Love me Goodbye: Prelude Series - Part Five Read online

  Love me Goodbye

  Prelude Series - Book 5

  Meg Buchanan

  Copyright © 2018 by Meg Buchanan

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below.

  Junction Publishing - United Kingdom/New Zealand

  [email protected]

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the “Special Sales Department” at the email address above.

  Love me Goodbye/ Meg Buchanan. -- 1st ed

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  The Prelude Series

  Author’s Notes

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Meg Buchanan

  The Prelude Series

  Book 1: Out of his League

  Book 2: Song for Jess

  Book 3: Highly Strung

  Book 4: I Thought I Knew You

  Book 5: Love Me Goodbye.

  Author’s Notes

  Thank you to all those who have read my books and left those wonderful reviews or messaged me to say how much you enjoyed them. I love hearing from readers on Facebook and Messenger. Or you can reach me at [email protected].

  If you’re not yet on my mailing list and wish to be added for updates on future books let me know. Once again by using [email protected].

  And when you have read Adam and Geneviève’s story it would be lovely if you’d leave a review to tell others what you thought of it. Reviews help authors so much. And I enjoy reading them.

  Chapter One

  Adam leaned on the bar and raised two fingers like a peace sign. He got a nod.

  The bartender took the whiskey glass, poured the double whiskey, then carefully placed it in front of him. From the look on his face he wouldn’t serve him again.

  Adam pulled the glass closer. “Thanks.” He didn’t feel drunk. Well not drunk enough. He still remembered what made him leave the pub before everyone else. He still knew why he ended up here instead of at the flat where the usual Saturday night party would be pumping.

  In the hour or so he’d been here the bar had gone from packed to almost empty.

  His phone rang. He swivelled enough on the barstool to haul it out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID. Tessa again. He hit the red button and put the phone on the bar. He didn’t want to talk to her. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. Especially his flatmate. She’d called him three times already and three times he’d hit decline. She’d even sent him a couple of videos of the party. He’d hit decline on those too.

  He’d had to watch her playing happy families with Luke less than twenty-four hours after she’d caught him with someone else. Twenty-four hours! She should have more fucking self-respect.

  He took a slug of the whiskey as his phone rang again. This time he hit the green button.

  “What?” He’d tell her to leave him alone.

  “Where are you?” Tessa asked.

  “Having a drink.” He could hear the party going on in the background. Everybody would be there. Everybody would be celebrating. They knew Stadium had a contract to play in Queensland for three months and were leaving in four days. And instead of celebrating the chance of a lifetime with the rest of the band, he was sitting in a bar, deliberately getting drunk.

  “You should be here, with us,” said Tessa.

  And he should have had more self-preservation than to tell her how much he cared and that he would be there for her. The last time Luke had strayed she’d turned to him for a few days and then she’d gone back to the arsehole. That had nearly killed him.

  In the background he heard Luke say, “Tell him to get his arse here.”

  “Did you hear that?” asked Tessa.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I heard. And what the fuck are you doing with Luke still?”

  Straight away the sounds coming through the phone changed. Footsteps, some talking, a door shutting, then quiet, just the hum of the party far in the background. Tessa must have gone to her room.

  “Don’t be cross at me, Adam,” she said quietly. “You’re all leaving in a few days. I didn’t want to spoil it by fighting with Luke.”

  A bloody stupid reason. But typical of Tessa. Too nice and no self-respect.

  “So, you let him get away with cheating on you?” He could just about hear her shrug over the phone.

  “Don’t be cross,” she said. “Come home.”

  “I’ll think about it.” He ended the call. Finished the whiskey still in the glass, turned the phone off and put it down again. Then he looked over at the bartender. Maybe he’d get lucky.

  But the guy ignored him, he was watching the doorway intently.

  Adam turned to see what could hold anyone’s attention like that at this time of night.

  A female.

  Of course. It had to be. Tall, with legs forever, a silver cocktail dress, and the highest, strappiest silver sandals it would be possible to wear and still walk. In her hand she had a small silver purse, her long black hair held up by a clip hung in curls around her face.

  Stunning. Beautiful. Sexy. Even beside Tessa she’d look good. She had the same long legs, long slender neck and slim frame. Similar age too, around twenty.

  But everything about her was darker than Tessa, her eyes, her skin, her hair. And Tessa bubbled and bounced and talked all the time. This girl had poise and sophistication.

