"Boyfriend, likely," David said. "If he couldn't keep it in his pants despite her religious beliefs, then he can't be a prince."
Nodding, Thea laid her head down on his shoulder, her palm over the strong, steady beat of his heart. "We'll get through this, David. Together."
The next three days weren't easy. Naomi Hughes hadn't yet gone to the media, but neither would she budge from her story. Thea made sure she was in the room during a legal meeting and the impression she had was of desperation and greed both. The girl wasn't as much the innocent as David believed.
That ring on her finger, the decision to use Zeke's gift against David, it spoke of cold calculation. And her manner was no longer meek and scared as it had been in the photo Thea had seen.
"He did this to me," Naomi said midway through the meeting, her hand fisted on the gleaming gloss of the wooden conference table and her lips white at the corners. "He needs to pay!"
"Since you've made your stance clear," Bailey said, his green-gray eyes striking against the deep brown of his skin, "there's no point in further discussion. We'll wait for the DNA results and go from there." The lawyer met the eyes of his opponent. "Mr. Rivera will, of course, provide for the child should it be his."
"I'm not giving permission for my baby's DNA to be taken!" The girl ignored her attorney's attempts to get her to quiet down. "I won't violate my child that way!"
David's lawyer didn't flinch, his face impassive. "The prenatal paternity test I've suggested requires a simple blood test from you. There's no risk to the child."
"No, I won't do it!"
"As your attorney should have explained to you before you made your claim," Bailey said in his implacable tone, "your word is not enough, Ms. Hughes." Stone-cold words. "Especially since our private investigator tells us you've been in a sexual relationship with one Juan Ortez for"--he looked down at his notes as, across from him, the girl went white--"the past year."
Naomi turned to her attorney, who suddenly wasn't looking as hard-nosed as he'd been to date. "Can they do that? Spy on me?" She swung back to David's team, shaking off her attorney's restraining arm. "I'll go to the television stations."
That was when Thea lost all remaining sympathy for the girl. The threat hadn't been desperate but smug, as if Naomi was pulling an ace out of the hole. Definitely a planned shakedown.
"That's your prerogative," Bailey said without missing a beat, having already discussed this scenario with Thea. "You should, however, be aware that should the DNA test come back negative for paternity, we will also release that information to the media."
The implication was clear: if she was lying, the girl would have to face some ruthless media attention. "Furthermore," Bailey said, proving his worth as a shark in a suit, "should you go to the media and the child later proves not to be Mr. Rivera's, we will also be filing suit for damages." He raised an eyebrow at the opposing attorney. "Perhaps you should explain what that means to your client."
The other man didn't blink, Naomi having hired a shark herself--one who was most likely working on a contingency-fee basis, with the expectation of being paid from the proceeds of Naomi's claim against David. Rising, the tanned brunette male said, "I'll contact you to arrange a mutually acceptable lab to handle the paternity test."
Naomi was still arguing that she wouldn't agree to any such thing when she and her lawyer left, but her voice had gone from smug to shrieking to shaky.
"She's dead in the water." Bailey's smile held no mercy. "This was an attempt at extortion pure and simple, and now she's finally realized it's not as easy as the tabloids make it appear."
Having seen the calculation in the girl's eyes, Thea wasn't so sure Naomi wouldn't push things further, so she kept her ear to the ground. It was difficult to be away from David given the stress of the situation, but she had to be in New York, where everything was going down. At least Schoolboy Choir's Manhattan concert was in a few days' time, so she'd see him then.
And her and David's line of communication was wide open. Thea had broken through her final self-protective walls in that hotel suite when David had told her he loved her--she'd never forget the passionate fury of that instant. She had no problem with laying her own heart out there. Her reward was seeing the brilliant light in his eyes, a light that didn't fade no matter the continued shadow thrown by Naomi's claim.
The first sign that things were going their way came twelve hours after the legal meeting, when the hotshot lawyer informed them he was no longer representing Naomi in her claim. Twenty-four hours after that, the private investigator hired by Bailey reported that Naomi had been in a crying, screaming fight with her boyfriend at the boyfriend's apartment.
