CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Roman
I set my suitcase down in the foyer of my ranch house and the sound echoed in the empty stillness. Adara was gone. I could feel it in my bones, in how my skin didn’t spark the way it did when she was in the house.
Martha helped me to settle in with few words. The mileage I’d gained with her was gone. She thought I was a total idiot. And she was right.
The next morning, Adara was on the Today Show, giving a full account of her trial for the nation and the world to hear. She talked about Nate and the accident and Jewel, then about appearing at the Grammy’s and singing again for the first time. To my surprise, she also talked about her plans for an upcoming tour next year. Before that, she planned to hold a concert next month in New York City.
She didn’t mention me by name, but she did say, “Not everyone has a white knight ride in and rescue them, but I did. He’s a very special man who showed me that I was beautiful, scars and all. I wouldn’t be here today if he hadn’t made me promise to let him love me.”
When I could see through the tears in my eyes again, Martha was standing next to the TV tapping her foot, her arms crossed over her chest.
I laughed. “Don’t worry, Martha, I already have tickets.”
She harrumphed. “Are you really going to wait that long?”
I stared at the television, at Adara’s beautiful face. “Yeah. She needs to fly first. I want to give her that.”
***
The concert was a sellout, and Madison Square Garden was filled with excitement when I arrived. The crowd was already chanting Adara’s name.
The only seating available here was in the thick of the crowd, so I hired extra security and sat in the back in the cheap seats. It was the first time I’d done something like this and it made me chuckle that Adara had inspired me to the point that I would settle for anything cheap.
To see her again though, I’d do anything.
By the time the opening band was finished, I was shouting her name along with the crowd. It felt good to say it. I’d spent too much time in the beginning not even knowing her real name, and now too much time away from her.
When the lights went dark again, and the music started to hum, I thought my heart would explode. Then there she was, sashaying out to the front to the screaming crowd. She’d been in therapy I knew from the talk shows, and her gait was improving, and she was working with a dance coach. When I’d heard she was going to undergo surgery, I didn’t sleep at all that night.
The next thing I knew, I was buying concert tickets and seats on a plane. Now I was here, and I didn’t even know if she would want to see me.
But it would still be worth it, to see her sing. She belonged up there on the stage, with people loving her all around. She belted out her first song, and I felt the way a parent must feel the first time their kindergartener gets up on stage for the school play.
The song started as a quiet reflection, like the mirror’s glass she sang about, but grew with each line until the deep throaty tone and passion of her incredible voice crescendoed to a rousing chorus.
God, she was a superstar. This woman who once lived in my house, teasing me relentlessly, rocking my sheets, was a treasure. I wondered how anyone dared hide her away in a brothel. I knew no one ever would again.
She sang every note perfectly then she held the last note for more than twenty seconds, like she’d told me she could. It hung in the air, perfect and beautiful, like her, and time stood still. I didn’t think there was a dry eye. I knew I didn’t have one.
Just before the concert was over, my security and I got up from our seats and made our way to the backstage door, where I had no trouble getting in. Neil gave me a wink as he shook my hand.
For a moment, standing in her dressing room, I was so nervous that I had to sit down. And it’s a good thing I did, because I almost forgot what was in my back pocket. And it was the only gimmick I had.
A mask.
Almost like hers, but not quite.
I’d just pulled it into place when the door opened, and she walked in, all bubbly and shining like the star she was. Then she saw me, and the smile fell off her face and her tone went from elated to monotone as she excused herself and shut the door.
She faced the door for a long second before she finally turned. “Roman.”
The sound of her voice lanced through my heart, and I knew if she didn’t forgive me I’d be worthless without her for the rest of my life.
“You were wonderful. Magnificent. There are no words.”
“Why are you here?” Her voice was small, like it had been when I took her out of Jewel.
“I told you. I’m a huge fan. I just wasn’t a crazy fan then.” I took a deep breath. “But I am now. Crazy without you. Forgive me, Adara.”
“I don’t understand. You left for Brazil, never called, nothing. I thought…”
I stood up. “I wanted you to think it. I thought you needed to be free, not tied up with me at some property a thousand miles from anywhere. Not subjected to scandal when you were coming back to all this.”
