Nothing Like the Sun Read online

“You have to see this.”

  Cassie shook her head and bent back over the spreadsheets on her desk. “We need to increase the transportation budget,” she told her boss’s face on her computer screen. She was video-conferencing with the head of the Aquila Foundation between her office in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and his winter condo in Boca Raton. “Fuel costs have gone up again.”

  “We’ll need to reduce something else,” he countered, his head bent over his own set of papers. He stopped writing and looked up with a frown. “Is that the television?”

  “Beth, please,” Cassie hissed, then went still. “What is that?”

  “That,” Beth said in a voice of doom, pointing the remote at the television, “is the rest of your life.”

  “Sir, may we please resume this later?”

  Her boss must have seen something in her face because he didn’t argue. “We can trim from the advertising and media relations budgets and find additional no-cost avenues for those. Then I think that will do it. I’ll contact you on Friday.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Cassie clicked the button to close the video screen and stood, her eyes still on the scene on TV. “Tell me that’s Justin Timberlake.”

  “That’s not Justin Timberlake.”

  “Maybe it’s Fitty Cent.”

  Beth snorted. “Not unless Fitty has grown green bangs.”

  Cassie stepped closer to the TV, still attempting denial.

  “They could be imposters.”

  “You mean impersonators?”

  “Yeah, that.” But she didn’t bother waiting for Beth’s answer. She knew damned well who that was on the screen, holding a woman in each arm and kissing one on the cheek while the other stroked her hand across his shiny, electric-blue shirt.

  But Julian Manchester, keyboardist and notorious ladies’ man for the re-formed pop-rock band Blue Silver, wasn’t the problem. His best mate, Blue Silver’s lead singer Seth Graham, was.

  Cassie wasn’t ready to address her fiancé’s similar arm-drapery, or the tongue that was in his ear. “Does Georgie know about this?”

  Beth shrugged. “I don’t work for Georgie.” She turned up the volume. The entertainment network’s reporter said, in voice-over, “Silverettes are back in style, as Blue Silver returns to the stage. After the success of their new album and last year’s club tour, the neo-retro musicians have rediscovered their core audience.”

  Cassie grabbed the phone headset off her desk and sank onto the arm of the battered sofa in front of the television. “Georgie Davis,” she said, and the phone automatically dialed.

  “Led by Julian Manchester, the boys-cum-men have been out on the town in London this evening, and appear to have returned to their previous lifestyle.”

  Cassie realized now that the footage was in front of a nightclub. Julian lifted an arm to open the door of a long black limo, while Seth turned his head to talk to someone behind him—Brad, she saw, who at least had his girlfriend Marci wrapped around him.

  “Hello?”

  “Georgie. It’s Cassie. Turn on that entertainment network we both hate.”

  “Uh, oh.”

  A second later she heard an echo of the show behind Georgie’s voice. “What am I not going to—oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  They watched in silence as one of the blondies clinging to Seth bit his neck. Marci swatted at her and looked like she would rather have slugged her if not for the cameras.

  “Aren’t they in London?” Georgie asked. “It’s midnight over there, right?”

  “About that, yeah.”

  “When did Marci go over?”

  “Last week. She can work from anywhere, you know. Brad called, she went.” On screen, Marci sneered at the woman who’d bitten Seth. “She’s going to tear that bitch apart.”

  “You sound so bloodthirsty,” Georgie teased. “Don’t you trust your rock star fiancé?”

  Cassie ground her teeth. She did trust Seth. He’d been and done a lot of things in their first short, disastrous marriage. Adultery hadn’t been one of them. “Seth’s not the problem.”

  “What is?”

  The phone rang in the outer office. “That is.”

  “What?”

  “Hang on.”

  Beth tapped her own headset to answer the call. “Cassie Bryant’s office, Aquila Foundation.” She listened for three seconds. “I’m sorry, Ms. Bryant has no comment, and she does not take personal calls at work.” She clicked off, her expression unmarred by emotion. Her unshakable calm was part of what Cassie had loved about her even before she reconciled with Seth.

  “Reporters,” she told Georgie. “Seth isn’t going to do anything to harm our relationship, not after working so hard to get us back together.”

  “Julian says he’s been completely clean, even with all the stress of the album sales and stuff.”

  Cassie wasn’t worried about Seth’s addictions, either, but—

  “Julian Manchester is clearly up to his old habits. One can only wonder if Seth Graham is, as well, and if those will prove to be deadly to his tender new relationship with ex-wife Cassie Bryant.”

  The phone rang again.

  “There. That’s the problem,” Cassie griped to her friend. “Seth’s not using, he’s not cheating, but every time he goes out of the house we have to contend with reporters making insinuations and other reporters calling me to get my reaction, like I’m going to pull a Sienna Miller or something.”

  Georgie snorted. “That’s a dated reference. And the nanny was the one who blabbed to all the—”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Cassie was actually more worried about her friend. No matter how many times Georgie told her the thing between her and Jules was casual, Cassie wasn’t convinced. She saw the look in Julian’s eyes any time she mentioned Georgie, and she felt the sparks when they were in the same room. When a year passed and those sparks were still flying—and the parties involved still snuck off to have sex in the closet—the thing was more than casual.

  “So what do you think?” Cassie asked.

  “About what?”

  Julian bent and planted one on the wide, ruby-red mouth of the woman he handed into the limo, patted the bare knee that was about two feet below the hem of her “skirt,” and straightened to mug for the cameras one more time before they cut to commercial.

  “I told you, she’s not available…” Beth’s cold, clipped voice faded as she exited the office and closed the door.

  Georgie still didn’t speak.

  “Honey? You okay?”

  When she answered, her voice was tight. “We don’t have an exclusive arrangement,” she said.

  “I know, but…” But sleeping with women like that—not that Cassie could judge her by thirty seconds on TV—and then sleeping with Georgie, well, that was playing a dangerous game, whether emotions were involved or not. “You protect yourself.” Cassie wasn’t sure what else she could say. Georgie knew what she was doing. She always knew what she was doing, starting with the moment she decided they needed another chance at that lost night over sixteen years ago. They’d all gotten more than they bargained for, but Georgie had never wavered.

  “You know what pisses me off most.” Georgie sounded normal again.

  “That they called them Silverettes?”

  “Fuck, yes.”

  Cassie grinned. “Me, too.”

  Ride with the Devil

  Megan Hart

  available now

  If you take enough rides with the devil, pretty soon he’ll drive.

  The devil had been grabbing for the wheel since before Jake Harron had been born, but he wasn’t quite ready to give it up to the bastard. Not yet. The time was coming, he knew that much. When Old Scratch would demand too much, ask him for more than he could give. And even when that time came, Jake thought as he fingered the set of lock picks in his pocket, he’d do his best to go down shouting out “fuck you.”

  This time, what the devil had asked hi