"The P.I. didn't catch all of it," Thea told David over the phone, "but he said it was obvious they were fighting about the baby. She was screaming he'd promised her it'd be easy and that now people would think she was a slut."
It took another twenty-four hours for Naomi to totally withdraw her claim. Receiving the news soon after the band got into Manhattan, Thea went immediately to David.
"It's over," she said, cupping his face in her hands the instant they were behind the closed door of his suite. "Did you call your folks?"
"Yeah." He wrapped her in his arms. "My mom told me Naomi's getting married this afternoon. Shotgun wedding. She must've told her parents the truth."
Thea shook her head. "Regardless of everything, a part of me does still feel sorry for her." Naomi wasn't much older than her own sisters.
"According to Zeke, the bastard who knocked her up is a piece of shit," David said. "If I was her father, I'd have said she was better off without him."
"Yes." Running her hands over his shoulders, she held his gaze with the wide-open vulnerability of her own. "We're still standing, still in each other's arms."
David's heart-stealing smile creased his cheeks. "Right where we're meant to be."
"Yes." Tears rolled down her face, a dam bursting without warning.
"Hey." Scowling, David wiped them off with his thumbs. "Don't cry. I can't stand to see you cry. Or tell me who to kill."
She sniffed. "Thank you for being stubborn, for fighting for me, for being so wonderful, and for putting up with my hang-ups."
Kissing off her tears this time, he said, "I'm the one who came out on top. I have you."
Thea had no idea what she was going to do with him; he kept cutting her off at the knees. "I'm going to love you for the rest of my life," she whispered, and it wasn't scary at all to admit that, not when he'd given her his heart to hold in return for her own. "I am so glad you wrote me that memo."
A slow, sinful, David smile. "I'm not done yet."
After the Tour
Reasons Why You Should Marry Me
Introduction: In which I, David Rivera, set out the reasons why you, Thea Arsana, should make an honest man out of me.
First and foremost, I am insanely, deeply, forever in love with you. Since you admit to feeling the same, roadblock number one ceases to exist.
Second, your mother likes me. She kissed me on the cheek this morning and told me to hurry things along, start working on grandbabies for her. Your father, meanwhile, no longer gives me the stinkeye (most of the time). I think he's resigned to my existence.
You know my parents adore you and both my brothers are in love with you. Your sweet little sisters, meanwhile, seem to find me giggle-worthy, and Molly thinks we're perfect for one another. Ergo (I looked that up in the dictionary), there are no viable family reasons why we can't get married.
Third, all our close friends love that we're together. We don't want to break their hearts by not going all the way, do we?
Finally, and most importantly, I want you to be mine in every way. I want every single man on the planet to know you belong to me, and every single woman to know I belong to you. Playing with you, arguing with you over silly, everyday things, making love with you, growing grumpy and wrinkly together with you (while continuing to have mind-blowing sex at leas
t three times a day), that's my idea of heaven.
You're my girl, Thea. Be my wife?
Sitting by the stream at the bottom of her parents' garden, Thea finished reading the memo on her phone with a teary smile on her face. Only David could reduce her to a puddle. Unable to wait long enough to write back a memo in reply, she ran up the slope to find him... and there he was, waiting for her under the frangipani tree, that sexy, wonderful, slightly shy smile on his face.
"You forgot the conclusion," she whispered, the frangipani blooms heavy and fragrant around them.
He slid his hand around to her nape. "That's for you to write."
"In conclusion," she said, her hands splayed on his chest, "I, Thea Alice Arsana, see the value of your arguments." More, she saw him: loyal and strong and loving and talented and plain wonderful. "You are the most incredible man I've ever met, and I can't think of anything I'd rather do than marry you. I'll be proud to call myself your wife, David Rivera."
David's kiss held naked joy. So did hers. And then he was lifting her up and spinning her around. Thea laughed in delight with her own personal rock star under the frangipani blooms, the happiness like sunlight in her veins.
