Girl on a Diamond Pedestal (7 page)

“I’ll be back in a moment,” he whispered, trying to ignore the fierce tightening of his stomach.

He followed his grandfather down the hall, dark and
carpeted with a threadbare Aubusson that spoke of age and money, into his study and shut the door. He crossed to the bar and took out two glasses, one for him, one for the old man, and a bottle of whiskey. He added three fingers of the liquor to the glasses and handed one to his grandfather, raising the other to his lips.

“What exactly are you playing at here, Ethan? Noelle Birch? Am I expected to believe this is a happy coincidence?”

Ethan shrugged and took a swallow of his whiskey. “Don’t know if I’d call it happy.”

“I’m certain I wouldn’t call it a coincidence. I know you far too well for that.”

“Maybe I’m in love.”

“Are you marrying her?”

He nodded once. It was the truth in the strictest sense. He was simply leaving out his plans for what came after the vows. “That’s the plan.”

“And you’ll be faithful to her?”

Ethan set his glass down on the bar top. “I’m not like my father. If I make a commitment, I honor it. I take care of what’s mine.”

“Now, that I trust. You know if I do pass the company straight to you what a slight it will be to Damien. Your father has been waiting for this all of his life.”

“I’m completely aware.” He was counting on it.

“He’s my son, Ethan, but I’m not proud of what he’s become. I want to make sure you do better for yourself. I want you settled before you get wrapped up in running a corporation like Grey’s.”

“No offense intended, but the one I run now is larger than Grey’s.”

His grandfather nodded. “True enough. Which begs the question why you want Grey’s so badly.”

Revenge was the easy answer, one that didn’t seem quite right in this scenario. But there were other reasons, more complex. Ones he didn’t like to dwell on. Those reasons took him back to being a boy, a boy with nothing. Of no importance to his parents. Barely worth a second glance if they passed him in the hall of their large family mansion.

“Because what you have is never enough,” Ethan said. “That’s how it is for businessmen. You know that. You always need more.”

“I don’t really know what it is you’re doing here, Ethan.” Nathaniel let out a sigh. “Maybe I don’t want to know. I just want you to be happy. Stable.”

“I’m stable. I know that my marriage to Noelle will make me very happy.” If not for the reasons marriages usually made people happy. If they ever did.

“I hope so. I assume you will want your grandmother’s ring?”

This was a huge part of making it all look real. “Yes.”

“I’ll go and get it from the safe.”

Ethan ignored the slow burn of guilt that mingled with the alcohol in his gut. Everything was working out now, just as he’d planned. The ring was another piece of the puzzle.

He downed the last of his whiskey, letting the fire overtake the uncomfortable emotion that was swirling in his stomach. Everything was starting to fall into place, and guilt had no part in it.

“You’re tense,” Noelle commented.

They were about five minutes into the drive from his grandparents’ house and he hadn’t spoken a word. His hands were locked tightly around the steering wheel, the muscles on his forearms corded, showing his strain.

“Not at all,” he replied, teeth gritted.

“You’re a bad liar.”

He tossed her a quick glance. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m not trying to lie.”

“Well, then you’re a bad liar when you aren’t trying to be a good one. You aren’t fine, even I can see that, and I’m not really an authority on reading people. You can use my mother as exhibit A on that one.”

He hunched slightly and shifted his hands lower on the wheel. “It doesn’t thrill me to lie to my grandparents.”

She swallowed. “I’m with you. Your grandmother is … she’s very kind.”

“She always is. She’s so stable. Calm.”

“Not like my mother at all.”

“Or mine.”

“Want to tell me about her?”

He leaned his head back against the seat. “Not in the least. You?”

“Don’t you already know about her?”

“I know what I saw. She was beautiful. Charming. She had my father under a spell. What did you see when you looked at her?”

Noelle bit her lip. “All of that. She could play this kind of sweet beauty, act a little bit naive so that she could get away with being demanding. But that was an act. She was smart. Smarter than I am, obviously. She used me to make money, and I can’t seem to manage that.”

