Page 74 of Sweet as Sin (Bad Habit 1)
I was proud about how I looked. Like a vampy, old-fashioned pinup girl back in the days when having a good figure meant having tits and ass, not the body of a twelve-year-old boy like my friend Gordita beside me.
But if the camera had been kind to me, it absolutely worshipped Nico. He was undeniably gorgeous and charismatic in real life, and sexy as sin, but the camera brought out another facet of his beauty. He was a man of flesh and bone and blood, but onscreen there was this quality of otherworldliness about him, a glow, as if he’d stepped straight off a cloud from Mount Olympus.
He was a star, he was beautiful, and, for one infinitesimal moment in time, he’d been mine.
I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood.
“God, he’s so hot!” Gordita was practically drooling. I couldn’t argue with her, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to pinch the nonexistent fat on her upper arm and ask, “Have you stopped working out lately, dear?”
She puffed out her lower lip and blew out a breath, fluttering her bangs. “Too bad about what happened to him, though.”
Dread descended on me as if a wet blanket had been dropped on my head. A surge of adrenaline flooded me, and my hands began to shake. “What do you mean? What happened?”
“That thing with his girlfriend?”
“G-girlfriend?” I nearly choked on my own tongue getting the word out. Gordita looked at me strangely.
“Yeah, Avery Kane? You must’ve heard of her, she’s super famous? Anyway, they found her dead in rehab last night. Apparently she was getting drugs in the other rehab she was in, and was, like, a danger to herself? She went on some rampage or something. So Nico got some kind of court order and put her into this, like, mega-secret rehab for rich junkies where she couldn’t, like, leave, even if she wanted to?”
She began inspecting her manicure, not realizing that my entire world had begun to spin out of control. The room was slipping sideways. “But I guess there’s always ways to get drugs, even in rehab. She OD’d. Heroin, the news said? She’d shoot up between her toes so there wouldn’t be any track marks on her arms.” Gordita laughed a girlish, envious laugh that was like fingers down a chalkboard to my ears. “Smart girl.”
I couldn’t catch my breath. It felt like the walls were closing in around me. Everything in the room was too bright, too loud, too close.
“Hey. You don’t look so good. Are you okay?”
Gordita reached for me, but I turned and ran from the room, already sure where I was headed.
The street outside the long driveway to Nico’s house was mobbed. It was well past sunset, but it seemed closer to noon from the illumination of so many news vans, video cameras, and lights on portable stands. Overhead, a helicopter whirred. Its searchlight danced jaggedly around the neighborhood, but I didn’t care if it caught me in its blinding beam.
All I could think about was getting to Nico.
It had taken me less than two hours to make the trip from Santa Barbara to Hollywood, my foot crammed against the gas pedal, my heart flying as fast as the car. I went through hell by the time I reached him, a hell of whys and what-ifs, blame and self-recrimination.
He hadn’t lied to me about at least one thing. He’d taken Avery back to rehab, just a different, more exclusive one than the one she’d been in. He’d basically had her committed. But what about all the rest? The lost hours, the tattoos, what he’d said to me in bed about how he’d always take care of her?
The worst part was knowing that he would have told me before I’d left his bedroom that day when he came back after the long night away. He would have told me everything, if I’d just done like he’d wanted, and asked him “why.”
Now I couldn’t wait to know. I had to know, and I was going to try to get him to tell me. If—and this was a giant if—he’d even see me at all.
Because he wasn’t answering my calls. His cell rang and rang, then an automated message came on saying the voicemail was full and to try again later.
Two police cars were parked in front of the gate to Nico’s house, keeping the press and paparazzi at bay. I pulled up and rolled down the window, listening to the sound of a thousand shutters clicking as an officer approached my car.
“You’re going to have to turn the car around, ma’am—”
“Please, no, you have to let me in. He’s . . . ” I swallowed. “Mr. Nyx is expecting me.”
The officer paused, assessing me. I knew I most likely looked like shit, but wasn’t going to break eye contact like I had something to hide. His gaze darted around the interior of the car. He was probably looking for weapons. “Who are you?”
“Friend of the family. Close friend. He’ll be upset if he finds out I was here and got turned away.” My heart pounded. Lying had never been my forte.
The officer’s eyes were keen and penetrating. “Lady, if you’re such a close friend, why don’t you have the gate code?”
Shit. The damn gate code! I looked at the tall iron gate in desperation, willing it to open. It didn’t
oblige.
“Please,” I begged. “He knows me. I’ve been trying his cell but . . . it’s turned off. Look, his number is right here, I have it in my phone. I just . . . I don’t have the house number.”
