Return to Me (Breaking Free Book 2) Read online

  “I’m all yours,” I agree, arching my back across his lap.

  “I might make you sing me one of these nasty songs later.”

  “You’re gonna make me?” I ask with a sly smile.

  “I might.”

  Gabe doesn’t have to make me do a thing. All he has to do is ask.

  Chapter 24

  Trin

  “One drink won’t hurt,” Brent coaxes the next day over lunch. “It’s just champagne.”

  “Maybe it won’t hurt you, but I’m an addict and an alcoholic. I’m not able to stop at one. That’s my problem.”

  In the past I would never admit I had a problem. Even one day out of rehab I’d be eager to prove them wrong. I liked to have a good time, and I could stop when I wanted, that was the line I fed myself at least.

  “You really have turned over a new leaf,” Brent says.

  I nod solemnly.

  “I’m so proud of you, doll.” He motions for the waiter to come take the bottle of champagne away. “This is good. If you’re wanting to tone down your act for your next record, we need to think about how we’re going to clean up your image a bit anyways. This is really good news. A whole new Trin Sinclair.” he smiles warmly. “Where’s my head at? After the whole ordeal yesterday… How are you holding up? Last night must’ve been rough for you.”

  “I’m okay. I stayed with a friend.”

  “I’m going to have Mia take care of all that,” Brent assures me. “However they got in, it won’t happen again. You shouldn’t have to feel unsafe in your own home.”

  “I’ve already made some calls this morning. I took care of it myself.”

  “Someone of your calibre doesn’t-”

  “I’m not helpless, Brent. I can use a telephone. I talked to the police after you left too. I told them they were looking in the wrong direction.”

  “You don't need to worry about that either. It’s already taken care of.”

  “What do you mean, taken care of?” I ask suspiciously.

  “Some things are better left unsaid.” He gives me a crooked smile, and a tiny wink. “But I made it clear they were barking up the wrong tree. We don’t need these backwater hick cops harassing our friends, now do we?”

  I swallow a lump at the back of my throat and force a small smile. “Hey, I’m one of those backwater hicks. Remember?”

  “Maybe you used to be, but that was a long time ago. Now you’re Trin Sinclair. The Trin Sinclair.”

  I give an exaggerated eye roll. “They all seemed like they knew what they were doing. Maybe they can actually find this creep.”

  “Let’s hope so, but you know how this kind of thing works. That stalker will probably get bored and find someone new to torment before long.”

  “You don’t know that for sure. If it’s the same one from Houston, that means they haven’t gotten bored of me in a long time.”

  “How about we let the local fuzz handle it. We need to focus on your image for this new album. If we’re not going sinful, I say we go in the opposite direction.”

  I nod. “Yeah. Exactly.”

  Brent tilts his head and squints at me. “We could do a pink, plaid skirt. Pig tails.”

  “Eww. No way. I’m not doing the sexy schoolgirl thing. That’s gross.”

  “We wouldn’t have to make it too sexy. We want to keep it tame enough for the tweens and teenage demographic. It’s their parents buying the concert tickets, right?”

  “Why does there have to be some big gimmack?”

  “You’re right. Actually… With Kane wanting to do mainstream-”

  “No. We’re not relaunching Trane.”

  “He said it was called Krin.”

  “I don't care what it’s called. I’m not doing that again. Besides, Kane wants to do his own thing. He wants to make a name for himself, not sing behind me.”

  “I’ve been thinking… Hear me out. Two seperate albums, but maybe you could do a crossover song together on each, sort of tie them together.” Brent’s face grows animated. “You could tour together.”

  “No way. I’m done with the fake relationship shit. I told you that.”

  “I absolutely agree, but it would have a sort of - Will they or won’t they? vibe to the whole thing.”

  “That’s stupid. It sounds like a fucking soap opera.”

  “Exactly! The drama of it all would draw people in. It would fill those seats, Trin.”