“She was dishonest, you weren’t. That’s not smarter. That’s cheating.”

“Then what are we doing right now?”

“We’re cheating too. But it’s for a good cause. Trust me.”

She wished she could.

They were quiet again until he turned the car down a winding road that led toward the beach. Noelle unrolled her window and let the salt air and the sound of waves on the sand fill up the interior of the car. It was preferable to that ear-ringing silence.

Ethan pulled the car up to the front of the hotel and left it, keys in the ignition. He got out, slamming the door behind him, not bothering to come around for her door this time. She sat with her hands in her lap for a moment before opening her own door and following him in to the opulent lobby.

Her stomach tightened as she hurried to catch up with him, her high heels clicking on the black marble floors. She looked up at the high ceiling, at the five levels of rooms, each with a balcony that overlooked the massive lobby, ornate carvings on the hand rails with vines growing over them. Like a ruined city that still glittered with riches.

She’d been here before. Stayed here with her mother whenever she performed in Brisbane. It brought so many things back. Every time they’d come, she’d practically been frog-marched through the lobby on her way to the many-roomed suite at the top floor, and, jet lag not even accounted for, had been settled in front of the piano to practice within five minutes of her arrival.

And her mother had gone out, as she always did. To network or whatever it was she called it. And she’d been alone.

“We’re staying in the room with the piano, aren’t we?”

Ethan stopped dead in his tracks and turned, his dark eyebrows locked together, the heavy tension still radiating from his body. “Yes.”

“I’ve been here. We came to Brisbane quite a bit for a few years and we always stayed here.”

There was a strange light in his eyes, something cold. Dark. “Is that so?”

“Yes. I mean, I like it … it’s … nice.”

“If you’d like to stay somewhere else …?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s fine.”

She followed him over to the side of the lobby that had a stone wall and water running closely down the side of it. There was a line of elevators with golden doors, the water routed well around them so that people could step inside without fear of getting their designer clothing wet.

“When did you buy this hotel?” she asked, stepping inside the lift behind him.

“A few years ago. The first of my grandfather’s hotels that he surrendered to me. My father used to manage it.” He spat the last words out as if they tasted bitter.

“I don’t even know who my father is.”

He turned to her, his eyes hardened into black ice. “There are times when I wish I didn’t know who mine was.”

It was difficult to hold his gaze when he looked like that, when the remnants of his charming facade fell away and he was all hard, angry male. But she managed it. She’d spent a long time being submissive, doing as she was told and cowering in fear. She didn’t want to do it anymore.

“Why?”

“I think he was quite like your mother in many ways. A cheat.”

“Aren’t we a pair, Ethan? Probably a good thing we aren’t getting married for real.”

He grunted in what, she assumed, was agreement.

The doors to the elevator slid open after a moment and revealed an opulent gilded entryway, glowing with gold and cluttered with ornate carvings. She couldn’t hold back a laugh as Ethan punched in the key code. She was glad
to find a reason, any reason, to laugh. To break some of the tension in her. Tension brought on by being here again. Tension from being near Ethan.

“What?” he asked, pushing open the door.

“This whole hotel is so very not you.”

“How do you figure?” he asked, holding the door open for her and letting her enter the room first. He must have calmed down because that reflexive chivalry of his had returned.

“You don’t strike me as a man who does ornate. Your hotel in New York is much more in keeping with how I see your style.”

“Hotels aren’t about me. They’re about the people who patronize them.”

“True.” She knew all about that. When she composed music she had to keep in mind what people would want to hear, and yet … pieces of her soul were always there.

She wished that her gift hadn’t gone. That aspect of music … it had been so much in her. Woven through her being. To look at the scenery, this gorgeous hotel, and not hear a soundtrack to it was still painful. She didn’t know if she’d ever get used to that resounding silence always filling her head now.

It made her body feel foreign to her. Wrong. All of her, every bit, felt wrong. Like being caught off guard by a change in tempo and not quite being able to find the rhythm again, stumbling over notes, breaking the melody so that it was an unrecognizable jumble. It was such a hellish nothing.

