Ryland helped out by saying, “Elijah, can you show Marvi down there and get everything rolling?”
Elijah nodded and led Marvi away. Tate and their music producer followed. Ryland moved toward Julie, who now sat on the couch, looking at her phone. She looked up as if sensing his presence and smiled. There was a hint of strain in her smile that worried him.
“Hey. Are you okay?”
She put her phone down and turned to face him as he came closer. “Yeah. I’ve got this crazy internet troll that is a lot of fun. I was looking into what Marvi was saying—and there are pictures of us at the convention by the way—and well, the troll was being…awesome.”
“Let me see.”
Julie handed him her phone, and he took one look at the vile, angry comments she’d seen and closed her Twitter app. “What a garbage human being.” He handed her phone back. “Do you have any reason to think this guy could actually get to you? Like, is your address anywhere online where he can find you?”
“No. I’ve been careful. He’s been crude before, but never angry like this.”
Ryland felt a spike of worry, but he didn’t want Julie to become anxious about something that might not ever be a problem. He would be monitoring the situation though. Closely.
He put an arm around her waist and felt a charge of awareness run through him. Why in the world did he have to spend the day working with a spoiled diva? “Want to go down to the studio?”
Julie gave a forced smile. “I think I’d better go to protect you from Marvi.”
Ryland laughed and stood, holding out a hand to help her up. “We’ll keep each other safe.”
“That would be fun. And I could still work. Are you sure I wouldn’t be in the way?”
“Positive. And having you around will help me to be professional and not act like a disgruntled bear the whole time.”
She laughed and leaned against him. The combination threw his pulse into overdrive. Her fresh, lightly floral scent was more intoxicating than any alcohol. He wanted to hold her and get drunk on it. But now was not the time.
“Should we go?”
The sound that came out of his throat was not a word. It was a growl of frustration. He tried again. “Yes. Unfortunately.” Running his fingers down her arm, he found her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. “The studio is downstairs.”
The door to the studio was open when they got there, but he closed it behind them. They tried to keep the door shut to keep dust and noise out. Inside, Tate was hooking up his guitar to the amp while Elijah and Marvi sat at the soundboard, listening to the first track they’d made with the new key and arrangement.
He showed Julie over to an overstuffed brown couch at the far end of the room. “Make yourself comfortable. I hope this won’t take too long. I’ve fallen asleep on that couch a few times, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it got you too.”
Julie sank down on it. “Oh, wow. It is comfy. But don’t worry. The only thing I’ll have a hard time with is making myself actually get any work done instead of watching you work.”
Ryland gave her a half-smile. “Don’t worry. It’s going to be so slow and repetitive you’ll be bored in no time. These first rehearsals aren’t pretty.”
Ryland joined Elijah and Marvi at the sound board and folded his arms across his chest. “What do you think?”
She shrugged. “It sounds cool. I like it, but it’s lower than I’m used to singing. We might need to take the key up.”
Ryland met Elijah’s eyes. They’d do their best to keep that from happening. “Let’s give it a try the way it is. I think it will accentuate the natural huskiness of your voice.”
He could tell that pleased her when she stood up and moved over to a tall stool near the piano. “Could somebody run me through some warm-ups?”
Ryland nodded. He wasn’t too worried about warming up since he wasn’t going to be straining his voice just for this, but he was happy to play some scales for her. For the next twenty minutes, he sat at the piano, playing the chords and progressions she requested while she sang. But while Marvi’s attention was on her voice, his was completely focused on Julie. Maybe working with her around would be harder than he’d thought.
Chapter Eleven
Julie went back to the guest house and got her laptop before going to Ryland’s studio. She desperately needed to get some work done on her story, or she’d never make her deadline on time. Ryland’s mother showed her to the studio, and when she went in, she found the whole band hard at work rehearsing a song with Marvi. She was so interested in watching the process that created the music she loved that it was impossible to concentrate on writing. Most of the time, she sat on the couch in the back corner with her laptop open but asleep on her lap because it had been so long since she’d touched the keys.
