Cover Me: A Rock Star Romance (22 page)

I set the phone on the table and laughed. “What?” Emmy asked.

“She’ll be here, but Adrian and Karen are picking her up.”

John tugged on the baby’s foot. “Halprin women can never just go along with things. They always have to do it their own way. I’m sure Karen knows she needs to keep Bess on track or her mind will talk her in circles.”

Emmy smirked at him. “Why do things someone else’s way when you can do it your own way? It only makes sense.”

John gave me a sympathetic look. “See what you have to look forward to? I mean, I know you and Bess grew up together, but she’s a
woman
now and well…” He tilted his head toward his wife like the two of us were entering into a pact that no man should enter into.

“If she can deal with me, I’ll gladly put up with anything she throws my way.” If I got the chance, I’d prove to her that I could control my temper, never overlook her feelings, and put her first always in every situation. I’d drop out of the music business altogether if she asked. I’d move to the other side of the world and be a potato farmer if that’s what she wanted. As long as she was with me, I’d do anything.

I picked up my phone to check the time. Six hours until the press conference. Whatever Bess was doing, she better hurry.

The time passed painfully slow. My dad joined us an hour out from the conference as I put my final touches in place. I gave Pricilla and Lindsey each a charm and sent them on their way. Emmy would have the charm for the baby. “I got the sign up,” Dad said, patting me on the back. “We should head down there. Mom’s overseeing the set up and doing one hell of a job directing the press. You’ll be surprised.”

“Mom’s been directing the two of us for a long time,” I said, patting him on the arm. “If she can deal with our tempers, she’s got to be a natural at herding reporters and cameramen where she wants them.”

“How about the two of you keeping out of jail today, okay?” Emmy said, shooing us out the front door. “Now go. Make sure John gets that ladder truck back to the station before his chief finds out he borrowed it to put up a weathervane.”

Dad and I stepped out the front door onto the porch, but Emmy grabbed me by the arm. “Wait.” She stepped out beside me and gave me a strong hug. “Ever since you and my sister were little I knew you two would end up together. Not many people find the one person meant for them right from the start. I’m glad you didn’t give up on her. She never gave up on you no matter what she might think or say. I’m her big sister and I know when she’s fooling herself because she’s too afraid to act on her feelings.”

“I didn’t think about her feelings at all before a couple weeks ago when she hammered me in her review. Hopefully today will make up for it.”

Her smile was all the encouragement I needed. “I think it will.”

My hands shook,
my feet tapped. I couldn’t sit still. Adrian sat in the passenger seat of his Bentley Mulsanne with a hired driver behind the wheel while Karen and I sat in back. We pulled off the highway on the exit for Santa Cruz—for home—and I wanted to puke I was so nervous.

“Exactly what are you freaking out about?” Karen said, putting her hand on my knee and holding it still. “Is it seeing him after your fight or whatever, or are you afraid you’ll rip your clothes off and throw yourself on him in front of the press?”

She whipped her hair over her shoulder, giving me a smug grin. “I don’t know,” I said, but it was a lie. I was afraid of everything. All of it. I was T-minus ten minutes until we pulled in my driveway and I emerged from my cocoon and gave myself over to Derek to do with as he would. I could only pray I didn’t end up with a shattered heart that would never mend.

The look in Derek’s eyes when he said I wouldn’t let him love me… nothing could hurt more than that. I would let him love me, and I would love him back with every single part of me.

Adrian’s driver pulled into my parents’ driveway. Emmy’s minivan was there, but my dad’s Subaru wasn’t. Something told me I wouldn’t find Jean and Paul home from Europe early after all. Derek had an elaborate plan going and I’d ride its current downstream and into his arms.

“Okay, get out,” Karen said, nudging my hip. “We’ll see you at the press conference. Emmy’s inside.”

“The press conference isn’t here?” I looked next door. Nobody was around anywhere.

“It’s close by.” She nudged me again. “Go.”

I opened the car door and got out. Before I made it up the sidewalk, the car pulled out and headed down the road the wrong direction—toward the dead end and the vacant lot.

