“I see.” Not completely, but I was starting to.
He chuckled, extending his hand to shake mine. “I don’t think you do, not yet, but you will. I wish you the best of luck with them.”
“Thank you.” I returned his firm grip, refusing to be intimidated by his warnings or the resigned sympathy in his expression. “If I may ask, why retire now? I appreciate the warning, but you must’ve seen and dealt with worse.”
“I have.” Retracting his hand from mine, he pulled an envelope out of his pocket and held up a hand to someone behind me whose eye he seemed to have caught before he briefly turned back to me. “Worse antics, I’ve seen yes. These guys attitude towards it? Not so much. Frankly, I’m getting too old for their shit, Ms Diamond. If you’ll excuse my language. Now, I must be getting to my meeting. Just picking up my final check and marching orders. Good luck.”
“I’ll be okay, but thanks again. Same to you.”
Brad nodded with another smile quirking up the side of his lips, then turned and strode confidently down the hallway to another man waiting at the end of it. Mind spinning from the encounter with the man I was replacing, I was suddenly desperate for some fresh air.
Between meeting Jared earlier and Brad’s cryptic, vaguely ominous warnings, getting a strong cup of coffee and finding somewhere out in the sunshine to drink it sounded heavenly. I was about to leave when I heard my name being called from down the hallway.
Turning my head, I saw Gerry hurrying to catch up with me. I groaned softly before he reached me. The last thing I felt like was another man telling me I couldn’t do this job.
But turning and running away from him as fast as I could without snapping an ankle in the power heels I’d chosen to wear because I’d be meeting the band today would only prove his point. Pasting a polite smile on my face, I silently ground my teeth and vowed to add an extra dollop of cream to coffee when I finally got it.
“Gerry, what can I do for you?”
“We’re going to have to postpone your meeting with the band.” He huffed, slightly out of breath as he came to stop beside me. “I can get them together to meet you tomorrow, but today isn’t the best idea.”
I bit back a frustrated sound. People were doubting me already and the damn band didn’t even want to meet me yet? It was a bit more than I’d thought when I first accepted the job, but I was up for the challenge.
“Sure. You’ll let me know when you’ve arranged a time and place?” I smiled sweetly, not about to let him or anyone see they’d made me doubt myself or my convictions when I’d taken the job.
“Will do.” Gerry said briskly, seeming relieved. “Have a good one, Alicia. We’ll speak tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.” I echoed, but he was already rushing off in the direction in which he’d pointed out the studio where the band was recording earlier.
I was parked off that side of the building, since Gerry directed me there saying it was better to park near where we’d be meeting with the band. Releasing a heavy sigh, I followed his fast retreating back and hoped I’d be able to find the unmarked exit door he’d ushered me in through without anyone showing me how to find it from here.
The amount of people thinned drastically the nearer I got to where the actual studios were situated, something I hadn’t noticed on my way in. I tried to find stairs and turns I remembered from walking with Gerry earlier and to my relief, spotted a poster I’d noticed opposite the door I’d entered through.
Home stretch! I mentally added another dollop of cream as my reward for making a smooth exit. Almost.
The hall I was in now was all but abandoned except for one solitary figure leaning with the back of his head against a wall near the door I had to exit through. Though I hadn’t met him yet, it was impossible not to recognize him when I got near enough to make out his features.
Nick Masters smirked at me, hazel eyes blazing as he hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans. I started raising my hand to introduce myself when he spoke up first. His voice smooth, yet unmistakably cocky. “How come nobody told me we were bringing groupies to the studio now?”
Son of a… I was so not in the mood for this, nor was I going to smile and simper and explain myself. Shooting him a scathing glare, I bit my tongue and pushed my way out of the door and into the sunshine instead. I would meet him soon enough. Until then, I’d had enough testosterone and ego for one day.
