Once Upon A Rock Star

by Yessi Smith

  The air was thick with pressure as the words sunk in to my head.

  Breast cancer.

  The very monster my mom was currently fighting — the one monster I hated even more than Jaya.

  Damn.

  As much as I wanted to ignore Max’s words, immediately my mind spun with ideas as to how to capitalize on the concept, make it bigger, raise more money.

  More money for research meant that a cure would be that much closer.

  And someone else’s mom wouldn’t have to fight as hard as mine.

  “I hate you. I hate her. I hate everyone in this f-ing world right now.” I closed my eyes for split second while I pulled up to a red light and groaned.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “I hate you most of all.”

  “You love me. I make your life easier. You’ll remember that come tomorrow when your ass gets to the studio.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be remembering it anytime soon, Max.”

  “I’ll remember it for the both of us, bro. I’m going to call her agent back and negotiate. I’ll text you with the start date, but just an FYI… it’s probably going to be ASAP.”

  “Whatever, I’d rather just get it over with anyway. Schedule her as quickly as possible, tomorrow if you can. Let’s rip the Band-Aid off. I’ll see you in hell tomorrow.”

  “I’ll let you know if the devil will be there.” Max added, a slight smile to his tone.

  “Hooray me.” I rolled my eyes and pulled onto the freeway toward home.

  The call ended, but the tension stayed, and, if anything, it grew.

  Less than ten minutes later, Max texted me.

  Cruella Devil will be in the office at 8am.

  I didn’t reply.

  Maybe if I just pretended I didn’t have to face one of my biggest regrets in the morning, I’d actually be able to relax, get some sleep.

  I knew better than to hope.

  Tomorrow the devil wouldn’t just wear Prada.

  She’d be wearing a smile.

  And it was lethal.

  Since I wasn’t sure if I knew how to ignore it.

  And that was the biggest fear of all…

  Because history could not — would not — repeat itself.

  Chapter Two

  Jaya

  My hands were slick with sweat as I tugged on the metal door handle and pushed open the large glass door for Cardinal Sin’s studio. It had been five years since I’d last worked with him, but it wasn’t something a person could forget. The man was gifted, in every sense of the word. Self-taught, Cardinal could pick up any band instrument and not only play the music by ear, but also embellish it to make it fit better within the whole. In the sound booth, he could mix tracks to make them seem flawless and human at the same time. And his voice…

  Dear Lord.

  It was the perfect mixture of sexy rasp and sweet tenor that didn’t sound real.

  The guy had walked away from the spotlight willingly, setting up his own studio instead. Any other person would have taken a hit financially as well as in notoriety, yet his popularity had grown to the point where it was almost impossible to book studio time.

  And somehow, I’d gotten in.

  I wasn’t sure how my agent had been able to swing it, especially given my history with Cardinal.

  But it was what I needed if this wasn’t going to be my last album. My producer had already threatened to cut me from the label, so this was my only shot.

  Part of me wondered it if it was karma, or some sort of punishment for stealing Cardinal’s song and making it my own. Even though I’d known it was wrong, and that it would seal the deal on our fledgling relationship, I had wanted the spotlight more.

  More than Cardinal.

  More than money.

  I wanted the attention. And damn, I had gotten it.

  It had been too easy to read through the song he’d left abandoned on the table. Even as I’d read it, the music had played in my head, and I’d taken it without a backward glance.

  But the issue with stealing something like that and taking credit? People want more. Producers want more.

  And there’s nothing to give, since it had been someone else’s to begin with.

  Slowly the downloads had dwindled, and my airtime on the radio had been cut in half.

  Which left me desperate enough to beg my agent to make a deal with the producer of my label — they all needed Cardinal.

  My heels tapped on the tile floor as I walked to the front desk, smiling tightly at the woman waiting.

  “Jaya, correct?” The well-dressed woman in her early fifties or so asked.

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Mr. Sinclair is expecting you. Follow the hall and take the second left.”

  I gave a grateful smile to the receptionist and started down the passageway. A smile tipped my lips as I remembered her using Cardinal’s last name. I hadn’t thought about it for so long, but it was quite clever how he’d wound it all up. Cardinal Sinclair — Cardinal Sins. Damn, everything the man touched turn to gold, even his name.

  “How much time?”

  I paused, the tone of the voice wrapping around me with its familiar tone, and my body remembered everything I’d worked hard to forget. Biting my lip, I waited to hear the response.

  “One week. You don’t have to sweat it.” It was Max, Cardinal’s right-hand guy. Max was the polar opposite to Cardinal, both in looks and personality.

  It was now or never. With a reluctant last step, I turned left and then glanced through the glass wall, meeting the quietly furious gaze of Cardinal.

  I slipped through the open door, my spine stiffening as I lifted my chin just enough to convey that I wasn’t afraid of him.

  His blue eyes were cynical, hard. His lip ring rubbed against his upper lip as his gaze darted over and then dismissed me just as quickly. His black and blue hair twisted up above his head like cold flame, and his ever-present earphones hung loosely around his neck.

