Secrets to Hide 2: Naughty Little Christmas (20 page)

“Of course.” She winced at the strained note in her voice. “Guys,” she said, “let me introduce Damien Adams, the owner of Thrice.”

One by one the men shook Damien’s hand. Before Jace could step up, Damien reached out, his hand cupping Harley’s waist to pull her close even as he extended a hand to Aftershock’s lead singer. Harley leaned instinctively into Damien, but her gaze met Jace’s, and in his eyes she saw the knowledge she’d hoped not to face tonight, not on top of everything else, the knowledge that she was sleeping with her boss. The information must’ve been one straw too many for Jace, who opened his mouth and shattered her world with a few choice words: “So, did you know about the baby?”

DAMIEN THOUGHT HE’D heard the man wrong. What baby? He looked to Harley, saw sheer panic in her green, green eyes, then turned to Aftershock’s lead singer. “What?”

“Jace, please. Don’t,” Harley said, voice trembling.

“So he doesn’t know either? Figures.” Without answering Damien’s question, he signaled the other band members. “We need to warm up. We’ll see you in a few, Little Miss.”

The final words dripped with sarcasm, confusing Damien even more. A glimmer of an idea sparked in the back of his mind, and his heartbeat sped up. When the door clicked behind the men exiting the room, Damien looked to Harley.

Heart in his throat, he had to ask, “Are you pregnant?”

Harley’s eyes were the saddest thing he’d ever seen, a well of emotion that spilled out in a single fat tear from one reddened corner. He reached for her instinctively. “Hey, it’s okay, Wonder Girl,” he said, hoping for a smile. “Whatever it is, it’s okay. We’ll deal.” He laid his cheek against the top of her head.

Harley released a strangled sound he barely recognized as a laugh. For a single moment she squeezed him hard, holding on as if he’d disappear any second. Then, without a word, she stepped back out of arm’s reach to lean against the snack table.

“I’m not pregnant,” she said with a small smile that wasn’t anything like what he’d hoped to see. “But I do have a daughter.”

Shock jolted his gut. The words reached his ears, even his subconscious, but their meaning was lost in the rush of static that was all he could hear. He waited for the sound to clear. When it did, Harley was talking. About her sister, a baby, the band. But his name was what finally registered.

“What?” He tried his damnedest to focus, but the realization that this woman, the woman he’d trusted not just with his business but in his bed, his life, had kept a major part of herself secret clouded out everything else.

“Damien.” Harley choked, coughed, then seemed to force herself to continue. “Klio was my twin’s baby. She was conceived last New Year’s Eve. Do you remember what you were doing this past New Year’s Eve?”

What did where he’d been have to do with the fact that she’d essentially lied to him all this time? “I was getting Thrice ready to open. When were you going to tell me you had a child?”

“You were getting Thrice built, and you were investigating the club scene in Atlanta. You were at the Pulse on New Year’s Eve. So was Sonny.”

“And?”

Harley kept rubbing her chest as though it ached, the spot right over her heart where the Gemini tattoo rested. The movement caught his attention, held it, became a focal point as her next words registered in his brain. “Sonny had black hair that night. She wore a silver dress, and she met you on the dance floor.”

A vague memory began to bubble in his brain.

“She said…she said you took her upstairs. Klio was conceived that night. She’s…she’s yours. And Sonny’s.”

The rubbing hand stopped, and Damien lifted his gaze to Harley’s dead-white face. He was a father? Of Harley’s daughter, who wasn’t hers but her twin’s. Damn it, he needed a map to follow that convoluted story. But it didn’t matter, because one very important fact trumped any grain of truth in her argument.

“That’s impossible. I always wear protection. I’ve never gone without it.” But he remembered the Pulse. He remembered a dress that sparkled like the ball in Times Square. And a woman with pretty green eyes and dark hair—and a lot more experience than Harley.

It couldn’t be Sonny, though. She hadn’t looked like Harley. Except maybe those eyes… He didn’t know. It had been too long, and the memory was hazy at best. Could a woman so close to Harley truly have produced such an unmemorable night of pleasure?

“Sonny said there must’ve been a hole. It happens.”

Of course it did. Just not to him.