Tate was incredible on the guitar, and Elijah proved to be focused and all-business on the drums. Marvi was even good. She sang with her eyes closed a lot showing off her fierce eye makeup, but she was good. Their voices did blend really well, and it did not escape Julie’s notice that Marvi and Ryland looked really cute together. They both had that rocker vibe thing going on.
Marvi had blond curls and dark roots that somehow looked both pretty and edgy. She wore ripped-up jeans with black ankle boots and a button-down shirt that was unbuttoned much further than Julie would have ever dared. Probably because her chest was so small that nothing showed. Marvi was exactly the kind of girl that everyone would expect a rock star to be into. But somehow, he was into Julie—even though she rarely wore makeup, preferred to live in pajamas, and thought putting her hair up in a messy bun was fixing it. She didn’t really understand it, but she was willing to go with it.
At the end of the song they were singing, their music director grumbled, “Ryland, what’s got you so uptight, man?”
Ryland looked across at Julie, and she understood instantaneously that he wasn’t able to really dig into a love song with Marvi while she was watching. Which was crazy. They’d only met in person yesterday and just barely kissed for the first time, but the currents running between them were undeniable. Whatever had sparked between them was strong, even if it was new.
“Yeah, man,” Tate said. “Put some chocolate on it—make it sexy.”
Julie closed her laptop and gave Ryland her full attention. “Yeah, Ryland,” she said. “Let’s hear what you’ve got.”
He raised an eyebrow at her, but grinned. “Sure thing, babe.”
This time when Ryland sang, he didn’t take his eyes off her. His face reflected the passing of emotions over his face, and the tendons in his neck worked as he made love to her with a song. When the song ended, they continued to stare at each other from across the studio.
“Um, can we take it again from the bridge?” Marvi asked.
“You go ahead,” Ryland said, still looking at Julie. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Then he walked toward, pulled her up from the couch and led her out of the studio.
He shut the door behind them and pulled her into an equipment room. Taking her by the shoulders, he stared hungrily down at her. “This is not going to be an apple pie kiss.”
Was he warning her? Because to Julie, no promise could have been better. She rose up on her tiptoes as he yanked her against him. This kiss began with startling intensity, as if neither of them could get enough of the other. Julie ran her fingers up the back of his neck and pressed herself closer to him. His arms wrapped around her, and she was glad for the support as her brain began to whirl. They breathed in gasps, and Julie swore her blood was close to boiling point, when his arms relaxed ever so slightly.
He began to pull back, but Julie wasn’t ready for the moment to end. She kissed him again, slow now… sensuous. And he gave into it. But even as his kisses gentled and drifted over her face, from her lips to her eyelids, and then to her ear lobes, she could feel a raw, potent energy radiating off him.
“Julie?” His breath was hot against her neck.
&
nbsp; “Hmmmm?” She was too deep in this tide of emotion to speak.
“I don’t want to rush anything, but I have to tell you—I’m not playing any games here. This is very real and very important to me.”
Julie stilled, though her heart hammered wildly in her chest. Normally when her pulse felt like this, she was having a panic attack. But this? This was euphoria. “Me too.”
He kissed her again, one firm, passionate kiss as if they’d just made some kind of bargain. “I have to go back to work.”
“And I’m distracting you.”
He smiled. “You have no idea.”
Julie ran her hands over his shoulders, gently massaging the tension away. “Oh, I do. I’m not getting any work done at all. I should go back and write in my room.”
Ryland frowned. “I hate not spending every second with you. Okay. Back to work. And I promise, we’ll spend some time together later.”
When Julie followed him back into the studio to get her laptop, Tate looked up at them and glared at Ryland. “How do you expect us to rehearse without our lead singer?”
“I don’t. That’s why I’m back when there are other things I’d much rather be doing.”
