Public Secrets by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online

he’d hung up. He wanted her with him now, not a day from now, not an hour from now. Just listening to her voice had him hard and hurting.
She had sounded just as she had on the night he’d met her, shy, a little hesitant. She’d been so sweetly out of place in the smoky pub where his band had been playing. Yet even with the shyness, there had been something so solid, so true about her. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind, not that night, not any night since.

He lifted the brandy and drank deeply. It seemed as though the brunette and Stevie weren’t going to bother to move to the privacy of one of the bedrooms to have sex. The blonde had given up on Johnno and was rubbing her long, limber body against P.M., their drummer.
Half amused, half envious, Brian drank again. P.M. was barely twenty-one, his face still round and youthful with its sprinkle of acne on the chin. He looked both appalled and delighted as the blonde slid down to bury her face in his lap.
Brian closed his eyes, and with music filling his head, fell asleep.
He dreamed of Bev, and the first night they had spent together. Sitting cross-legged on the floor of his flat, talking earnestly, about music, about poetry. Yeats and Byron and Browning. Dreamily passing a joint back and forth. He’d had no idea it had been her first encounter with drugs. Just as he’d had no idea, until he had slipped into her, there on the floor with the candles guttering in their own wax, that it was her first encounter with sex.
She’d wept a little. Instead of making him feel guilty, her tears had brought out feelings of protectiveness. He’d fallen completely, and somehow poetically, in love. That had been more than a year ago, but he had never been with another woman during that time. Whenever the temptation came strongly, he would see Bev’s face.
The marriage had been for her, and the child, his child, she carried. He didn’t believe in marriage, the foolishness of a contract on love, but he didn’t feel trapped. For the first time since his miserable childhood, he had something more than music to comfort and excite him.
I love you more than anything .
No, he couldn’t say that to her with the ease and honesty she could say it to him. He probably would never be able to say that to her. But he did love, and where he loved, he was loyal.
“Come on, my lad.” Barely rousing him, Johnno dragged Brian to his feet. “It’s bed for you.”
“Bev’s coming, Johnno.”
Brow lifted, Johnno glanced over his shoulder at the tangle of bodies. “So’s everyone else.”
“She’ll meet us in New York.” With a half-laugh, Brian slung a rubbery arm around Johnno’s neck. “We’re going to New York, Johnno. New fucking York. Because we’re the best.”

“That’s dandy, isn’t it?” Grunting only a little, Johnno dumped Brian on the bed. “Sleep it off, Bri. We’ve got to go through the whole bloody business again tomorrow.”
“Got to wake Pete,” Brian mumbled as Johnno pulled off his shoes. “Passport for Emma. Tickets. I have to do the right thing by her.”
“You will.” Weaving a little, courtesy of the Jim Beam, Johnno studied his newly purchased Swiss watch. He didn’t imagine Pete was going to appreciate being awakened, but he staggered off to do the deed.

Chapter Four

O N HER FIRST transatlantic flight, Emma traveled first class. And was miserably sick. She could not, as Bev periodically urged her, look out at the pretty clouds or page through any of the colorful picture books Bev had stuffed into her carry-on bag. Even empty, Emma’s stomach pitched and rolled. She was vaguely aware of Bev’s helpless little hand pats and the stewardess’s soothing voice.
It didn’t matter that she had a new outfit with a short, bright red skirt and a flowered fussy blouse. It didn’t matter that she’d been promised a ride to the top of the Empire State Building. The nausea was so unrelenting that it no longer mattered that she was going to see