She looked at me strangely, peering at my eyes through the slits of the mask. “I was the scandal.”
I took a step forward. “What? No.”
But she was shaking her head, holding her hand out, palm forward. “Stop, Roman. You wanted me to be open with you, but you didn’t do the same. There’s things I need to know.”
“Ask.”
“Tell me what Brandy was talking about that day, about a woman you were going to marry. Was she a Jewel?”
My eyes locked on hers, and I felt real fear, possibly more fear than I’d ever felt in my life. I could lose her. Even my adept business skills wouldn’t be enough to hold someone like her if she didn’t want me.
“She wasn’t a Jewel. Her name was Sabrina, and yes, I thought I loved her, and I was going to marry her.”
“Is that all?”
I smiled wryly. “No. She was sweet, smart, beautiful. Since I was worth so much money and she didn’t have nearly the wealth I did, my lawyer suggested we sign a prenuptial agreement, protecting me should our marriage end.” I moved a step closer as I spoke. “I never anticipated it ending, but I saw my lawyer’s reasoning. Her getting half of all I owned would be motivation alone to end the relationship over anything. Marriages are hard work, and I was ready to invest in one with her, but she’d have to be motivated to do the same.”
Adara just looked at me with unreadable eyes, so I continued.
“As soon as she discovered how much I was really worth, she pushed back on the prenup, saying I didn’t love her and that’s why I was doing it. She became obsessed with my money and the damn prenuptial agreement, which in the end she refused to sign. I promised that should our relationship end, I’d take care of her financially and had my lawyer draw up the papers to prove it, but she wagered our love against my need for financial protection.”
I kept moving closer, praying she didn’t stop me. If I could just touch her…
“In the end, it wasn’t her not signing the agreement that drew us apart, it was the fact that she’d shown her true colors and become a woman I didn’t love anymore. I don’t think you’re like her, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“You did.”
“What? Nev—”
“The night you paid me to talk to you. You thought I was like her. But I’m not. And you aren’t aloof or cold or a womanizer. You once told me that your knowing who I am doesn’t change anything for me. But it does. I couldn’t have faced the painful memories that I did without you. I couldn’t have resumed my life without what you did for me.”
I’d been a fool. She’d distanced herself from me because I’d shut her out. “I was an asshole,” I said in a low voice as I slowly lifted my hand to run it along her jawline. “I was afraid, and I made a mistake. I should have never let you go.”
She reached her hand up and pulled on my mask, letting it snap back against my face. “Why the mask?”
“Ouch.” I grinned in spite of the pain. “That’s a long story.”
“I’m listening.”
I told her about what I found out about Jack in Brazil, and going to the coffee farm, and meeting the workers in the fields to see how they harvested the coffee beans. But I’d noticed something else.
“They worked hard in the beating sun and yet none of them complained. They showed me what to do, and I helped.”
She smiled at the image of me picking coffee beans.
“Most spoke some English and we told stories. These women picked basket after basket with smiles on their faces, some of them singing as they worked. They harmonized, it was amazing. A mix of cultures, of hardships and of joys. I noticed that some of them had deep scars on their arms from working in the fields, others had harsh lines in their faces from being in the severe sun day after day, some looked haggard and older than their years, yet all of them radiated such incredible beauty and strength.”
I stopped and willed every bit of love for her to show in my eyes. “Like you. They worked hard for a living and despite anything, they were proud of who they were, and it showed on their faces and in the sound of their voices. I realized I’d been hiding behind my own mask, the one being a billionaire gave me. I’d let pain and suffering build a wall between me and the world and I was wrong. I was wrong, Adara. I should’ve been proud of the hardships that marked me. So I came here to take off my mask. I’ll never shut you out again.”
She just stared at me, her eyes imploring as she took a deep breath. I could see her trembling and I knew the effort she was making to stay calm. It was costing me the same.
“I want to trust you,” she confessed, “but—”
“But you don’t,” I finished her sentence.
And there it was. Another woman I’d opened my heart to who was changing before my eyes.
“I do,” she corrected me.
“I was never with any of the women at Jewel.”
“I know.”