She meandered across the plush living area, her fingers drifting over the keys of the piano reflexively as she passed it by on her way to the exterior balcony. She needed air. Space. If only she could escape from herself. Just for a moment.

She opened the sliding door and stepped outside, the cool air from the ocean raising goosebumps on her arms. At least out here she could breathe better. She hadn’t gone out on the balcony the previous times she’d stayed here. She’d looked out the windows at the view, had thought about stepping out, but there hadn’t been time.

She frowned. Why? It would only have taken a moment. What else had she missed? Small things. Simple things. An ocean breeze. Having friends. Being kissed.

She closed her eyes and relished the feel of the damp wind on her cheeks.

As much as she wanted to blame everything on her mother, she’d been guilty of having tunnel vision. Her mother had pushed it, supported it, but it had been in her. That drive. That obsession. The need to be better, the best. To push a bit harder each and every day.

Was it any wonder it had all deserted her?

She opened her eyes, watched the waves, the whitecaps glowing in the moonlight as they crashed over the shore. Ebbing and surging, soft and hard, fast and slow. Like music. Something she’d never stopped to look at before, not really. She felt a low hum vibrate in her throat and a couple of notes spilled out. A piece of music. Not one she’d heard before. Her heart thundered hard, adrenaline surging through her. It was the first time in a couple of years there had been something, a sound, a note. Anything.

“Thought the night called for champagne. Alcohol of any kind, really.”

She turned at the sound of Ethan’s voice and saw him standing in the doorway, two flutes of bubbly in hand, his shirt unbuttoned halfway, his feet bare, dark hair tousled like a woman had just run her fingers through it.

Now, this was very, very different than her stay last
time. She swallowed, but despite the moisture in the air, her throat felt dry.

“I won’t say no to that.”

He walked to where she was standing, looking like every woman’s secret fantasy, his dark eyes locked with hers. He handed her a glass and leaned over the railing, touching the edge of his flute to hers. “Cheers.”

She lifted hers in mock salute. “Cheers indeed.” She took small sip of the bubbly liquid, then cursed it, because champagne wasn’t going to help her dry throat. She turned her focus back on the waves. “It must be nice. Having your own success. Having all of this.” She gestured to the view.

He shrugged and leaned against the railing. “I don’t mind it.”

“You still want more, though? Enough to lie to your grandparents?” He shot her warning look. “I’m not judging. I’m involved in this too, aren’t I? I’m just asking.”

A muscle in his cheek ticked. “It’s not about having more. It’s about keeping my father from getting it.”

“I don’t understand why your grandfather would pass it on to him if he was that incompetent.”

“It’s not about his incompetence, though I guarantee you I’m twice the businessman he is. It’s about principles. You can’t just treat people like they’re there to serve you, with no regard for how they feel, and then get rewarded for it. I won’t see it happen.”

“Ethan …”

“I won’t watch him win, Noelle. Not after the way he treated my mother. It goes beyond the fact that he was unfaithful to her. He took her money, you know. Like your mother did to you. When his father wouldn’t give him what he thought he needed to expand his business interests, he siphoned it off of my mother while he was screwing other women behind her back. Or worse, in plain view. Everyone
knew how little he respected her.” He took a drink of his champagne. “My mother’s not perfect, but she didn’t deserve that.”

Noelle’s throat felt tight. “No one does. I … I’m sorry.”

He laughed. Cold. Humorless. “Now isn’t that ironic? You, apologizing. I thought I told you not to do that.”

“Fine. Then I won’t. But I am sorry your mother was hurt. But will this … I mean … will it fix anything?”

He knocked back the rest of the champagne and backed away from the railing. “I’m going to bed.”

“Instead of talking to me?”

“I didn’t ask you to marry me for psychotherapy or companionship, Noelle. I won’t start pretending now.”

He turned and left the balcony, left her standing there with her heart pounding in her chest, a sick feeling rolling in her stomach. This was pretend, he was right. And it wasn’t about getting to know each other, or caring, or anything real.

