he’d set out last night and that moment they’d shared, she’d thought of little else all night but how easy it would be to succumb to his many charms.

Blowing out an exasperated huff, she knocked on Storm’s door again. Her first knock had been loud enough to rouse half of Ballarat but not so much as a curtain had twitched behind the heavily tinted windows of the longest bus she’d ever seen.

She’d organised many tour buses over the years but Storm had insisted he bring his own, and after seeing the gigantic two-semi-length monstrosity painted glossy black with his signature storm clouds and lightning bolts slashing the sides, she knew why. It signalled showman.

As for the inside, she hadn’t seen it, thanks to Storm living up to his superlative cranky reputation yesterday and holing away inside the bus, corresponding with her via terse text messages.

Today, she’d set the tour ground rules and make sure the idiosyncratic rocker played her way.

Her hand clenched into a fist and rapped for the third time, on the window this time, not stopping until she glimpsed a flicker of curtain.

Charli waited while Storm played his little mind games—she’d heard he was notoriously late, notoriously rude, just plain notorious—mentally checking the list she’d made on Landry Records’ latest star.

Storm Varth: fifty-six, had topped world charts for eight weeks running thirty years ago, had a string of bad songs to his name over the past few decades and a string of bad women.

He’d been in rehab five times, in love ten and had finally sobered up enough over the past year for Hector to take a chance on reviving his career.

Personally, she had her doubts on the hard-living rocker lasting the distance this tour let alone making another recording but Hector had a good eye for talent, old or otherwise, so she’d make sure she did a damn good job no matter how much she wanted to throttle him.

‘Take your time, Mr Varth. The longer you take with your day itinerary, the less time you’ll have for trawling bars tonight.’

She bit back a grin as she heard fiddling with the lock accompanied by a string of curses before the door finally opened.

‘Good morning.’

She gave him her best fake smile, designed to dazzle with just a hint of ‘don’t mess with me’ thrown in.

‘What’s so freaking good about it?’

When Storm finally stepped into view, she bit the inside of her cheek to stop from laughing out loud.

Fifty-six-year-old guys shouldn’t wear mid-thigh emerald silk kimonos, no matter how rich or famous.

‘You’ve studied the itinerary for today?’

He leered at her through bleary eyes, his blond-tipped three-inch spikes standing to attention as he ruffled his hair.