31
SCARLETT
What Doesn’t Kill You
“Are you sitting down?” Cara demanded excitedly when Scarlett answered her phone three days later.
She’d gone to work that morning, but her boss sent her home after four hours because the shop was dead and he didn’t like paying employees to just stand around. Her bandmates had been out clubbing last night and were sleeping off a hangover, so rehearsing wasn’t an option.
She’d just gotten home when Viggo returned from practice and a team workout. After they ate lunch, he’d peeled off her prim work uniform and made slow love to her, touching and savoring every part of her. Afterward they’d taken a leisurely shower, nuzzling and laughing between kisses. And now they were just lazing around the living room, drinking hard cider and trying to decide what to watch on Netflix. He still refused to watch Vikings with her. Silly man.
“Yes, I’m sitting down,” Scarlett told Cara when Viggo got up to take a leak. “What’s up?”
“I have some amazing news.” Cara paused. “God, I love saying that.”
“And I love hearing it,” Scarlett said with a grin. “What’s your news?”
“Okay. So I’ve mentioned before that I have a friend who works at Essence magazine—”
“Debra, right?”
“Right. So a few months ago over lunch, she told me that they’re doing an issue featuring hot young female stars in the music industry. They’re calling it the ‘Black Girls Who Rock’ issue. Get it? It’s a play on the Black Girls Rock! movement—”
Scarlett grinned. “I got it.”
“Of course.” Cara laughed. “Anyway, Debra told the editor about you, and she was super impressed. So now they want to feature you on the cover with Janelle Monáe, Solange, Sevyn Streeter, Justine Skye and Sza!”
“Holy shit!” Scarlett exclaimed, bolting upright in the chair. “I love those chicks!”
“I know! That’s what I told Debra!”
Scarlett was almost hyperventilating with excitement. “I am totally gonna be fangirling at that photo shoot!”
“I know you will,” Cara teased. “And you’ll be pleased to know that Janelle has heard your music and happens to be a fan.”
“No way! Seriously?”
“That’s what Debra told me.”
Scarlett squeed in Cara’s ear, making her laugh.
“I’m sending you the bill for my busted eardrum.”
Scarlett laughed as Viggo came out of the bathroom tying the drawstring of his lounge pants and shaking his head at her.
“Out here squealing like a damn girl.”
She poked her tongue out at him as he headed into the kitchen, broad shoulders swaying.
Cara announced, “And now for the really big news—”
Scarlett laughed. “Bigger than appearing in Essence with Janelle Monáe?”
“I think so.” Cara was giddy. “I just got a call from an editor at GQ. They have a photo shoot scheduled with Viggo in a few weeks. Now that your romance with him has become such a hot topic, they want to do a separate spread featuring the two of you.”
Scarlett was stunned. “Are you serious?”
“Totally!” Cara crowed.
“Wow.” Scarlett looked up as Viggo came back into the living room. He stopped before her and held up a bag of Swedish Fish, his lips quirked on one side.
She grinned, snatching the bag from him and ripping it open.
Chuckling, he sat on the floor between her legs, spreading her knees wide with his mammoth shoulders. She crammed some Swedish Fish into her mouth and fed him a few pieces, then plunged her fingers into his thick hair.
“This GQ spread is a great way to capitalize on your relationship with one of the hottest NHL players,” Cara was excitedly chattering away. “Like I told you before, the publicity can only help the band’s sales and popularity.”
“Uh-huh,” Scarlett mumbled around the mouthful of candy. Wedging her phone between her shoulder and ear, she began cornrowing Viggo’s hair, the strands sliding between her fingers like heavy silk.
Cara was practically doing cartwheels through the phone. “Isn’t this fucking awesome?”
“Um, yeah, I guess.”
“What do you mean you ‘guess’?” Cara was scandalized by her lack of enthusiasm. “This is GQ we’re talking about!”
“I know. And I mean, yeah, it’s definitely great exposure. But Iggy Azalea and Nick Young had a GQ spread and look how their relationship turned out. I don’t know. Maybe the magazine thing sorta jinxed them.”
Cara snort-laughed. “Nick Young cheated on Iggy and bragged about it to a teammate. Are you worried about Viggo cheating on you?”
“Um…”
Viggo tipped his head back to stare up at her.
“I’m just saying,” she hedged into the phone. “Anything could happen.”
Viggo’s brows furrowed.
Feeling guilty, Scarlett bent and kissed him upside down on his soft lips, enjoying the sugary sweetness of the Swedish Fish.
