Page 18 of It's Holy Matrimony, Baby

CHAPTER FIVE

It’s holy matrimony, baby!

Hellish even.

But, you’ll make me half a million dollars.

And I’ll make you the best husband you’ll ever have.

NOX

It must be near dawn. Five a.m. if the digital clock on the nightstand is correct. Stretching, it takes me a moment to recall where I am. Not the cabin, and not Dean’s place. This isn’t patio furniture either. But it’s the best night’s sleep I’ve had in almost as long as I can remember. I reach under my hip and pull out a big bit of flattened metal. Circular and an inch thick. I pop the metal bangle onto the nightstand. Beck Casey is used to other people cleaning up after her, I’d bet my last dollar on it. Her hotel room is a mess.

Sitting up, I rub my jaw, glance around. There’s the glow of a screen coming from the other room. Perhaps she left the TV on, or she couldn’t sleep. Not surprising she didn’t join me in the bedroom. Didn’t expect her to. Especially after her reaction. I grin. Well, maybe not her reaction. There’s an attraction between us, a sexual tension that caught me by surprise last night as much as it did the first time I met her. I could sense how much her body wanted to mold to mine when we were touching each other. Wanted it.

That’s not the point. There are half a million points to be made, but that isn’t one of them. I climb off the bed and stumble to the bathroom. Need to piss.

Bladder empty, I tuck myself in, do up my pants, and wander into the living space. She’s asleep on the sofa, bare feet sticking out from under the white waffle weave robe she’s draped over herself. Her laptop is open on the coffee table. Two windows divide the screen. One’s an essay on some electropop group I’ve never heard of. The other is a blog titled Dear Anti-Cupid. The post is about how to push a guy until he cracks so you can find out if he’s a keeper, and her name is the byline.

I snort and shake my head. Make a note to have a look at this blog of hers later. She might hate me after all, but if she thinks I’m going to let go of half a million dollars and the chance to see if there’s something more here, she’s going to be shocked at my staying power. I quietly tuck the end of the robe around her feet before letting myself out the door. Three months of playing house with Beck Casey might be the answer to my problems, but I still have to go to work.

While I ride the elevator down, I text Jack. He’s probably still asleep, and if not, too busy to respond, but I need him to put me in touch with Liv again. If I’m going to keep up my end of the deal, I’m going to need a key.

Started feeling guilty while I was delivering lumber. Half a million dollars isn’t a good enough reason to make someone uncomfortable. And Beck doesn’t deserve it. The only thing she did wrong was marry me. God knows why. Probably because we were drunk. No hidden agenda, no deeper meaning like her friend thinks.

I was fucked up that night. Hating on everything but booze. Lena made sure of it. I wouldn’t be in this mess without her. Beck wouldn’t be involved either.

I pull into the empty lot behind the old building. Damn kids have been throwing rocks and smashing windows again. Tagged more of the building too. The steel records that used to decorate the space over the front door are faded and broken. A couple of the discs are missing altogether. Above them on the roof the Casey Record sign is a grimy, broken mess. God, this place used to be something. Rock royalty used to walk through these doors on a regular basis. They’d come stay at the cabin and make their records here. Couldn’t get them to come now. Dad would never have let it fall apart like this. All that’s left is a pile of bricks with no soul and no life.

My chest aches. Dad must be turning in his grave. His legacy lying in ruins like this.

Gravel crunches under the tires as I park the truck. Still keep messing up. Can’t get it right.

Jumping out of the cab, I find the key on my fob. We loaded all the equipment—the instruments and mixers and rack mounts and anything else that wasn’t glued down—into my truck and moved it to Mayhem to store it when we thought we were going to have to let the building go. Now it’s just a shell. The power’s cut off, and there’s probably glass everywhere from the broken windows, so there’s no point in going inside. I just like knowing that I can. That no matter how hard Lena tried she didn’t manage to take it all from me. That as much as she did manage to take, she couldn’t take this. At least when I come out here there’s some hope that I can undo the damage, bring the bands back, rebuild the label to what it once was because we still have the building my father built into a rock landmark.

Thank God he didn’t leave it all to me alone. He had foresight where I had none. Though I very nearly ruined that too. Marrying Lena would have resulted in her having a right to half the studio. Instead, I married Beck. She doesn’t even know how she saved me that night. I didn’t know. Not until later when I couldn’t see any other way out but to give Lena what she wanted. Dad had mortgaged the studio and the cabin to help me get back on my feet and the debt still needed to be cleared. I had to sell my house because Lena’s name was on the title. Couldn’t see any other way out but to sell the studio to the developers Lena worked for.

Until I was sitting with the paperwork in front of me and dad’s estate lawyer asked me about my marital status. Such a tiny detail, but the impact was huge. A simple clause in dad’s will transferred half of the estate into Beck’s ownership the moment we married. To sell it I had to have her signature, and I had no idea where she was. There was not a damn thing Lena could do. God, she was angry. Still enjoy revisiting that moment. Her face... thought she was going to go nuclear.

But it’s been two years and I can’t make a dent in the mess. Haven’t managed to do a damn thing to get this place back to what it should be. Haven’t been able to pay my siblings back for helping me keep everything afloat. It’s been long enough.

This is why you’re going to stick like glue to the girl. For Finn, and Dean, and Jack. And for Lou. And for dad, because I have to fix this. That’s what he would want. He was always telling me that there were too many songs still to be sung, guitars to be strummed. We Caseys don’t quit what we start.

Can’t let an opportunity like the one Liv’s giving me slip through my fingers because Beck doesn’t deserve to be caught in the middle. Already put her there when I married her. Maybe after things are turned around I can make it up to her. Maybe give her a once in a lifetime interview with the ghost of a rockstar. Or call in a favor from Sophie Valentine. Beck would probably like that.

Something glints at the corner of the building. Diamond bright. What the hell? I stalk in that direction, stop when I get to the steps to the darkened front doors. Beck Casey is taking pictures with her Nikon. Stuffing it back into her tan leather tote bag, she tries the door. The chunky chain padlocked around the handles rattles. Her curvy ass bounces inside that cute, stretchy aqua skirt. And then she pulls a bobby pin from the base of her ponytail.

I clear my throat. “Need help?”

“I-uh.” She jumps and spins around, her hands behind her back. “No, I don’t. What are you doing here?”

“Casey Records.” Jogging up the steps to meet her on the fat bit of concrete between the top four and bottom four, I point at the faded and cracked sign suspended on top of the building, before pushing my thumb into my chest. “Nox Casey.”

“You?” Her eyebrows arch into two perfect peaks. “You’re related to Dalton Casey?”

“He was my dad.”

“Oh.” She comes toward me. “I’m so sorry. He was a great man. From what I’ve read.”

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