Fyre & Revenge (10 page)

Perhaps she
wasn’t gone? Perhaps Logan was wrong and she was just in the
shower, changing into something lighter than the full dress…even as
the thought occurred to him, he dismissed it. Since when had he
started doubting Logan? There was no way he’d lie to him, not over
something like this.

His eyes swept
over the room, latching onto the envelope on the dressing table. He
approached it with the caution of a soldier checking enemy bodies
for booby-traps. A single white envelope, with the hotel’s logo on
it. There was no name on it but he knew it was for him.

He reached out,
picked it up. It was heavier than just a letter, something clicking
and shifting inside it. He knew what it contained before he opened
it and looked inside. Sure enough, two rings nestled between the
folds of the heavy white paper, the diamond of Zette’s engagement
ring catching the light.

JJ sat down
heavily on the side of the bed. There was a letter as well, a
single sheet of paper folded neatly and slid into the envelope next
to the rings. He smiled despite himself, Zette was always neat and
tidy. Drawing out the letter, he opened it.

I
know
about
the
divorce
papers
.
File
them
.

“Crap.” JJ’s
jaw tightened, a muscle jumping in the corner. He’d hoped this was
retrievable but if she knew about the papers then obviously not.
File
them
…and she obviously didn’t care.

“Fuck it,” he
muttered, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his cell. He
flicked it open with a practised gesture, hitting speed dial. He
wasn’t letting her get away as easy as this damn it! She couldn’t
just walk out on him without him having the last word. Even if that
last word was just to ask her where to send the damn papers.

The distinctive
ringtone of her phone went off behind him, on the other side of the
room. JJ frowned, leaving his ringing as he tracked hers down by
the sound, ending up rooting under the bed for it. She must have
kicked it there by accident and forgotten it.

“Great, now
what?” He looked at the sleek silver device in his hand. The
flashing icon in the corner caught his eye. She had saved messages.
Unable to help himself, he pressed the call button and lifted it to
his ear.

“Ms. Matthews,
this is Doctor Fisher. We’ve just received your test results back
and I’m delighted to inform you that you are expecting…”

* * *

“
All
I
wanted
…
was
a
fairy
tale
ending
…”

Zette’s
powerful voice was restrained as she sang, little more than
whispering into the microphone in front of her. But it was enough.
The raw emotion in her voice pulsed around the stadium, kept the
crowd spell-bound, fascinated by the tiny figure on stage as though
she was something rare and unique. An endangered species to be
observed before it died out forever.

JJ stood in one
of the VIP boxes, watching from the shadows. His expression was
fixed, eyes focused on Zette. She
was
unique. There wasn’t
another singer in the world that could pull in such crowds, evoke
such emotion in a crowd, in a listener. Make them feel the pain and
sorrow that flowed through her voice.

Especially her
last album,
Sleepless
Nights
and
Broken
Hearts
. A departure from her usual
full-bodied, full-on rock style, it was filled with soulful ballads
that brought tears to the eyes. Or at least they had for JJ,
hearing the anguish in her voice as she huskily whisper-sang the
words. Critics raved over her ability to put so much emotion into
her voice but he knew better.

Zette sang from
the heart, she always had. The pain and misery were real. And he’d
caused them.

“But
my
Prince
Charming
…
you
weren’t
who
I
thought
you
were
…”

He winced, the
world contracting, narrowing down to just the two of them. She
could have been singing just to him. She
was
singing just
to him. He’d known that the moment he’d heard her singing this
track, catching it by accident on the radio in his car.

He’d avoided
listening to her new album. Pride. Stupid pride. She’d told him to
file the divorce papers, wanted him out of her life even though she
was pregnant. It had killed him but he’d done it, telling himself a
woman who could walk out on her wedding was capable of just about
everything. The baby probably wasn’t his anyway, he told himself,
using the sort of crap men used to justify their actions. So when
he’d turned on the radio and heard her, he’d already been moving to
switch it off, but the note in her voice had stopped him. Then he’d
listened to the words and he’d been lost.

“…
walking
alone
,
always
walking
alone
…”

He’d sat in his
car for the longest while, hours, without moving. Looking through
the windscreen as the world moved on around him. He’d missed his
entire afternoon’s meeting schedule, his PA going mad trying to get
hold of him. She’d even rung the hospitals thinking he’d had an
accident.

Which he had,
but not the sort she was thinking of. No, it was his emotional
state that resembled a train crash. Shocked, rocked to the core,
realisation had hit him with the force and subtlety of a
sledgehammer. He’d gotten it wrong. So wrong it wasn’t even funny
unless you were thinking farce.

He’d bought her
album that night and sat up into the early hours listening to it.
Each and every track resonated with him, some bringing tears to his
eyes as he realised what a fool he’d been. But this song,
Shattered
Dreams
, affected him on a level the
others didn’t.

It was about a
little girl who’d believed in fairy tales, only to have them
shattered one by one. The people she was supposed to trust and rely
on rejecting her and abandoning her. At first he’d thought it was
just about him, just about a girl losing her lover and getting her
heart broken. But after about the hundredth time listening to it,
he realised there was more to it than that. She wasn’t talking
about one person, not just about him. The realisation had prompted
him to do some digging. Digging into the past and what had happened
all those years ago.

He’d just
returned from tracking her mother down. His jaw tightened at the
thought. What he’d done to Zette was bad enough but what Ariadne
had done had been far, far worse. What could possess a mother to
abandon her child, albeit a nearly adult one, alone to fend for
herself?

No wonder Zette
was so strong. She’d had to be to survive. His eyes wandered over
her again. He couldn’t see her properly on stage at this distance
but the cameras remained fixed on her, the two huge screens at the
back of the stage displaying her from different angles. Whatever
the angle, one thing remained the same. The protective hand she had
curled around her swollen belly as she crooned into the
microphone.