I hope you enjoyed David and Thea's story! If you haven't yet read Molly and Fox's story, which takes place at the same time as Rock Courtship, you can find it in Rock Addiction.
I'm currently at work on the next full-length book in the Rock Kiss series. For exclusive sneak peeks, deleted scenes from my books, and monthly updates, swing by my website (www.nalinisingh.com) and join my newsletter.
Any questions or comments? You can contact me at any time through the e-mail address on my website. You can also find me on Twitter & Facebook. - xo Nalini
Excerpt from Rock Addiction
She wanted to bite his lower lip.
Wanted to tug on the silver ring that pierced one corner of that delicious, toe-curling mouth.
But mostly she wanted to bite down with her teeth, taste the badness of him.
"Um, Molly?" A hand waved in front of her face. "Molly?"
Blinking, she forced her gaze away from the man who made her want to do bad, bad things and toward the petite form of her best friend. "What?" Her skin flushed until she wondered if her fantasies were visible to everyone in the room.
"You mind if I bug out?" Charlotte took a last tiny sip of her pomegranate martini before placing it on one of the small, high tables scattered around the room. "I want to spend tomorrow making sure all the files are in order for the new boss."
Molly scowled, all embarrassment fading. "I thought you were trying to take it easy on weekends?" The fringe of the black flapper-style dress she'd pulled out of her closet in a moment of whimsy swirled just above her knees when she shifted to give Charlotte her complete attention. "Isn't making sure everything's up to standard Anya's job anyway?" It was Anya who was personal assistant to the CEO; Charlie officially worked in the records department, but Anya had a way of treating Molly's best friend as her own assistant.
"New boss has a rep," Charlotte said. "I don't want to be fired because Anya didn't bother to do what she should." Narrowed hazel eyes behind fine wire-rimmed spectacles made it clear Charlotte had no illusions about the other woman.
Nodding, Molly considered the cherry that decorated her nonalcoholic but very pretty cocktail. "Let me get my coat." Disappointment whispered through her veins, but really, what would've happened if she'd stayed longer? Zilch. Zero. Nothing.
Okay, maybe another blush or two inspired by the rock god across the room, but that was it. Even if he, for some wildly inexplicable reason of his own, decided he wanted her, the one thing Molly would never ever do was become involved with someone who lived in the media spotlight. She'd barely survived her first brutal brush with fame as a shocked and scared fifteen-year-old; the ugliness of it had left scars that hurt to this day.
"Oh, no, don't." Charlotte put a hand on her arm, squeezed. "I'll order a cab. You're having too much fun staring at Mr. Kissable."
Molly almost choked on the cherry, lush and sweet, that she hadn't been able to resist. "I'd say I can't believe that came out of your mouth"--cheeks burning, she fought not to dissolve into mortified laughter--"but you have been my friend for twenty-one years and counting."
Charlotte grinned as she took out her phone and texted a cab company. "You know who he is, don't you?"
"Of course. He's only one of Thea's most important clients." And on the cover of every second magazine that came across Molly's desk at the library, all sleek muscle and tattoos and a sexy smile curving those dangerous, bitable lips. If she couldn't resist reading the articles and sighing over the photos, that was her guilty little secret.
"You two talking about me again?" Her sister's sultry voice sounded from behind Molly, followed by her slender body--currently clad in a tight red designer sheath.
"About your raking-it-in client," Charlotte clarified.
"That's uber-client to you." Raising her champagne flute, Thea clinked it against the glass that held Molly's frothy concoction. "Here's to rock stars with voices like sex and bodies like heaven."
Molly felt her stomach clutch, and even though she knew it was none of her business, said, "You sound like you're speaking from personal experience," grateful her voice came out steady.
"Molly, m'dear, you know I never mess around with money." Her older sister's uptilted eyes, a burnished brown, were suddenly dead serious. "And Zachary Fox, known to his gazillion and one fans as Fox, and to any woman with a functioning sex drive as hot with a capital H, is serious money. As are the other members of Schoolboy Choir." Putting down her empty champagne flute beside Charlotte's cocktail glass, she said, "Come on, I'll introduce you both to him."
