From This Moment On (The Sullivans #2)(34)

“Most people are surprised.” The slightly bitter comment left her lips before she could hold it back. At his questioning look, she explained, “My image isn’t exactly a brainiac workaholic.” She knew she must be tired to be talking so openly to Marcus about this kind of stuff.

He frowned. “Your image?”

Even though she knew she should drop the whole conversation, she said instead, “Come on, you have to know all about public images, considering one of your brothers is a big movie star.”

“How do you know about that?”

“Don’t worry,” she said in a snottier voice than perhaps she should have. “I didn’t go snooping online about you.” He raised an eyebrow as she explained, “Lori told me yesterday that Smith Sullivan is your brother.” Nicola looked carefully at Marcus. “Maybe if I had been looking for the family resemblance I would have linked the three of you together."

“If you’d known I was Lori and Smith’s brother, you wouldn’t have left the club with me.”

It was a statement, not a question. “You’re right,” she agreed, as blunt as he. “I wouldn’t have left with you.” She paused a beat before adding, “And if you’d known I was the infamous Nico you wouldn’t have left with me, either.”

His dark eyes flashed with something she couldn’t read at her use of the word infamous, but before he could respond, she realized, “Hey, that was Smith’s house we went to that first night, wasn’t it?"

Marcus simply nodded and asked, “Why are you infamous?"

“You really don’t know?” God, she wished she didn’t find that so hard to believe. But even though he hadn’t known who she was that first night, he’d had plenty of time to do his research since finding out she was Nico.

“I haven’t gone snooping online about you, either.”

Ouch. It wasn’t particularly fun to have her own sarcastic words thrown back at her. She winced and said, “Sorry. I was out of line with that comment.”

“Yeah, you were,” he agreed as he moved his hand up from her calf to her thigh to begin massaging that large, tight muscle, “but I’m sure you have to deal with that kind of stuff from people every day, don’t you?”

She found it really difficult to believe that he didn’t know anything about her story. Then again, he wasn’t exactly her target audience, so why would he?

“I do,” she confirmed, “but it’s a necessary evil, just like my image. I’ve always figured that as long as I’m able to play my music for people, the tradeoff is worth it.”

“What’s your image, Nicola?”

Shoot, she was hoping they could get off this whole topic, before she accidentally told him more than she wanted him to know about herself and her past. Sure, he could find out anything he wanted to know online in seconds, but a big part of her—a really naive part, probably—couldn’t quite picture him sitting down at his computer and scrolling through pap pictures and stories in People magazine.

But now that he’d asked her a direct question, and was clearly interested in the answer, she couldn’t quite find a way to deflect it. “My image is pretty obvious,” she said with a crooked grin she didn’t quite feel. “Sexy.” She licked her lips, before forcing out the word. “Wild.”

“I can see sexy,” he said. “But wild?” He frowned, looked around the nearly dark, very quiet suite. “It didn’t exactly look like you were having crazy parties up here before we met.”

She shrugged. “People believe what’s easiest for them to believe.”

“Sure they do,” he agreed, “but only when there’s a reason for them to believe it.”

She hated talking about this, especially to Marcus, but she’d promised him she’d be honest. “I haven’t always made the best decisions.”

She could feel his eyes, warm and dark, on her as she studied her knee.

“Everyone makes bad decisions at some point in their lives.”

She looked up at him. “Have you?”

His mouth tightened. “Not too long ago, actually.”

She couldn’t help but be somewhat comforted by that. “Unfortunately, I made mine in front of the world. Thus the wild image.”

“Couldn’t you change that, if you really wanted to? If you let people see who you really are?”

Nicola had actually asked herself that question many, many times during the past year, every time her stylist brought her skimpier and skimpier outfits that were barely a few strips of fabric. If she were talking to her manager and record label and publicist, it seemed she couldn’t. None of them were blind to the fact that her career had absolutely exploded after Kenny had betrayed her. She’d ended up on the cover of more than one magazine, had suddenly been hot property for late-night talk shows. Her popularity hadn’t waned since. In fact, she’d only gotten bigger.

“I don’t know,” she said, and then, “Maybe.” Another shrug. “My career has never been better. Maybe wild isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

“No, wild isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” he agreed. “But it isn’t you, is it, Nicola?"

How, she wondered a little helplessly, did he already know her so well? When their bodies were coming together last night, this morning, when he’d been pulling every ounce of pleasure from her, had he also been reaching into her heart to find the truth she’d been hiding from everyone else?