  He watched as she stood still in the doorway for a moment, then breathed slowly in and walked towards the bar, threading her way through the mess of chairs and tables. And the way she moved, like water, smooth and elegant. How she did it in those shoes was a puzzle.

  She hesitated for a moment then looked behind her checking the doorway as if she thought she was being followed.

  None of his business.

  He went back to the empty glass and tried to catch the bartender’s eye.

  Geneviève noticed the young guy sitting at the bar. Sadness and longing, loss and hunger in his eyes, and something else.

  Desire? Admiration? A strange kind of excitement ran through her body. All males looked at her, but not in a way that made her want to look back. He seemed about her age, and unthreatening.

  When he looked away and went back to cradling the whiskey tumbler she had the chance to make a better assessment. She studied the beautiful boy ma
n just as intently as he had looked at her.

  Everything about him appealed, from the toffee brown eyes, the hair the same colour, to the way he dressed. It felt like an age since she’d seen a male in anything other than a business suit and tie, and this one definitely wasn’t. The red sneakers laced up with white. The dark blue jeans that fitted him perfectly. The jacket that might have once been a suit jacket worn casually over a black t shirt.

  Tall, she could see that even though he was sitting. And in good shape. The width of his shoulders pulled against the fabric of his jacket. He studied the bottles at the back of the bar perhaps choosing what he’d order next. Maybe he was drunk, and his eyes had just randomly settled on her.

  But those eyes had made her heart race almost as madly as it had done when she decided to get out of the car.

  He might be dressed casually, but nothing about him looked scruffy. Hair worn longish, so it flopped over his forehead. Nose straight, lips full, cheekbones and chin defined. Young, put together, stylish and good looking. Even the hair wasn’t an accident, it had been cut and styled to give that look of unkempt sexiness.

  She couldn’t quite figure out what he did or where he had just come from by the way he was dressed, but something made her think she could trust him.

  That assessment only took a fraction of a second. And the decision she’d leave here with him took even less time. She’d sit beside him and make it happen. In the short term, this boy answered the question about where to spend the rest of the night. In the long term, who cared? She just needed to make it through tonight without being found and then she could disappear.

  Adam watched her approach. She smiled and sat on the neighbouring barstool.

  The place was empty, so he figured she must want company. There were plenty of other seats she could have chosen. He cradled the empty whiskey glass. There didn’t seem to be any reasonable explanation why a girl who looked like this would walk into a bar alone at this time of night.

  She opened her purse checking something, and then caught the attention of the bartender. The guy might have started giving Adam time to leave signals, but he responded to the new customer.

  “Un vaso de vino blanco, por favor,” said the girl.

  Her voice flowed over him like a wave. One sentence and he was gone. The language, the sophistication, the delicately carved features, the slender body and the long slim legs were arresting, but the voice, pure sin.

  He could imagine fucking her and how her voice would sound when she told him what she wanted him to do to her.

  Where did that come from? That had to be the whiskey thinking. He didn’t think about girls like that. He looked after them. He treated them nicely. That’s him. Adam, the nice one they turned to when they wanted comforting. Until someone more exciting came along. Time he started treating them badly. Maybe not quite as badly as Luke treated Tessa, but badly enough to catch their attention.

  His gaze locked with the girl’s. He could imagine sliding his hands over those hips and kissing her neck, taking the clip out of her hair and watching the curls tumble over her shoulders, then running his fingers through the silken smoothness of it. In his mind he turned her, unzipped the dress and let it fall to the ground as he bent her over whatever.

  Jesus. He must be drunker than he thought. He didn’t pick up girls in bars or do one-night stands anymore. He’d given it a go a couple of times and didn’t like it because he tended to get attached to anyone he slept with.

  But tonight, he might make an exception.

  He didn’t know her name, hadn’t spoken to her. But he knew with absolute and total certainty, he wasn’t leaving without her. If he turned up at the party with a girl like this one that would teach bloody Tessa a lesson. She’d learn she wasn’t the only girl in the world and it didn’t matter to him she already had someone. He’d found a replacement.

  Then he noticed the gold band on the ring finger of her left hand.

  Chapter Two

  Geneviève saw him glance down at her hand before turning away again. He looked devastated. The expression in his eyes made her want to take care of him and tell him she wasn’t married anymore. She’d been free for a good ten minutes.

  Surreptitiously, she slid the wedding ring off her finger and clutched it in her hand. She should have taken it off as soon as she left the car. That part of her life was over.

