Lovely Madness: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 4) Read online

  The house was rendered completely private by a well-placed wall of groomed trees. The lot featured manicured lawns and gardens, a walking path, a pond and a large pool in back. The driveway ended in a loop in front of the house, with a fountain in the middle.

  A couple of luxury cars were parked at the side of the loop, but as usual, no one was in the front yard.

  Liam drove us around the loop and pulled off onto the small lane that ran alongside the house. We rolled right up to a door, one of the service entrances, where Liam stopped us and came around to open my door for me.

  One of the staff was already waiting for me when Liam walked me up to the door. A man around my age, meticulously groomed, tall and built. He wore a plain, black dress shirt and pants, gleaming shoes. He also wore an earpiece; he’d been talking into it when we pulled up. I’d met him before, many times. He’d probably told me his name. I didn’t remember it.

  “Good evening, Mr. Clarke.” He greeted me, holding out a small, wooden box. I placed my phone into it and he shut the lid. Then he opened the door for me. Liam waited outside while the man in black escorted me into the house, into a hallway that led from the kitchen at the back to a service stairway.

  As soon as I was safely inside, Liam would go park the car and wait for me. He never asked questions and I had no idea if he knew what went on inside this house. I never wondered about things like that. Liam was in his late forties, almost old enough to be my dad, and he had a wife and kids at home. I didn’t want to have to feel anything about making him come to a place like this.

  Once the door was closed, I took off my sunglasses and followed the man in black up the stairs.

  The house was beautiful by any standard. A custom built French chateau that looked old but was new, it featured panoramic views over the city, the waters of the Strait of Georgia and the islands beyond. Or so I’d been told on my first visit. I never looked out the windows.

  Most of the main areas of the house were bright and airy, lots of open corridors, vaulted ceilings, iron railings and polished stonework.

  But the back hallway was dark. Dark cherry paneled wood, black carpet. Amber and gold wall sconces lit the way. The hall at the top of the stairs was wider but just as dark, with the same jagged sconces in a line along the wall. Large, old-looking paintings hung between the sconces. Erotic scenes, each with a similar theme: a centaur clutching a swooning, naked woman; a satyr with a huge erection and a nymph by a stream, her breasts bared to him; an anthropomorphic wolf on two legs and a woman in chains, fucking. Scenes from some twisted mythology.

  It was impossible to tell who were the gods in those paintings—the women or the beasts.

  Maybe that was the appeal.

  The rooms were widely spaced out, with broad, ornate doors. All closed. I could hear nothing in the silence but the slight swish of clothing and the brush of our shoes on the deep carpet as we walked. Along the way, I saw no one but the man in front of me. I never did.

  Privacy and discretion were taken seriously at Bliss. If they weren’t, I wouldn’t be here.

  Three people. Sixty steps.

  The man in black opened a door for me, and I walked into the room to find Nicolette waiting. She stood up, and the man behind me closed the door softly, leaving us alone.

  “Mr. Clarke.” Nicolette’s mouth quirked in the slightest smile. I was pretty sure she was still waiting for the day when I’d tell her to call me Cary. I never did.

  I wondered if she was happy to see me.

  I felt nothing. Nothing but a dull sense of relief, maybe, that I’d made it here, and that the next couple of hours of my life were now spent.

  Only thirty-five more to go.

  She wore a short, cream-colored dress, tight to her curves, with a bit of cleavage. Sexy, but not over the top. Same way she always dressed when she met with me. But something was wrong.

  Different.

  Her shoulder length hair was a pale, ashy blonde. It was usually jet-black.

  I didn’t like it.

  It looked fine, but I didn’t like the change when I had no control over it.

  The club was supposed to know this.

  I’d never asked for a woman with jet-black hair, or with any specific physical attributes. It was the type of woman I wanted, needed, that I’d specified and Bliss had provided. I really didn’t give a fuck if she was blonde or brunette or if her hair was green, as long as she looked good. And the new blonde hair looked good.