  “Jaya.” Max’s voice sliced through the tension, and I turned to him. He was six-and-a-half feet of muscle and smooth talk. His brown eyes didn’t have the hard edge like Cardinal’s but he wasn’t exactly warm about his welcome either. I took his extended hand and gave a firm shake.

  “Max,” I replied then turned to Cardinal. “Hello, Cardinal.” I held out my hand, waiting.

  His cool blue eyes shifted to mine as a humorless laugh escaped his full lips. He slowly stood, reminding me of how much taller he was in person. Only a few inches shorter than Max, he towered over me even with my spiked red heels. His T-shirt fit perfectly across his chest, leaving just enough to the imagination to make my knees weak and my mind wander. My gaze shifted from his broad shoulders to the desk where his hands were firmly planted as he leaned forward.

  Apparently, he wasn’t into hand shaking. His gaze traveled upward, along the sleeve tattoos that colored his flexed forearms.

  As I met his gaze, I arched a brow, waiting.

  “Jaya, I want to make it clear that the only reason I am agreeing to this is because of the possibility of raising an ungodly amount of money for cancer research. This is not about you. I don’t care about saving your shit-ass career. You can burn for I care. You. Need. Me.” His blue eyes were icy, cold and cutting as his stare bore through me. “Don’t forget that for one moment. I can walk away the moment you piss me off past what I want to deal with. Do we understand each other?” he asked, but rather than wait for a reply, he walked around the desk and opened the adjacent door. “Let’s get to work. The sooner you start, the sooner you can leave.”

  As he disappeared through the door, Max caught my eye. “Well, that could have been worse.” He shrugged and followed Cardinal into the studio.

  And I wondered if I had just made a deal with the devil.

  Apparently, that was what it was going to take to save my career.

  At least hell would be warm.

  I followed the men into the studio and amended my
conclusion. Hell wasn’t warm. Hell was hot. My gaze flickered to Cardinal and back, and even as I tried to focus away from him, it was like my eyes had a mind of their own, wanting to take in the view, to memorize every inch that they’d been deprived of ever since that one night.

  And damn it all, if my mind didn’t give a quick flash back to the memory of what he looked like under all those clothes.

  Focus.

  I breathed in through my nose and waited as Cardinal leaned over the computer, pulling up a file with my name on it.

  “Your agent sent this over this morning. I haven’t listened to it yet. Let’s do a quick run-through on the computer, then we’ll tackle the areas that need improvement.” His gaze never flickered from the computer screen as he spoke to me.

  Frustrated, I wanted to grab his chin and demand his attention, but was it anything less than I deserved? Nope.

  But that didn’t stop it from hurting.

  Max was silent as he took a leather chair and spun to face the computer.

  The music started, and my eyes drifted closed, listening to the melody. My posture was ridged, and I instinctively put a wall around my mind, fully expecting an onslaught of criticism for the song that I’d written from my soul. The only song I’d ever let into the public eye, the one and only that had ever seemed good enough.

  And here I was basically giving it to my arch enemy on a silver platter, waiting for him to fillet it like a fish.

  Damn.

  The music filtered through the system, and I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t want to watch the reaction of Cardinal or Max when the vocal track started to play. My voice started the first verse, and I hummed softly along with it, flowing with the sway of the music. Damn, I loved this song.

  As the chorus started and built up into a crescendo, I hazarded a glance at Cardinal. His face was unreadable while he stared at the computer screen as each track played back, probably studying the different volume and intensity levels, making mental adjustments. Next, I turned my attention to Max. His eyebrows were raised slightly as if impressed, but I didn’t give much weight to his opinion.

  It was Cardinal that would make or break this song.

  After what was the longest four minutes of my life, the music ended, and Cardinal paused the program before it looped back and restarted.

  The silence was thick in the sound booth, my pounding heart broadcasting my fear to the world — at least it felt that way.

  “Could be worse.” Cardinal tipped his chin slightly, narrowing his eyes at the computer as he quickly clicked on several tracks to magnify them. I released the breath I was holding and watched as he made adjustments and tweaks, one right after another, that wouldn’t seem like much to the average person — but I knew better. He was doing his magic.

  He slid his earphones on and selected each individual track, and the curser signed back the track separately, even though no sound came from the speakers, only playing in his headphones.

  Damn, it was alarming how insecure I was over the song, yet at the same time I was thrilled he was working on it. Part of me wondered if he’d sabotage it — I probably deserved worse — but I discarded the thought.

  Cardinal may have been a lot of things, but he wasn’t dishonest.

  If he said he was going to do it, he’d do it.

  In that, he was one of the few guys in the music world that I’d dared trust.

  He slid the earphones off and replayed it through the booth speakers.

  My jaw dropped; my hands tingled.

  It was perfect.

  I’d thought the song fantastic before, but now it was absolutely a masterpiece. And the weird thing was he hadn’t added anything or really taken anything away.

  He’d simply reorganized it, making it fuller, deeper, highlighting the tone of my voice in a way that sounded foreign, too beautiful, even to myself.

  “Whoa.” I breathed.

  Cardinal glanced to me, a smirk on his beautiful face. “Again, not for your sake.”