CHAPTER 5
JARED
The piano’s keys were smooth under my fingers as I let them sail across the keyboard. Head bent and eyes closed, I soaked in the sound and tried to let it guide me where it wanted to go. New songs always started out like this, just me and the piano and a notebook.
I was by myself in the studio. After getting back from my early lunch, the place had been empty and I took advantage of the solitude. Too often, with all five of us in here with the other four playing their hearts out and the microphone amplifying my voice, it was too loud to think. Let alone focus or create.
Since the guys were all still off only God knew where, it was good to have to place to myself for a change. Calming.
I could tune out all the bullshit and focus only on the music that wanted out while it was just me here. This was what it was all about for me. Well, this and the adrenaline of performing. Two things so totally opposite but yet managed to bring it all into perspective for me all the same. It was what I loved and what I would keep doing until my voice faded and my fingers refused to play the way they did now.
Caleb knew how I felt about this, so did Dom. Or at least they used to. They never would’ve accused me of all that crap they’d been flinging my way earlier if they still believed that.
Fact that I wanted to have some fun while we were at it didn’t change shit. In here, I was still me. Still as serious as ever, I just didn’t think we had to push as hard all the time anymore. Wasn’t a crime.
The door to the studio opened, the sounds flowing from the piano coming to an abrupt stop as my hands stilled and I opened my eyes to see who had come to disrupt my flow. The guys knew better.
If any one of them had looked in on me, they’d have known to leave me alone while I was trying to get this out. Turned out, our manager either hadn’t known or didn’t care.
“We need to talk.” Gerry shut the door behind him and perched on the windowsill to the sound booth on my left. He undid the button on his suit jacket and braced his hands beside his hips, smoothing his tie as he pierced me with his glare. “What’s going with the band?”
“What do you mean?” I turned on the stool, my back to him as I grabbed my notebook and scribbled out the lyrics that were starting to take shape in my head just before he interrupted.
Gerry wasn’t deterred by my unspoken fuck off signals. “I mean I had you slated to meet Alicia today and to get her all caught up with you guys and the sound of the new album, but you came storming out of the session looking like you wanted to rip someone’s head off and the others seem to be missing in action.”
“It’s nothing you have to concern yourself with, Gerry.” He wasn’t our babysitter. We paid him to do a job, which wasn’t to question us or interfere with our business. “When the guys get back, they’ll have their heads cleared and we’ll carry on as planned.”
“Not as planned.” Gerry said firmly. “I’ve told Alicia you won’t be meeting with her today.”
“Why?” The feisty blonde seemed like fun. I’d put her out of my head when I’d hit the studio and found it empty, but since he brought her up the intriguing girl was back in my head space. I wondered if she’d agree to dinner after she’d met the others. She said she thought it would be best if she met with all of us together, she never said no to meeting with only me after.
Gerry sighed. I didn’t see him move since my back was still to him, but I heard the muted footsteps of his polished shoes crossing the studio, then he was standing on the other side of the piano. Right in my line of sight.
Asshole.
“I d
idn’t think it was a good idea for her to meet you while you working out whatever spat you boys are having.”
“Spat?” I scoffed. “We’re not ten. We can handle a meeting with our P.R despite our… differences. Where is she?”
“Gone.” Leaning forward, Gerry planted his elbows on the piano and laced his fingers together.
I lifted my eyes from the notebook, keeping my tone light. It came out with a mocking edge to it I hadn’t necessarily been going for. “Gone where? We have a meeting.”
Skin reddening at the tips of his ears and his hands clasped so tightly his knuckles went white, I could see I getting to Gerry.
What else was new? I always got to Gerry, not always intentionally though.
The man was wound tighter than Caleb and Dom put together. If anyone bothered to extract the sticks the three of them and Brad, our apparently ex- P.R guy, had up their asses and combined them I was sure said stick would reach all the way to China.
Here’s to hoping the new chick’s not as stuck up.