“You talked to her about it?” he asked, not sure why. The entire conversation had taken on a surreal quality that had him wondering if he could be dreaming the whole bizarre episode. Walking like he was ninety, he eased back to the couch and gingerly sat.

“No, I didn’t. I read it in her diary after she died. She was absolutely certain. Klio is yours.”

“Right,” he said numbly. Harley stared at him from across the room, every thought hidden behind a calm facade he knew she faked. How could it not be fake when his entire world was disintegrating around him? Didn’t she feel his hurt? His confusion? Yet those beautiful eyes were fixed on him, tranquil green without a ripple of…anything. Anything at all.

That was when the anger hit, so sharp it stopped his breath. Harley stood across the room, calmly saying she’d lied to him, kept his child—if it was his child—from him, and she didn’t even show remorse.

A knock on the door startled them both. “Harley, time to go!” Ryan called.

Damien watched her, first one step, then the next, until she stood in front of him. He rose automatically, and she lifted her hand to his chest, settling it in that spot she’d claimed as hers, the spot she liked to rub when they curled around each other. Her hand was so light he barely felt it, but his heart weighed a hundred pounds.

“We can talk more about this when I come offstage, okay, Damien?”

He didn’t respond; he couldn’t. Everything was frozen inside him, everything but the anger.

Harley caressed him carefully, softly. “Damien?”

Reaching up, he grasped her hand, pulling it slowly away from his body, then dropped it. “No.”

“But we need to—”

“No.” He moved to the side, forcing himself away from her one step at a time. The anger—it had to be anger; he wouldn’t admit to anything else—flared, over and over, swamping any walls he could’ve erected, oh so close to spilling totally out of control. “We don’t need to talk. You need to go.”

Confusion flickered in her eyes, the first glimpse of feeling he’d seen. “Okay. We can do this later.”

“There won’t be a later.” He reached for the doorknob, gripping the metal so hard it hurt. “I don’t want to see you again. When you get offstage, get your stuff. You’re fired.”

The sound of Harley’s footsteps stumbled toward him as he opened the door and stepped through, but he refused to look, would rather tear his eyes out than look at her right now. He didn’t want to see her, except he couldn’t move away, and there was nowhere else for his eyes to go.

Harley stopped in front of him. “Damien, you can’t fire me. You need me.”

I thought I did
. “Not that much,” he said. “I got what I needed already. Just get your things and get out.”

“And what about Klio?” she asked.

He couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around a reply, so he just shrugged.

That apparently got through to her. She pushed into his space, her own anger bright in her eyes. “Is that really how we’re going to play this?”

Because he couldn’t speak without strangling her, he didn’t.

“Fine,” she snarled, leaning in. “But we’re not done, Damien. When you’re ready to talk like an adult instead of acting like a little boy throwing a temper tantrum, you know where I am.”

Damien lunged, not sure exactly what he intended; he just knew he needed his hands on her right that second. But she was no longer there. He snarled at her retreating figure, but if anyone asked, he wouldn’t admit even under threat of torture that he couldn’t take his eyes off her until she rounded the corner and left his sight completely.

Midnight loomed by the time he managed to force himself out to the bar. Throngs of people swamped every available space from the front door to the stage, where Sound on Fire banged out their latest number-one hit. Damien pushed his way through until he faced Brad across the bar. Tapping the wood, he signaled for his usual, the words stuck somewhere back in the green room where his reality had shattered. The crowds were too loud anyway, or so he told himself as he turned his back and ignored the look of concern Brad threw his way. Ryan, he couldn’t ignore.

“Boss! Whatcha think?”

Ryan’s excitement soured on Damien’s palate, but he refused to ruin his friend’s hard work like Harley had ruined his. He slapped Ryan on his blazer-clad back. “I think you did a helluva job; that’s what I think.”

Brad reappeared with his Jack and Coke, and Damien swigged it down in three big swallows.
Another
, he mouthed to his bartender. Brad frowned but didn’t argue. When Damien turned, it was Ryan’s furrowed brow he met, and Ryan’s questions he knew he’d have to answer. Hoping to forestall the inevitable, he asked, “The concerts go off okay?”