  But I did not like the change without being asked.

  “Is everything okay?” she said, her smile vanishing.

  “You changed your hair.”

  “Oh.” She smoothed her hand over it. “Yes. A while ago. I guess it’s been a while since we’ve…” She faded off. “I didn’t know you didn’t know.” She flashed me a slight, uneasy smile.

  I looked away. At least the room was the same as usual.

  There were different types of rooms at Bliss; different colors, different moods, different themes. To set the stage, so to speak, if you wanted that.

  I wasn’t here to perform.

  All I needed was for things to be the same. As I expected them to be.

  The first time I came here and they asked me what kind of room I wanted, I told them to put me in a standard room. Just a bedroom. Something comfortable. That was it.

  They’d put me in a room just like this one that night, and every other night I’d come here. Dark, velvety furniture. Black satin and burgundy on the bed. No windows. Whatever windows this room had, they were completely covered by wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling drapes in dark jewel tones.

  I went to sit down in the black leather chair that faced the one wall that was covered in mirror. Nicolette had laid out a small towel with her tools on the table next to the chair. It was the only proper chair in the room. Unbuckled leather straps dangled from the armrests and the legs like an invitation.

  I ignored them as I started tapping my fingers on the armrest in a restless, repetitive rhythm. A rhythm that was so deep in my blood I’d never been able to purge it. It was a song, and it fucking haunted me.

  At least, it used to haunt me. It used to jolt me out of the depths of a dream in the middle of the night, soaked in cold sweat.

  Now, if I focused on it, it helped to steady me, level me out. It pulled me back from the black that started seeping in around the edges as my equilibrium started to tilt, whenever my heart beat too fast and my fingers started to shake.

  Nicolette came over and stood behind me. She didn’t look at my fingers. Her eyes met mine in the mirror.

  “I was thinking about coloring my hair black again,” she offered. Maybe trying to understand what was going on in my head. I wasn’t sure why she bothered. “Sometimes I like to change it.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It just surprised me.”

  She touched the nape of my neck, running her fingertips gently through the waves of my hair, sending a little shiver down my spine. “How would you like it today?”

  I looked at my reflection, considering that. At the tired-looking eyes that stared back at me. At the face I hardly recognized anymore, though I really didn’t look all that different from the man I used to be.

  Before. After.

  Maybe I just didn’t look often enough to remain that well-acquainted with myself.

  My blondish-brown hair, darker underneath, used to be all sun-streaked waves. Surfer-boy blonde. It didn’t see enough sun to be golden anymore. It was getting long again, the waves spilling over my forehead. Last summer, I tied it back in a knot so I didn’t have to deal with it, but it wasn’t long enough for that right now. In a few weeks it would start to bug me; it was either long or short in summer. Like everything else in my life, I couldn’t handle in-between.

  “Just cut it off,” I said.

  “Sure.” I watched Nicolette, if that was even her name, run her fingertips gently through the hair on top of my head. “I can leave some on top, so you can wear it forward, like an ang
sty bad boy.” She smiled a little. “Or smooth it back when you’re feeling slick.”

  I didn’t smile back. It was probably nice that she felt comfortable enough to tease me, though. At least I didn’t scare her. Nicolette was maybe one of the few people who didn’t actually think I was crazy. Or if she did… she didn’t show it.

  “Whatever you think will look good,” I said. Really, not many people would ever see it anyway. Pretty sure Liam and my sister wouldn’t care what I did with my hair. These days, I really had no one to impress. I could’ve just shaved it off at home with my eyes closed, and who would care?

  But vanity was a weird thing. Made you want to still be that person who used to be wanted, that person people thought you were, even though you weren’t that person anymore. Even when you knew you never really were. Even when you just wanted to be alone.

  Maybe coming here was part of that. Part of trying to be normal, when I never really had been.

  Nicolette draped a towel around my shoulders. She sprayed my hair down with a water bottle, then set about cutting my hair, and she didn’t take too long. She didn’t fuss to make it perfect. She didn’t put in a bunch of hair products and make a show of it.

