Kiss Hard Read online

  KISS HARD

  A HARD PLAY NOVEL

  NALINI SINGH

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  1. Knight in Glitter Eye Shadow and Shining Titanium

  2. Viliame the Gossip Columnist

  3. (Strictly) Temporary Cease-Fire

  4. Mr. Sizzling Bachelor of the Year and the Dragon’s Den

  5. Tingles, PRIMORDIAL Tingles

  6. Whereupon We Learn That Danny Is a High-Maintenance Casanova

  7. Here Be Dragons

  8. Nope, Nope, Nopety Nope (and Nope!)

  9. In Which There Are Abs of Stone (and “Interesting” Twinges. Uh-Oh.)

  10. The Half-Naked Man with the Thigh Tattoo

  11. Danny, Don’t Eat the Designer

  12. Top Secret Information

  13. Red Carpet… Kiss?

  14. Dance with Me

  15. Cookies and Vengeance

  16. One Night Only

  17. Adorable Babies!

  18. Brotherhood

  19. BOOM

  20. No Holds Barred

  21. Danny Goes to the Dogs (the Dog Therapists, that is)

  22. Memo to Ward: Catie Is Not Here for Your BS

  23. The Infamous Wall of Shame

  24. Danny Pokes the Small Dragon (Ooooh)

  25. Too Real, Too Scary

  26. Changes

  27. Goodbye, Hotshot

  28. There Might Be a Sex Show

  29. Danny, the Dastardly Kidnapper

  30. Danny Goes MIA

  31. Love Soup

  32. Lost in Beijing

  33. A Broken Heart

  34. Trust

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Other Books by Nalini Singh

  PROLOGUE

  TEN YEARS AGO…

  Catie stared out the rain-washed window.

  The deluge was so heavy that it blurred the outside world, turned it into a scene from a Renaissance painting she’d seen in a textbook, all soft and out of focus, but one thing was clear: it was bad out. The increasingly violent winds had half bent the trees in the yard and water was starting to collect on the lower part of the driveway.

  Her heart thudded, her muscles all tight. “Dad’s fine,” she muttered, reminding herself that the last time she’d freaked out about her father, Clive, he’d been having a great time gambling it up at a casino in Sydney, Australia. It just hadn’t occurred to him to tell his teenage daughter that he was leaving the country. He’d been too excited to “meet up with an old buddy and hit the blackjack table while his luck was running hot.”

  Still, her hand clenched on the phone.

  The weather was worse than awful—complete with a dangerous gale-force-wind warning from the national meteorological agency—and Clive had left for his trip yesterday morning. It was now past four in the afternoon, the storm turning the world dark at the edges.

  Dad, she messaged, can you message back so I know you’re okay?

  No response. Not then, and not for the two hours that followed. Not even to her multiple calls. She knew he wouldn’t mind. Her father never minded anything—mostly because he just ignored stuff he didn’t want to handle.

  “Catie, dear.” Martha poked her head into Catie’s room. “Come on, it’s time for dinner.” Her face was warm with love, her brown skin aglow and her black hair in loose curls that held the shine of her favored leave-in conditioner. “I made spaghetti with meatballs.”

  One of Catie’s favorites. Poor Martha. Having to pick up the pieces once again—and stuck with a silent Catie. She flushed, immediately ashamed of her stressed preoccupation. “I’m sorry, Martha. I should’ve helped.”

  The near-to-fifty-year-old woman deserved all of Catie’s respect. Not only because Martha had been Catie’s caregiver since the day Catie was finally discharged from the rehabilitation center two years ago, but also because she was kind and had done everything in her power to help Catie on her path to independence.

  At fourteen, Catie no longer needed Martha as she had back then, but since neither Catie’s big sister nor her mother were about to chance Catie ending up alone when Clive pulled a disappearing act, Martha stayed.

  Truth was, Catie would miss her so much if she left.

