All I Ever Wanted(12)

After taking a swig of the tangy beer, Grady toed off his shoes and tried to relax before making the call to Devin. Despite his sore muscles, the blisters, the arguments, and the struggles with the dance moves, Grady still believed that doing the benefit concert was the best way to honor their mother. Raising money for a cruel disease that remained an unknown mystery to two-thirds of the public would be worth whatever they had to endure along the way. Watching his mother struggle with pain and fatigue had been so damned difficult. Doctors had thought that her symptoms were brought on by depression stemming from the death of her husband, and she'd gone misdiagnosed, something common for those who suffer from lupus. One very small saving grace was that their father hadn't had to see his beloved Susan suffer.

Grady finished his beer and then walked across the kitchen to gaze out of the bay window. He spotted his brothers sitting by the pool, deep in conversation. For a moment, he considered joining them, offering to fire up the grill, lighten the mood, but fatigue and an odd melancholy had him opting to head to his bathroom for a long, hot shower instead.

As in many Florida homes, the layout of the sprawling ranch sectioned off one half of the house as the master suite, with three bedrooms on the opposite side of the living room in the center. Cathedral ceilings and sliding glass doors leading to a large lanai gave the house a bright, airy feeling. Grady had bumped out the master bedroom and enlarged the bathroom to include an open walk-in shower and a deep whirlpool tub. While almost nothing of his childhood décor remained the same, the spirit and the bones were there, and Grady felt comfort in knowing the house remained in the family.

Grady groaned when the hot spray pelted his back, easing the ache in his sore muscles. He'd thought he was in pretty damned good shape, working out on a regular basis, keeping his weight down, and going for early-morning runs, but this Heartbeat choreography was kicking his ass big-time. He supposed the redundancy, the stress of trying to do the fast moves they'd pulled off as teenagers, didn't help matters. Jimmy was right in that they didn't need to perfect the routine, but perfection was what had driven Heartbeat to the top of the charts and he didn't know any other way to practice. Modification would help, but modification meant new choreography. Damn. 

Grady turned around and lifted his face to the hot spray, letting the water slide over his skin. Reaching for the soap, he inhaled the spicy scent, glad to wash away the sweat. For the last few weeks, he'd let his dark hair grow longer, much like the shaggy layers that had been his signature style back in the Heartbeat glory days. Devin, a mastermind at managing a boy band, had always wanted the fans to know Heartbeat as brothers but also as individuals, so that they could have a favorite poster to hang on their bedroom wall. Grady had been known as the broody bad boy, and although most of the early tabloid stories were mostly hype, the fans bought into the image and Devin wanted it that way. Devin pegged Jimmy as the mysterious Heart brother, and with his long hair and soulful brown eyes, he made girls want to know more, but he kept to himself, preferring to avoid the limelight when he could. Jesse won girls over with his sandy-blond surfer-boy looks and his easygoing charm.

Grady had to shake his head as he soaped his chest. Oh, but damn, Oliver might have been the youngest, but his swagger and his hotter-than-hellfire good looks drove girls wild and he sure knew it.

Devin hadn't been too happy about Grady's romance with Arabella. Fans wanted to fantasize about the brothers, and having Arabella capture the famous bad boy's heart wasn't something he wanted made public. Looking back, the secrecy had added to the affair's allure but it hadn't been long before the paparazzi caught a steamy kiss on camera.

Grady had thought that after his romance with Arabella became public the girls would back off, but they seemed to become more determined to grab a piece of him. When Arabella received hate mail, Grady was furious. If anything had happened to her . . . Ah, damn, he couldn't have handled it.

He squirted some shampoo into his hand and lathered up his hair. Paparazzi had dogged them and done crazy things to get snapshots of him and Arabella. Rumors had made tabloid headlines, making their romance difficult, but in some ways it had made Grady love her even more for what she had to put up with.

From the beginning, the sex was amazing. Arabella seemed to know his body like she had some sort of sexual GPS connected to his every single pleasure point. She was uninhibited, playful, sensual. . . . No relationship had come close to offering the intimate connection that they'd shared. Grady groaned when his body reacted to the memories.

Was it the same for Arabella? Did she ever think of him? Regret leaving? Had she ever really loved him?