Julie blushed and avoided looking at anyone else in the room. She grabbed her laptop and hurried out. But as she glanced back at Ryland one last time before closing the door, the look in his eyes was a promise for later.
When she got back to the guest house, Gracie sat at the kitchen table with her laptop open and a cup of coffee next to her. She looked up when Julie came in and wiggled her eyebrows. “So, where have you and Ryland been?”
Julie headed over to get her own cup of coffee from the pot Gracie had brewed. “Marvi Dunlap is here. The band is rehearsing with her right now. I guess they’re recording a duet with her and Ryland over the next few days.”
“Oh.” Gracie sounded disappointed. “Marvi. You’ve been slammed with emails and notifications on all your social media. I think the whole world has seen the pictures of you and Ryland at the convention. And there’s a bit of a Twitter war between your fans and Marvi’s fans.”
“Great,” Julie said. “Why couldn’t Ryland be a plumber or a dentist?”
Gracie looked at her sympathetically, but her next words ripped at Julie’s heart. “I know. It’s not worth the trouble, is it? You should just forget about it and go on home.”
Julie’s reaction was instantaneous and powerful. Panic, alarm, refusal. “No.” The one word came out loud and hard. “No,” she tried again, managing to be calmer, softer. “Not yet.”
From the satisfied but worried look on Gracie’s face, it was clear her assistant knew exactly why she’d reacted the way she had.
With her laptop and coffee in hand, Julie ran upstairs to her bedroom. She moved over to the desk and got set up to work. Because she always wrote better with music playing, she put on her headphones and turned on one of the playlists she’d put together for this book. But too many of the songs were by Sterling House, and every time she heard Ryland’s voice, she got swept away in emotions as she relived both their apple-pie kiss and the lightning storm of kisses in the store room. Even when they were in different buildings, Ryland was distracting her.
Desperate to get work done, she picked up her phone and opened the playlist to delete all the Sterling House songs. But as she was working, a text message flashed across her screen. It was from Heath. He’d sent a picture of Ryland standing with his arm around Marvi. It was more of a pose for the press than an affectionate embrace, so it didn’t bother her. She’d seen Ryland’s reaction to Marvi first hand and had no doubt it was sincere. Her text back to Heath was short and to the point.
I know all about her. It isn’t a problem.
Yeah? What about these?
After that, Heath texted her picture after picture of Ryland with beautiful women, most of whom she didn’t recognize. Sometimes, the pictures told a much warmer story than straight forward publicity photos.
She’d known all along that Ryland had dated a lot of women before her. It was impossible to read about him online and not know that. But seeing the women was a different story. They were all so different from her. Cool. Glamorous. Sultry. Her stomach tightened with each picture until she felt nauseated from worry and jealousy.
Angry, she deleted the whole text chain from Heath and disabled notifications on her phone, sure that he wasn’t done yet. She was going to have some choice words for him when she saw him again. And hopefully, when she saw Ryland again, he’d soothe away all these worries and doubts. Because it felt as if decisions, hard ones, were looming on the horizon. And more than anything, she just wanted the world to leave them alone to figure out what this was.
Chapter Twelve
In the recording studio, it was difficult to keep track of the passing of time because there were no windows, and, with the heavy acoustic material on the walls and ceiling, it felt like a cave all the time. When Ryland sat down with the sound engineer to go over what he’d designed for the background track, he was surprised to see it was seven o’clock. “Hey, everyone, let’s call it a day. We can figure out the rest of this tomorrow while Marvi and I give our voices a break, and then we’ll record vocals on Wednesday”
“Sounds great,” Elijah said, pulling himself up off the couch. “I’m starving. Come on, Marvi. Let’s go see what my mom has planned for dinner.”
“Okay,” Marvi said. “But I can’t eat anything greasy or with dairy. Poached salmon and a salad with lemon would be best.”
Elijah met Ryland’s eyes as he held the door for Marvi, and it was all they could do to keep from laughing. Ryland understood that she was taking care of her voice, and he tried to do the same, but Marvi had been getting on their last nerve all afternoon with her picky, demanding ways.
