Chase: A Secret Millionaire Romance Novel

by Violette Paradis

  Grabbing my phone off the top of the machine, I run after the thief as he heads up the stairs.

  “Hey!” I call out again but nobody is listening. Nobody even cares. Everyone is just continuing as normal as I chase the thief up onto the street. The sidewalk is packed. I look around but the thief is nowhere to be seen. He’s gone.

  Fuck.

  There goes all my money, my ID. All I have left is my phone. And even that won’t last long considering my charger is in my bag.

  “Could this week get any worse?” I mumble to myself.

  I don’t have any money or any way to get onto the subway to get to the festival. What the hell do I do now?

  I look around at the great big city around me. I’ve never felt so small, so alone. Going back into the subway station, I stare at the turnstiles. I can just sneak in. That’s what rock stars do, right? They break rules? But just as the thought comes to me, I see a handsome cop hanging out by the entrance searching for rule-breakers like me. I walk up to him.

  “Excuse me,” I say.

  He raises his eyebrows as his eyes continue scanning the crowd of people coming and going.

  “Someone stole my bag,” I say.

  He looks down at me. “What did he look like?”

  “Umm… I don’t know. He had a black sweater and a gray beanie.”

  “Him and half the city.” He’s looking at the people again where he’s right—most people are wearing gray and black. “Where’d he go?”

  “Up to the street.”

  “Which direction?”

  I shake my head. “I have no clue.”

  “You can report your stolen stuff at the nearest police station. It’s a few blocks from here.”

  I sigh. I don’t have time to go to the police station. I need to get to the festival.

  “Hey, can you lend me some money for the subway?” I ask.

  He laughs. “What do I look like? A charity?”

  I sigh and walk back to the subway entrance. Biting my lip, I look around at the people rushing by and then I look at the time on my phone. Thirty-four minutes until the cut-off for signing in. There’s not enough time to walk there.

  “I came too far to stop now,” I say to myself.

  A weathered woman holding a basket of lemons looks up at me. “What did ya call me?”

  “I can do this by myself,” I say confidently.

  “Mind your own damn business, lady.” The woman with the lemons shuffles away.

  Shaking off the interaction, I find a space near a high-traffic spot. Pulling out my phone, I take a selfie and send it to my Instagram followers with the caption ‘Trying to get to the Rockheart Fest’ complete with a heart emoji. Thirty-three minutes. Taking off my sweater, I fashion it into a makeshift bowl and put it down on the floor in front of me. Taking a deep breath, I put my phone on live stream mode and I begin to sing.

  My voice echoes off the subway walls. People start looking at me but they continue to rush by. Regardless, I continue singing. They won’t stop, but neither will I.

  Emptying my lungs, I liberate myself through my song. Every breath makes me stronger, more powerful. People finally stop to watch. A businessman in a blue suit drops a quarter into my makeshift sweater-bowl. Another woman leaves a dollar.

  Yes!

  A crowd is starting to form! Two teen girls have their phones out and are filming me. This is incredible! This is more liberating than anything I’ve ever experienced.

  When I finish the song, there’s a crowd of twenty applauding me. Feeling the rush of endorphins, I take it in. Thanking them, I collect my money. I have enough for the subway!

  “Excuse us…” The two girls who were filming are standing in front of me. One has two straw-colored braids and thick-rimmed glasses, while the other has a wild mane of dark curly hair and a nose ring.

  “We have subway tokens for you,” says the girl with the braids.

  “We saw your social media post,” the curly-haired girl says.

  I smile. “You follow me? And you came out to help me?”

  They nod in unison. They both have star-struck smiles on their faces.

  “I’m Andrea,” says the girl with the braids. “And she’s Jackie. We’re you’re biggest fans!”

  I let out an excited laugh. “Fans?”

  They both nod.

  “You guys listen to Dirty Laundry?” I ask.

  They both shake their hands in disgust.

  “No, we love your song ‘Bored’.”

  My eyes grow wide. “Really? Oh my god! You’re DreaX, aren’t you? I’ve received emails from you before.”