“How? How would you know? Brandy all but told you that I did.”
“In my heart, I know. I just do.” She took a step closer to me and searched my eyes while I held my breath. “I’ve been wrong so many times in my life, I don’t think I could take another.”
“You’ve never been more right. I love you, Adara Wilde.”
Her megastar smile lit up the room. “I love you too, Roman Wellington.”
Then she reached behind her and locked the door, making my blood pressure shoot so high it could have lit up the stage lights all on its own.
She took my hand and led me to the couch on the other side of the room, and when I would have helped her to be seated, she shoved me down into its softness and hovered over me. Smoothing her hand over my leg, she let it glide dangerously close to my groin, which awakened my cock.
I tenderly stopped her hand’s progression, knowing what I’d want to do if she went any further. “What are you doing there?” I asked, trying to sound playful, but my words came out sounding choked.
She looked down at me and nuzzled her head into my shoulder as she straddled me, her fingers tickling up my thigh. “I think gargantua wants to come out and play.”
“God, I missed you,” I said as I leaned in and claimed her lips.
She kissed my cheek and removed the mask from my face. “That’s better,” she whispered, kissing my temple, my cheek, the way I had hers the night she took her own mask off. As she moved in closer to me my erection grew, and she wiggled her hips over me.
I laughed. “Here you are, finally. I’ll never let you go again.” I moved the hair away from her face and asked, “Does it bother you that my company’s reputation is in question? You trust me?”
She grabbed my shoulders and settled herself over me, my hard dick right between her legs.
“I was wrong to ever doubt you,” she said as I ground up into her.
I couldn’t stop the growl that came from deep in my chest and I held her still for a moment, her heat pressed against me, savoring.
“Are you sure? I want us to be completely real with each other. There is a good chance that I won’t be able to completely clear my name in the court of public opinion. The matter is very complicated and almost too difficult for the general public to understand. I’m not the bad guy, but it looks like I am.”
“Roman.”
“Yes?”
“Stop talking.”
I laughed and wrapped my hands around her hips. When her eyes met mine, I knew we were okay, more than okay. And we were the luckiest two people on the planet.
I missed her body against mine. All I wanted to do was make love to her, so I trailed kisses over her neck, down her chest to her nipples that were hard and poking through the thin material of her bodysuit, flicking my tongue over them and listening to her moan. She ran her hand down my chest and lower, then wrapped it around my cock, making my hips jerk up into her center.
I held her hair back with my hand as she slinked down into my lap and eased my pants over my hips. Then gargantua was free and she took me between her lips as I did the best I could not to thrust too hard into her mouth.
She swirled her tongue around the tip of my cock until I was moaning and only wanted her heat wrapped around me. Then she pressed me down onto my back and sat on my lap, gyrating over my stiff dick with her spandex still on until we were both wild-eyed and panting.
I loved watching what she was doing to me. I stripped her of the stage costume, and she crawled up me, kissed my lips while she grabbed my cock and danced it across her slit until she was ready. Then slowly positioned it in just the right place and slid down on my shaft.
We both gasped, it felt so amazing to be one with each other again.
We made love hard, deep and rough. We needed each other, and we’d been so far apart for too long. Even though it’d only been a short time, it felt like this was where we belonged.
We laughed at how ferociously we were making love and I pumped harder and harder into her. I was about to come inside of her when I remembered. Groaning, I pulled out, rolled over, grabbing my pants, pulled out a condom, put it on and dove right back in.
This time I rolled her on her back, spread her legs then plunged in, making her scream. She dug her nails into my back as my name left her lips. She clenched around me and her breasts arched up to my chest. I leaned in and took one nipple into my mouth, sucking, giving her my teeth, and growled as my balls tightened. She flew apart around me, and I let go as her pussy milked my cock. She screamed again as I emptied myself into her.
Making love to her that night was passionate and beautiful. We showered and made love again, long into the night until we fell asleep wrapped in each other’s arms on the dressing room couch. I didn’t care where I was, as long as I was with her.
Having Adara back was like coming home again after far too long being gone. I thought we both came to the realization that no matter what life threw at us, we would handle it. We would overcome it together.