The Price of Love (Rockin' Country Book 2)

by Briscoe, Laramie

  She wished that was it, but she had a feeling as soon as she told him what Shell was asking her to do, he’d be just as mad. “They want me to sing a duet with Bryson,” she cried softly.

  He inhaled sharply, seeing red. “As in the dude I met the other day that you went to high school with?”

  “Yeah,” she whispered.

  He shifted in his seat, already feeling anger course through his body. Someone came in the room and he barely heard them.

  “Garrett, we need you.”

  He turned, snapping at the poor intern that had been sent to get him. “You can damn well fucking wait until I’m done talking to my wife.”

  She sighed. “There’s no reason to bite someone’s head off,” she scolded him softly.

  “Now I’m pissed. What kind of duet?” He had to know. If it was what he was thinking, he’d hop the next plane himself. He wasn’t sure what he thought he was going to do, but he was one thousand percent behind his wife on this.

  It wouldn’t do the either of them any good if she lied to him. “It’s a love song, the song I wrote for you.”

  “Oh fuck no, hell-to-the-fuck no, not in this lifetime, babe, will you be singing a love song with anyone but me. Is Shell out of her fucking mind?”

  “I think so.” She held her head in her hands. Times like these, she was so tired. All she wanted was to be a normal wife to her husband, even if he was Reaper of Black Friday. These were the times when she thought that maybe she should give her career up. She’d never voiced those thoughts to anyone before, and she wondered if now was a good time for that. “Please say something,” she pleaded.

  “I’m amazed that Shell would think this is a good idea,” he barked at her.

  “There’s no reason for you to yell at me, Reaper.” She used his stage name on purpose. He was ticked, she was ticked, neither of them needed to yell at anyone. It wasn’t a good time, but she knew that this was probably going to be the first real screaming match they’d had with each other. Words and feelings were too close to the surface.

  “I’m pissed.” He held his hand out to his side, even though she couldn’t see him. “You would be too.”

  She was, which was why she was on the phone, listening to him rant, while she really needed someone to calm her down. “What do you want me to do?” she asked, running a hand through her dark hair. “You tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”

  “Whatever the fuck you want to do,” he growled into the phone.

  “Are you kidding me?” she yelled into the receiver. “I called you, upset because of what they were asking me to do. I didn’t want to do it, I called you so that you could make me feel better! Right now, you’re making me feel like I’m cheating on you. Do you think I want to do this?”

  “I think what you want is to make me make the decision for you. I think that maybe you still aren’t strong enough to stand up for yourself.” His tone was soft, but the accusation was there.

  “I can’t believe you just said that to me,” she hissed.

  “Sometimes the truth hurts.” His tone was smartass and it even made him recoil.

  “You know what? I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” She hung up, feeling vindicated when she heard the dial tone before he could even say goodbye.

  How dare he? She had called him because she hadn’t wanted to do what they were asking of her, because she needed his support, and he’d been a jerk to her. He had always told her that sometimes he wasn’t a nice guy, but he usually was with her, and she did not like the jerk that he could be. She put her head in her hands and let a few tears squeeze through her eyelashes. It felt good to cry and not have anybody see.

  “Hannah, are you okay?”

  She groaned when she heard the voice of the person who was causing the issue at hand. “Hey, Bryson.” She sniffed, wiped her eyes, and attempted to smile up at him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked again as he had a seat next to her.

  Hannah couldn’t help but gaze at him since he sat right next to her. His left arm displayed a sleeve of tattoos, and he wore a skull ring on his left ring finger. He had a goatee on his face and a black hat, backwards on his head. If he were taller, leaner, cockier, he would be Garrett’s younger brother.

  “No,” she breathed heavily. “I’m not.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked.

  She pushed her hair behind her ear; he grabbed her left hand as she brought it down.

  “Your engagement ring is different,” he laughed, running the tip of his finger over the black diamond.

  The way he did it felt weird. She didn’t like it when anyone other than Garrett touched her ring. Pulling her hand away from him, she sat it down on the curb. “Yeah, Garrett doesn’t do normal very often.” She smiled sadly.

  “What’s got you so upset?” he asked.

  She glanced over, his dark eyes told her that he wanted to know, that he was worried about her. Since he seemed to be the only one who gave one iota about her right now, she sighed. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t want to do this duet with you.”

  Bryson frowned. “It’s just a song, Hannah.”

  “No, it’s not.” She jerked away from him and stood up. “It’s not just a song. When I sing, I put everything in me into that song. I absolutely cannot sing a song about love with anyone but my husband.”

  “It’s like acting.” Bryson grinned.

  The boyish look on his face told her that he didn’t get it. He didn’t have anybody to love and he’d never truly been in love. If he had, he would know why this made her so mad, why it seemed to spit in the face of her marriage. “I’m not an actress,” she retorted. Now he was beginning to make her as mad as everyone else was. “When I sing, I put a piece of myself into it. I can’t fake loving someone besides my husband, and I won’t sing with anyone but him about love, especially this song. I don’t know what you and everyone else can’t understand about that. This is my decision and I’m deciding not to do it.”