“As your manager,” Cara said in her no-nonsense voice, “I strongly advise you to seize this golden opportunity to raise your profile and the band’s.”
“Yes, ma’am.” There was no point arguing. “Does the band have any upcoming publicity ops?”
“Of course,” Cara assured her. “Now that your tour schedule has been finalized, I’ve got a bunch of interviews lined up, and The FADER wants to do another profile when your new album drops.”
“Cool,” Scarlett enthused. Her bandmates deserved just as much shine as she did.
“I’ll be in touch soon with more details about the photo shoots.”
“Sounds good. Thanks again, Cara. You rock.” Scarlett hung up and dropped the phone beside her on the sofa.
Viggo squeezed her thigh. “Congratulations. The Essence spread sounds pretty exciting.”
“Doesn’t it? I’m so stoked!”
“Clearly.” He chuckled.
She hesitated, biting her lip. “Did you already know about the GQ thing?”
“They asked me about it, and I told them to call your manager.”
Scarlett nodded, braiding another row of his hair. She could feel the sudden tension in his shoulders. Nervously she waited for him to address the elephant in the room.
“Still waiting for the other shoe to drop, huh?”
She pretended not to understand. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.” His voice was low. “You’re still holding back a part of yourself, Scarlett. You don’t think we’re gonna make it.”
She swallowed hard. “That’s not it.”
“Then why don’t you wanna do the GQ spread?”
“I don’t know.” She sighed. “Honestly, the whole thing just feels sorta gimmicky and opportunistic.”
Viggo gave a slow nod. “My publicist doesn’t want me to do it.”
Scarlett’s fingers stilled. “Why?”
“She doesn’t want to risk alienating my female fans.”
“Ah.” Scarlett’s gaze drifted to the windows. “And what do you think?”
“I think I’m a hockey player, not some fucking Hollywood heartthrob. All I care about is winning games, not popularity contests.”
Scarlett stared out at the sprawling city and mountains. “I don’t ever want you to think I’m using our relationship—”
“I don’t,” he cut her off. “Believe me, sweetheart, if I ever thought you were using me in any way, we wouldn’t be together. That’s one of the reasons I don’t date bunnies.”
Scarlett smiled.
“Anyway,” he growled, “you’re a gorgeous rock goddess who can have any guy you want. You don’t need a come up. You are the come up.”
Smile softening, Scarlett kissed the top of his head and mouthed, I love you.
“Just promise me one thing,” he muttered.
“What, baby?”
“Promise me we’ll never call ourselves one of those douchey couple nicknames. Like Scargo or Viggett—”
Scarlett laughed. “How about Scarleggo? Or Viggolett?”
He groaned. “Fuck, those are terrible.”
They started coming up with more ridiculous name combos. When she finished cornrowing his hair, she flopped back against the chair and grabbed the bag of Swedish Fish. “Stand up and turn around so I can see you.”
Viggo reached up and patted his hair. “You’re done?”
“Yep.” She grinned. “Let me see how you look.”
When he stood and turned to face her, she squealed and clapped her hands together. “Oh my God! Now you really look like a Viking!”
“A Viking?” He gave her a look of skeptical amusement. “With cornrows?”
“Yes! They wear their hair braided on the show!” She stared up at him, admiring the way the cornrows accentuated his piercing eyes and chiseled face. “Dude, you look so freaking hot. Seriously. You’ve never worn braids before?”
“Nah.” He chuckled. “I need a mirror.”
“Wait!” She grabbed her phone. “Let’s take a selfie.”
“Not so fast,” he joked. “I gotta see how my hair looks first. Can’t have me out here looking like some douche.”
She laughed. “You don’t look like a douche!”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
As she watched him saunter off toward the bathroom, she made an appreciative purring sound in her throat. “Dat ass, though.”
He grinned over his shoulder. “Stop objectifying me.”
She laughed and popped a handful of Swedish Fish into her mouth. As she was happily chewing, her phone rang. She scooped it off the sofa, thinking Cara had forgotten to tell her something.
But it wasn’t Cara. Frowning at the unfamiliar number on the screen, she pressed the answer button and said tentatively, “Hello?”
“Hello, beautiful.”
Her blood ran cold and she nearly dropped the phone. “How did you get my number?”
Myles chuckled softly. “I have my ways. You know that.”
Anger welled up inside her. “What the fuck do you want?”