When their small crew had wrapped everything up for the night, he and Tate closed up the studio and headed upstairs.
“Hey,” Tate said, his tone halting Ryland on the steps. “I know it took a lot for you to devote the day to work instead of being with Julie, so I wanted to say thanks. And also, sorry for acting like a jerk.”
Ryland considered his words and sincere expression for a moment, then hugged him. Tate was his older brother by only eighteen months, so there had always been an element of competition between them. He was used to the friction, but there was a lot of love too. He appreciated Tate reaching out to him.
“No worries. I understood your concerns—even if I disagreed with them.”
They walked up-stairs together, Tate following a few steps behind Ryland. “I have to say, man, Julie is nice, and there are definitely fireworks between you two.”
Arriving in the kitchen just then, Ryland caught sight of Julie helping his mom at the counter. She looked up, and her whole face brightened as she gave him a wide smile. “You can say that again.”
Even with the savory scent of garlic and tomato sauce making his mouth water and his stomach growl, he wanted nothing more than to steal Julie away and disappear with her to somewhere private. But Alissa sat on a barstool across from Julie, talking her head off. Because she had to leave for school so early in the morning, this was the first time she’d seen Julie since her arrival.
He walked over, put his arm around Julie’s waist, and dropped a light kiss on her cheek. Just touching her lit him up inside. “I see you’ve met Alissa.”
“Yep,” Julie said, smiling at his sister as she chopped vegetables for a salad. “She knocked on my door as soon as she got home from school.”
Ryland sighed. “Alissa, she was working.”
“Don’t worry about that. I was so ready for a break by then.”
“And I gave her a tour of the house and got her a snack because she hadn’t eaten lunch. So, I was being a better host than you were,” Alissa said.
Laughing, Ryland picked up a cherry tomato and threw it at his sister, hitting her square on the forehead. “I’m glad you’re good for something. I notice you’re letting our guest d
o all the work.”
Alissa pointed to the history book in front of her. “I’m doing homework.”
“Looks like it.”
His mom called out from across the kitchen for Alissa to go take the breadsticks out of the oven. When she moved away, Ryland leaned in and murmured in Julie’s ear. “You and I have a date after dinner.”
“Oh, do we?” Julie asked. She put down the knife she was holding and turned to face him.
Taking the chance to pull her closer, Ryland grinned down at her. “Yes. You and me and a million stars.”
Julie pushed lightly against his chest. “Sounds nice, but Ryland, not in front of your family.”
“Why not?” he asked.
She lowered her eyes. “Well, it’s just so new and…uncertain.”
“Why is it uncertain?” he asked, nudging her chin up so she’d look at him. There were shadows of worry in her eyes.
“Can we just eat dinner and talk about it later?”
He nodded and let go of her, watching as she cleaned up the vegetable scraps from the cutting board she’d been using. Worry lanced through him. She liked him; he knew she did. Her reactions were too sincere, too spontaneous to not be real. No, something else was bothering her.
They all gathered around the huge table in the dining room and feasted on lasagna. Well, except for Marvi, who limited her dinner to the salad. After dinner, Ryland tried to tempt Julie to take a walk with him outside, but she refused to go until she’d helped with dishes. Now Ryland wished he’d been firmer with his mother about hiring a housekeeper to help with kitchen stuff instead of just maids for all the cleaning. There was nothing else to do but pitch in and help.
Thirty minutes later, he finally led her out onto the front deck and closed the door behind them. After the clatter of dishes and noise of conversation, the hush of twilight outside was welcome. “At last,” he said, kissing her lightly.
Julie laughed. “You’ve been almost vibrating with impatience.”
“Can you blame me? We’ve barely had any time together, and I’ll have to say goodbye to you in a few days, right?”
Saved by the Rockstar (Rich and Famous Romance Book 1) Page 7
