by Maggie Marr
I slugged back my beer. Heat raged through my body. Heat over my sister being right, fucking way too right. I didn’t want to use Dad’s name. I wanted success on my own terms, and because of my music and me.
Sophia drifted toward the table where the beauties and Jasmine Collins sat, laughing and gossiping. I was certain she had our father’s last name on her lips. Sophia was willing to name drop to get what she wanted. I grabbed another beer at the bar and walked back toward the house. I heard Dad before I saw him. That big bellowing voice, ranting and raving. Anger laced through his words.
“I don’t give a fuck who you think you are. I made you, I created you. Your success is because of me, and I will put an end to it and you unless you stop filming.”
“I’m not going to stop,” Sterling replied. “Our first week of production was last week and it went well. Thanks for asking, Dad.” My big brother was angry.
The smart choice would have been for me to turn around and walk back to the tent. But this was too good to pass up. Dad and Sterling arguing. I knew why Dad was angry. According to my sister, Sterling and Amanda’s mom left them an option on a screenplay when she died. The same screenplay that she’d written with Tom Bliss when they’d had an affair some time ago. Sterling wanted to make the film … was making the film, and Steve Legend was hell-bent on making sure the film never saw the light of day. On top of that, Sterling had cast Kiley Kepner, Dad’s most recent ex-wife, as the female lead.
“Even your sister isn’t happy about this, Sterling. She’s pissed from what I hear. The fact that you’d put that little cunt in the role your mother was meant to have? Your choice is not only disrespectful to me, but it’s disrespectful to the memory of your mother.”
“Dad, you didn’t leave me any choice! You hired or scared off every other actress in town. And disrespectful? Don’t even lecture me about being disrespectful to Mom’s memory when your bastard children are parading around town using our last name for record deals, and their whore mother is here at my sister’s wedding. You want to talk about disrespectful? You and your damn dick were pretty disrespectful to Mom when you stuck it in that piece of trash and fathered that passel of brats.”
Six beers in, and Sterling’s angry words about me, my sisters, and Mom just made me see red. Sterling. Fuck Sterling. He’d been riding my ass since he found out about me. I turned the corner. Sterling’s gaze caught mine, a complete locked-on stare. There was no fear or regret over getting caught saying the things he’d said. Because he’d meant them. Every last word. Dad’s jaw dropped open and his eyes widened at my sudden presence. He knew. That Delgado temper mixed with the Legend temper could be a deadly combination.
“Rhett, just keep walking,” Dad said. “This isn’t the place.” His gaze darted around the walkway just beside the house. “The transition is difficult for the entire family.”
“Family!” Sterling said. He looked at me and then at Dad. “This asshole isn’t my family. Amanda may have some dream of a bastardized Brady Bunch, but I have no desire to sit down at any holiday with this asshole, or his mother. Family? Family doesn’t do what Anita did to mom.”
Heat fired in my belly. My body vibrated with rage. Who the fuck did Sterling Legend think he was? We now stood face-to-face, nose-to-nose.
“You can call me any filthy name you want, and it probably fits. I’m my father’s son and I’ve tried most everything Los Angeles has to offer. But my mom and my sisters?” The muscles in my body tensed. “They are off fucking limits.” I poked my finger into his chest, emphasizing every word.
“Oh, yeah?” Sterling said. A mean smile formed over his lips. “She wasn’t off limits while she was scrubbing toilets and fucking my dad in my mother’s house.”
I cold-cocked the son of a bitch. My knuckles connected with his jaw. His head jerked back and then a wicked smile cut through his face, as though he’d been waiting for this moment for months. Since the day he’d learned about his Dad’s other family. The sly son of a bitch. His fist swung and landed on my jaw. Every bit of pent- up anger, frustration, rage, all of it over Dad and his mom and me and Sophia and Ellen—was behind the force of that fist. But I was pissed, too. I steam-engined into him and we were on the ground scrabbling like two wild dogs.
I pummeled my fist into his side and he hit me hard. Blows rained all over my body. I hit back. My lip split open and the metallic taste of blood entered my mouth. I landed a blow on the side of Sterling’s head. Arms grabbed me around the waist and hauled me backward. Then Dillon MacAvoy pulled Sterling away from me.
