Rock Wedding (Rock Kiss #4) - Nalini Singh Page 0,21
in Noah’s eye.
The glint became emotion of an intensity so deep Abe could almost touch it. “Good, she’s really good.” A grim smile. “Now that her fucking stalker’s locked up, she’s starting to breathe easy.” He moved his fingers on the guitar strings.
Abe joined in, as did David on the drums and Fox on another guitar, and they played for a while. The glint was back in Noah’s eyes when they paused. “You heard from Sarah recently?” he asked Abe.
Abe forced himself to shrug. “Why would she contact me?” He didn’t intend for even his closest friends to know he and Sarah had fallen back into bed—or rather, onto a kitchen counter. The moments had been secret, a private gift. “Fox, you and Molly heard from her?” Sarah had stayed with the couple after that bastard Vance assaulted her. It had kept her safe and protected and out of the media spotlight while the band’s publicist—and David’s fiancée—Thea, took care of organizing a locksmith to go in and change the locks at Sarah’s place.
It was a smart precaution, but Abe didn’t think Vance would be back. The man was a coward, and since Sarah had physical proof of his violence toward her, he wouldn’t take the risk of aggravating her and her calling the cops.
Abe’s hands fisted against the urge to crush that scrawny fucker’s throat.
“Yeah,” Fox said as he jotted notes on a music sheet, his guitar held on his lap with one arm hooked around the neck. “Molly and Sarah met up for coffee a couple of days back.”
Abe blinked. He hadn’t really expected to hear that Sarah had stayed in touch with Molly—she’d always been a little distant with his bandmates. Maybe because, a harshly unforgiving part of his brain pointed out, her husband was a dick who left her alone a lot while he jammed with the guys or toured with them.
No wonder she hadn’t wanted to hang out with Fox, Noah, and David.
“Molly said she’s looking much better,” the lead singer added. “Healthier, stronger.” He passed the music sheet to David, the two of them so used to writing together that they could overwrite or overhaul each other’s suggestions without risking bruised egos or anger. “Sarah’s business is going really well—she’s considering a small expansion since she’s having to turn down potential clients at this point.”
Abe felt a surge of warmth in his chest; it took a second for him to realize it was a lash of fierce pride. He hadn’t been able to keep himself from reading about her when she’d been profiled in the business pages of the newspaper. So he knew Sarah had built that business on her own, had been her own first employee.
Soon after leaving him, she’d gotten a job as a cleaner who worked for a company that contracted people to work at various businesses. It messed with Abe’s head to know his wife had taken a minimum-wage job rather than rely on the money at her disposal through the credit cards he’d had issued in her name—at least until something set her off on that crazy shopping spree to end all shopping sprees—but he was simultaneously proud of her for rebuilding her life on her own terms.
According to the article he’d read, one day the owner of a restaurant, impressed with her quiet work ethic and scrupulous honesty after she repeatedly turned in small change she’d found on the floor, had asked her if she’d also be able to clean his family home. He and his wife had been so pleased with her work and, more importantly, her discretion, that they’d recommended her to other friends.
“Everyone knows my wife and I went through a messy patch in our marriage,” the restaurant owner had said in the piece. “Sarah had a front-row seat to some very private fights, but she never, not once, said a word to anyone. She even protected us from ourselves by making sure our trash was clear of anything the tabloids could dig through.”
Sarah had soon identified a small niche market—wealthy and famous people who were understandably paranoid about privacy—and set up her own cleaning business after doing a night school course to learn business basics. Her firm promised total discretion and had quickly built up a reputation among the glitterati. No one minded paying more than they would for a regular service—Sarah’s motto was if she paid her employees well, they had no reason to sell exclusives to the tabloids.