Harlequin Desire January 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 by Maisey Yates (free biff chip and kipper ebooks .txt) 📕

One More Time” literally hit the crowd just the way they wanted it. One of the a cappella groups joined in from the crowd, giving her some background vocals. This time Divya didn’t just walk the stage, she danced too. If the audience loved her before, they were now smitten. She walked off to a standing ovation and calls for her to come back. Ethan was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, having correctly guessed that she’d be accosted the moment she exited.

Her eyes were wild with excitement, but he could feel the crush of the crowd wanting a piece of her, so he put a protective arm around her as he led her outside through a side entrance that he’d noticed earlier.

“That was great. Oh my God! They actually liked me.” They had exited into an alleyway that smelled of urine and something worse, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was positively giddy.

“You are amazing, Divya. You don’t just have talent, you have a gift.”

She twirled. “They didn’t boo me offstage.” The night had gotten cooler, but she didn’t seem to care about the goose bumps on her arms. Her face was aglow and it brightened his heart. “Can you believe I just did that?”

He smiled, watching her dance in the dirty alley, her laughter and happiness so infectious that when she grabbed his hand, he pulled her into his arms. She flung her arms around his neck and stood on her tiptoes to hug him tightly. His breath caught in his chest. She felt so right against him. Her exuberance reached in and sparked a long-dead fire inside him. She loosened her embrace but kept her arms around his neck. He looked down at her shining face and knew he wasn’t going to stop himself this time. He needed to kiss her. He lowered his head.

“Ah there you are!”

Both of them startled at the booming voice. The club door from which they’d just exited banged closed.

A tall, heavyset man with a round face and white T-shirt approached them. Ethan was immediately on guard. The man held out his card. “Jason Brugge from East Side Records. I’ve been coming to this club for years, and you are the first vocalist who’s gotten me to put down my drink. I want you to give me a call. I’ll set up an audition, see what we can do.”

Divya stood frozen, so Ethan took the card. He would have Roda look up the guy to make sure he was legitimate. Anyone could print up business cards.

“She’ll call you,” Ethan said, as Divya seemed incapable of words.

When the man was gone, she snatched the card and looked at Ethan wide-eyed. “People come to this club for years hoping to get a card like this.”

“I’m sure they do. But they don’t have your talent.”

She rubbed the card between her hands. “I’m going to frame this.”

He took the card from her and pocketed it. “Let’s go back to the hotel. We’ll open a bottle of champagne and celebrate.”

The alley was getting darker and danker by the minute. Divya hadn’t noticed, but Ethan didn’t like the look of the shadowy figures that had begun to make their way toward them from one end of the alley. He grabbed Divya’s hand and walked quickly in the other direction. His management team had repeatedly asked him to have a security detail. His face was well-known in the media, and they were worried that he was a target. He’d resisted the intrusion into his privacy. That, and he could only imagine how his parents would feel if he showed up with bodyguards. They already thought him too pretentious.

He saw a taxi almost as soon as they exited the alley.

Divya was still giddy when they got to the hotel. Ethan ordered a bottle of champagne and a couple of burgers from room service. As they ate and drank, they talked about the club and the other artists and the smell of beer that still clung to them.

Ethan had never had a hard time conversing with beautiful women. He’d dated his share of them. But it was different with Divya. He didn’t have to work at making conversation; it just flowed. And when there were lulls, they sat back in pleasant silence until one of them had more to say. It was easy and comfortable.

Divya walked over to the suite bar. “Oh good. They have Black Label.” She poured herself a small amount. “You want some?”

He crinkled his nose. “Mind if we skip that?”

“You don’t like whiskey?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I can’t even stand the smell of it. Bad memories.”

She poured the whiskey down the sink and came back and sat next to him. He caught her gaze and sighed.

“You know I won’t be satisfied until you tell me, so spill it.”

“I didn’t tell you the whole story about my childhood on the plane.” He let out a breath and told her about Wade. “I like to pretend that my life only started with my stepfather. I’ve tried to forget Wade but I still associate the smell of whiskey with him. On the day my mother walked out on him, I went to give him a hug and he pushed me away so he could take a swig from the whiskey bottle.”

“Wade never came back into your life?”

Ethan shook his head. He’d never told anyone what he was about to tell Divya. “When my younger brother was born, I was barely eleven. In my juvenile heart, I thought I needed to let my mom be happy with her new husband. I felt like an outsider. So I saved up my allowance and took a bus to the old neighborhood and found my dad. He was still living in the apartment he shared with my mom. Same old drunk but with a new girlfriend.” He hazarded a look at Divya, inwardly cringing at the thought of the sympathy in her eyes, but he didn’t see any. She just