See You at the Show (3 page)

“I’m outta here,” he said, pushing a hand through his long black hair.
 
He’d seen it enough times and didn’t much fancy sitting through it all again.
 
He’d leave them to it.

“Johnny...”

“Later, Stevie.
 
You two sort it out, ok?
 
I’m off to find Jack.”

 
Mark quickly turned to look at his friend before turning back to Stevie.
 
Stevie Stone.
 
His Swedish fantasy, his permanent vice.
 

He still remembered the day she’d walked into his life.
 
Johnny had brought her backstage after a gig they’d done in
West London
a few years ago, and every head in the room had turned to look at her.
 
With her shock of white blonde hair with its bold, deep red and black streaks and eyes that seemed to pierce right through you, Mark Cassidy had felt as though he’d been hit by a stray bullet the second he’d laid eyes on her.
 
She’d been dressed in ripped skinny jeans, biker boots and a tight black t-shirt that had shown off her toned and tattooed arms; he’d been in lust before she’d even opened her mouth.
 
But once she’d done that, once that had happened he’d been thrown head-first into a Scandinavian fantasy.
 
She’d spoken perfect English tinged with the sexiest Swedish accent and from that moment on he’d wanted her.
 
But she’d been no groupie.
 
He’d got that within seconds of her being there.
 
A lot of the crew guys had known Stevie, known that she was a notoriously hard working and popular roadie for various bands on the scene and they’d filled him in on everything as he’d watched her speak to Johnny and Billy from across the other side of the room.
 
But that had only made her all the more appealing to Mark.
 
She’d been no easy pushover.
 
One smile from Mark Cassidy was never going to floor Stevie Stone.
 
She’d been a challenge, but one he’d been more than ready to undertake.
 

So when Johnny had suggested she come on board as a permanent member of their road crew Mark hadn’t needed to be asked twice.
 
Keeping her close had been something he’d needed, and in less than a month of being with the band Stevie Stone was in his bed.
 
The sex had been incredible, she’d been like a living, breathing fantasy girl, with her killer body and that incredible accent and legs that could wrap themselves around him and hold him inside her for what felt like hours.
 
But Mark Cassidy was a rock star, and when temptation came his way he rarely said no.
 
Stevie wasn’t enough for him yet he needed her more than he’d ever needed anything else in his life.
 

So the rows were frequent and their relationship turbulent but it was also something neither of them could let go of.
 
She needed him as much as he needed her but if he got too much, if he gave her shit then she’d always run to Johnny.
 
Mark knew she slept with his best friend, nobody made any secret of it, nobody hid anything from anybody.
 
Sometimes it bothered him, sometimes he couldn’t care less.
 
But tonight he wanted her with him, not Johnny.

He placed his hands on her knees, pushing her legs apart as she sat on the counter.
 
“You know you’re the only one I really want, don’t you, baby?”

“You’ve got an incredibly twisted way of showing it, Cassidy.”

He stroked her arm gently, lightly running his fingers up and down it as he kissed her neck.

“I get crazy, honey.
 
I don’t know why I do it; I don’t know what gets into me.”

“Too much beer and some bimbo feeding your ego, that’s what gets into you, Mark.”

Stevie could feel herself weakening again, that familiar feeling of need for this wild and ridiculously handsome man flooding through her as it always did when this happened.
 
She always felt this way because he always did this, he always said these things and smiled that smile and she nearly always let her guard down and let him back in.
 
She was a strong woman, everyone knew that.
 
That’s how she’d got to where she was.
 
She was strong.
 
But when it came to Mark Cassidy, she’d found her weakness.

He was her guilty pleasure.
 
She’d known of his reputation, known what he was like with the women long before she’d met him.
 
The guys she worked with had told her all about him so she’d been more than prepared for that killer smile and those sexy, dark eyes.
 
But that didn’t mean to say that she hadn’t been knocked sideways as soon as he’d touched her hand.
 
She just hadn’t let him see that.
 
Not straightaway.
 
Just as he’d wanted her from the second he’d laid eyes on her, Stevie had felt exactly the same way about him.
 
He had something about him, from the way he walked to the way he spoke and the little things he did like rubbing the back of his neck when he was nervous which, granted, didn’t happen very often with someone like Mark Cassidy.
 
But he’d done it a couple of times when he’d been talking to her in the early days and it had been cute.
 
Endearing.
 
Because underneath that cock-sure attitude and sometimes over-inflated ego was an ordinary guy who just wanted attention.
 

“What do you say, baby?” Mark said, his mouth moving closer to hers, his breath warm on her cheek.
 
“Why don’t we go find a quiet corner and I show you just how sorry I really am.”

She was still weakening, she still really wanted him but tonight she was tired.
 
Tonight she wasn’t willing to forgive him quite so easily.
 

“You really think you’ve got this sorted, don’t you?” she smiled, snaking her hand round the back of his neck.
 
“You really think I’m just going to fall back into your arms and everything goes back to normal.”

His mouth was almost touching hers now and she could feel her heart racing, her resolve weakening.

“I need you, Stevie.
 
Come on baby, let’s go, let’s get out of here.”

