See You at the Show (48 page)

“I think I would have always come back, Luke.
 
In the end.”

“Would you?”

She nodded.
 
“Yeah.
 
I would.”

And she’d never spoken a truer word.
 
She’d tried to forget a lot of what had gone on back then but forgetting her son had been something she hadn’t been able to do.
 
He’d always been there, at the back of her mind.
 
She’d always wondered how he was, what he was doing – what he looked like so yes, she probably would have always come back.
 
At some point.
 
For him.

He smiled again.
 
He did that a lot and she liked that.
 
“Don’t be a normal mum though, ok?
 
I kind of like having a mum like you.
 
If you know what I mean.”

She laughed again, walking backwards as she led him to the backstage area where Mark and the guys would be hanging out.

“I know exactly what you mean, and don’t worry.
 
Stevie Stone may have finally got her life together but she ain’t ever gonna be normal.”

And that suited Luke just fine.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“Daniel…the spending cuts.
 
We have that meeting with the chancellor in an hour, have you thought anymore about what we need to discuss?
 
And the defence minister is anxious to set up a meeting with you before next week, before you fly to
Washington
.”

Daniel looked up at Angus.
 
“Sorry.
 
I was miles away.”

“You’ve been miles away for weeks now,” Angus said, writing something down in his notebook.
 
“You really need to pull yourself together.
 
Samantha’s worried about you.”

“Samantha needn’t concern herself with how I’m feeling.”

“She’s your wife, Daniel.
 
Of course she’s going to be concerned.”

“She isn’t my wife, Angus, we’re divorced.
 
In case you’d forgotten.”
 
Daniel got up and went over to the sideboard, pouring himself a drink.

Angus watched him.
 
“You’ll be getting re-married soon though, won’t you?”

“Will we?”
 
Daniel took a sip of his whisky.
 
“And who told you that?
 
Samantha?”

“No.
 
I’m just assuming…is that a good idea, Daniel?”

“Don’t assume things, Angus.
 
What happens between Samantha and I is our business, not yours.
 
And it’s one small whisky.
 
God knows I need it to get through a meeting with Jeffrey.”

Angus turned back to his note-writing.
 
“He’s a good chancellor.”

“Doesn’t make him an interesting person though does it?”

Daniel sat down on the edge of the desk and Angus looked at him again.
 
“What is wrong with you lately, Daniel?
 
You have everything going for you.
 
You’re still a popular P.M., you’ve still got your reputation intact, a brilliant career ahead, people respect you.
 
And you’ve got Samantha back.
 
You’ve got everything you could possibly want when it could all have gone so differently.
 
You’re very lucky, Daniel.
 
Very lucky indeed.”

Was he?
 
Daniel finished his drink and put the glass down, throwing his head back and staring at the ceiling.
 
He had everything going for him did he?
 
He had everything he could possibly want?
 
Everything?
 
No, not really.
 
And without the one thing he really wanted everything else was fast ceasing to be important.

“I’m fine, ok?” he sighed, looking at Angus.
 
“I’m just having a bad day.”

“Yes, well, you’ve been having quite a few of those lately.”
 
Angus stood up, gathering his things together.
 
“It’s time to sort yourself out, Daniel.
 
We’re visiting
Washington
next week and we don’t want the President thinking you’ve lost your touch now, do we?
 
I’ll be in Number 11.
 
I trust we’ll see you there in an hour?”

Daniel nodded, pushing a hand through his hair, watching as Angus closed the door behind him.
 
This office was the office he’d always dreamed of working in.
 
This house was the house he’d always dreamed of living in.
 
And Samantha had once been the woman he’d wanted to share all of this with, but that had been before Stevie Stone.
 
That mixed-up, crazy Swedish rock chick had invaded his life and even though he knew forgetting her was the right thing to do, for the sake of his career, he was finding it almost impossible to do so.
 
Trying was becoming exhausting; putting her to the back of his mind was tiring, especially when her face was everywhere now.
 
And the fact that she was fast turning into a celebrity in her own right made everything a hundred times harder because it made it even more certain that he could never be with her if he wanted to stay Prime Minister.
 
If he
wanted
to stay Prime Minister.
 

He got up and walked over to the window, looking outside.
 
She was never going to go away.
 
He was never going to be able to forget her.
 
He could try but it was never going to happen.
 

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes again, leaning back against the window.
 
Stevie Stone, the most incredible, unforgettable woman he was ever likely to meet.
 
So just how much was Daniel Madison prepared to give up to win her back?

***

Johnny sat on the sofa in Mark’s
L.A.
living room, strumming away on his guitar as Stevie sat opposite him, scrolling down the music on her iPod, absent-mindedly singing along to the song Johnny was playing.
 
The sun streamed through the wall of window’s that lined one side of the room in a house that more than screamed rock star pad and for the first time in what felt like months, Stevie felt relaxed.
 
She felt happy.
 