  “You can do the dishes.” Martha walked over to ruffle Catie’s messy hair, her dark eyes heavy with worry she tried to keep from her voice. “Trust me, you’ll definitely earn your dinner scrubbing the pot.”

  Catie laughed, more to ease Martha’s mind than because she felt anything beyond the knot in her gut. And though she could barely taste the dish Martha had prepared with love in her heart, she cleaned her plate.

  Her phone stayed silent throughout, and the knot… it grew and grew until she had no room in her stomach for anything but fear. Clive had taken off plenty of times, but he usually messaged her back within a few hours. She’d been very clear with him after the Sydney thing.

  “I’m your kid,” she’d pointed out in a calm tone she’d practiced in her room—because Clive blanked if anyone got too emotional. “I need to know my dad is safe.”

  Catie didn’t expect Clive to be like her friend Laveni’s dad—a jovial and warm presence who came to school meetings and drove her places and scowled at boys who wanted to hang out with her. Catie had Issie for that; her sister was the best and even more protective than Veni’s papa. But Catie did expect Clive not to scare her.

  That was normal, wasn’t it? She loved Martha but knew that Martha had her own daughter and a grandchild on whom she doted; Catie tried not to ask for anything from her beyond what was in her duties. When it came to family, Catie only had Clive and Issie. Okay, she had the Dragon, aka Jacqueline, too, but her mother—who’d married and then divorced Clive within a few short years—didn’t really like to spend time with her children.

  Ísa was the one to whom Catie went with her problems and questions. Ísa’s husband was pretty neat, and he treated Catie like family too. So yeah, she had him as well. That was four people. Plenty enough. But only one was her dad, and she didn’t know what she’d do if anything happened to him.

  The knot was a rock by now, her throat all choked up.

  Bedtime came without any reply from Clive, though Veni messaged her a pic of a cute boy she liked from school—he wore glasses, played chess rather than sports, and was almost as smart as Veni.

  Catie answered her friend with a heart eyes emoji, then took a deep breath and began calling hospitals to check if Clive had been in an accident. She still had a kid’s voice, so the busy people who answered the phones were nice to her where they might not have been as welcoming to an adult.

  “Oh, honey,” one nurse said. “Is there no trusted adult who can do this for you?”

  Yes, she thought. Issie would help her in a heartbeat. So would Martha. But Martha should’ve been off-shift before dinner today. Catie had apologized for that and said it was okay if she wanted to clock out. At fourteen, it was no longer illegal for Catie to be left alone at home.

  Scowling at the very idea, Martha had kissed her on the cheek and said, “Not on my watch, hon. You’re a child, not an adult. And Jacqueline pays me triple when I work overtime, so I’m doing just fine.”

  Catie hadn’t argued, though she knew full well that Martha had been planning to have dinner with her daughter’s family. As for Catie’s big sister… Catie didn’t want Ísa to know how bad Clive had begun to act. She was scared her sister would try for custody out of worry for Catie. But though Catie loved Issie more than anyone else in the whole world, she couldn’t leave her dad.

  Clive would be devastated by her defection. He wouldn’t eat properly, wouldn’t sleep, wouldn’t make any good choices at all. Because though he was a bad father, he loved Catie in his own mixed-up way.

  “No,” she said to the nurse who’d asked if anyone could help her. “My dad’s usually the one who’d handle things.” That was a full-on lie. Clive was the least responsible person she knew; the only reason their bills got paid was that Issie had set them up as direct automatic payments—it hadn’t always been that way, but then Clive had taken off with the bill money one time and the electricity company had almost cut them off. The money came from the dividend account Jacqueline had established for her children—an account Clive could never access.

  Their mother was rich, but even rich women wouldn’t want to support their ex-husband. “I’m not supporting him,” the Dragon had said coolly the one time Catie brought up the topic. “I’m supporting my daughter. Leaving him penniless would affect you, and for all his faults, he’s a loving father.”