“Fucking get the hell out of here,” Sterling yelled.
“You keep your mouth shut about my mother. I don’t give two fucks what you say about me, but you leave her out of it. I don’t want your fucking name.”
I yanked my arm away from Dad’s grasp. I turned and saw my mother now standing beside my father. Her face was a mask of sadness and disappointment. Both Ellen and Sophia were standing beside her.
Sterling yanked out of Dillon’s grasp. His shirt was torn. Maeve, Lane, and Rhiannon now stood beside him.
“Stop! Just stop!” Everyone turned. Amanda stood there with her new husband by her side. She’d changed out of her wedding dress. She was ready to leave for her honeymoon. Her eyes harbored a sad desperation. She wanted all of us to be a family. A family that she’d always desired, one full of happiness and joy, and she’d been willing to overlook our father’s indiscretions to have one big happy family. But now, after watching me and Sterling, she knew, she had to realize, that we would never be one big happy family. And it was too bad, because I’d started to like my half-sister Amanda Legend.
Ryan put his arm around Amanda’s waist. Her eyes traveled between me and Sterling. “You’re grown men,” he said. “Whether you like it or not you two are stuck with each other, and I’m stuck with you both. Stop acting like assholes at my wedding.” He pulled Amanda closer to his side. His gaze was hard, and I knew if Amanda wasn’t there and already upset he’d beat both our asses.
Dad puffed up and opened his mouth, but Amanda turned her hard gaze to her father.
“Not one word, Daddy. We’re all trying to learn how to live with the choices you made. Now, let us learn how to do it.”
Steven’s mouth clamped shut. Huh, baby-half-sister had silenced Dad? Never seen that happen before. I brushed my hands through my hair and dusted dirt from my jacket. I eyed a giant rip in the shoulder.
“I have to leave. Daddy, Sterling has decided on Kiley for The Lady’s Regret. I don’t agree with the decision either, but I’ve deferred to it. That script is ours. Mom left it to us. You need to back off. Sterling, you should apologize to Rhett. No one likes to hear anyone talk badly about their mother. Do I have to remind you of last summer?”
Sterling took a deep breath and shook his head no. A muscle flicked in his jaw.
“I’m sorry,” he said. His lips said one thing but his eyes told me a different story.
“And you, Rhett, need to smash that giant chip that is weighing down your shoulder. No one but you thinks you’re any less of a Legend.” Amanda turned to leave and then turned back. “And you should apologize to your brother for taking a swing at him. You two want to go at each other? Find a ring, some gloves, and head guards, because as angry as I am at your behavior at my wedding, I still wouldn’t want to see those pretty faces get hurt.” She smiled, a sad gentle smile that contained hope.
How the hell was Amanda still hopeful that we could be a happy family after what she’d just witnessed? Rhiannon and Maeve walked to her and each gave her a hug and a kiss. Ellen and Sophia walked over to me.
“Nice job, troublemaker,” Sophia said under her breath. She didn’t want anyone jeopardizing her newfound social status as a Legend, especially me.
“Let me see,” Ellen said. She pulled her glasses down and tilted my head this way and back. “You’ll bruise, but you’ll be fine.” Ellen had been pre-med and was on her way to UCLA medical school in the fall.
“Thanks,” I said. Ellen was the sweeter of my two twin sisters and the one I felt closer to. Maybe Sophia and I were too similar. We both craved the spotlight, for different reasons, I had thought. But now, maybe not. Maybe I did have a giant chip on my shoulder that needed to be removed. Amanda walked over to me and I turned to her. Even in heels she was a pretty small package.
“Thank you for coming to the wedding,” she said. She got on her tiptoes and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
“Sorry,” I said.
A smile curled over her lips.
“I know,” she said and squeezed my arm. Something like happiness rounded through me. I liked Amanda, or I was starting to. She was smart and she had a big heart.
“Get that album done. Become a rock god. It’ll be fun to watch.”