She’d had a great time with Luke when he’d been over in
L.A.
and she missed him like crazy now he was back in
Manchester
.
 
She felt like they were just starting to get to know one another and saying goodbye so soon had been hard.
 
Harder than she’d thought.
 
He’d had the time of his life back stage at the gig as Stevie had showed him just what it was that went on behind the scenes, what it was that she did in this job that she loved, and when she’d let him run out on stage with her when she’d set up Mark’s microphone and checked the guitar amps his face had lit up!
 
He was a natural.
 
He’d loved the buzz just as much as she had when she’d first started doing this and he hadn’t been able to stop talking about it for ages afterwards.
 

In the days that had followed, her and Mark had taken him around L.A., showed him the sights, then – along with Connor and Johnny – they’d moved on to Las Vegas for a couple of days before Connor and Luke had had to return home.
 
Stevie missed them both.
 
Connor was one in a million, a wonderful man who’d dealt with this whole episode in a way she’d never imagined he would.
 
She didn’t deserve him as a friend but she was so grateful that’s what he’d become, for the sake of Luke if nothing else.
 
She knew he’d almost lost his job because he’d refused to write anything sensationalistic about their relationship and her past, so he’d now gone freelance, which he was loving.
 
He was getting work from places he’d only ever dreamed of before, although he was still receiving offers of large sums of money from one or two publications to expose the truth about her relationship with Daniel Madison.
 
But that was never going to happen.
 
What had gone on between her and a man she still cared very much about was never going to be spoken of in public the way people wanted it to be and the longer things went on the more people began to realise that.
 
But it didn’t mean it was ever going to go away completely.
 
It probably never would.
 
She was always going to be connected to Daniel now, but she needed to concentrate on moving forward, and with Connor and Luke back in her life, and Mark by her side, she was finally starting to do that.

She couldn’t say that things were perfect between her and Luke.
 
Not yet.
 
It wasn’t a situation that could be fixed overnight.
 
It was going to take a lot of time and who knew how their relationship would finally pan out, but he was an amazing kid and she really hoped things would work out because she wanted to see more of him, wanted to spend more time with him, but she wasn’t going to force him.
 
The ball would always be in his court, everything would happen on his terms, but if he wanted her around then that’s where she’d be.
 
She wasn’t going to let him down again.
 
She’d promised him that, and she’d meant it.

“I’m going back to
London
in a day or two; you know that, don’t you?” Johnny asked, looking at Stevie.
 

She looked up from her iPod.
 
“Yeah.
 
I know.”

“And you’re staying here, are you?”

She crossed her legs up underneath her, putting her iPod to one side and clasping her hands together in her lap.
 
“Yeah.
 
I’m staying here.
 
For a bit longer, anyway.
 
What’s the problem?”

“There isn’t one.
 
I just want to make sure you’re happy, that’s all.
 
You scared me Stevie.
 
What happened, I thought I’d…”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Johnny.
 
Please.
 
It’s over.”

He lay his guitar down against the sofa and sat forward.
 
“So,
are
you?
 
Happy?”

“Yeah, I’m happy.
 
Look, I know things have changed between us but…Mark, I…I want to give it a real go, Johnny.
 
Me and him, it just feels right, y’know?
 
So things have
had
to change.”

“Not for him they haven’t.
 
Just for me.”
 
Johnny stopped for a second, aware he was starting to sound like a petulant child and he didn’t want that.
 
He wanted Stevie to be happy, even if it did feel like a part of her was being taken away from him.
 
“So, I take it there’s no more running to me whenever he pisses you off?”

“He won’t piss me off.”

“Mark will
always
piss you off, Stevie, believe me.
 
He may have changed but there hasn’t been a fucking miracle.”
 
He sat back, picking up the bottle of beer from the table beside him, taking a long swig.
 

Stevie watched him, aware that he felt he was being pushed to the side because of her relationship with Mark but that wasn’t the case.
 
Ok, the days of sleeping with him just to get back at Mark,
they
were over.
 
But the friendship wasn’t.
 
Everyone was going through a learning curve and Johnny was just going to have to get used to it.

“You’ll always be my best friend, Johnny.”

He looked at her and smiled.
 
He knew that.
 
He just wished he could have been more. “Yeah.
 
You better believe that, kiddo.
 
So, you decided what you gonna do when you get back to
London
?”

She shrugged, playing with the laces on her boots.
 
“No idea, to be honest.
 
Adam, my agent, he says there are more than a dozen modelling contracts on his table – which I still find strange seeing as I’m thirty-four years old – a book deal, two recording contracts…it’s mad really because all I know how to do is roadie.
 
I’ve never sung, never written anything…”

“You did modelling before.”

“I was in my twenties.
 
That was a long time ago.
 
And you’ve seen the kind of modelling
that
was, Johnny.”

Yeah, he remembered.
 
How could anyone forget?
 
“You’ve still got a great body, Stevie.”