“Planning on standing there all day?” Emmy called. I turned to find her standing in the doorway with my baby niece in her arms. “We have things to do and a little less than an hour to do them. Come in here.”

The house smelled like breakfast food and it was almost dinner. “Where are the girls and John?” The quiet was unsettling.

“Around.” She sat on the sofa and motioned for me to join her. It felt like I was walking into a trap or an intervention of some kind. “Hannah has something for you,” she said, holding out the baby’s wrist. There was a pink ribbon tied around it with a dangling charm.

I took my niece’s hand. She wrapped her fingers around my thumb and I kissed her pudgy cheek. “You’re in on this too, huh?”

“It was practically impossible to keep her from tugging that charm off and not letting her swallow it,” Emmy said, untying the ribbon and handing the charm over. It was a platinum band, like a spacer that would go between the charms and it had Aquamarine stones embedded all the way around it. “It’s her birthstone,” Emmy said, handing me a folded note.

I clutched the charm and unfolded the paper, curious about what it would say. Derek hadn’t spent any time that I knew of with my nieces other than the day he was at their house drunk and Pricilla asked me why my boyfriend was puking in the bushes. That day was certainly not one for the memory books.

When I think of family, I think of you. Growing up an only child, I didn’t have what you and Emmy had, or what your nieces have. But I had you. It wasn’t a consolation, it was a gift.

Didn’t he know by now that what he and I shared growing up and the secrets and closeness we shared outweighed what Emmy and I had by far? Being six years younger than her, we didn’t have a lot in common and we still didn’t. I loved my sister and she loved me, but it was a family love, not a friend love. Friends you chose. Sisters you inherited.

“I’m supposed to give you this, too.” She picked up a gift bag by her feet and handed it to me. I folded the note and tucked it in my bag before digging into my next gift. Inside I found a picture frame with three empty spaces for photos. Across the top was an engraving.
Only happiness. Only love. Only everything.

“Are those for the girls’ pictures?” Emmy asked, leaning over to get a closer look.

“I don’t know.” I didn’t think so. Something told me they were for Derek and I to fill with new memories. Ones we’d make together. My mind flashed to babies and Disney World again and fear crept in. Fear of never having those new memories with him. I wanted this so badly that if it didn’t work, if we somehow failed each other…

Emmy swung her arm over my shoulders. “It’s a lot to take in. Don’t let it overwhelm you. He’s not asking you to hand over the world today, only your trust. The rest will come in time.”

I looked at my sister and understood something I never had. She was my rock. She never faltered. She stood strong and weathered all her own storms and mine. She sheltered me under her arm and guided me in the direction she knew my heart wanted to go but my feet were too afraid to tread. “Thanks, Em.” I hugged her and the baby, squeezing them tight until Hannah let out a shrill shriek of protest.

“We should head down the street,” my sister said, standing with Hannah. Lindsey and Pricilla are waiting for us.

“Where?” The pieces of the day were still fuzzy and refused to come together.

“Along the way,” she said, “to the press conference.”

I followed her outside and waited while she locked up the house. “Mom and Dad aren’t home, are they?”

“Of course not. Catch up, mustard, it was part of the plan to make sure you got here.”

“That’s what I figured.” I held out my arms to take Hannah. “I’ll hold her for a while.”

We walked side-by-side down the sidewalk toward the end of the street. Hannah kept reaching up trying to grab my glasses and whacking me in the chin instead. A little farther down the road, I saw the mass of press vans in the cul-de-sac in front of the vacant lot, but they blocked my view of anything else going on.

“Mom! Aunt Bess!” Lindsey came jogging toward us. “I have a present for you, Aunt Bess!” Lindsey was sunshine. She bounced instead of walked, always wore a smile and had the easiest laugh. She was the typical clown of a middle child who loved to be loved.

“Let me guess,” I said. “A charm?” She held out her arm and tied around it on a ribbon was a charm, just the same as the one Hannah had, but with her own birthstone, rubies. “Thank you, Lindz.” I handed the baby back to Emmy and untied the ribbon. “You’re taller every time I see you,” I said, giving Lindsey a hug.