  “Damn, just when I think I understand how gifted you are, you blow me away. Nicely done.”

  “I don’t need your compliments.” He sneered, his expression frustrated as he turned back to the computer screen. “Who wrote it?” he asked.

  I hesitated. “Me.”

  He glanced to me, fury and curiosity blazing in his eyes. “You?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, then I guess turnabout’s fair play.” He sighed heavily as he stood. “Because there’s one thing you’re missing, and I can’t manufacture that in the booth.”

  Trepidation and fear sunk my heart as I waited.

  “You said you needed me…” He arched a brow, flickering a glance to Max then back to me.

  “Pretty much.” I released a tight breath.

  “The song is missing the other part. Jaya, you wrote a duet, didn’t you? You erased the other part, tried to patch it up.” He shook his head.

  I froze.

  No one knew that.

  I hadn’t told a single soul.

  I’d copied the re-written song onto a fresh sheet of paper and burned the other.

  You could never be too careful with music. I was proof of that fact.

  “How—”

  “It bleeds through the song. It’s incomplete. You. Need. Me.”

  I nodded shakily, not sure exactly where he was going but having a clue.

  Cardinal stood and walked toward me, his army boots thumping against the thick carpet as it absorbed the sound, and bent low so that he was at eye level. His hardened blue stare pierced right through me. “Say it.”

  I forgot to breathe, then as I sucked in a breath, it was permeated with his scent. Lime, verbena, man.

  All. Man.

  “Say you need me.” He tilted his head slightly, his lip ring flickering in the light at the movement.

  My gaze darted to his mouth and then to his eyes. A flash of heat registered in his regard then was put out by the ice in his focus.

  “I need you,” I whispered.

  “Never forget that.”

  After a sidestep, he walked into the studio and closed the door.

  I glanced to Max, blinking. “What just happened?”

  He stood slowly, an astonished expression on his face. “I think you just got your duet…”

  Duet.

  With Cardinal.

  Who hadn’t recorded a song in over five years.

  Either I was the luckiest girl alive.

  Or I was about to pay for the luck with my soul.

  The sad part? It was a price I was willing to pay.

  Chapter Three

  Cardinal

  Lying in bed, I punched my pillow for the tenth time.

  Today had been the worst kind of hell.

  And like a ghost, it was haunting, refusing to give me a moment’s peace without the memory suffocating my serenity.

  Jaya.

  Damn.

  It had taken all of my self-control not to react when I played the song for the first time in the sound booth.

  The mix was decent.

  The tempo solid.

  But her voice — her words.

  They’d burned through me as if I was experiencing each syllable.

  It had been a long time since a song had affected me that way, and, similar to a drug, it was like a hit to my system.

  Like an addict, I needed more.

  But as I listened, I’d heard the second part, the one that she’d left out. It was so beautiful in its simplicity, so necessary that it’s absence made the song half done.

  And I’d known the part by heart before I even finished the track. It would be effortless, so easy to sing.

  Yet it felt like I’d be selling my soul to give a part of me to Jaya — which was what singing with her would feel like.

  I wouldn’t be able to keep a distance while I sang. It wasn’t in my nature, and it was a huge risk.

  But I couldn’t stop the words.

  I couldn’t hin
der the music.

  It called to me, demanded.

  And I followed like a lamb to the slaughter.

  But what haunted me was the way our voices blended when we worked on the preliminary second part. Damn, her voice mated with mine, creating something so tangible that goose bumps had risen on my arms.

  I had forgotten about her voice.

  It was sultry, sexy, a perfect mix between Rhianna’s bad-ass tone and Mariah Carey’s massive vocal range. A perfection that didn’t happen often.

  Too bad the voice belonged to a backstabbing bitch.

  I tried to remind myself of that the whole afternoon.

  When my body had reacted to her voice, I’d focused on what she had done.

  When I’d wanted to lean into the sound of her voice, I’d backed away and put up the wall.

  But as much as I’d tried to keep her away, her voice bled through all my barriers.

  And it scared me shitless.

  Because I had to be up in a few hours and relive the whole sordid mess again.

  For the next week.

  I wasn’t sure if it was going to kill me or somehow, I’d just become stronger.

  And I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.

  By 4:00 a.m., I still hadn’t slept, so I left the disastrous mess of sheets and thrown pillows on my room’s floor. The moonlight illuminated the hall as I walked to the music room where my Steinway grand waited. As I sat, my bare ass stuck to the piano bench, and I fleetingly thought I should have at least put on a robe, but I craved freedom tonight.

  I didn’t want clothes.

  I didn’t want anything between me and the music.

  I placed my hands on the cool keys, and my skin prickled. I leaned in and started playing one of Chopin’s nocturnes. My fingers flew over the keys effortlessly, the music winding around my body, relaxing my frayed nerves. I crescendoed the music, closing my eyes. My hands knew the piano well, as if it were an extension of my body. As I finished the piece, I heard a transitional melody in my head, and I carefully modulated the key to better suit the song that was slowly unwinding in my mind.

  A high descant descended to the middle range of the piano and wove through till it was a melody that sounded strangely familiar.