  It might, but it would also be as uncomfortable as fuck for Gabe. Maybe it would be a smart business decision, but I know how I’d feel if Leah suddenly became a cop, and they were gonna cruise around in a patrol car all day together. Shaking my head, I rub my palms along the sides of my neck and fan my hair back over my shoulders.

  Brent grins at me. “Is there a new man in your life I should know about, doll?”

  I quickly smooth my hair back down around my shoulders, covering the faint mark remaining on my neck. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “You used to tell me everything” Brent clicks his tongue. “I thought we were friends.”

  I shoot him a withering glance. “He’s no one you know. He’s not in the public eye, and he wants to remain that way.”

  Brent chuckles. “How do you propose you’re going to do that?”

  “I don’t know,” I say miserably.

  The majority of that time we were together as teenagers we snuck around because Gabe’s parents hated me so much, but this is a whole new level of scrutiny to avoid.

  We just have to get through the next… few years? It feels impossible. Eventually after this next album, I’ll fade into obscurity, but Gabe has his daughter’s welfare to think of, and a job he likes. Why would he want to get corralled into the circus of my life?

  When I ask Gabe that question at his place later that evening while we are snuggled up on his couch together, he only laughs and shakes his head. “We can cross that bridge when we get to it.”

  “I’m afraid when you see how full of drama and utter bullshit that bridge is covered in, you’re going to turn right back around and run in the opposite direction.”

  “I’m not running anywhere. I love you, Trin.”

  “I love you too, but I don’t think you understand what it gets like sometimes.”

  “I was on security detail for your mom’s wake, remember? So I have a pretty good idea.”

  “Maybe if the press start bugging you at work, you could just come do security for me. You could be my full time bodyguard.”

  “I would be happy to keep you safe, but you don’t have to pay me for the privilege.”

  I aww and give him a kiss.

  “But I would lose my mind standing around like that.”

  “I’d make it exciting for you.”

  “I bet you would, but I want to be your boyfriend, not your employee.”

  I squee internally. Gabe is my boyfriend again. My real boyfriend. Even if we have to keep it secret for right now, and even though things are moving crazy fast, it’s still real. I can’t believe I have him back in my life. It almost seems too good to be true.

  “I called over to county forensics today. It’s gonna be a few days before they run all those prints. There were a lot of them, but you had all those people over for your mother’s wake.”

  I nod. I hadn’t thought about that.

  “But there was nothing on that paper, except yours. Same as the door handle from outside on the deck. It looks like whoever left you that message was wearing gloves.”

  “Great.”

  “You’re sure you can’t think of anyone else it might be?”

  “I told you Gabe, It’s probably a random weirdo.”

  “It’s too specific to be random. I has to be someone who knows you.”

  “No one ever comes there. Before the wake, no one had ever stepped foot in that place except my family.” I pause to think. “Brent and his wife. Nolan every so often.”

  “Who’s Nolan.”

  “It’s Conner’s brother. He
was in the band with us a million years ago, before we went to Nashville. It was their band originally. He helps me write songs.”

  Gabe perks up. “Why didn’t you mention him to me before?”

  “Because it’s definitely not Nolan. He’s a boring high school music teacher. If you knew the guy, you’d know right away that he’s not the eyeball eating type.”

  “Maybe he feels betrayed in some way that you’re a famous musician, and he’s still stuck here teaching high school.”

  I shake my head quickly. “That was his choice, and I pay him a lot to help me write those songs. He only teaches because he wants to. If you met him, you’d understand.”

  “Maybe I should go talk to him.”

  “No, Gabe. Don’t go dragging him into this.”

  “Have you ever considered the person who left that message doesn’t really want to eat your eyeballs? Maybe they were just trying to scare you.”

  “Well, it worked.”

  Gabe stares at me for a long moment. “I think it’s Brent,” he says. “That’s my theory.”

  I roll my eyes. “He was in Nashville, and even if he wasn’t, we both know it wasn’t him.”