  Andrea nods and smiles widely. “That’s me.”

  “That’s… awesome. Now, are we ready to get to the festival or what?”

  “Let’s go!”

  We make it onto the subway. I check my watch. Twenty minutes left. It’ll be tight. Looking up, I see the two girls staring at me with wide, adoring eyes. The girls must be sixteen or seventeen.

  “I can’t believe it,” Jackie says. “Amber Sweet is right in front of me. Hey, can we take a selfie with you?”

  I laugh. This is so absurd. “Sure.”

  The two girls lean over and I take a photo with them. They’re fangirling so hard that other people on the subway are starting to stare.

  “I can’t believe you guys like that song so much.”

  “And your new one too,” Andrea says. “Bermuda.”

  I narrow my eyes. “How did you hear that?”

  “You uploaded the video last night,” she says. She holds up her phone, showing that my video truly was uploaded.

  Thinking back, I remember trying to upload it back at Marigold’s house. I knew it would fail since I was in the dead zone, but it must have uploaded once my device finally found a signal sometime last night.

  Looking at the screen, I see that the video already has more than two-hundred and fifty thousand views.

  “Holy crap! What the hell? How are there so many views?”

  The girls laugh and look at each other.

  “Umm… you were like, trending online for a bit,” Andrea says.

  I laugh as if they just told a joke.

  They look at each other again.

  “Seriously,” Jackie says.

  “What?” I laugh again but I quickly realize they’re not joking. “Wait… what?”

  “We have a whole online community devoted to you.”

  “Seriously?” I laugh at the absurdity of it all.

  “Well, to be entirely truthful… we helped develop some interest in you,” Jackie says. “There was some controversy on our discussion board when you disappeared from Dirty Laundry. We were all trying to figure out where you went. Someone even interrogated the other members of Dirty Laundry, but they didn’t share anything.”

  “In fact, they only got more agitated the more we asked,” Andrea adds.

  “Right. We eventually raised enough money to buy an ad in a conspiracy magazine.”

  I laugh. “A conspiracy magazine?”

  Andrea reaches into her backpack and pulls out a magazine. I catch a glimpse of the title: Celebrity Conspiracy.

  I can’t help but laugh. “Celebrity Conspiracy magazine? Did you think I was abducted by aliens or something?”

  Jackie raises her eyebrow. “You’d be surprised. This magazine has a good track record for this kind of stuff.”

  Andrea flips through the pages until she lands on one with my picture on it. Intrigued, I grab the magazine and scan the article:

  Never Mind WHERE… WHO is Amber Sweet?

  What a strange story this has been. It all started when a fan of garage-band Dirty Laundry posted a viral message online: ‘Where is Amber Sweet?’ The message claimed that the Dirty Laundry member had disappeared from the band and social media altogether. The post went viral on social media, with various news outlets picking up the story. Dirty Laundry experienced an uptick in sales as interest in Amber Sweet’s location intensified. But none
of their songs got as much interest as Amber Sweet’s solo venture ‘Bored’ which was posted online not long before her last public appearance. The song has been getting some buzz in various corners of the internet and for good reason: the song is an earworm. Bored is interesting, catchy, sassy, and you can’t help but sing along. So this begs the question: Where is Amber Sweet? And who is she?

  Conspiracy theories have proliferated online about her identity and disappearance. Some say her absence is part of her mysterious persona, while others believe she’s been kidnapped. Many fingers have been pointed at Dirty Laundry’s lead singer Chuck McGrath. McGrath has been standoffish, refusing to answer Celebrity Conspiracy’s questions about Sweet’s disappearance, leading many to believe that he’s guilty of an even more sinister fate for Sweet. Meanwhile, others are claiming this is simply a piece of viral marketing genius. After all, how many unknown artists get this much speculation and a song trending on various music-streaming sites?

  So, who is Amber Sweet? Does she even exist at all? Do you have any information on Amber Sweet? Contact us!

  I put the magazine down and look up at Andrea and Jackie.

