Stolen Moments (A Stolen Romance #1)

Chapter 1 Alexander

Today is not the first time I have sent someone flying toward their death.

But this time, I seem to be flying with them.

I’d barely caught the screech of bicycle brakes over Green Day’s American Idiot blaring through my earbuds before the front wheel connected with my left leg.

My hands and knees hit the hot tarmac as the bicyclist, with his Lycra top and shorts the same green as the crosswalk signal locked in my vision, careened through the air.

Fuck.

I really am an American idiot.

I’d managed to escape from my hotel unnoticed, but I’ve managed to cause a scene in less than five minutes. No wonder my team never wants to leave me unchaperoned, despite being twenty-three and a full-grown adult.

“Are you okay?” I look up to see an older gentleman in a flat cap leaning over me, a concerned look on his face, while a dozen or so other people gather round the motionless bicyclist a few yards from me.

Adrenaline courses through my veins, forcing me back onto my feet. A scuff on my right hand tingles as I pull my black baseball cap down. The last thing I need right now is for people to recognize me.

“Yes, I’m good.”

It’s a lie, but I need to escape this scene as quickly as possible. I can already see the headlines:

Alexander Morgan Sends Man Flying to His Death.

Alexander Morgan Guilty of Manslaughter.

The old man looks unconvinced, but with everyone else’s attention focused on the bicyclist, I’m able to make a clean break and dash down the road. I stop several blocks down outside the Three Falcons, an unassuming traditional British pub.

I crane my neck one last time, sending shooting pains up the side of my neck, to check the street behind me. It’s times like these that I wish I were an owl. Not only for its perceived wisdom about staying out of trouble, but its ability to look over its shoulder without discomfort.

I push on the gold handle of the pub door, wincing at the pressure on my scraped palm, and enter. The cool air from the interior hitting my skin gives me the sensation that my sweaty black running top is clinging even tighter to my body.

I pass the wraparound bar, a grandfather clock sitting next to a beaten-up wooden piano, and a collection of rustic wooden tables and stools on my way to the restroom, where I rest my hands on the cool porcelain sink and finally allow myself to breathe.

After a moment, I turn on the tap and stick my hands underneath, involuntarily jerking back from the sting as the water hits my palm.

You’d think I’d be used to the pain from all the scuffs and knocks I’ve accumulated over the years while skateboarding.

But my pain threshold seems to have dropped ever since I had to give that up.

Just one more thing my team won’t let me do.

There’s too high of an insurance premium on my face to let me deliberately risk damage.

In the mirror, I look pale and sweaty. My pupils are so dilated that I can barely make out the blue of my irises. I try to reassure myself that I am not at fault.

I had the right-of-way.

He jumped the light.

You’re not the one at fault here.

But no matter what I tell myself, the guilt in my chest won’t subside. I reach for the paper towels, wet a couple, and dab at my hands and knees to remove the embedded stones and stop the blood.

I always seem to fuck everything up. Me and trouble are on a first-name basis. BFFs, you could say. My ride or die. Except I’m a captive on the ride, and God help anyone who crosses my path.

I’ve learned to expect the worst and hope for the best.

I look into the mirror again before leaving the restroom, taking a moment to tuck my blond hair under my baseball cap and behind my ears.

Shit.

My left earbud.

My heart rate rises as I scan the floor, glance underneath the urinals, and into the empty stalls and around the sink, but it is nowhere to be seen.

It must have fallen out when I fell.

Is this how it ends? Some CSI detective finds my earbud, retrieves my fingerprints, and then pins the bicyclist’s death on me?

I shake my head. That train of thought is the hot mess express to either hell or disaster. No one will put two and two together, and I’ve got plenty more Bose earbuds back at the hotel from my brand deal anyway.

As I make my way back into the pub, a chiming sound from the grandfather clock alerts me to the fact it’s already 3 p.m.

Great. If I’m lucky, I’ve got five minutes, ten max, before the team realizes I’m not where I said I was going to be and a crisis unfolds.

I pull my phone out from my shorts pocket and look at the lock screen.

No new messages from management or security appear, so it seems I’m safe for a little while longer.