Charlotte shook her head. "No thanks. You know me and gorgeous men--I turn into a Charlie-shaped statue." Having kept her phone in hand, she now looked down as the screen flashed. "That's a message from my cab driver. He's downstairs."
"You're sure about going home alone?" Molly couldn't help but worry about her best friend. Charlotte was fierce and strong and the only person who'd stood by her when the scandal broke, but she knew Charlie's own past had left invisible wounds that had never quite scarred over.
"Yes--I use this driver a lot for work stuff. He always waits while I unlock the door to my place and disarm the security." She hugged Thea good-bye before doing the same to Molly, leaning up to whisper, "Live a little, Moll. Take the hot rock star home, then tell me all about your night of wild monkey sex."
Molly's breath caught at the idea of it, foolish and impossible though it was. "If only." Over an hour into the party and Fox hadn't even looked in Molly's direction, that's how high she registered on his radar.
"Fox knows who you are," Thea said after Charlotte had left. "He saw a photo of us in my L.A. office--the one from after we went through the caves."
Molly groaned. "You mean the one where we both look like drowned rats, have giant black inflatable rings around our waists, and dented helmets on our heads?" The trip through the waters of the underground cave system had been fun, but it did not make for alluring photos. "Let's not forget the ancient gray wetsuits that made it look like we were molting."
Choking on her laughter, Thea nodded. "He was interested in doing the black-water rafting thing when I told him where we took the photo. I'm sure he'd love to talk to you about it."
Molly fought the temptation to get close to him any way she could, and it was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. "No thanks," she said, her mind awash in visions of what it would be like to meet him in a much more private setting, run her fingers over the firm lines of his body... bite down on his lip. "I'd like to keep standing over here with my fantasies." Distance or not, the needy, achy feeling in the pit of her stomach continued to intensify, her response to the rock star across the room scarily potent.
Thea raised an elegant eyebrow.
"If I meet him," she added through the shimmer of heat that licked over her skin wh
en he laughed at something one of his bandmates had said, the sound a rough, dark caress, "and he's an arrogant snob or worse, a stoned-out idiot, there go my fantasies."
"Fox is neither a snob nor a stoner." Thea's lips kicked up. "The man is the whole package: intelligent, talented, and a nice human being unless you piss him off by pushing too hard about his private life--and I don't think there's any chance you'll go paparazzi on me."
"That just makes it worse," Molly pointed out, trying not to watch as Fox bent his head to speak to a bombshell brunette in a dress the size of a handkerchief. "How can I fantasize about him ripping off my clothes in a moment of reckless passion if he politely shakes my hand and says it's nice to meet me?"
Molly had learned her lesson about reality versus dreams as a teenager--once destroyed, some dreams could never be resurrected. And for some reason, she couldn't bear for this silly, unattainable dream to be splintered by reality.
"If you change your mind," Thea said with a shake of her head, "speak up soon. Fox never stays long at these things." She picked up a gorgeous cobalt blue cocktail from the tray of a passing waiter. "I'd better go make nice with the other guests."
Watching her publicist sister expertly work the room, Molly smiled in quiet pride. Though they'd joyfully connected after a lifetime of not knowing the other existed, the bond was yet new, fragile, and no one who wasn't aware of their family history would ever guess they were related. Twenty-nine to Molly's twenty-four, not only was Thea naturally slender in contrast to Molly's curves, she had the smooth golden skin of her Balinese mother as well as Lily's eyes, but she'd gained her height from Patrick Buchanan, topping Molly by a good five inches.
Their shared father had put his stamp on Molly in a far stronger fashion, giving her the black hair she constantly fought to tame, creamy skin that burned easily, and eyes of deepest brown. Every time Molly looked in the mirror, she remembered what Patrick had done, and each time she wrenched her hair into a tight twist--as she'd done tonight--it was in silent rebellion of the shadow he threw over her life even from the grave.