Read Blackthorne: Heart of Fame, Book 8 for Free Online Page B

dedicated to the research of ADHD. Samuel had whisked Lily away to Paris in a heart-wrenching attempt to help her deal with her twin brother’s fatal overdose. And Levi was enjoying being a father, doting over his baby daughter as much as he doted over her mother, Sonny, and their partner, Corbin.
    Josh was the only one who seemed restless, occasionally working on new material for Synergy’s next album, more often wasting time just fooling about being a rich celebrity. But maybe that was because Josh was only twenty-seven. A rich, famous twenty-seven-year-old, but still only twenty-seven.
    Or maybe it was because he didn’t have someone…important to share his life with. Well, someone apart from Rhys.
    He snorted, shaking his head and grinning at the thought of a life spent only with the wild pro-soccer player as his significant other.
    “Now that,” he muttered, reaching the door marked Private without too many offers of wild sex whispered in his ear, or too many napkins scrawled with phone numbers shoved in his hands, “would be a messed-up, crazy existence.”
    Depositing the napkins on the tall table beside the door, he shot a look over his shoulder at the bar he’d just left.
    His guardian angel—he of the massive muscles, towering frame and gleaming head—gave him a single nod and then reached under the counter. There was a soft buzz, followed by a softer click and the door opened a crack.
    Josh grinned back at the bartender, returned his nod and slipped into the dimly lit corridor on the other side of the threshold.
    Cool air caressed his skin, left hot and sweaty from the nightclub’s heady atmosphere. He drew in a slow breath, appreciating the lack of alcohol, perspiration and cloying perfume and cologne on the air, and shut the door behind him.
    Instantly, the throbbing beat of the DJ’s music faded.
    Josh turned and cast the door’s metal surface an admiring look. “That’s some serious sound-proofing.”
    His voice bounced around the concrete floor and stark, concrete brick walls. He pulled a face, for some reason suddenly nervous.
    Nervous. Him. Josh Blackthorne.
    Maybe he was as jetlagged as Rhys?
    Giving his shoulders a shake and his neck a roll, he started walking down the corridor. The heels of his boots echoed through the space, each footfall a loud announcement he was there.
    Each one taking the ridiculous nerves in his gut and twisting them tighter.
    What the fuck was up with that?
    Two closed doors later—one labeled Staff Toilets , the other labeled Lose the Key For This Door and You’re Dead —he stopped at another door. This one was also closed. Hanging from the knob of this door by a length of twine was a laminated sign saying The Boss .
    The muted sound of some kind of music came from the other side, too soft and indistinct for Josh to make out. He stood there for a moment, straining to hear it. What a person listened to in their private space was, in his opinion, a good insight into their state of mind.
    What was Caitlin Reynolds listening to now? After meeting him?
    He closed his eyes, trying to make out something that would clue him in, a riff, a lyric, a voice maybe…
    Whatever it was, it wasn’t like the frenzied music pumping through the speakers out in the nightclub. It was more…subdued? More—
    “Can I help you?”
    At the sound of Caitlin’s droll voice, Josh let out a yelp and staggered back a step. “Fuck, you scared the life out of me,” he burst out, staring at her where she stood in the now-open door. From her office, the sound of classical music wafted on the air. Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 7”. Powerful. Moody. Stirring. What did that say about her current thoughts and emotions?
    Josh didn’t know.
    A dark light glinted in her eyes and, for a split second, the corners of her lips twitched. A little. “Then my work here is done,” she declared, watching him. “You can’t bother me when you’re dead, can you?”
    Recovering his composure, Josh shoved