“Modest too.” Noah’s dry tone was belied by his grin. “How’s Sarah doing with the media stalking?”
Scowling, Abe folded his arms across his chest. “Better than I am. She’s got this Zen thing going on—so long as the baby’s okay, she just ignores the vultures.” As Thea had predicted, the media interest was relentless at this point, every damn pap and his dog aiming to get the first images of Abe and Sarah’s child. “Thea told me the tabloids have put a fucking bounty on pictures of the peanut. Some international magazine is offering a million right off the bat for an exclusive.”
“Assholes.” Noah’s lip curled. “You know we’ll all play interference, get you and Sarah out of the hospital without anyone getting a photo.”
“I know.” His friends had stood by him through the worst times of his life; they’d never abandon him or Sarah now. “I mean, I’m going to be a proud dad who boasts about his kid till people are sick of it, but if and when a photo goes online, I want it to be our choice.”
“I get you.” Noah nodded at the open balcony doors. “You want to step out for fresh air? Looks like Kit and Sarah found some friends.”
Abe looked up, saw Kit and Sarah had moved back into view. “I recognize Imani,” he said, identifying Thea’s friend and workmate. “The blonde must be a friend of hers.” Since it was clear Sarah was having fun, he followed Noah out to the balcony.
“You’re gritting your teeth,” Noah pointed out once they were outside, Marty’s pool glowing like a blue jewel just beyond.
“I’m having trouble letting her out of my sight,” Abe admitted. “I get this fucking knot in my gut worrying about her.”
Just like Fox and David, Noah had been at Tessie’s funeral. He understood the fear that gnawed at Abe, that had him jerking awake deep in the night just so he could make sure Sarah was still breathing. But the guitarist didn’t point out that Sarah was healthy and strong, that she and the baby would both be fine.
What he said was, “You weren’t like this the last time around.”
Throwing back the ice water he’d picked up off the tray of a passing waiter, Abe said, “Last time around, I was so fucking scared of loving her the way I wanted to love her that I did everything in my power to fight it.” His hand clenched around the glass. “And I lost her.”
This time around, Abe had no shields, no protective walls. His heart was wide-open.
But he was terrified Sarah’s no longer was.
CHAPTER 37
ENJOYING HER CHAT WITH IMANI, Kit, and Imani’s screenwriter friend, Sarah stayed in the dessert room until her bladder began to protest. That didn’t take long, of course, not with how pregnant she was. Excusing herself, she hunted out a restroom.
The door had a sign on it saying Powder Room, and she thought that a cute whimsy on Marty’s part until she stepped inside and saw the size of the space. It really was a powder room, with seating and mirrors in this section, huge vases of flowers sitting in two corners. The actual restrooms—two of them—were beyond another door.
When she returned to the section with the mirrors, she found it was no longer empty. A lone woman stood in front of the central mirror on the right, touching up her makeup. She had skin the same shade of rich brown as Sarah’s, but that was where the similarity ended.
Where Sarah was tall, this woman was five two at most. Where Sarah was rocking a baby belly and full breasts made even fuller by the pregnancy, this woman had a flat stomach and perky breasts. And where Sarah wore a flowing gown, the other woman’s sparkling silver dress came to just past her butt and could’ve been painted on.
Sarah didn’t feel bad at the contrast. They were both beautiful, she thought, just in different ways. And one day in the future, Sarah intended to find herself a sparkly painted-on dress too. Just to shake things up. Because there was still a rock groupie inside her—even if she was only interested in one particular rock star.
Smiling, she paused to check her own makeup in the mirror. She had her lipstick in her clutch, decided to touch it up. “Stunning dress,” she said to the other woman.
“Same.” The falseness of the single word was so obvious that Sarah had to stifle a laugh.
Some women just couldn’t get over instinctive bitchiness.
“You’re with Abe, right?”
Surprised the other woman had spoken again, Sarah said, “Uh-huh,” and began to apply her lipstick.
“I heard he was clean.”
Not liking the poison already dripping from the woman’s voice, Sarah didn’t dignify the intrusive question with an answer. She finished off her touch-up and, capping her lipstick, dropped it into her glitzy mirrored clutch. That clutch was probably a little too loud, but Sarah didn’t care. She liked how it glittered. What she loved most of all was that Abe had bought it for her a month earlier, for no reason except that he’d passed a store with the clutch in the window and thought she’d like it.