  She knew I didn’t really care, so she didn’t waste my time with any of that.

  The haircut was just a perk of seeing her. She’d mentioned it once, that she used to be a hairdresser, and she’d offered to cut my hair. I wasn’t sure if that was a fetish for some people. Or if it was a fetish for her. But she always did a good job.

  By the time she finished, I’d tapped my way through the song so many times that my fingertips were numb.

  “What do you think?” She peeled the towel away and moved so she wasn’t blocking my view of the mirror. She picked up a hand mirror from the table and held it behind my head so I could see the back.

  “Good. Maybe I’ll let it grow out now. By next summer, it’ll be long enough I can just tie it back again.”

  She set the mirror carefully on the table. “So, then… you won’t be back until then?”

  “I’ll be back.”

  I stood up and turned to face her, and when my gaze locked with hers, I could see it in her eyes.

  Excitement.

  I still felt numb. But there were certain… patterns of behavior… that would get me there. And Nicolette knew them all.

  She smoothed her hands gently down the front of her dress, her eyes shining with anticipation. “Do you want me to change?”

  “No. What you’re wearing is fine.”

  “Can I get you anything first?”

  She meant wine. Bourbon. Pills.

  She always offered.

  But I never needed any of that shit anymore.

  She probably also meant toys. Restraints. Ridiculous, custom made furniture designed for fucking in every imaginable position.

  But I didn’t need any of that shit, either.

  I just needed things to be the same.

  “No,” I said. “Just get down on your knees.”

  And as usual, she did.

  Chapter Two

  Taylor

  Sparks

  On Monday morning, right on time, I walked up to the address Courteney Clarke had given me and stopped in front of the big, iron gate. Her brother lived in Shaughnessy, where the lush, trim hedges and massive trees gave way to even more massive homes, most of them tucked up gated driveways. Cary Clarke’s house was one of the ones you couldn’t even see from the road.

  I plucked my earbuds out, silencing Metallica. It was quiet, a lawn mower buzzing away in the distance. The street meandered through the residential neighborhood so it wasn’t really a direct route to anywhere, which meant zero traffic.

  Perfect location for a former-rock-star-turned-recluse to hide out.

  There was a security panel with a speaker on the stone pillar at one end of the gate. I pressed the buzzer, but no one answered.

  Courteney had warned me that would happen.

  I tried it again anyway. I looked around for a security camera while I waited, but I didn’t see any.

  I wondered if I was being watched.

  I wondered, fleetingly, what Cary Clarke would think of me.

  I hadn’t removed my facial piercing for this “job” and I didn’t cover up my tattoos. Or my hair. Six months ago, I’d hit a personal low when I was fired by my horrendous boss and cheated on by my horrendous boyfriend, a mere four days before Christmas, because happy holidays to me—and I’d vowed right then and there to make some changes. Reinvent myself.

  And I had. More or less.

  I had indeed pierced something—my eyebrow. I’d gotten a new tattoo—Gimme Shelter, up my inner arm. And I’d died my hair—bright pink. It was now more of a soft, cotton candy pink, and I loved it.

  But I still hadn’t quite started over.

  I’d be turning thirty at the end of this year, and I was definitely having some kind of mini life crisis.

  In my almost three decades on the planet, I’d suffered a crazy family, some crazy-ass boyfriends and some seriously psycho bosses. At this point, I was pretty fucking done with crazy people.

  And yet, here I stood.

  According to the world at large Cary Clarke was, in a word, crazy.

  And I was about to trespass on his property.

  Brilliant.

  After several minutes of stalling, asking myself if I was really going to do this, I used the remote opener Courteney had given me to open the gate.

  It clicked and breezed slowly open.

  I glanced behind me, but there was no one on the street. No one could possibly see me from the other yards or from a window anywhere through all the trees. I still felt like a creeper as I stepped through the gate. I closed it behind me like a considerate intruder, waiting until it locked into place. Then I looked up toward the house. I could only see the closed three-car garage from where I was standing.