  As for wanting to look after him, she needed looking after more than he did. He’d be her camouflage and refuge until she could buy some clothes that would let her blend in and find somewhere to hide while she made a few decisions. The ATM had spewed out a couple of thousand dollars before all the accounts refused to give her any more so at least she had money.

  She let her gaze slip away from him and over to the bartender as the glass of white wine slid across the bar to her.

  “Gracias.” She picked up the glass and sipped at the wine. How do you pick up a perfect stranger in a bar?

  As she went to speak to him, he looked at her. He didn’t smile or acknowledge her and the sadness was still there.

  He looked down at her left hand again and then smiled. “What happened there?” He nodded at her hand.

  She shrugged. “An oversight.”

  He frowned a little. “So, I didn’t imagine it then. Your voice is the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Willing to flirt. The plan to go home with him suddenly seemed a lot easier to accomplish. Geneviève smiled, sat up a little straighter and crossed her legs deliberately and slowly. She didn’t quite do the Basic Instinct thing, but close and the dress she had on probably made it look like that. Tight fitting, stretchy, and designed to show off her body. His eyes shifted to her legs the way she intended they would.

  “I can’t help the way I speak,” she said and looked into the depths of those perfect toffee coloured eyes.

  “I wouldn’t try to change it.” He picked up his empty glass. “Between those legs and that voice all I can think about is fucking you.”

  She blinked not sure how to answer that. That was faster than she’d expected. Perhaps he wasn’t as safe and unthreatening as he looked.

  He saluted her with the empty whiskey glass. “That’s what you intended isn’t it?”

  So, she’d been that obvious. Maybe a bit more subtlety. The bartender wiped down the bar top and looked like he wouldn’t mind if his last two customers left so he could lock up and get to bed.

  She smiled and held her hand out. “Maybe we could start with something simpler. Hola, I’m Geneviève.”

  “Geneviève.” He rolled the syllables around as he said them, savouring them. “I knew it wouldn’t be Anna, or Sarah. It had to be something exotic.”

  He shook the offered hand. “I’m Adam.” Then he grinned. “See no surname either. I can be mysterious too.”

  She laughed. She hadn’t deliberately tried to be mysterious. She just wasn’t sure which surname to use.

  Adam nodded at the bartender. “I think he wants us to leave. Do you fancy going to a party?”

  “Where?” She’d expected a bit of banter before he suggested her leaving with him. He didn’t seem to have any doubts about how attractive he was. Self-assured. That vulnerability she’d seen when he looked at her might be an act. Maybe he was a predator.

  She looked over at the door. No one had tracked her down yet.

  “Where is this party?” she asked.

  “At my flat.”

  “Are you sure there’s a party?”

  He nodded and picked up his phone. He turned it on and hit the small icon in the top corner. It opened to a video. He hit the small triangle in the middle of the screen and she could see what looked like a lounge and people moving and drinking, with loud music in the background and talking and shouting. Then the camera moved to a blond skinny guy.

  “Hey mate,” the guy yelled. “Get here. You’re missing the party, tell him Tessa.” The camera turned again and a pretty girl with blonde curly hair came into focus, from the
angle it looked like a selfie. “Come home Adam,” she said. “You’re missing the fun.”’

  Adam hit the parallel lines in the middle of the video.

  “Enough evidence?”

  She nodded. “Who were they?”

  “The pretty one is my flatmate, Tessa. And the ugly one is my good mate Luke.”

  Luke wasn’t that ugly. “Why do you want me to come with you?” she asked. There must be more to it than he’d told her.

  “Because you’re beautiful.” He put the whiskey tumbler firmly on the bar top. “And if I turn up with you, it’d be one in the eye for Tessa.”

  So, the sadness did have a reason. If she went with him they’d both be using each other.

  He signalled at the bartender to refill his glass.

  The man picked up the glass and put it in the dishwasher. “No mate,” he said. “You’ve had enough. I’ll call you a taxi.”

  Adam shrugged, pushed himself away from the bar and stood.

  “Are you coming with me in my taxi?” he asked.

  She nodded. She’d been right. Not just good looking, but tall and in good shape. In fact, if she had to pick up a stranger in a bar to get a bed for the night, she couldn’t have done better.

  Adam couldn’t believe he’d asked her; this beautiful girl he’d just met. And she’d agreed. He studied her again. Yep, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. And it wasn’t the whiskey thinking this time. But maybe the whiskey had made him act so out of character and made this seem reasonable. And it had been a wedding ring he’d seen on her finger before it disappeared.