  “Who’s to say he didn’t hire someone to do his dirty work?”

  “Why would he do that? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense, Trin. He didn’t want you to call the police, and he wanted you scared. Someone who is scared is easier to control.”

  “He doesn’t control me,” I bite out.

  “He tries to, doesn’t he? The guy tells you what to eat, and how to dress. He had you carry on a bogus relationship for months, and-”

  “It’s not him,” I say firmly.

  “I don’t trust him, Trin. That guy is shady as hell.”

  Does Brent want to control me? The obvious answer is yes. He wants me to do things his way, because his way will make us all more money. Following that line of thought feels too slippery, too dark. It smacks of paranoia.

  I know Brent is greedy, but he also stepped in and took care of me when my mother died. I’ve known him for years. I’ve spent time with him and his wife. He’s spent time with my family. I’ve told him things, deeply personal things he has never shared with anyone else. He saved my life once. It’s a weird dynamic I don’t expect Gabe, or anyone else to understand, but I know Brent would never stoop that low.

  Now the seed is planted in my mind though, nagging, whispering. Does it make me crazy to suspect him, or crazy that I trusted someone like that for so long? Am I being paranoid, or naive?

  It’s a fucking awful feeling not being able to trust your own thought process. Maybe all that shit I took over the years scrambled my brain permanently, or maybe they didn’t tighten all those screws down firmly enough in the looney bin.

  “Why can’t you get a new manager?” Gabe suggests.

  “He’s under contract, and… I don’t want to get someone else. Brent takes care of me. He’s been with me since I was eighteen. He knows me.”

  I’m not crazy, but I was. I lost my shit right in front of the man sitting beside me currently, and Gabe is looking at me a little like the way he looked at me that night, like I’m a nutcase. “You told me yourself you didn’t trust him,” he says.

  “I do, and I don’t. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Well, explain it to me, Trin. I’m listening. I want to understand it.”

  I’m experiencing this strange vibration at the base of my skull, a buzz in my brain. I feel shaky on the inside. If I don’t stop this right now, I’m going to be shaking on the outside again. I’m not crazy, not anymore. I’m no more paranoid than anyone else in my shoes might be. “It’s not Brent. He would never do that. Whoever left that message won’t be able to get in now. I’m having a gate put around back, with motion sensors and cameras, and the security system updated. No one will be able to get in there ever again.”

  “They will if you invite them in through the front door.”

  “I’m changing all the codes. The only one that will know them is me, and you.”

  “He can still get to you, Trin.”

  “No he can’t, and he doesn’t want to. Gabe, you’re really… Can we just drop this? Brent is my professional life, and you’re my real life. I don’t like mixing the two. If you’re my boyfriend, should you even be handling this?”

  “No, probably not.” Gabe sighs quietly as he tucks a piece of hair behind my ear, and runs the pad of his thumb along my bottom lip. “There’s a detective working the case.”

  “Then let them work on it. Let them handle it. I’m sure they’ll find whoever is responsible.”

  Will they? Brent didn’t come right out and say it, but he paid someone off, didn’t he? But that wasn’t to cover up anything. It was to keep the police from harassing the wrong people. Or to keep them from finding out the truth? There it is again, that dark, buzzing vibration, a sick feeling at the pit of my stomach.

  I’m not crazy, and I’m not paranoid. I’m not.

  Brent just wants to keep this from hitting the news. He wants to make my life easier, because he understands the type of pressure I’m under. Gabe doesn’t understand, because he can’t.

  No one understands until they’ve been in the center of it, and I don’t want that for him, because I know how lonely, isolating, and god awful it can be. I just have to get through this next album, and this next tour, then Gabe and I can share the life we were always supposed to have together, the one I foolishly ran away from years ago.