I breathe more steadily and return my phone to the other pocket.

I exit the restroom and pass a small scattering of people filling a handful of tables on my way to the bar, intent on finding something to squash the ruminating thoughts in my brain.

If you were to ask anyone who knows me or of me, they would tell you my professional title is singer.

But that is my secondary profession. The first? Professional overthinker.

I’d win an Olympic gold if they turned it into a sport.

The bartender, mixing someone else’s drink, looks up at the mirror behind the wall of spirits as I approach and catches my eye, prompting me to adjust my baseball cap once more. I haven’t come this far and gone through all of this to have my cover blown now.

In the time it takes for the older woman beside me to pay for her drink and the bartender to wipe down the surface of the bar with a gray towel, I decide what drink to go for.

“What’ll it be?” the bartender asks in a Cockney accent, flinging the towel over his shoulder. His eyes sparkle at me as I pause, trying to make sure I understand him correctly.

“A Jameson on the rocks,” I attempt in my best British accent.

His eyes narrow, causing my skin to prickle with icy dread.

Does he think I’m underage?

Will he ask for my ID?

Is my British accent that bad?

Has he recognized who I am?

He doesn’t look like one of the nineteen thousand people who’ll be attending my show tonight, but I’ve learned not to assume that no one over the age of forty will know who I am.

“Coming right up.” The bartender breaks his stare, raps his knuckles twice on the wooden bar, and grabs a glass, filling it with ice before pouring the drink and turning back to me.

“That’ll be six fifty.”

My phone puts up a fight as I prize it out of my pocket, sending the other contents inside flying across the floor to hit the metal foot of the table behind me.

“Thanks,” I say, my cheeks flushing with embarrassment as I tap my phone on the card reader next to the cash register.

Thank God for Apple Pay. One less thing to potentially expose my identity.

As I grab my drink and turn to retrieve my things, a man who looks about the same age as my father picks them up and hands them to me.

“Here you go,” he says with a genuine warmth that reminds me why I love London and the people here.

He slides my hotel key card and metal chip medallion into the palm of my hand.

“Thanks,” I say, and quickly push them back into my pocket. I’m unsure if he knows what the chip symbolizes and I don’t want to draw attention to it, given the drink in my hand. Especially since my team gave it to me just this morning, in honor of my two-year soberversary.

By the time I find a seat in the back corner of the pub, where I’m least likely to draw attention, the minute hand on the clock has already reached five minutes past the hour.

With the hotel a good ten minutes from here and a lobby call time at three thirty to head to the O2 Arena, I barely have time to down my drink and sneak back to my room before anyone notices I’m not in the gym.

I cup my hands around the tumbler, the coolness and condensation of it causing another short burst of pain to flicker across my palm.

But I’ll take everything that’s happened today, all of the pain, if it means I can get a moment of normality.

These days, it feels like I’ll do pretty much anything to get a stolen moment of freedom.

I close my eyes and imagine myself floating across the concrete on a skateboard, but I’m jolted back to reality by a vibration in my pocket.

Taking a deep breath, I pull it out, carefully removing all the contents this time.

I place the room key and chip next to the cardboard coaster on the table before seeing Paul, my manager’s name, flash on the screen.

I can feel disdain etched across my face at the sight of his name.

I allow the call to ring through, knowing I’ve probably only got ten to twelve minutes max to get back to the hotel before Paul blows his lid. To gain some time, I shoot a text to my assistant, Lucy.

Just in the sauna. I’ll be back in ten.

Lucy is the easiest one of my team to manipulate into getting some me time. Three dots appear as she begins typing a response, then disappear. My chest instantly tightens. They must already know I’m not in the sauna.

The fear of repercussion tightens its grip round my throat, only to ease slightly when the three dots reappear.

Lucy

Okay. Let me know if you need anything.

I’m good.

Lucy thumbs-up my message in acknowledgment, and I slide the phone back into my pocket along with my room key before grabbing my sobriety chip, flicking it back and forth between my thumb and pinkie finger.

Go to rehab, they said. It will be great.

Have therapy, they said. It will help.

They’re all a bunch of dirty, dirty liars.