I nodded. I was going to be a rock god. I knew that I was. My music was solid and people who heard it loved it.
She leaned in closer to me. “And don’t be afraid to use everything, and I mean everything, at your disposal. And that includes our last name.”
I stiffened with the thought. I might be as much a Legend as Amanda and Sterling, but I didn’t want to get to my success by using Dad’s name. She slipped away from me and hugged Ellen and Sophia. Sophia was already making plans with Amanda for after the honeymoon.
“Sophia has always known what she wants and how to get it,” Ellen said to me as we watched Sophia and Amanda talk and exchange a hug.
“Maybe Sophia just likes her,” I said.
“Right,” Ellen said. “The only reason Sophia likes anyone is because of what they can do for Sophia.”
Sad, but true. How could two women have identical DNA and be so different? Sophia wanted to run the world and was willing to trade on Dad’s last name to do it. Ellen wanted to save the world, one patient at a time.
“You’ll be the happiest one of all of us,” I said to Ellen. “You know what you want and you’re smart enough to get it. A normal life.”
“Are you kidding?” Ellen looked at me, one of her eyebrows arched high over the rim of her glasses. “Nothing is ever going to be normal about this family.”
The party went on behind us, under the tent, but here in this moment every one of the Legend family stood and stared at Sterling and me. A huge divide within one house.
“Sterling, go get cleaned up. Rhett, you too. This is unacceptable. This isn’t how a Legend man behaves.”
I turned to Dad. “How the hell does a Legend behave, old man? Seems you’re reaping what you’ve sown.”
My eyes glanced past Dad to where Mom stood just beyond him. How was this happening? How had this asshole allowed all this to happen? I’d never known a more self-involved man in my life. The possibility of having one big happy family was so remote as to be nonexistent. As much as Amanda wanted it to be otherwise.
Chapter 3
Tasha
“Chris, what are you talking about?” I asked. I paced in my bedroom. Monday wasn’t starting out well. “We had a deal. Aileen is staying with Left Coast. Her first two albums were a smash. How can you even consider—”
“Tasha.” The voice on the other end of the phone line was soft, gentle even. “Look, she’s had a good run at Left Coast and Aileen loves you. She loved your Dad, but this is a business decision. Between you and me, the last two years when your uncle was running the company were not a good years. Let’s just say his ability to understand an artist was nonexistent.”
I let out a long blast of air. This was my fault. I’d let this happen. I’d been so involved in my life and my grief that I’d turned my back on Left Coast when the company needed me most.
Chris, Aileen’s manager, said her choosing to leave Left Coast was a business decision. Well, a business decision always meant money. I pulled my hair through my fingertips and tossed it behind my shoulder. “What would it take?” I asked. Not that I had anything to give, but if I lost Aileen, Left Coast’s newest star, then the ship would continue to sink even faster.
“You don’t have it to give,” Chris said patiently.
“Try me.”
A long sigh reached through the phone. “She wants to work with your father again.”
My heart split down the center. What I wouldn’t give to have Daddy here right now, with me, telling me what to do and giving me advice on how to guide Left Coast and our artists.
“I sure wish I could make that happen,” I said. My voice was laced with sadness. Chris had been in the music business a long time and he’d known Daddy so well.
“I know you do, sweetheart. We all miss him. It was just too soon.”
“I worked on Aileen’s last album with Daddy. We did it together. I know what his vision was for her, Chris. He groomed me a long time for this role.”
“I know, Tasha. I wish you would have taken over instead of letting your Uncle Lewis run Left Coast into the ground.”
I was swamped with grief, I wanted to say. Plus I’d felt incredibly unsure about my ability to run Left Coast. God, I should have jumped in to lead the company. Perhaps if I hadn’t waited, Left Coast wouldn’t be in the mess that it was.
“Chris, I adore Aileen. I understand the vision that she has for her career. Please, there isn’t a better home for Aileen. You know that.”
He didn’t speak and I could imagine Chris sitting behind his desk, with his feet, up running through the words I’d just said. It was true, Aileen had a unique sound, one that Left Coast had allowed her to explore. She was rapidly building a following, but if she got swallowed up by a giant company that didn’t nurture her the success she’d had could disappear.