  “My song was trending?” This is almost too much to take in all at once. My head is spinning. This is such an alien feeling.

  “Yeah, I mean… you’re not like famous famous. But you have like… thousands of streams.”

  I shake my head in disbelief. This explains why Chuck was so desperate to reach out to me a few weeks ago. I’m sure he enjoyed that brief uptick in Dirty Laundry sales, but he must’ve learned quickly that I was the reason people were looking for more of our music. He must’ve known that my name was trending for various reasons. I smile to myself. Although I’m annoyed that he briefly benefited from his horrible behavior, I can’t help but feel… good. Maybe even vindicated.

  “This is insane,” I say. “No wonder my phone was glitching out earlier.”

  Jackie’s big eyes haven’t looked away from me since the moment we got on the subway.

  “So we’re dying to know,” she says. “Where have you been this whole time?”

  In an effort to avoid their intense stare, I look away and flip through casually the magazine.

  “Oh, well… the band abandoned me in the middle of the woods after our show in Maine. I found a house that belonged to a woman and her family—” I stop as I land on a page with a picture of the exact house I happen to be talking about. I can’t believe my eyes. It’s Marigold’s Manor! I scan the image. There’s a figure in the top left window and his silhouette is unmistakable. It’s Gabe.

  My heart pounds as I scan the rest of the candid photos. There’s one of him walking around Marigold’s yard. There’s another of him by the water in his boxers. But the picture that makes me freeze is the one of him walking in the woods with someone. A woman. Me. Both our backs are to the camera. The caption says, Gabriel Valentine Chase walks through the woods with a mystery woman. Many believe Chase’s secret life is a rebellion against growing corporate media practices.

  My heart is racing.

  “Amber?”

  I look up to see Jackie and Andrea staring at me. “Sorry. I was just distracted by this article.”

  They look down to see what I’m reading.

  “Oh my god, that woman is so lucky,” Jackie says. “Can you imagine being on a secret getaway with Gabriel Valentine Chase?”

  “Yeah. Imagine.” I keep my head down, hiding my pink cheeks.

  “No way. That’s not him,” Andrea says. “He’s with Sophie Dawson. There were photos of them in Moscow last week.”

  I snap my head up. “They were?”

  “Yeah!” Andrea taps her phone a few times and shows me the screen. There are photos of Sophie Dawson with someone. From the back, the man could pass for Gabe… but I know him too well to know that’s not him. Besides, Gabe was with me last week. I smirk to myself remembering our cute walk through the forest as he filmed me. I can’t believe that video has a quarter of a million views!

  As Jackie and Andrea bicker about whether Sophie and Gabe’s relationship is real or not, I read the article.

  Chasing the Runaway Heir

  There’s been a growing trend in high-profile families—the marriage of brands. Marriages between high-profile names have been increasing interest and revenue for both brands. There’s one problem though: what happens when the famous offspring do not agree to this modern-day arranged marriage? That is exactly what people believe has happened with Gabriel Chase. His engagement to Dawson was announced earlier this year, with a summer wedding to be expected. But there hasn’t been a clear photo of Chase seen since early spring. Sophie posts photos of herself with Chase constantly, but many eagle-eyed followers have noticed that he never shows his face, and his hairline changes from photo to photo. Meanwhile, an anonymous photographer got these exclusive photos of Chase at a secret house in the woods. He’s with a woman who clearly is not Sophie Dawson. This begs the question: Is the wedding simply a publicity stunt? After Olivia Valini split from entrepreneur Brett Baker last year and wrote her tell-all book on the ‘rampant problem of modern arranged marriages’ we’ve been careful to spot when a union between two souls is true love or true deception. Could this be one of them? Pictures never lie.

  The Chase-Dawson wedding is to take place this Saturday. The question is, will Gabriel Valentine Chase attend his own wedding?

  “This is messed up,” I say, staring at the pictures again.

  “An arranged marriage. Weird, huh? It’s like something out of the movies.”