“And
I’ll
walk
alone
,
my
fairy
tales
just
a
shattered
dream…”

Pride welled,
deep and strong. His child. Without thinking about it, he knew
Zette would never abandon her baby as she’d been abandoned. She’d
be like a lioness defending her young and he seriously pitied
anyone that tried to hurt a child of Zette’s.

That included
him. He might need some of that pity before the night was out. When
she’d finished singing, he was going to try and put things right.
Apologise on his knees…grovel and beg forgiveness; whatever he had
to do to put her shattered dreams back together.

Forever.

* * *

It had been a
long concert, a hard one for Zette. But now it was over. She sighed
in relief as she took a last bow, the roar of the crowd behind the
dazzling lights lifting her spirits a little. It was hard not to
take comfort in the fact that at least her fans loved her, even if
it was only for her music. Right at the moment she’d take just
about anything to soothe her battered soul.

Finally she
managed to escape off the stage, ducking past the stage crew and
heading for her dressing room. She smiled as people called out to
her but, now that she was offstage, she allowed her sheer
exhaustion to show and they didn’t do more than shout
congratulations on her performance.

She closed the
door of her dressing room and leaned against it. Her eyes fluttered
closed for a moment, tension draining away from her body. Usually
performing galvanised her, left her hyped up. But pregnancy had
taken it out of her. Morning sickness and exhaustion, a cocktail
guaranteed to make anyone feel like crap. Not that she hadn’t
already felt that way.

On automatic,
her hand stroked over her bump. Six months gone now she was visibly
pregnant. So far she’d refused to comment on her pregnancy or her
‘failed before it started’ marriage, despite repeated pleas from
the media. Her PR people gave them the same answer every time.
Zette’s personal life was not up for discussion. Ever. And any
reporter, paper, magazine…hell even small town community
newsletters, which printed anything about her or her baby that
wasn’t sanctioned, would be on the receiving end of some very nasty
attention from her lawyers.

Fortunately JJ
seemed to have the same approach to them. She hadn’t seen anything
from him in the papers as yet. She knew her office shielded all her
mail and checked the news to make sure. Hell, she’d even tried to
retain Logan Fyre in case she needed some heavy duty legal muscle.
He was JJ’s friend, but she could still appreciate that he was the
best in the business.

Unfortunately
he’d turned her down, but he’d been nice about it. Assuring her
that his friend was an ‘asshole who deserved everything he got’ but
no, he wouldn’t be the one that was dishing it out in court. She
was however relieved to hear that Logan would also not accept a
case against her, unless she decided to all out screw with JJ. In
other words, let sleeping dogs lie and so would he. In the
circumstances, she figured it was the best she was going to
get.

She opened her
eyes and looked at the couch longingly, gathering the energy to
waddle over there and collapse on it.

“You, sweetie,
make mommy tired,” she said, her voice soft as she stroked a loving
hand over her bump. She’d asked not to be told what sex the baby
was on her scans, but she had a feeling it was a little girl. She
didn’t know why, but it just seemed feminine. A small foot kicked
out, hitting her hand with unerring accuracy. Zette laughed, making
it across the room to lower herself onto the couch.

“Okay, okay,
that’s your space, mommy not touch.”

She’d barely
sat, her limbs relaxing into the comfortable cushions of the couch,
when there was a knock at the door. Zette groaned, her head
flopping back into the cushions for a moment. Why did people always
do that when she’d just sat down? Didn’t they know it wasn’t
exactly easy to get up and down when you were the size of a small
house? The knock came again, the sharp rap of knuckles against the
wood, as though the owner didn’t like to be kept waiting.

“Okay, okay,
hold your horses, I’m coming!” she called as she hauled herself out
of the luxurious clutches of the couch to waddle over. She opened
the door, her mouth already open to give whoever it was a lecture
on impatience but no sound emerged as she recognised the tall form
standing in the doorway.

JJ.

Her heart
lurched, clenching painfully as she looked at him. She hadn’t seen
him since the wedding reception and even now that image of him
reappeared in her mind from the small box she’d locked it in, tall
and handsome in his wedding suit. As soon as that one got in, the
rest, a hundred images of him in different states of undress…or
smiling as he woke, assaulted her with painful clarity. Memory was
a bitch when you wanted to forget.

“Hello Zette,
how are you?”

She just looked
at him. How was she? How did he
think
she was? She’d just
been on stage, pouring her heart out about heartbreak and faithless
lovers and the man who’d planned their divorce before he’d even
married her was asking her how she was?

“When are you
filing the papers?” she asked bluntly, in no mood to mess about
with the kind of games JJ played. She was too tired, too heart-sore
for that.

“If you’ve
brought them now, I’ll sign them and you can postdate them. I don’t
care what you want to tell the courts. Mind you, I’m sure you’ve
already got that all worked out. So, where are they?” She arched an
eyebrow at him, crossing her arms over her full breasts. Pregnancy
had only made her already generous figure curvier.

“I’ve not got
the papers, I’m not filing them.” He stood in the door and, if
Zette didn’t know better, he looked hesitant, as though he was
unsure of his welcome. It was the first time she’d ever seen him
show anything approaching a weakness. Her eyes narrowed, what game
was he playing now?

“You’re not?
Why?”

He cleared his
throat, looking down at the floor for a moment, as though he was
having trouble with what to say. He looked up, his hazel eyes
unguarded and open. Zette caught her breath at the sorrow
there.

“Because I
don’t want to,” he said simply. “Can I come in?”

The last was as
near to a plea as Zette had heard him make. Warily she nodded,
stepping back from the door to allow his tall figure to pass her as
she shut the door.