“I’m tallest in my class.” She shoved a hand in her pocket and pulled out a note. “Here. This goes with it.”

The notes were my favorite part. I hurried unfolding it.

Because you’re my family, my home. We’ll fill the empty spaces together.

I thought of the photos he’d given me of our childhood. It only seemed right that my life would progress with him, that there would be more photos of us now and as we grew old together. The only empty space I’d ever had was where he belonged. He filled me up and made me whole.

“We have to hurry,” Emmy said, hooking her arm through mine and ushering me down the sidewalk. We got another few yards and stopped. Emmy’s brow creased in annoyance. “Cilla?” she called. “Where is she?”

A yard up from us, Pricilla stepped out from behind a large tree holding her phone to her ear. When she saw her mom’s face, she said something into the phone and quickly shoved it into her pocket.

“Get over here!” Emmy yelled, spurring Cilla to run over to us.

“Sorry,” she muttered, rolling her eyes and jabbing her arm in my direction.

“Thanks, Cill,” I said, untying the charm bejeweled with golden Topaz stones.

“You’re lucky,” she said.

“I am,” I agreed, taking the note she handed me.

“You know Adrian.”

I grinned. Of course she’d want to meet Adrian. “I can introduce you to him. He’s here.”

Her eyes bulged and she looked like she might cry or faint or lapse into full-blown hysteria. “He’s here!? You can introduce me!?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

As she freaked out and Emmy tried to calm her down, I opened my note thinking it was probably the last.

Because you say it’s never
only
anything with me and you’re right. It’s only everything. That’s what I want with you. Only everything.

I was still nervous, but a good nervous. I wanted to sprint the rest of the way, dart around all the press and run into Derek’s arms. No more running from him, only to him. No more being afraid of giving him everything.

Only everything.

That’s what I wanted with him, too.

Derek

S
he should’ve been
here by now. “Where is she?”

Karen stepped in front of me and put her hands on my shoulders to stop my pacing behind the riser where the podium stood. “She’ll be here. Emmy will gag and hog-tie her if she has to.”

“I hope she doesn’t have to.” By this time if I hadn’t won her over, I never would.

“Trust me, she won’t. Bess is crazy in love with you, okay? I’ve known her four years now and I’ve never seen her lose her cool, but you make her nervous and emotional.”

“That doesn’t sound positive.” Nervous and emotional weren’t feelings I’d chose. Happy was a good feeling. “Is she happy?”

“Bess doesn’t do happy. Take what you can get.”

Adrian sauntered over, taking a break from posing for the cameras. He loved the paparazzi and soaked up the shower of attention they gave him. “Mind if I say a few words?” he asked. “Since we’re waiting for Bess to get here?”

“Still trying to steel my thunder, huh?” I smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Go for it.”

He jogged up the riser stairs and stepped up to the podium. Cameras flashed and questions burst forth from reports in a garbled rush. “Good afternoon,” he said. “Thanks for coming. Derek Bast has generously agreed to let me say a few words before he takes the podium. First, what I put out to you last week was true. Unholy Union was in the studio, but not in the traditional sense. Derek and I have agreed to collaborate on a new project that features a sample of his first hit release, Cover Me. It’s a project I’m anxious to work on with him as his first client, producing the track under the True North label.”

All I could do was laugh. Adrian dropped bombs like they were candy tossed out at a parade and the press ate it up. We never discussed me producing our collaboration, but it seemed like the right idea. Neither of us had managers holding our feet to the fires of the big labels. It would launch the song and my new business venture.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Bess walking along the edge of the crowd. I took a step to go get her, but Karen grabbed my arm. “You can’t run out there. I’ll get her and bring her over.”

I looked over my shoulder, convincing myself that the enormous backdrop behind the stage would block the real surprise I had for her. The one she’d get to see once this horse and pony show was over and the cameras were gone.

Karen had reached Bess and was pointing me out. Her eyes found mine and we stared at each other across the wide space filled with flashing cameras and shouting voices. I couldn’t read her expression from this far away.