  “I’m telling you, it’s not him,” Andrea says. “Why would anyone give up on a life of riches and being married to Sophie Dawson?”

  I swallow. “A lot of reasons.”

  I think back to all the times Gabe poured his heart out to me.

  “A life in the spotlight can be lonely. The press hardly understands you. And if this is an arranged marriage, the likelihood that they love each other is not great…”

  The girls are staring at me with curious eyes.

  “But who knows, really?” I add, trying not to seem like I know too much.

  “Do you think this whole other woman thing is scripted?” Jackie stares at the photo in the magazine.

  “No way,” Andrea says. “They wouldn’t ruin the perfect image they tried to build up between Gabriel and Sophie. And if it was scripted, it’d be in the major magazines. Not Celebrity Conspiracy.”

  “True. Besides, he’s very clearly in love with whoever this is.”

  “He is?” I ask.

  “Of course! Look at the way he’s looking at her!” Jackie points at the photo of Gabe smiling. “He’s looking at her like she’s special. He’s never looked at Sophie that way. Ever.”

  “That’s true,” Andrea adds.

  Staring at the photo, I remember that moment. We were talking about all the things we wanted to do in New York. An empty feeling pulls at my heart. Maybe I was too quick to judge him. He was right, I wouldn’t have believed that he was on the cover of magazines, that basically everybody would know who he was. Hell, two people have recognized me so far today and it’s a bizarre feeling. I can’t even understand what his level of fame would be like.

  I wish I could talk to him, but how? I don’t even have his phone number. I doubt I’d ever see him again. The thought of it breaks my heart a little bit. The way things ended was just so ugly, so frantic.

  “Amber?” Andrea says.

  I snap out of my thoughts. “Hmm?”

  “This is our stop.”

  Sure enough, we’re at our destination. We shuffle off the subway and make our way outside where I breathe in the New York City air. I can hear live music playing in the distance. My heart is pounding with excitement. I may not have a guitar, my laptop, or any money. But I’ve got fans, I have a few thousand views on my song, and I’m famous in the conspiracy world. There’s just one thing—one person—missing from this equation. Trying not to think about that, I keep my smil
e on my face.

  “Rock Heart Festival, here we come!”

  27

  DIRTY LAUNDRY (REPRISE)

  Amber

  The three of us make our way toward Central Park. The sound of an electric guitar floats through the air as the bass rumbles the ground under our feet. The park is overrun with people. Looking at the nearby stage, I finally feel like I’m home.

  “Come on!” I navigate my way around the crowd toward the backstage area. I know I’m running out of time but I refuse to let it happen. I’m going to play.

  Running up to the fenced-off area behind the stage, I see a pink-haired woman with a walkie-talkie and a giant binder standing by the registration table next to the backstage entrance. The large guard gives me a suspicious glare as I approach the pink-haired woman.

  “Hi,” I say as I walk up to her. “I’m here. I can play.”

  “Name?”

  “Amber Sweet.”

  The woman checks her giant binder as I slow my breathing, dissipating the adrenaline that’s rushing through my body. Smiling, I look around. I can’t believe I made it. After all that drama, after a whole summer of unknowns… I’m finally here. It’s exciting.

  The woman makes a tutting sound.

  “The last act has already checked in,” she says. “There are no more spots.”

  The hope drains from my body. “What?”

  “The last band checked in about five minutes ago.” The woman checks her binder. “Dirty Laundry. They’re about to take the stage.”

  My insides go cold.

  “No.” I shake my head. “No, no, no. There’s gotta be space for me. There’s no way Dirty Laundry can be playing but I’m not.”

  The uncaring woman shrugs. “They’ve been registered for months.”

  “Yeah… because of me!”

  “And they have a ton of internet buzz,” she says.

  “Again, that’s only because of me! I can’t believe this!”

  The woman shrugs again. “Nothing we can do about it now. Unless you’re Henry Sinner himself, you ain’t playing on that stage.” She snaps her binder shut. “Maybe next year.”

  There’s a call on her walkie-talkie and she turns away to answer.