“Not this time, Mark,” she said, pulling away from him and kicking him in the stomach, pushing him backwards.

“Jesus, Stevie, what the hell’s wrong with you?” he said, clutching his stomach where she’d lashed out with her biker boot.
 
“That fucking hurt!”

She slid off the counter and walked over to him, putting her hand to the side of his face, kissing him slowly.
 
He tasted amazing.
 
He always did.
 
A mixture of beer and cigarette smoke and she loved it.

“You want me, Mark, I get that.
 
But tonight, Mark Cassidy, rock star, isn’t getting what he wants.
 
Deal with it.”

He smiled that smile as he looked at her.
 
She was incredible.
 
She’d been up for hours, partying all night and she still looked as though she’d stepped straight off the pages of a magazine.

“Playing hard to get, huh?”

“I’m not playing at all, Mark,” she said as she walked back outside, turning round to look at him, smiling herself.
 
“Not tonight, anyway.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Daniel Madison pushed his chair away from his desk and ran a hand through his newly cut, light brown hair.
 
He was shattered, but at least he’d been working from home today so he had no commute to contend with.
 
Not that he’d have been driving anyway.
 
He rarely drove himself anywhere these days.

Daniel Madison was an extremely successful and prominent businessman turned politician.
 
Having made his fortune in computer software he’d decided to follow his lifelong dream of becoming a politician, something he’d always wanted to do from a very young age.
 
He had a degree in Business and Political Studies from
Oxford
University
and he’d always known that one day he’d be involved in the world of politics in some way or another, when the time was right.
 
And that time was here.
 

Daniel had been a Conservative MP for a small
Berkshire
constituency - and shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer - for a couple of years now, but it wasn’t his ultimate dream.
 
His ultimate dream was to become Prime Minister.
 
He loved his country and he wanted the best for it and in his mind he had the ideas and the ambition to make it everything he knew it could be.
 
He didn’t want to just sit back and let everything happen around him, he’d never been that type of person.
 
He’d always been the one to
make
things happen, not watch while others around him did so.
 
For now though he’d sit back and wait until the time was right, but he wouldn’t give up.
 
He never gave up.
 
His time would come, he was certain of that.
 
Daniel Madison was only forty-three years old, he still had a lot of ambition left in him, a lot of things he still wanted and needed to do.
 
And he wouldn’t settle until he’d done them all.

Born in
Berkshire
, the second son of two very well-respected barristers, Daniel was always going to do extremely well in whatever it was he chose to do.
 
He’d been brought up to work hard and achieve as much as he could and he’d never forgotten the drive his parents had instilled in him.
 

He was five-feet eleven inches tall with the most beautiful green eyes; think average politician and Daniel Madison didn’t even come close, not to look at, because Daniel Madison was intensely handsome in a very middle-class sort of way, and along with his well-spoken accent and his faultless manners he was almost the epitome of Englishness.
 
But that was all he knew, that was him.
 
He’d never tried to be something he wasn’t.
 
He’d always wanted people to see the real Daniel Madison, that was extremely important to him.
 
Especially if he wanted to achieve his ultimate goal.

He’d been married to Samantha for almost twenty years.
 
The daughter of Lord and Lady Babbington, Samantha Madison was the perfect politician’s wife.
 
Very slim, very pristine and very upper class, she was forty-two years old with perfectly styled shoulder length blonde hair and alabaster white skin.
 
She screamed elegance.
 
That was Samantha Madison.
 
She ran the local Women’s Institute, took part in many community activities around the village and always made sure she knew exactly what was going on.
 
Samantha liked to be informed and she missed nothing.
 
She adored the lifestyle she and Daniel had and with no children, she had plenty of time to put all her energy into being the perfect partner for her husband, and he loved her.
 
He needed her around, she kept him organised.
 

He leaned forward and shut down his laptop, sighing as he looked out of the window at the perfectly manicured lawn outside, the centrepiece of their immaculately landscaped garden.
 
They lived in a large farmhouse in the
Berkshire
countryside but it wasn’t their only home.
 
They also had houses in Southern Spain,
Italy
and two homes in
America
– one on the West Coast in
Los Angeles
, the other in
New York
.
 
Not to mention the flat in central
London
that Daniel used whenever he was there on business or when he needed to be there in his capacity as an MP.
 
But the
Berkshire
farmhouse was the one he really thought of as home.
 
With acres of land and a number of outbuildings Daniel did sometimes wonder if they really needed somewhere quite so big when there was only the two of them.
 
They didn’t even have a dog.
 
But he knew Samantha loved the place.
 
It was close to her parents, and with him being in
London
and working away so often it seemed unfair to take her away from what was familiar to her.
 
As far as he was concerned though he could live anywhere really.
 
He’d spent most of his life travelling around the world staying in hotels and rented houses so uprooting himself from any location had never been a problem.
 

His office was in a large outbuilding across the courtyard from the main house.
 
Large enough to contain two offices, a bathroom, kitchen and small living area, he spent many hours in there when he was home.
 
Not always because he wanted to escape – he had a lot of work to do, he needed the peace and quiet – but sometimes he saw it as his haven.
 
Samantha very rarely came in to this space.
 
It was totally his and he liked that.