So why had it started to feel like it was?

I
T
was sort of nice to have a reprieve from Ethan’s presence. Noelle spent the day in and around the hotel, trawling the little shops and indulging in a Vienna coffee at a café near the beach. It was decadent in so many ways. No one telling her what to do, and no pressing, horrible worries.

The bubble bath afterwards had been a major highlight too. Relaxing, which was nothing like being with Ethan. Warm and sensual too, which
was
a bit like being with Ethan.

She swore out loud in the empty hotel suite and embraced the rush of satisfaction it gave her. Her mother had used whatever language she wanted, whenever she felt like it, but Noelle had always been bound to protect her image of being a sweet, eternal child. Nothing even remotely adult or scandalous could be associated with her.

In the end, it hadn’t helped. She’d grown up. She’d gotten uninteresting.

She flopped onto the couch and put her feet on the coffee table. This was familiar. Nights spent alone in a hotel room. She’d always cherished the time. Time simply to be herself. To eat a chocolate bar and watch a movie showing her what she was missing, locked up in her ivory tower while the rest of the world lived.

She took a bite of her chocolate bar. She was reliving
old times in a way. But there would be no sexy movies. Being around Ethan was messing with her head and she didn’t need to encourage her suddenly perky hormones.

The door to the suite opened and Noelle scrambled to get her robe into place so that everything was covered.

“Hi.” He walked in and stripped his black tie off in one fluid motion, casting the strip of silk to the floor. It was like something from a cologne commercial—or one of her late-night movie indulgences. The gorgeous man returning home after a long hard day to sweep his woman off her feet and into bed …

“Hi,” she replied, hopping up from the couch, holding the lapels of her robe tighter now.

“Good day?”

“I did more data entry. And had coffee.”

“All good then?”

“I suppose.”

“We’ve rated the papers over here. Pictures of us getting off my private plane are everywhere.”

She took a step toward him. “Do you have them with you?”

“You like being in the news, don’t you?”

She shrugged, slightly embarrassed by her enthusiastic reaction. “I got used to it. To watching it. Seeing what people said, what they thought. Good and bad, it all sort of … validated me.”

He reached into his laptop bag and pulled out a folded paper. “Enjoy.”

She took the newspaper from his hand and opened it slowly, her heart pounding as she looked at the pictures, at the headlines.

Ethan Grey returns home with new squeeze, pianist Noelle Birch, in tow. Meeting the grandparents?

“That’s … cool,” she said.

“Cool?”

“To get in the pubic eye again like this … like we talked about. But it’s more than just showing my mother up. You don’t know what this might mean for me.”

He didn’t smile. His face didn’t seem to change at all. But something in his eyes looked different. Darker. “I have an idea.”

“You don’t approve of my enjoyment of fame?” His silence was its own kind of answer. “My life … the life I had before, it was … It’s hard to explain. Parts of it were brutally hard. And yet, there were things that I loved. I loved to play in front of a crowd. I loved it when I would hear the beginning notes of a new song in my head. And I loved when people recognized me. When they were excited to see me. Like they cared or something.”

He shook his head, his expression suddenly fierce. “That’s not real. None of it is.”

“It feels real,” she said softly, looking down at the picture.

“Trust me, it’s not. Ask my mum how real it is. She was an A-lister for a while. Invited to every party, cast in all the big movies. The public built her up and then forgot about her overnight while she poured everything she had into a husband who acted like she wasn’t alive half the time. There’s no happiness in seeking the approval of the people. Because maybe they’ll give it, but only for a while. And when they take it away, it’s a cruel reality.”

“Yeah, I’m sort of living that reality, Ethan. I’m aware of how much it sucks.”

“All right, Noelle, today your picture’s in the paper. What about tomorrow?”

She didn’t really want to think about tomorrow. She was safe now. Safe and warm, and feeling pretty happy to be
back in the public eye in a positive way. But that attitude was what had gotten her into trouble in the first place. She might be enjoying these snatches of happiness right now—enjoying them too much to see something bad around the corner, something like her mother running off with all her money.

