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her, her dreams of Marcus full of his kisses and caresses, his hungry eyes, and his sweet words of love
wouldn t let her hide from the truth.
Chapter Twenty-three
It had been fifteen days, six hours, and twenty-three minutes since she d last seen or heard from
Marcus.
She d been wrong. He didn t want her.
Nicola knew she should be glad about it, happy that she wasn t going to have to keep resisting him.
But she was a long, long way from happy...about as far as she could be, actually.
Her manager walked into her office, waving a fax. Billboard just let me know that One Moment
debuted at number one on the pop charts! And wait for it, you re going to really freak out when you hear
this your entire tour just sold out in two hours! We re going to need to add dates. A ton of dates. You
won t be seeing your house for a good year and a half if we re lucky!
This was everything she d ever wanted. The huge smash hit. The big, international sold-out tour. But
even as she and Jane hugged and high-fived and Jane started talking a mile a minute about how brilliant
Nicola had been to shoot another last-minute video for One Moment just her and her guitar on an
otherwise empty stage and insist that the record label release the acoustic version, too, Nicola knew that
she would have been so much happier if she could have shared this success with Marcus.
She could almost picture him telling her how proud he was, saying he d known she could do this.
And that he loved her.
Without warning, one fat tear spilled down her cheek. Fortunately, her manager thought it was happy
crying and after planting a kiss on both of Nicola s cheeks, she grabbed the phone that was ringing off the
hook and spun out of the room to go wheel and deal them into a heck of a lot more money.
Nicola walked over to the window and pressed her hand against the glass, staring out at the busy Los
Angeles streets below. Three weeks ago she d been staring out at the streets of San Francisco.
She d been in so many tall buildings. Had visited so many busy cities. The world was her oyster more
now than ever. It wasn t that it didn t mean a damn thing without love of course her success meant
something. And yet, love made everything so much richer, so much sweeter. Yes, sex with Marcus had
been mind-blowing, but just knowing his arms were waiting to hold her, that she could lay her cheek
against the steady beat of his heart...well, that was the kind of happiness that lasted forever.
Unfortunately, none of that changed the fact that all the reasons she had to leave him were still true.
Still, as Nicola stood in the window, she silently cursed herself for not letting things with Marcus at
least linger longer. Why couldn t she have let herself be happy with him for more than a handful of days?
Nicola turned away from the window with a sigh, knowing exactly why she d forced herself to get on
that plane and leave him for good.
No matter how hard they might have tried to hide their relationship from everyone around them,
eventually they would have been caught. The circus would have pulled Marcus in and turned his perfectly
ordered life inside out. She couldn t have lived with herself for hurting someone she loved like that,
couldn t have stood hearing people question his judgment for getting involved with her.
And yet, a totally contrary part of her wished they hadn t been quite so good at hiding their
relationship from the world, because at least if there had been pictures of the two of them on the Internet,
maybe they would have had to deal with each other in some small way...rather than being able to cut each
other completely away.
She looked down at her watch and realized she d now officially made it through fifteen days, six hours
and thirty-four minutes without him. At some point, the day would come that she wouldn t be counting
minutes and hours anymore. And at some point, she d stop hoping that she d hear her name on his lips
again, an out-of-the-blue Nicola that would have her looking up at his shockingly beautiful face, her
heart racing with anticipation as she waited for him to issue another one of his sensual commands.
* * *
Damn it, setting everything up had taken much longer than he d anticipated. Too long.
Marcus had never been big on watching TV or reading magazines, but for the past two weeks he d
been glued to them. Until he could be with Nicola again, he needed constant reassurance that the women
he loved was okay. He d been ecstatic when her song had gone straight to number one and her tour had
sold out immediately. She deserved all of that and more. So much more.
Lori had turned up on his doorstep a couple of nights ago with a plan to get them back together. She d
been beyond pleased when he informed her that he was already on it, and now while she drove him to the
airport, they were listening to Nicola being interviewed on the radio.
I ll be honest with you, Nico, the radio personality said, when I first heard One Moment it sounded
just like any other great pop song that makes me want to dance. But then I saw your acoustic video and
finally realized what heart there is behind the song. Tell us about that.
I ve always loved what I do, she replied, her slightly husky voice washing through Marcus s veins
like the first perfect cool glass of wine on a hot, dry day, but I recently realized that I ve only let people
see one side of me.
What made you decide to show us that other side of yourself, the heart-wrenching singer/songwriter
that you ve been hiding all this time?
A friend wasn t afraid to get in my face about it. She laughed and he could practically see her smile,
her flashing eyes, even across the radio waves. I m afraid I didn t take the advice very well at first, but
eventually I came around. And that s why I went to record the song again that way. I love the full
production on my songs, I love dancing with my crew, but a stripped-down version of one of my songs
was something I ve been wanting to do for a very long time.
So, Nico, what s next on your plate to conquer now that you ve got the number one single in the
country and a sold-out tour?
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