“I want to talk.”
“We have nothing to say to each other.” She looked up to see Viggo coming toward her, his eyes lasering into hers.
Myles cajoled, “C’mon, baby girl—”
“Don’t call me that,” she hissed. “I don’t know how you got my number, but don’t ever call me again.”
She hung up as Viggo stopped before her, towering over her with a muscle thumping in his hard jaw.
“Was that him?” His voice was low and deadly.
Scarlett nodded, trembling with anger.
“What’s his number?”
“What?” She stared up at Viggo. He looked so fucking big and scary, her throat went dry and her stomach knotted with nerves. “I don’t know his number.”
He held out his hand. “Give me your phone.”
“Why?”
“Just give me the phone, Scarlett.”
She licked her dry lips. “You don’t need to call him. I told him to fuck off.”
Viggo sank to a crouch before her, bringing himself to her eye level. His gray eyes were hard as steel, blazing with lethal fury. Holy shit. She actually feared for Myles’s worthless life right now.
“I need to call him and have a talk, man to man—”
“A talk? Viggo, you look like you’re ready to rip his intestines out and shove them down his throat!”
He stroked his hands up her arms and over her long locs, brushing them back before he took her face in his hands and pinned her with an intensely fierce gaze. “What did that motherfucker do to you?”
She tried to swallow past the dryness in her throat. “Can we just talk about this later?”
“No. Not this time.”
She sighed. “C’mon, Viggo—”
“I don’t think you understand.” Rage vibrated through every word. “I’m imagining the fucking worst, Scarlett. Did he put his hands on you? Did he…did he rape you?”
“No! God, no, nothing like that.”
“Then tell me what the fuck happened.”
She held his searing gaze. He wasn’t going to let this go, she could see that now. So there was nothing left for her to do but share the whole sordid story and get it over with.
She looked at him a moment longer, then pushed out a deep breath and patted the sofa cushion beside her. “Get off the floor before you pull a hamstring or something. I don’t want an angry mob of Rebels fans running me out of town for causing you to have a freak injury.”
He gave her a dark look. “You worry too damn much about what fans will think.”
She didn’t deny it. When he sat beside her on the sofa, she turned her body so she could face him, tucking a loc behind her ear.
“I’m a different person today than I was back then,” she began quietly. “I’d like to think that I’ve grown and matured a lot over the past four years. Before I went off to Berklee, I considered myself pretty street smart and savvy. But growing up the way I did, with such an overprotective father, I guess I was more sheltered than I realized. I was young and naive, and Myles totally exploited that.”
Viggo listened intently, that same muscle ticking in his jaw.
“We couldn’t believe our luck when he became our manager,” she went on. “He knew the music business inside out, he had connections, he was older and wiser, and he had a dynamic personality that was hard to resist. I was in awe of him. We all were. He told us everything we wanted to hear, how talented and unique we were, how he was going to make us rich and famous. We bought everything he was selling, and it wasn’t long before I developed a crush on him.”
Viggo looked grim, every line of his body tense.
Scarlett lifted her gaze to the ceiling and shook her head. “Looking back now, I realize that he’d been grooming me from the start. He gave me special attention, spent more time with me, complimented me all the time.” She swallowed. “I knew what was coming, and I guess I wanted it to happen.”
Viggo shifted on the sofa, clearly unhappy with the direction of the conversation.
“Late one night after a show, he took me out to dinner. The guys had gone clubbing, so it was just the two of us. There was wine and candlelight and lots of flirting. One thing led to another and…we ended up in bed.”
Viggo’s expression turned dark and brooding, but he remained silent.
Scarlett sighed. “He didn’t rock my world or anything. I’d had better, to be honest. But being with an older man was different, and he made me feel special. So we started dating and sleeping together. I knew it was wrong to be having an affair with our manager, but Myles had a way of reassuring me that we were good for each other, that we belonged together. He was making all these promises and planning our future, and he convinced me that I wanted the same things.”
She frowned at the memory. “After a while, he started acting really possessive. He would show up at my school to make sure I wasn’t talking to any guys. One time when I was walking across campus with my percussion professor, Myles followed us until I was alone, and then he confronted me and accused me of sleeping with my professor because I had a thing for older men. He was jealous of any male attention I received at our shows, at parties or just walking down the damn street. It got even worse when he became obsessed with me having his baby.”
Viggo’s eyes narrowed to icy slits. “He tried to get you pregnant?”