“I don’t know.”

“No one should have the power to decide how you feel about yourself, Noelle, good or bad. Give yourself that power.”

“I suppose it’s easy for you.”

He shrugged. “I’ve never cared what other people thought. As long as I’m getting where I want to go, I don’t care what other people think of my methods. When you’re successful there will always be people waiting to watch you fail. They don’t matter.”

Ethan’s heart was pounding heavily in his chest, a strange, protective sort of anger pumping through him, hot and fast. Reckless. There was no reason he should care, none at all, about the way Noelle saw herself. About the look on her face when she’d seen her picture in the paper.

But it reminded him too much, far too much, of how his mother had reacted to reviews, good and bad, about how she’d been disappointed when the paparazzi had stopped following her. About how thoroughly demolished she’d been when the press had gleefully dissected Damien Grey’s appearance with Celine Birch at a major Hollywood industry event, leaving his wife, the movie star, at home.

The constant bitter regret, the desperate wishing that she’d never moved away from California, never sacrificed her figure to give birth to a son who didn’t bring her happiness anyway.

Terrible memories of trying to revive her after she’d swallowed a whole bottle of pills.

Putting Noelle in that spot made his gut tighten so hard he couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

He didn’t know why he was doing this, why he was putting her in that place. Why he was feeling things for her.

All he knew was that he wanted to touch her, to comfort her in some way. But the minute he did that, the minute his hands touched her smooth, silken skin, it would be over for him. He would take her in his arms. Kiss her. Seduce her.

No. He wouldn’t. He would be in control. Just as he always was. She wasn’t different. She wasn’t special. He tightened his jaw, clenched his teeth, tried to stop his body’s intense reaction to the thought of what it would be like to seduce her.

So sweet. For a moment.

It would almost be worth it.

“What?” she asked, her voice breathless, her breasts rising and falling sharply. She knew. And she was just as affected as he was.

“We’ll have more public appearances to make over the coming weeks,” he said, his eyes fixed on her full, pale lips. “We have to be sure we’re comfortable touching each other.”

He took a step toward her, his body urging him on, his mind screaming at him to pull back. He would. He would pull away before it was too late. Just not yet.

Not quite yet.

He put his hand on her cheek, shocked to see how unsteady it was. She was soft, softer even than he’d imagined she would be. And the need to do more, touch more, was so strong it made his body shudder.

“Comfortable?” she asked, her words hushed, her blue eyes wide.

“Not even a little bit. You?”

She shook her head.

“Then we’ll have to change that,” he said.

He dipped his head and closed the gap between them, pleasure bursting in his stomach, heating him to boiling point, his whole body instantly hard with desire. She tasted sweet, her kiss better than any wine he could remember. And far outstripping any other kiss he’d experienced. He couldn’t remember being affected this strongly by the simple touch of lips against his, not even when he’d been a teenage virgin.

A soft sound escaped her mouth and he devoured it, taking the chance to dip his tongue inside, to taste her a bit more thoroughly. Just a taste.

But a taste could never be enough. Not when it made him crave more. Everything.

He raised his other hand and allowed himself to rest it on the indent of her waist, another step into temptation. Another concession. But he would pull away in time. Before it got out of control. There was no ‘out of control’ for him, he always had it. Always had the power.

She touched the tip of her tongue to his and need shocked him, like a lightning bolt from the point where she made contact straight to his groin.

He couldn’t breathe. But it was all right. He would gladly drown in her. In the passion that poured from her and filled him, pushing at the bonds of his control, cracking it, threatening to shatter it.

Was this what his father felt when he was with his mistresses? A pull, a need that felt essential as air?

The thought was a bucket of ice water to his overheated libido. He pulled away from her, his throat tight, his lungs burning with the need to draw a breath he couldn’t quite manage to pull in.

“That’s enough, I think,” he said, his voice rough.

She looked dazed, dizzy. A lot like he felt. “I …”

“Don’t worry about the press,” he said. “I’ve got work to do, so I’m going to go to my room now.”