  The phone that she held in her hand began ringing, and she bit her lip as she saw Garrett’s picture there. “I have to take this.”

  Bryson looked like he wanted to say something else to her, but she waved him off, answering the phone call.

  “I can’t believe you hung up on me.” Garrett’s voice on the other end of the phone was full of frustration.

  “I can’t believe you were being such a jerk to me!”

  He sighed and she could imagine him sitting somewhere, his long legs stretched out in front of him, or maybe he had his elbows on his knees. She hated this.

  “This is hard,” she whispered.

  The whisper broke his heart. “It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.” The laugh he managed was hollow.

  “I think seeing you made it worse,” she admitted.

  “I think you might be right about that, but right now I need to see you. Go to the car and FaceTime me. We need to talk.”

  She answered with a simple yes and hung up. Quickly, she texted Shell, letting her know that she needed some time, but she would be back when she was done. Walking over to her car, she unlocked the doors and had a seat in the driver’s seat. If she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, she could still smell Garrett. It didn’t make things any easier, but it at least gave her some comfort. She pressed the button that would connect them by video. When he accepted, she couldn’t help but smiling at his face. No matter how mad she was at him, he could always brighten up her day.

  “Hey,” she said softly, biting her bottom lip, feeling almost shy with him.

  He blew out a frustrated breath. Her face was red as well as her eyes. It was obvious that she’d been crying, and he hated that. “I don’t want to argue with you.”

  “I don’t want to argue with you either. I mean, I called you to talk some sense into me and you flew off the handle.”

  His look was sheepish. “I know. I’m embarrassed that I did that, but I don’t like it. It s
eriously makes me very angry that Shell’s the one asking you to do it too. She knows how I feel about you. She knows how you feel about me.”

  “I’m angry with her too, but she’s only doing what the record company asked her to do. Bryson was here, he said if I sang with him it would just be like me acting.”

  Garrett saw red. He did not like this guy one bit. “And what did you say?” It was a supreme effort for him to hold his voice, his attitude, in check, but he did it for her.

  “That I’m not an actress.”

  He laughed, one side of his mouth hitching up in a grin. “I love you,” he laughed again.

  “I love you too, and that’s why I can’t do this. They’re just gonna have to get over it.”

  The two of them were quiet for a few moments until she spoke again, this time not meeting his eyes through the phone. “You know, sometimes I wonder what it would be like to only be your wife.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, his eyebrows screwing together in question.

  “Not being Harmony Stewart, only being Hannah Thompson.”

  His face was soft as he gently talked to her. “That’s not what you want and we both know it.”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “Sometimes I do want it.”

  Chapter Five

  * * *

  “Have you calmed down enough to see reason?” Shell asked as Hannah made her way back into the studio.

  Hannah fixed her with an icy glare, putting her hand on her hip. She was tired of this, tired of trying to defend herself, and now it looked like she had to defend her marriage too. “I have. I talked to my husband and he supports my decision.”

  “He would.”

  The words were said under Shell’s breath, and they made Hannah mad all over again. Deciding she was done for the day, she grabbed her stuff and started packing it into her bag.

  “Where are you going?” Shell asked, confused.

  Hannah sighed. “I’m done for the day, so I’m going home. Nobody cares what I have to say about anything anyway. It’s not like you need me here for anything.”

  “We still have two hours left,” Shell told her, checking her watch.

  “No, we don’t. I’m going home.”

  The sound guys, Shell, and Bryson, who had come into the studio, were all speechless as she finished packing her stuff and walked out the door. Nobody tried to stop her as she made her way to her car and got in. Once there, she sat in the driver’s seat, breathing deeply. Starting up the car, she drove around to nowhere in particular. She needed to clear her head and shopping would do just that. As she was making her way to one of her favorite boutiques, the dashboard screen lit up, telling her that her sister-in-law, Stacey, was calling.

  “Hey,” she answered, happy to talk to someone who wasn’t a part of the issue-at-hand she was dealing with.

  “Garrett called me, pissed at the world. I’d like to hear your side of the story. Figured you’d like to talk about it.”

  Garrett and Stacey were close, and in the months since he and Hannah had gotten married, more and more, he went to Stacey to try to see Hannah’s side if they argued. They tried hard not to take things out on each other and to wait until they had both calmed down so that they could talk things through rationally.

  “They want me to record a love song with another artist as a duet,” she sighed. “I don’t want to do it, but Shell’s pressuring me, which means the record company is pressuring her. Garrett’s mad, I’m mad, the other recording artist thinks it’s funny, and Shell’s about had enough of me.”

  “I can’t believe that Shell, of all people, would ask you to do that,” Stacey mused across the phone line.

  “I know! That’s why I’m so angry. She knows what my marriage means to me, she knows how badly I miss Garrett, and she knows me better than almost anyone in this world. I know she wants what’s best for me, but sometimes I could give a care less if I sell another million albums. At this point in my life, I just don’t care,” she whispered.

  “Is it not what you want anymore?” Stacey asked, her voice soft.

