Kira Sinclair - Whispers in the Dark

“Sure.” She didn’t, but she’d figure it out.

“Well, then, I’ll see you in a couple days.”

Karyn shifted sideways, forgetting about the waist-high water she sat in.

He chuckled, the deep, light sound tickling her heightened senses. “Enjoy your bath.”

Unexpected heat melted through her. She cringed, but before she could make a snappy recovery, he hung up, leaving her dangling.

Flopping back into the water, Karyn closed her eyes and flung an arm across her flaming face. “I’m such an idiot.”

“EVERYTHING’S SET?” Michael met Chris at the door, pushing back a throng of women to let him into Oxygen, a downtown Birmingham hotspot. These personal appearances were part of the job, but he really wished the marketing department would find someplace other than local clubs and bars. The place reeked of smoke, and the pounding music and flashing lights made it difficult to carry on a conversation. Although, sometimes that worked in his favor.

“We’re meeting for dinner Saturday night. I reserved a private room at Masquerade.”

“Private, huh? Please tell me you aren’t considering making a move. I know you’ve been off your dating game lately, but that’s low.”

Chris frowned. He was not off his game; he was out of it entirely. But that was by choice. He was tired of pasting on a smile and playing someone else, someone he no longer wanted to be.

“Of course not. I’m trying to keep a low profile. Somewhere I can get in and out without anyone noticing me.”

“Dr. Desire! Dr. Desire!” Two women slipped past the bruiser holding back the crowd and raced toward him, yelling at the top of their lungs. Chris took a bracing step backward and held his breath. Before they could reach him, another security guard provided by the club intercepted them.

With a wry twist of lips Michael said, “I wouldn’t count on it.”

“Those women knew I’d be here.” Shaking his head, he moved across the room. “I promised Katy no publicity. No pictures, no interviews. And no using her real name on the air.”

His producer shrugged. “Fine. Legal wanted as much, anyway.”

“Great. Make sure everyone knows. The last thing I need is for this meeting to leak out. Then Katy really would have something to complain about.”

Chris settled into the uncomfortable chair set behind a table at one end of the dark room. Glancing down at the stack of glossy black-and-whites, he suppressed a cringe. He hated autographing these pictures, but they were part of the personal-appearance contract he’d signed.

The man staring back was familiar, but not someone he recognized as himself. The concealing layers were visible, at least to him. Slicked-back, styled hair. False, white smile. Tailored suit, a carbon copy of the straining shoulder seams he now shrugged uncomfortably against.

He’d worked hard to develop Dr. Desire’s public persona. The fact that it didn’t quite fit hadn’t always bothered him. But it was starting to more and more.

“Dr. Desire.” A middle-aged woman stepped up to the table and leaned across to squeeze his neck like they were old friends. It was time to go to work.

He spent the next hour talking and laughing with his fans. His cheek muscles hurt from the perpetual smiling, and his throat could have used about five gallons of water.

Of all the things that came along with being Dr. Desire, the public appearances had become his least favorite.

Finally, just at the point he was seriously beginning to think his wrist would fall off, Michael spoke to the crowd. “Sorry, folks. Dr. Desire has to get back to the station. But be sure to check out the Web site for his next local appearance.”

With a smile he could no longer feel, Chris waved as he slipped back out the door. Several feet down the block, his shoulders rose and fell on a sigh of relief.

“Remind me not to agree to another one of these for at least six months.”

“Sorry, you’re doing another in two weeks.”

Rolling his stiff neck, Chris let out a groan.

“Publicity means money, for you and the station. Wait here for me. I need to check on something inside, then you can give me a ride back to the station.”

When had he become a damn taxi? Whatever. It gave him a few minutes of solitude to unwind. These things always drained him. It was weird, the difference between speaking on air and speaking in person. The people were often the same; at least, they all wanted to talk about the same things. But at night, after the show ended and he left the studio behind, he was never as exhausted as he was after these in-your-face appearances.

Chris walked farther away, knowing that the bouncers who’d held the crowd back would soon let them go. Late-summer heat waved up from the pavement at his feet. Even an hour after sunset it still held every ounce of the August sun. But there was a nice, unusual breeze. It slipped past him, carrying the smells of the city.

Birmingham was nothing like the little Alabama town he’d come from. Back home the smell on the breeze would have been cow manure, freshly mown grass or a mixture of both. It would have held the mouthwatering scents of barbecuing meat and roasting corn, though neither of those would ever have been coming from his own trailer. Here he just smelled money, concrete and the Chinese place down the block. Not necessarily bad, just different.

“Chris.”

He turned instinctively, realizing too late that the smooth voice was not Michael’s.

Every muscle in his body froze. His skin flushed hot before going clammy cold. He hadn’t seen his father for fourteen years. In fact, he’d only laid eyes on the man once in his life.

As far as he was concerned, that was once too many.