  Loving but unreliable. Yet Jacqueline had given him custody of Catie. Which made Catie think that a big part of the reason Jacqueline didn’t mind footing the bills was because she saw it as a fair trade for not having to raise a child.

  Tonight the nice nurse confirmed that Clive hadn’t been brought into the hospital, and after thanking her, Catie continued to ring around. She’d called all the hospitals she could find in the phone book by the time she hung up.

  Tomorrow she’d ring the police and ask if he’d been arrested.

  The stone in her gut got even heavier. Because maybe the police would tell her they’d found his vehicle down a ravine or in a gorge. Just because he wasn’t in the hospital didn’t mean he wasn’t hurt. It could be that he just hadn’t been spotted. The weather would turn his black car all but invisible if he’d gone off the road along the way.

  Eyes gritty and bile in the back of her throat, she was staring at the ceiling when her phone beeped at f
our in the morning. Snatching it off the bed stand, she sobbed out a breath when she saw the message was from her dad.

  It read: Sorry, baby girl. Got busy with my mates. All good here. Back when I’m back. Love ya.

  Cheeks hot, her eyes afire, she dropped her phone onto the designer white-on-white duvet he’d bought her with his last gambling winnings. On the ceiling, shadows prowled in the light thrown by her phone screen before it went black. As it did so, something inside her snapped in two.

  “No more,” she whispered. “No more.”

  From now on, she wouldn’t worry over her father. She’d be zen. She’d go running. She’d learn a new language. She’d call Veni or Ísa to chat. Hell, she’d even call the Dragon and pretend she wanted to pick Jacqueline’s brain about an economics project for school.

  No matter what it took, she’d create new habits to deal with her anxiety when her father vanished on her—until she had no anxiety at all.

  “I. Am. Done.”

  Tonight was the last time she would lie awake worrying over Clive.

  1

  KNIGHT IN GLITTER EYE SHADOW AND SHINING TITANIUM

  Catie narrowed her eyes when she saw Danny stumble against the bar inside the thumping Dunedin club. If there was one thing she knew about her number one nemesis, it was that he was about as clean-cut as they came—especially when he was representing his team.

  Oh, he knew how to party, but he kept it strictly to the off-season—and even then indulged only rarely. Danny was too committed to his sporting career to risk damaging either his body or his reputation. He certainly wasn’t one to get stumbling drunk in public. Which was why, though she and Danny had an avoid-ignore-or-irritate relationship most of the time, she got up off her chair and headed toward him.

  She heard her friends calling after her, turned to say, “I’m checking something out.”

  “Someone more like it!” Alina giggled, raising her glass.

  The others—including Catie’s best friend, Veni—cheered Catie on.

  Most of the girls were a touch tipsy, but Veni would make sure they didn’t overdo it, not with the lot of them booked to take a charter flight home in a couple of hours. Veni didn’t drink and never had—she hated the taste of alcohol—but she was a demon on the dance floor and was only seated now because she abhorred this particular track.

  Catie herself had only had a single fruity cocktail for the same reason that Danny controlled his intake: sports and alcohol didn’t mix long-term. Her reflexes were as quick as usual, but the place was packed, making it impossible to avoid all contact.

  She didn’t often do the club scene because of exactly this—she hated being jostled by people. While she was a pro on her prostheses by now and most people couldn’t even tell she had two artificial legs if she wanted to play it that way, it was difficult in places like this. The last thing she wanted was for some drunk groper to shove her off-balance.

  Speaking of which…

  Instead of telling Mr. Gary Groper to get his hand off her, she just twisted his thumb until he went to his knees, whimpering like a baby. Leaving him there for his laughing buddies to collect, she finally reached Danny.

  “Hey, hotshot!” she yelled over the beat of the music. “You need to cut off the alcohol! You know the media’s camped outside!”

  Danny had, last week, signed a massive sponsorship deal with an international corporation. That particular corporation expected its brand ambassadors to be the perfect athletic role models, including when it came to alcohol and drugs.

