Page 29 of Heartbreaker

“You looked beautiful,” she says. “And your speech was touching. You didn’t seem nervous at all.”

“Thank you.”

“Did you know Royal Ewing would be there?”

My internal bullcrap detector immediately goes off.

“No.” I slowly shake my head. “We’d never met or had any type of contact.”

“But you left together.”

Good grief.

Where is she going with this?

I glance at Farrah, but she’s busy on her phone, completely ignoring the conversation.

“We met backstage and wound up going to a party at Rico Galago’s house.”

“Was it a date?” She smiles, a teasing tone to her voice, but now I know where she’s going and I refuse to play this kind of game.

“Of course not. I told you—we just met. We wanted to talk a little since he wrote the song for me. So, we decided to go to the party.”

“He was seen leaving your hotel room early the next morning.”

I freeze.

My cheeks feel warm, and my stomach feels like it’s going to turn.

What the heck is going on?

I look to Farrah but she’s not even paying attention, tapping away on her phone without a care in the world.

“Is there a question?” I ask quietly, grateful my hands are on my lap so I can squeeze my thighs to vent my frustration without anyone seeing me.

“What were you two doing all night?”

I snort. “We were doing what musicians do—talking about and writing music.”

“Is he writing you a new song?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see with everyone else.” I try to keep my voice playful, but I’m furious on the inside.

I don’t like getting blindsided like this. The record company’s PR people usually protect me from questions like this, but of course, I’ve also never had anyone spotted leaving my hotel room before either.

My management team hired Farrah when ‘Forever in Rewind’ started to take off, insisting that we needed someone who would have the time to focus on just me, instead of an entirerecord label’s roster of talent. I don’t think she’s particularly good at her job, but she does what needs to be done.

Until today.

And we’re going to have a conversation about it ASAP.

Despite my annoyance with him, Royal’s words about having the right people in your corner have been percolating in the back of my mind, and I realize I’m not truly surrounded by a team of trustworthy people.

I’m going to have to do something about that.

Thankfully, the rest of the interview is pretty bland—despite multiple references to Royal—but I’m still furious when we get back out to the limo. The moment we pull into traffic I turn to Farrah, who’s immersed in something on her phone.

“Farrah.” I say her name, and she doesn’t even look up.