He knew they had. Ryan would’ve come to get him if something unforeseen had occurred. But the question got Ryan rolling, and the next five minutes were filled with details Damien didn’t take in and numbers he didn’t give a shit about. He knew they’d met their minimum—the concert had sold out within hours of announcing Aftershock’s appearance. Apparently Harley’s leaving the band had been a huge disappointment to fans, and Aftershock had yet to find a permanent replacement for her. Fans had flocked at another chance to see the “whole” band.

So yeah, they were set. Right now he could care less about anything but getting the hell out of here. Unfortunately, that was going to be difficult without explaining to someone exactly why he was leaving.

Or maybe not. When he slammed back his second drink, Ryan shot him an understanding look. Just how much had the man heard standing outside the green-room door earlier? The warm swirl of alcohol in Damien’s gut made him care a lot less, he found. He opened his mouth to hand Ryan his excuses—and instead heard Sound’s lead singer announce the countdown to midnight.

Ryan leaned in. “Aftershock’s coming back onstage. You didn’t get to see Harley play earlier.”

He didn’t want to see her now, but Ryan was pulling him toward the railing, positioning them directly across from the stage. Jace and a man Damien didn’t recognize counted down on a shared microphone, “Five. Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!”

Cheers roared through the room. Couples grabbed each other, kissing passionately. Singles tooted their party horns and threw confetti in the air. Chaos erupted, but all Damien could see was the stage, where Aftershock stood with Sound on Fire, waiting for the cue to begin playing. The lead singers’ antics pumped up the crowd. A couple of the musicians jumped down from the stage, grabbing a pretty girl to lay one on. And far in the back, Harley stood, her bass cuddled to her chest like a shield, the look in her eyes as lost as he felt. As Jace turned to signal her, she stepped to the front, positioned her fingers, and began the heavy
thump-thump
of whatever song they planned to play. Damien watched as that simple beat pulled the crowd back to attention, got them clapping, focused an entire mob on a single point—and the whole time, he could’ve sworn tears blurred her jewel-toned eyes. The sight tore through his gut so violently he thought for a moment both of his drinks were about to make a reappearance. By the time he’d controlled his gag reflex, the rest of the musicians were playing and Jace and the other singer had launched into a hard-rock version of “Auld Lang Syne.”

Damien couldn’t take a minute more. Turning to Ryan, he yelled over the music, “Call me when things are closed up, ’kay?” Then, ignoring his friend’s confused look, he pushed his way back to the hall and made it to his car without another delay.

Revving the engine, he pulled out his phone and made a quick call. Within minutes he was on his way to Alex’s house and, hopefully, some help figuring out what the hell to do next.

* * * *

Alex Brannigan’s fiancée occupied one corner of a wide couch, her complexion almost as pale as the white suede on which she sat. A green can creaked in Cailin’s grip. Guilt at keeping his friend’s pregnant—and obviously ill—soon-to-be wife awake surged as he took the chair across a low coffee table from the pretty blonde. “I’m sorry for dropping by so late, Cailin.”

Cailin’s smile wobbled ever so slightly. “We were up, Damien.” She sipped her ginger ale carefully. “Apparently our child already has its days and nights mixed up, because morning sickness is definitely hitting mostly at night right now.”

Damien could sympathize. Shaw’s first pregnancy had been the same. “Just hang in there. It’ll equalize soon.”

“That’s what I keep telling her,” Alex said as he set coffee in front of Damien before settling next to Cailin with his own steaming cup.

“Yes, but you’re not the one tossing your dinner up every night,” Cailin reminded him. “Or crying because you feel so damn nauseated when you can’t.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Alex rubbed Cailin’s leg patiently. His friend had apparently learned the yes-dear response fairly quickly. The couple had only known about the pregnancy a little over three weeks. They’d found out about the same time he’d met Harley, in fact.

The reminder of tonight’s events had Damien’s amusement dying a quick death. The gaping wound in his belly seemed to get bigger as he sat, watching Alex and his fiancée. His gaze settled on Cailin’s abdomen, the way her hand rubbed back and forth over the spot where their child rested. Had Sonny done that with his baby? Could he even be sure the baby was his? Sure, Harley’s conviction appeared solid, but she’d lied to him, about a child, no less. How could he trust anything she said now?

“What’s going on, Damien?” Alex asked, his voice gruff with the lateness of the night and concern.

Words failed him. He sat, staring back at Alex, and wondered how the hell to explain something he didn’t understand himself. “I think…I have a daughter.”