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“I love the latest song you sent over. It’s a firecracker. Your fans are going to eat it up.”
Rafaella is thirty-five years older than me and prefers alternative rock, but she’s never been wrong about what the fans want yet. “What’s the bad news?”
“Vivian posted photos of the two of you and implied they were taken while you were with Lucia. It was one thing when the world thought you’d cheated on her with Roxy. Your true fans could believe you were in love with both of them. Add in a third woman and people are out for blood.”
I groan. “Why did I ever let you talk me into this shit plan?”
“I fucked up.” Rafaella sounds truly remorseful and she should, damn it. “I thought a bit of bad boy would increase your appeal. I underestimated how beloved Lucia is.”
I want to be angry with her, but that wouldn’t be fair. “It’s not your fault. Lucia set this whole thing in motion when she publicly accused me of cheating on her and left us with no good choices.” The image flashes in my mind of her on her back, Theo’s bare ass flexing as he pumped into her. I didn’t love her, but I was on my way to it. Maybe. It’s not just losing her that hurts, it’s feeling like an idiot for trusting her. “She has that angelic image to protect. I just didn’t expect it to detonate my career this way.” Once the story was out, Rafaella and I felt we had no choice but to go along with it and make sure no innocents got caught in the crosshairs. Roxie was immediately on board to help us out.
“Your career isn’t detonated. We just need another story to overshadow this one. People have short memories.”
“Any chance we can get Vivian to admit the pics are from two years ago?”
“Don’t you think I’ve already tried that? Her last movie tanked, and she lost a role she was up for later this year. She’s desperate to become relevant.”
“I will never understand why anyone would choose this hell.” Roxie didn’t have a problem with it either when the plan was explained to her. Unlike Vivian, her solo career after years of working as a child actor was just taking off, and she wanted the world to see her as a sexy adult instead of a little kid. She did the talk show circuit crying about how much she loved me and how she made a mistake. I had to go into hiding.
I should have learned my lesson long ago. There’s no way to predict how the world will react to anything. “I’ve got to go. I’ll send you another song in a few days.”
“About that,” she says slowly. “Keep sending the songs, but you understand we can’t put out your new album until this shit dies down, right?”
I want to punch myself in the face for not seeing this coming. “Yeah, I know.”
I drop my phone on the bed, because there’s no one else I want to talk to who might be calling.
I pull on a t-shirt and head back outside.
Honey’s leaning against the fence around Barley’s cage, watching him climb on his play structures. He’s showing off for her.
“What do you do for a living?” she asks, without looking back at me.
I’m barefoot, and I have no idea how she heard me coming. The idea that she’s as attuned to me as I am to her and senses me creeps into my thoughts. That’s just more of the fairytale. It can’t be real.
Her black hair hangs straight and thick and nearly to her waist, where her skirt curves over her shapely ass and just covers the top of her thighs.
I look away and focus on the question.
She has to be fucking with me. Even if she hasn’t talked to Clover about me, she must recognize me from magazines at the checkout line, if nowhere else.
But the idea that she doesn’t know who I am… Well, that turns me the fuck on.
“I mean, it’s clear you have money,” she continues. “But based on the times of the Bigfoot sightings, you’re not going to a nine-to-five every day.” She spins and faces me. “Do you work from home?”
Tempting and somewhat close to the truth, but if she spends any time here, she’ll twig to the fact I have no work-from-home space set up. “I’m on sabbatical.”
She screws up her face, confused. It looks like actual emotion. I’m probably getting it all wrong, but I feel like I can read her. “Sabbatical from what? Are you some sort of high-paid priest?”
I snort. “I’m a college professor.” I only know they take sabbaticals because I have a distant cousin in the profession “I teach music.” As soon as they’re out of my mouth, I regret the words. It’s too close to what I actually do.
Her brows rise and her mouth quirks. “I had no idea that sort of gig paid so well.”
Since I have no clue what she’s basing her estimation of my wealth on and I have no idea what a professor’s salary is, I sink deeper into the lie. “I inherited the house from my grandmother.”
She nods but doesn’t look convinced. “About the treasure hunt—”
“Still not interested.”