  Chapter 25

  Gabe

  Four days after the initial incident, the security updates are finished on Trin’s sprawling home, and we spend the night there instead of my place. I can tell she’s a bit ill at ease, especially as night begins to fall. Hell, I’m a bit nervous myself, and not because of that threatening letter, or the fear that the person responsible is going to come crashing through one of the reinforced glass windows. The place is huge, with high, vaulted ceilings, and full of expensive crap. It’s like trying to relax in a museum.

  “Come on,” Trin says, leading me by the hands towards the kitchen. “We’re making dinner, and you’re helping.”

  “I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.”

  “I’m going to teach you, that way you can make something yummy for Rose this weekend that doesn’t come out of the microwave.” Trin pauses to fish around in a large drawer. She stands back up and tosses me something.

  I catch it, and hold it out in front of me. “I’m not wearing this,” I say with a laugh.

  “Why not?” she asks, pulling another apron over her head.

  “Did you have to give me the pink one with ruffles?”

  “Stop being a pussy and put it on, Gabe.” Her grin is wide and mischievous. “This is my kitchen, and I’m the one who knows how to cook. That means I’m the boss.”

  I almost forgot how goofy Trin can be. After all the crap she’s been through recently, I figure the least I can do is play along. She giggles when I shrug the frilly loop over my head. It’s too small to actually tie behind me. “Happy now?”

  “We’ll see how you do with dinner first, then I’ll decide how happy I am.”

  I do well enough with Trin to guide me along the way.

  “I hope you remember all this later,” she teases.

  “I’ll remember,” I promise, but we’ll see. Standing that close to her, as her fingertips brush over my wrist, directing my movements with the sharp blade, I can feel the warmth of her breath near my shoulder. Her voice is like quiet, seductive music. Trin is… enchanting. I’m not sure if there is a better word to describe her succincently. I’m enchanted.

  God, I really am a pussy.

  “You didn’t remember from last time,” she reminds me.

  The last time we were just seventeen, sneaking off to that seldom used cabin on Misty Lake. We didn’t just go there to have sex. Sometime, when we’d escape for the whole night. We’d make dinner together, curl up on the co
uch and watch a scary movie we’d brought along after. Sometimes we would go out back and make a fire in the firepit I helped my dad build. We’d play house. It’s painfully obvious now how young we were, how much we were really just playing, but it felt so damn real to me at the time.

  “I was just a kid then,” I say. “We both were.”

  “Well, now you’re all grown up with a kid of your own who needs to eat real food. You said so yourself.”

  I kiss her forehead. “You’re right.”

  “I’m glad we can both agree. I’m always right.” Trin smiles and bats her eyelashes up at me.

  “Now don’t go putting words in my mouth.” I try to keep my tone light to match hers, but there is one thing she’s not right about, at least in my opinion. There is something seriously off about that Brent guy, and everytime I bring it up, Trin gets defensive as hell.

  She was right a few days ago though, it’s not my case to solve, but I can’t stop thinking about it, and I’ve been doing some digging of my own. Using police resources for a personal matter is strictly forbidden, but this is very personal to me. I’m just not sure where it’s going to lead. Probably nowhere. Someone like Brent isn’t going to leave a glaring and obvious trail to follow.

  At the mention of Brent, she clams up, so over dinner I decide to switch tactics. “How does it work, since everyone knows who you are? how did you get the drugs you took?”

  Trin chortles around a bite of chicken. “What makes you ask that?”

  I shrug.

  She laughs. “Is Trenton so boring you’re thinking about branching out to other cities to go bust drug dealers?”

  “I stay busy enough, but I’m curious.”

  “I didn’t go score them from some shady guy in a trench coat on the corner, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “No I didn’t figure that.”

  “You know… friends.” She hooks her fingers through the air, forming quotes. “It’s not hard to come by with some of the people I hung out with.”

  “Kane?”

  She takes a tiny sip of water, and shrugs. “Sometimes, but he stuck to coke and shit like that, which wasn’t my favorite. I don’t think he does that stuff anymore. That’s what he told me anyways.”