She nodded. “It was crazy. Like, on one hand he was trying to make me a big rock star, the next Sheila E. But on the other hand, he wanted me to give up everything to start a family with him. He would talk about the McMansion he planned to buy me, and he’d show me pictures of all these beautifully decorated nurseries. I don’t even think I wanted those things until he got in my head. He never once told me that he loved me, never talked about marrying me. Yet he expected me to bear him children.” She shook her head, lips twisting bitterly. “I think it was his way of trying to control me. If I gave up my ambitions to play house with him, that would prove my loyalty and devotion. It was all just one big mindfuck.”
“Jesus,” Viggo growled in disgust. “What a twisted motherfucker.”
“It gets worse,” Scarlett said grimly. “When my period was late one month, I took a home pregnancy test. It was positive. I was stunned, but Myles was ecstatic. He started making plans for me to move in with him. I didn’t know what to do or how to feel. My emotions were all over the place. One minute I was scared and depressed, the next minute I was hopeful and optimistic. I didn’t want to drop out of school. I loved Berklee, and I knew my parents would be devastated if they found out I was pregnant. But then I started thinking maybe this was God’s plan. Maybe I was carrying the next great rock ’n’ roll drummer. Maybe Myles was right and we did belong together. The more I told myself those things, the more I started wanting the baby.”
She swallowed tightly before continuing. “Three days later, my period came. Turns out I’d gotten a false positive test result. I remember going to the bathroom, sitting on the toilet and just bawling my eyes out. I was sad and disappointed, but I also felt an overwhelming sense of relief. When I broke the news to Myles, he wasn’t just disappointed. He was furious. He called me completely useless and said I was probably barren.
“God, those words cut deep,” she recalled in a thick voice. “He couldn’t have hurt me more if he’d kicked me in the stomach. Oh, but he wasn’t done with me just yet. Two nights later, he brought a woman to our show. But not just any woman. His fiancée.”
Viggo gave her a look of enraged incredulity. “Are you serious? That son of a bitch was engaged?”
Bitter fury twisted Scarlett’s mouth. “All that time he’d been screwing me and trying to get me pregnant, he was engaged to another woman. Words cannot describe how devastated I was. Devastated. Shocked. Humiliated. At our afterparty, his fiancée pulled me aside and told me she knew about my affair with Myles. She said I wasn’t the first wide-eyed starlet he’d slept with, and I wouldn’t be the last. She stayed with him because she loved him, and someday when he finished whoring around with his slutty ingénues, she’d be the one standing at his side.” Scarlett shook her head. “I was so fucking hurt and disgusted. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”
“Jesus, Scarlett.” Viggo reached over and caressed her cheek. “I’m so fucking sorry he did that to you. It kills me to think of him hurting you like that.”
Scarlett swallowed the lump of old pain, shaking her head again. “You know what’s even sadder? At the time, I didn’t realize I was in an emotionally abusive relationship. I just thought Myles really cared about me and wanted what was best for me. I didn’t tell the guys everything about our relationship, but what they knew and observed didn’t raise any red flags—”
“Then they’re fucking idiots,” Viggo growled harshly. “That guy was a goddamn predator. Even if you were too blind to see it, your bandmates should have recognized the warning signs and gotten you the hell away from him.”
“Maybe,” Scarlett conceded sadly. “But we were all so young and naive, we didn’t know any better. And in their defense, the guys have always been protective of me. But they had blinders on when it came to Myles. We all did.”
Viggo stared at her, his lips compressed into a pale line.
“Anyway,” she said fervently, “after the whole ordeal with that son of a bitch, I swore I’d never let another man dictate what I did with my body.”
Viggo gave her a long, searching look. “So that’s why you don’t want children.”
She hesitated and then nodded, her throat clogged with raw emotion.
“Come here,” he said gruffly.
She crawled into his lap like a child and clung to him. His arms wrapped tight around her, holding her close as he stroked her hair. She buried her face in his hard chest and closed her eyes, letting her tears fall.
It was over. She’d bared her soul to him, and he hadn’t judged her or deserted her. He was still here. At least for the moment.
“Can I ask you a question?” he whispered into her hair, his hands rubbing her back.
She nodded against his chest.
“Does that motherfucker still live in Boston?”
“No, he—” She broke off and tilted her head back to stare into his narrowed eyes. “You can’t kill him, Viggo.”
He smirked darkly. “Then I’ll just rip his intestines out. If he survives, maybe I’ll let him live.”