“How are you, son?” With a blinding smile that reminded Chris a little too much of the pictures he’d just signed, Darrell Odom cuffed him on the shoulder in greeting.

Shock quickly gave way to a bone-clenching anger. The one time he and his mother had needed the sorry son of a bitch, he had laughed in their faces and told his mother she was a stupid piece of ass for getting herself in trouble in the first place.

“What do you want?” He bit out each precise word. Every cell in his body screamed at him to take the shot he’d wanted to all his life, to pummel the perfect white teeth, golden tanned face and bright blue eyes until they were an unrecognizable mass. He wouldn’t, his mama had taught him better. And if he did he’d be no better than his father.

As far as Chris was concerned, he wanted nothing from the man, especially not the questionable moral compass he seemed to operate by.

“Can’t a father say hello to his son?”

“Not you. Let me guess, your latest mark wised up and threw you out on your ass.” Chris smiled. A small spot in the center of his chest warmed as his father’s jaw clenched, confirming his suspicions. “She catch you with another woman or just in your lies?”

Darrell’s smile vanished. The change was remarkable. The jovial, polished man he’d been two seconds ago was replaced by someone Chris never would have recognized in a crowd. For the first time he wondered just how old his father actually was. He’d never asked his mother.

Ripples of lines bracketed the man’s drawn lips. Deep furrows creased his forehead and the healthy glow he’d radiated vanished to a pale shadow of what it had been before.

“Fine. You’re an adult now—”

Like the man had ever known him as a child.

“The bitch I was with threw me out without a cent. No warning, no nothing, just changed the locks. I don’t even have a spare set of clothes. I just need enough to get back on my feet, to get a place to stay, some clothes to wear. Ten thousand should do it.”

Chris’s body flushed hot, and a shot of adrenaline coursed into his veins. He’d been waiting for this day all his life. He’d often railed at God and fate for what had happened to his mother. She’d worked so hard, spent every moment of her life paying for a mistake no one had loved her enough to forgive.

He’d carried the weight of knowing that mistake had been him. And that no matter how perfect a child he’d been, how excellent a student, he couldn’t save her. In the end he’d watched as cancer had eaten her from the inside out, knowing that if she’d had a better, easier life—some insurance—that life might have lasted longer.

Now the man who could have helped them and had refused was standing with his own hand out. Life was cruel. But fate had a sense of humor.

A harsh laugh that Chris didn’t recognize as his own echoed through the falling night. “Let me get this straight—I watched that night as you denied I was your son, as you told my mother she was an idiot for not aborting me and that any messes she’d made were hers to clean up. You refused to give us even $500 and here you are asking for twenty times that. You’re joking, right?”

Darrell’s face turned deep red beneath his too-perfect tan. “I know you have it. I didn’t have five hundred to spare.”

“You mean your sugar mama wouldn’t give money to the mother of your bastard son. You make me sick. You’re not getting a penny from me.”

Chris turned to leave, rubbing at his chest to ease the tight band there. Somehow that hadn’t felt as good as he’d always assumed it would.

Staccato steps on the empty sidewalk alerted Chris that the moment wasn’t over just yet.

“Don’t you walk away from me, boy.”

Darrell grabbed at his arm, but Chris was too quick. He spun around, stepping into the man to stop him short.

His father’s blue eyes glowed with an ominous heat. “Your mother should have taught you manners, son.”

“Don’t you mention her to me, you bastard. Ever. You don’t know anything about her, about what you sentenced her to that night you refused to help.”

The familiar anger and helpless fear rolled through Chris’s blood. His fists clenched against the hunger for retribution. It would be so easy to inflict a tiny slice of the pain his mother had experienced. The pull of vengeance was almost hypnotic. But the man before him wouldn’t pay the price; Chris would. Dr. Desire would. And it wouldn’t bring his mother back.

Taking a deliberate step back, Chris put enough space between them to make physical contact impossible.

“Let me give you some advice. Go back to whatever dimwitted divorcée you were conning this time, get down on your hands and knees and beg her for forgiveness. You have a better chance with her than you do with me.” Chris smiled, his muscles no longer numb, each and every one aching in protest. He kept the facade anyway.

“Aren’t we all high-and-mighty, Dr. Desire. You’re no better than I am.”

“The hell I’m not.”

“We both make our living off seducing women. The only difference is they pay me direct. You have that nice corporation cutting you the check. The end result’s the same, boy.” He smiled a perfect smile that sent ripples of unease across Chris’s body. “Sex sells.”

Chris stared, speechless. His brain swirled on the words, but he couldn’t form a coherent response.

“I’ll let you think about that awhile. See you around.”

His father was halfway down the block before Chris had his mouth open and a logical argument ready. Too late. People streamed from the club he’d just left as his father passed by the front door. Yelling at the man now would draw attention he’d rather not have.

Out of the crowd Michael appeared, grabbed his elbow and steered him across the street to his waiting Porsche.

“Who was that you were talking to?”