“I’ll talk to her,” Chris said. “Left Coast is a good home for her. Tasha, please understand, it’s not that Aileen doesn’t like you and enjoy working with you, but she misses the steadying hand of your father. He worked in the industry for over forty years. The number of artists that he was able to find and break out? He was epic—he had no equal. And, well, your uncle? He really managed to piss Aileen off.”
“I understand,” I said. Again, I was humbled by the talent of my father and by how hard he’d worked and, at the same time, I was enraged by my uncle’s hubris. How could two brothers be so incredibly different?
“I’ll get a meeting on the books between you and Aileen.”
“Great,” I said. “Let me know when. I’m available anytime.”
The line went dead. I stood in the center of my bedroom and pulled my arms tight over my chest. How much longer could I possibly keep up this facade? Pretend that everything was A-okay at Left Coast when it absolutely wasn’t.
Damn you, Uncle Lewis. A private investigator was looking for him, but so far no one could find my uncle. The only thing I knew was that Uncle Lewis had suddenly disappeared and a huge amount of money was missing from Left Coast’s coffers. No wonder he didn’t want anyone to find him. My anger was growing and my patience was wearing down. The next time I saw Uncle Lewis, I might just kill him.
*
After my phone call with Chris, and before I headed in to the office, I got another call from Harold reminding me that Left Coast’s liquid cash had run dry. Three days wasn’t very long to come up with a cool two million—not if you wanted to be certain that no one knew you were chasing dollars. One million for payroll and another million for operating costs. I could go to my mother. Her lifestyle was lush. After she and my father divorced, she’d married a semi-retired rock star with a penchant for picking great investments. She’d have the cash and Mom would give it to me, too. Unfortunately Mom was a canary on speed. She thought she could keep a secret, but she couldn’t. I’d learned that tidbit the hard way when she’d broadcast news of my most embarrassing breakup to all of Beverly Hills. If I went to Mom for a loan, everyone in the music industry would know of Left Coast’s financial woes before I’d even pulled out of the driveway of her house. Besides, the last text I’d received from Mom indicated that she and her hubs had vacated L.A. for an extended trip to Cannes.
> I couldn’t risk that kind of exposure. It might be the same problem if I sold off some or all of the assets that we still owned. I’d already reached out to our property manager to begin selling assorted properties—quietly—and I prayed that he would remain discreet. But that wasn’t ready cash. Those sales could take months.
I had one place to turn. I got into my car and traveled east from Malibu. Thirty minutes later I drove past the community Bel Air gate. Then I turned onto a winding road. Another set of gates. Once I cleared security, I pulled to the top of the driveway and parked next to the marble fountain. The limestone house was a gargantuan monstrosity filled with a bowling alley, an indoor basketball court, a wine cellar, a home theatre and a multitude of bedrooms and bathrooms. It had all the amenities of a small shopping plaza, including a recording studio.
Built with rock ’n’ roll money.
Johnny Tucker. The front door was unlocked. My chest tightened. I hadn’t been in Johnny’s house for over a year. Since the day I decided I could no longer stomach the existence of a rock and roll girlfriend. I walked toward the back of the house. Giggles drifted out of the open doors. I stepped onto the lanai. A bevy of beautiful babes, each of them nude, flitted about the giant pool as though they were sea nymphs at Poseidon’s gate. Johnny was a god, a rock god, and once that status was conferred upon you by the masses, everything belonged to you. The money. The girls. The drugs. Whatever you wanted, you need only ask.
Johnny luxuriated in the hot tub beside the pool. A girl straddled him and poured champagne into his open mouth as her hips ground into him.
It was nine a.m. On a Monday.
I walked to the hot tub and stood above them watching the brunette grind Johnny—a sight that a couple of years before would have caused me to grasp a handful of her weave and pull her from his lap. Thankfully, those feelings for Johnny were gone. Three other women were also enjoying the hot tub while making out with each other. This display was either a remnant from the weekend, or the beginning of a new rocker week. Hard to say, really.