  It was open knowledge in sporting circles that the “moral turpitude” clause was in their actual contract—and that they weren’t shy about enforcing it.

  Danny put one big hand on her hip, a bit too close to her butt.

  Catie’s concern spiked. Danny did not hit on her. Ever.

  Instead of pushing him off, she slid her arm around his back, over the top of his short-sleeved black shirt with stud detailing, and really looked at him for the first time.

  Panic. A lost kind of panic.

  That was what she saw in Danny’s brown eyes. His hand fisted on the back of her sparkly, strappy top even as she came to the realization that something was seriously wrong. He was almost twice her size, as sleekly muscled as a hunting cat, and he was clinging to her.

  “Catie, I don’t…” His words faded off into confusion, but she’d caught a whiff of his breath when he’d come close to her face and there hadn’t been even a hint of alcohol in it. He smelled only of plain soap and that fresh aftershave he preferred, his hair still damp from the shower he must’ve taken after the game tonight.

  Rage boiled through her. “Danny, did someone roofie you?”

  The panic in his eyes was increasing by the second, but it would be invisible to anyone who didn’t know him. Though he was somehow managing to keep it together, she could tell he was losing physical coordination from the way he was leaning more heavily on her.

  She could also tell that he was fighting it—Danny knew she couldn’t deal with his weight, that it’d take her to the floor. However much they annoyed each other, she’d never worried for her physical safety around him.

  He was in serious trouble.

  She had to get him out of here, and in a way that didn’t set the media on him. If she didn’t, they’d plaster his face all over the papers and magazines, make him the next “bad boy of sport.” It’d savage his aspirations. More, it’d hurt his family—and Danny loved his aiga. So did Catie.

  But she wasn’t going to be able to pull this off on her own.

  “Hold on,” she said against his ear, then looked around.

  If only Jake had come out with them, but Danny’s brother had flown home straight after tonight’s midweek charity match, and Veni was out of sight beyond the dance floor. That was when she saw Viliame “Vili” Serevi.

  While Vili now played for the Harriers’ archrival, the Southern Blizzard, he, Jake, and Danny remained tight—she knew it was at Danny’s place that Vili had crashed when he flew up to Auckland for a wedding. And, regional rivalries aside, all three played together on the national team. The Fijian-Kiwi winger also hated the gossip media and would never betray one of his friends to them.

  Catching his eye, she jerked her head.

  He wandered over, a big smile on his handsome face and his usual quietness diffused by the fact they’d met multiple times over the years. “Hey, Catie. You and Danny finally hooking up?”

  “He’s been slipped drugs I think,” she said to him under the cover of music. They both knew Danny would never do drugs on his own. “Can you help me get him out the back somehow?”

  Expression changing so quickly that it was obvious he was sober, he nodded. “Let me go check out the exit there.”

  She found herself stroking Danny’s back in the interim, his muscles flexing under the contact. “Hold on, hotshot. I’ve got you.”

  Catie could murder the asswipe who’d dared do this to him. She and Danny might be frenemies at the best of times, but even she’d admit he was one of the genuine good guys. Smart, loyal, trustworthy—and irritating as all fuck. But when the shit hit the fan, Danny Esera would be the man you’d want beside you.

  Danny mumbled a response, but she couldn’t make sense of it. What she didn’t miss was the fact that—even drugged and out of control—he was trying to brace himself on the bar so he wouldn’t push her off-balance.

  “It’s all good,” she said against his ear—which she could reach because he was kind of bent over the bar. “I’ve got excellent upper-body strength.”

  He didn’t scowl at her subtle reference to the time she’d beaten him not once but twice at arm wrestling. They’d been in their teens at the time, and he’d muscled up considerably since then, but she liked to mess with him by pulling out that factoid, did so now in the hope it would spark emotion, clear out a little of the fog. But his eyes stayed dazed as his hand clenched desperately on her top.