He turned without looking at her again. Because if he did, if the look in her eyes reflected the longing he felt, if he caught her scent, he would be lost again.

He couldn’t afford that. It was a matter of keeping his focus. And it was a matter of pride. He wouldn’t lose either.

Notes moved through her. Music, a melody, vague and unstructured. Noelle turned over in bed, felt the cool sheets against her bare legs. The chill didn’t last long. As soon as her thoughts came into sharper focus, she remembered the kiss.

Ethan’s lips moving over hers, so expertly. So sensually.

Her first kiss. And it had been … it had been so much more than she’d imagined it could be. All fire and need. Exciting. Terrifying. It had brought something out in her that she hadn’t felt before, something she hadn’t realized lived in her.

She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, her toes digging into the plush carpet. She could feel it swelling in her, moving through her. It made her ache. Or rather, it added to the ache that was already centered in her chest. An ache that was physical as well as emotional.

It was as if everything was changing, shifting beneath her feet. Not like the cold shock of change that had happened when her mother had disappeared with her money, but something else, something more subtle, but even more dangerous in some ways.

She was starting to feel changed, rather than simply feeling that her life had changed around her. She felt
more power. More control. And less, at the same time. She wasn’t sure how that worked exactly.

She closed her eyes again, found the melody she’d heard in her sleep. Vague still, but present. Inspiration that felt familiar, like something she used to feel before. She stood, excitement flooding her, and walked through her room, out into the main area of the hotel suite. It was automatic, sitting at the piano, her fingers resting lightly on the keys.

She could still feel Ethan’s lips on hers, the hot press of his hand on her waist.

She pressed one key down. Low. Soft and tentative at first. Then she added another. Several joined together, the strains harmonizing, creating a haunting dissonance that filled the room, that reflected the feelings swirling inside of her. Minor. Confused. A little bit sad.

“What are you doing?”

She halted her movements and looked up. Ethan was there, wearing only a pair of jeans resting dangerously low on his hips, revealing lines that led to a part of his body she definitely shouldn’t be thinking about. She shifted her eyes up and it was really no better. His chest was art, his abs a sculpture. Every inch of his body was well-defined, dusted with just the right amount of dark hair. Sexy beyond all reason.

“Playing.” She forced the word out around the lump in her throat.

“Not a drill.”

“No.”

He walked closer to her, resting his forearm on the closed top of the shiny black grand. “Not a piece I recognize either.”

“Original,” she said. And as she said it, she realized it was. It was a song. And it had come from her.

Her stomach tightened.

“I liked it. What was it?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. Because it was true. She wasn’t sure what she felt. What she wanted.

He circled her, moved so that he was standing behind her. He stretched one arm forward, brushing her bare shoulder as he did, resting his fingers on the keys, pressing a few of the them.

“Why not?” he asked, his breath fanning over her cheek.

“Because I’m not sure what I want. Where I’m going. But I want to. I think that’s what the song really is. It’s longing.”

“What is it you long for, Noelle? Fame?”

“I thought so,” she whispered. “I’m not sure now.”

“Something else?” He put his hand on her shoulder and brushed her hair to one side, exposing her neck, his skin hot against hers.

“Maybe.” She sucked in a sharp breath.

“Something with a little bit more … immediate gratification?”

His lips were near her ear, brushing against her, his voice soft, husky, an invitation to sin. She wanted to accept. Regardless of the consequences, in that moment, she wanted to turn and press her mouth to his. To have another taste of the passion she’d been introduced to earlier.

But she didn’t think she could take that step. What if he pulled away? What if he didn’t want her? She wasn’t sure she could handle more rejection, even if it was only physical rejection.

He moved his hand over the back of her neck, the tips of his fingers gliding over her skin. She shivered, her nipples tightening, arousal trickling through her, thick and sweet like honey, making her ache for more.

She knew exactly what it was her body wanted. And she also knew that Ethan could give it to her. It was the
other stuff, the heart-pounding, stomach-tightening emotion that frightened her.