“I told you.” Gerry said, his tone not nearly as serene as I could tell he was trying to force it to be. “You’re not meeting with her today. Not anymore. I don’t want you ruining things with her and with the moods you’re in, one of you were going to do just that.”
“Don’t think she could handle a couple of moody rockers?” I cocked my head. “Isn’t she in the wrong business if she can’t deal with that?”
A valid question from my point of view, but from the way Gerry’s face was getting redder in some places and paler in others, I knew he thought I was goading him. Splotchy Gerry meant angry Gerry. He was too easy, really.
“I didn’t say she couldn’t, I said I didn’t want her to. She’s going to be a good addition to our team, Jared. A valuable resource I don’t want to lose because one of you is too immature to let whatever happened between you stay between you or because she’s a skirt you can chase to fuck your frustrations out.”
He was easy, but damn if he didn’t know us well. Didn’t mean I didn’t still want to make that play to fuck her, but I had plenty of time. Looked like Gerry was intent on keeping her around for a while.
I saluted him just as the door slammed open again and the guys sauntered back inside. “Aye aye, Captain. Crew’s all here, see? Told you not to worry about it.”
“Worry about what?” Dom’s eyes flicked between Gerry’s and mine as he came to stand between us at the piano.
I waved him off, flashing him an innocent smile. “Nothing. Isn’t that what I just said? Ready to get back to work?”
Dom and Caleb, who was hot on Dom’s heels coming inside and had taken up position next to him, exchanged a look that set my teeth grinding together. I pushed my annoyance with the high- and- mighty duo back and stood up from the piano, closing the lid with more force than necessary but nothing as much as what I was feeling inside.
Caleb’s eyes were hot on my back as I walked over to the mic- stand and lifted it out of the cradle. Giving him a pointed look, I dropped my chin and raised my eyebrows. “Well?”
Eyes narrowing, he looked like he was about to say something but dropped it when Dom cleared his throat. “Let’s get to it.”
Matt and Nick were standing at the door, watching us. When Caleb and Dom moved across the studio to their instruments, Nick shrugged and both he and Matt followed suit. Gerry clearly wasn’t done with me, but he lifted his arms from the piano and strode to the door while the others got into position.
“I’ll see you all tomorrow. Lay down at least one track for me this afternoon, okay?”
Dom grunted something I couldn’t hear under his breath while Matt shot Gerry a thumbs up and a goofy grin. “Sure thing, Ger. Try our best, anything for you.”
I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help it when my lips twitched up into a smile at Matt’s fake sincerity. Nick’s shoulders shook in silent laughter as he adjusted his guitar’s strap on his shoulder, but Caleb remained impassive. He never used to be so damn serious all the time, but my brother was changing. Not for the better, in my opinion.
“Let’s take it from the top.” Dom said when everyone was ready. Gerry shook his head disdainfully and disappeared out the door without another word.
I waited for Dom to count to us in, absorbing every chord the boys played of the intro to what I thought should be the title track of the album. Another thing we couldn’t agree on.
Tapping my foot to the rhythm they were setting, I launched into the first verse right on cue. Goosebumps raised my skin as I belted out the words I’d written somewhere over the Atlantic ocean months ago, around the middle of our last tour. The plane had been quiet, the cabin lights dimmed as we jetted to our next destination. I could picture the scene so clearly, I’d-.
“Jared!” Caleb’s loud growl yanked me from that place only my music could take me to and since I’d been so thoroughly immersed, the impact was jarring.
“What?” I snapped, blinking the studio back into focus. I could almost still smell the stale coffee in the cabin’s air and the tequila I’d been drinking with Nick on the plane, that was how completely the song had taken me back to its origins.
“You’re lagging.” Caleb bit out. “Again.”
I snorted. “Bullshit.”
“He’s right.” Dom rose from his stool, shoving his hands through his hair as he paced. “But it wasn’t just you this time.”
“Oh thanks.” I said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “So kind of you to acknowledge it might not be me throwing this off for you.”