  I walked up the driveway, slowly. There were palm trees in the yard. Two of them, one standing to either side of the driveway.

  When I moved to Vancouver at age thirteen from the virtual desert outside Osoyoos, I’d decided that one day, when I had my own place, I’d have a palm tree in my front yard. There weren’t all that many palm trees in Vancouver; I always figured people who planted them here were optimistic types.

  Over the years, I’d grown less optimistic about such things as owning real estate in Vancouver. Especially real estate of this kind.

  Cary Clarke’s house was pretty much a mansion. Gorgeous, modern, built out of taupe stone in a way that looked timeless. The surrounding yard was green and lush, in full-bloom. There were ivy vines climbing up the walls. And big windows along the front of the house that I couldn’t see into; curtains lined the inside.

  I heard the tinkle of a little bell and something furry darted out of the bushes. A silvery-white cat trotted over to me, the bell on his collar tinkling. The cat sniffed the hand I offered, then rubbed against my ankle.

  “Well, hello. Aren’t you friendly.”

  I bent down to rub the cat’s chin and furry little cheeks and it purred loudly. I loved animals, cats included. I’d volunteered at an animal shelter a couple of days a week for many years, just to get my fix. I would’ve gotten my own pet—or a few—if only I was home more. I was relieved, though, that when I’d asked Courteney if her brother had any killer guard dogs I should know about, she’d assured me that he had only a cat.

  Turned out, it was fluffy and adorable, with big green eyes that gazed at me with curiosity and what I could only describe as affection.

  “Whoa, won you over fast.”

  The cat rubbed against my leg again, putting its whole, furry body into it, purring. I took a peek at the little tag on its collar. Freddy.

  “Well, Freddy, lead the way.”

  I continued up the driveway and the cat didn’t lead the way, but he did follow me. I climbed the steps to the front door and rang the bell. I waited a few minutes, but no one answe
red.

  Then I tried again.

  While I waited, I watched Freddy the cat. He was rubbing himself on the corner of the house, the wall of the garage, and kept peeking back at me. Then he wandered away around the front of the garage.

  I looked up at the house. There was no sound from inside. But I knew the homeowner was inside, because Courteney assured me he would be.

  Apparently, he never went anywhere else.

  So I headed around the front of the garage, the way the cat had gone. I didn’t see him, but there was only one place he could’ve disappeared so fast. I went that way and peeked around the side of the house. There was Freddy, wandering up the path. There was a gate to the backyard standing open and the cat walked through it.

  I followed.

  We emerged into the beautiful oasis of the backyard. There was a high fence and trees around the perimeter, more trees and greenery along the back of the house, gardens off to the far side. And right in front of me, taking up most of the yard, a stone-paved patio flowed into a gorgeous swimming pool that was large enough to swim laps in.

  Beyond the pool, in the back corner of the yard, there was a guesthouse. It looked similar to the main house, just small, with French doors that would open right onto the path around the pool.

  I followed Freddy; the path in front of us curved through the trees toward the house, where a set of French doors stood closed. There was no curtain on the inside, but it was dark in there, the sun was bright out here, and I couldn’t see in. And I wasn’t about to glue my nose to the glass like some creepy Peeping Jane.

  Further along the house, I could see another set of doors, but the path that way was blocked off by a garden bench. Freddy slipped right past the bench, headed for those doors. I watched him… and noticed the little panel on the bottom of one of the doors.

  A kitty door.

  “Oh, shit. Wait, wait!” I called after him, and Freddy stopped with a jolt. I scrambled around the bench as he rubbed lovingly against a tree. “Don’t go in yet. I need you, little guy.” I reached out, and he came over to rub his cheek on my fingers. Thank God he was so friendly. “Just… a sec…” I dug in my purse for my pen and pad of paper, and quickly jotted out a note. “Wait… just… one more sec…” I tore the paper off and folded it, squatting down in front of the cat.