  Tears clouded Hannah’s vision, making her pull over on the side of the road. “I’m not sure what I want right now. I know that I don’t want to make a snap decision, but everybody keeps pushing me in that direction.”

  “No, you’re more sure than you think; otherwise, this wouldn’t be so hard for you.”

  Hannah gripped the steering wheel then slammed her fist against it in agitation. “I’m almost twenty-five years old, I’m a newlywed, and I’m in love for the first time in my life with someone who loves me back. Not the me he sees on stage either, the real me. I want to bask in that, glory in it. Our honeymoon was three days long, and we haven’t spent more than that together since we got married.”

  “You want a break?” Stacey could hear the frustration from Hannah, and to a point, she could understand it. She felt this way with Brad sometimes—the band and his career would always come first. Their lives would always be expected to come second.

  “I do,” her voice was strong. “I’ve never really taken one. It’s always been a few weeks here, a few weeks there, maybe a month. I’ve gone from tour to record and back three times since I turned eighteen. I’ve not had more than a month off in almost seven years. I need a break.”

  “What will Shell say about that?”

  “I’m not sure, but going to rehab for an eating disorder was the only freakin’ long-term vacation I’ve had. That’s sad.”

  Stacey had to agree with her. Someone with her star power, who had sold millions of records, should be able to get a vacation. “You need to have your lawyer read through your contract; there should be some clause in there that says you get time off. Garrett and the guys have taken a year off at three different points that I know of.”

  Hannah bit her lip as she rolled that over in her head. What would the record company say if she did find the clause and she exerted her power? She was like any other human being in the world. She was feeling tired and used up; she’d been feeling it more and more lately. Another part of her wondered if they would let her do it. She had one more song to record, and then the record would be done. A boatload of money had already been spent on this, and she had a feeling they wouldn’t let her walk away from it.

  “Thanks, Stace, you’ve given me a lot to think about.”

  “Sometimes it takes someone who’s not in the situation to see it clearly.”

  Truer words had never been spoken. A lot of the time, she and Garrett had such strong feelings about who was right and who was wrong, they argued over the stupidest of things. Wanting to deflect that attention, Hannah pulled into the parking lot of the boutique, grateful that this was the day of the week they were open late. “How did Garrett sound?”

  “He was pissed at first—you know that his temper starts out hot. Then, as we talked more, he sounded sad. He misses you.”

  “I miss him too. We could have picked a better time to get married. Our lives are so crazy.”

  Stacey laughed. “The first day I met you, I knew that Garrett would marry you. You ground him in a way nobody else can, but at the same time, you’re a trigger for him. All it takes is someone saying one thing about you that he doesn’t like and he flies off the handle or comes to the wrong conclusion. It hurt him a lot that they want you to do a love song with someone who’s more your type.”

  “Is that what he said?” Hannah was shocked those words had come out of his mouth. “Someone more my type? I’ve never heard anything more ridiculous in my life. There is nobody in this world more my type than him. I didn’t know it when I first met him, but now, without a shadow of a doubt, I know it.”

  “You make him insecure in a lot of areas I’ve never heard him be insecure about before. When you aren’t with him, his mind wanders.” Stacey knew that she shouldn’t be telling her sister-in-law these things, but Hannah needed to know. She needed to know that it wasn’t one-sided—the fear that this could all go away tomorr
ow. It was very much felt on both sides.

  Garrett’s insecurities were completely stupid, and Hannah knew she was going to have to have a talk with him. There was no reason in this world for him to believe that he needed to be insecure over them. “Okay, I’ll talk to him. I’m gonna let you go,” she told her sister-in-law.

  “Alright, if you need anything else, give me a call!”

  “Love you,” Hannah told her. “Thank you for listening to me.”

  “Love you too. Come visit soon!”

  They hung up, leaving Hannah to stew. She knew exactly what she needed to do and she knew exactly who she needed to contact. It was time to go over Shell’s head. With a sigh, she dialed the number for her lawyer.

  * * *

  “What the hell, Hannah?”

  Shell came storming into the house that the two of them shared, waving a paper around, later in the afternoon.

  Hannah had been mentally preparing for this since she’d gone to her lawyer’s office. “Exerting some of the clauses in my contract and my authority.”

  “There was a time when we would have talked about this,” Shell fumed from where she stood.

  “I tried to talk to you about it, but you shot me down. The only duet I’m going to be singing is going to be with my husband. It’s up to the record company now, if they want to ask his record company. If you read the whole thing, you saw that I’m touring for eight weeks and that’s it. I’m taking a year and a half off after that. I deserve it, and it was in my contract to be able to do that.”

  “What about me, Han? What am I going to do for a year and a half? Have you thought about that?” Shell hated to call her out on it, but this felt too selfish to her. Her whole life was tied up in Hannah and her business. Now, because Hannah was married, she was going to forget one of the people who had helped her get there?

  Hannah had given some thought to that. “You’re gonna still be paid. Be a girlfriend to your boyfriend, spend some time with him, and find a hobby. Be normal. We haven’t done that in so long, Shell. I want it so much. I need it so much.”