“It’s you, all right. I just said it wasn’t only you.” He stopped pacing and turned to glare at me. “Something’s off.”
“Guys,” Matt chimed in. “Let’s just start again, okay? I was trying something on the bridge, didn’t mean to throw anything off.”
“It wasn’t that.” I told him. Much as I hated to agree with Dom, something was off. The lyrics might’ve transported me away, but as I replayed the last few minutes in my head, I could hear what he meant. “I think we should call it a day.”
“An unproductive one.” Nick muttered, but he didn’t look worried about it. No surprise there.
Caleb stared at me, then he lifted his strap over his head and set his guitar down. “I agree.”
“We’ll pick it back up tomorrow, but we’re wasting each other’s time today. Everyone go do whatever it is you need to do or deal with. Get laid, drink ‘til you pass out, cry, call your mom. Whatever, just be back without all this shit tomorrow.”
One unproductive day where we couldn’t get it together was one thing, another would start a pattern I didn’t want us stuck in. I was after fun and getting stuck in rut recording, that didn’t sound like fun to me at all.
CHAPTER 6
ALICIA
“Oh my god! They are only, like, my favorite band. How could you not have told me that you were representing Destitute?” Kelly, my little sister, squealed into my ear. It was so loud that I winced and pulled the phone away from my ear to keep my eardrums from bursting.
Waiting for my little sister to calm down, I pressed the button for two minutes on my microwave and watched my dinner of leftover pizza heat up while spinning around on the revolving glass plate. “I only got the call a couple of days ago, and I just signed my contract earlier this week. I wasn’t hiding it from you. I just didn’t want to say anything until it actually happened.”
“They’re so great. I can’t believe you’ve met them. They are like the hottest guys on the planet.” I could practically hear her swooning over my new clients.
“They’re not that great. They’re only human, you know? Besides, I haven’t actually met them yet.” My brow furrowed. “Well, actually, that’s a lie. I met Jared earlier. I’m meeting the rest of them tomorrow morning.”
I was about to launch into how arrogant the guy was, but Kelly cut me off with a loud screech, which had me yanking the phone away from my ear for the second time in as many minutes. “Oh my God! Oh my God!
Oh my God! You’ve met Jared Larsen? Is he as hot in person as he is in his pictures? Please, tell me he is.”
As much as I hated to admit it, he was actually even hotter. “He is.”
“I’m so jealous of you right now. Working with such legends must be so amazing. You have to tell me everything.” There was no way that I was telling her anything. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my sister, but she was on the exact opposite side of this industry from me.
As an entertainment reporter and small-time blogger, she was obsessed with the who’s who of the industry, and I wasn’t sure that she would be able to help herself from adding at least some of the details that I might learn about these men on her blog.
“You know that there’s a Chinese wall between us when it comes to my job, Kel.”
A heavy sigh met my ear through the phone, just as my microwave beeped, telling me that my dinner was ready. “But this is Destitute that we’re talking about here, sis. You have to, at least, give me something. Just for me. What was he like?”
He was a force of nature. That was what he was like. Jared Larsen was something else entirely. There was no way that his photos did him justice because no lens could capture the force field that seemed to radiate from him.
Well, that was if you could separate the force field from the cocky arrogance that seemed to ooze from his very pores.
The man was insanely beautiful, sinfully sexy, and had the voice of an angel—if angels were in the business of selling sex—but he was also just more. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what that more was yet, but it seemed the only way to describe him.
In the end, I settled for, “I didn’t get to speak to him for very long, but my first impression was that he knows exactly how hot he is, and he doesn’t hesitate to use his looks to get what he wants.”
“If I looked the way he did,” my sister sighed dreamily, “I would use my looks, too. Besides, he’s one of the world’s special people. Why shouldn’t he get everything he wants?”
My One and Only: A Bad Boy Secret Baby Second Chance Romance Page 59
