Tempted By The Rock Star. Кейт Хьюит
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break room—’
Luke nodded grimly and headed upstairs. Aurelie had been contracted to sing and, damn it, she was going to sing. Like a canary.
Upstairs, Bryant’s women’s department was silent and empty, the racks of clothes and ghostly faceless mannequins seeming to accuse him silently. Today had to be a success. Bryant Stores had been slowly and steadily declining for the last five years, along with the economy. No one wanted overpriced luxuries, which was what Bryant’s had smugly specialised in for the last century. Luke had been trying to change things for years but his older brother, Aaron, had insisted on having the final say and he hadn’t been interested in doing something that, in his opinion, diminished the Bryant name.
When the latest dismal reports had come in, Aaron had finally agreed to an overhaul, and Luke just prayed it wasn’t too late. If it was, he knew who would be blamed.
And it would be his fault, he told himself grimly. He was the CEO of Bryant Stores, even if Aaron still initialled many major decisions. Luke took responsibility for what happened in his branch of Bryant Enterprises, including booking Aurelie as today’s entertainment.
He knocked sharply on the door to the break room. ‘Hello? Miss … Aurelie?’ Why didn’t the woman have a last name? ‘We’re waiting for you—’ He tried the knob. The door was locked. He knocked again. No answer.
He stood motionless for a moment, the memory sweeping coldly through him of another locked door, a different kind of silence. The scalding rush of guilt.
This is your fault, Luke. You were the only one who could have saved her.
Resolutely he pushed the memories aside. He shoved his shoulder against the door and gave it one swift and accurate kick with his foot. The lock busted and the door sprang open.
Luke entered the break room and glanced around. Clothes—silly, frothy, ridiculous outfits—were scattered across the table and chairs, some on the floor. And something else was on the floor.
Aurelie.
He stood there, suspended in shock, in memory, and then, swearing again, he strode towards her. She was slumped in the corner of the room, wearing an absurdly short dress, her legs splayed out like spent matchsticks.
He crouched in front of her, felt her pulse. It seemed steady, but what did he really know about pulses? Or pop stars? He glanced at her face, which looked pale and was lightly beaded with sweat. Actually, now that he looked at her properly, she looked awful. He supposed she was pretty in a purely objective sense, with straight brownish-blonde hair and a lithe, slender figure, but her face was drawn and grey and she looked way too thin.
He touched her cheek and found her skin clammy. He reached for his cell phone to dial 911, his heart beating far too hard. She must have overdosed on something. He’d never expected to see this scenario twice in one lifetime, and the remembered panic iced in his veins.
Then her eyes fluttered open and his hand slackened on the phone. Luke felt something stir inside him at the colour of her eyes. They were slate-blue, the colour of the Atlantic on a cold, grey day, and they swirled with sorrow. She blinked blearily, struggled to sit up. Her gaze focused in on him and something cold flashed in their blue depths. ‘Aren’t you handsome,’ she mumbled, and the relief he felt that she was okay was blotted out by a far more familiar determination.
‘Right.’ He hauled her up by the armpits and felt her sag helplessly against him. She’d looked thin slumped on the floor, and she felt even more fragile in his arms. Fragile and completely out of it. ‘What did you take?’ he demanded. She lolled her head back to blink up at him, her lips curving into a mocking smile.
‘Whatever it was, it was a doozy.’
Luke scooped her up in his arms and stalked over to the bathroom. He ran a basin full of cold water and in one quick and decisive movement plunged the pop star’s face into the icy bowlful.
She came up like a scalded cat, spluttering and swearing.
‘What the hell—?’
‘Sobered up a bit now, have you?’
She sluiced water from her face and turned to glare at him with narrowed eyes. ‘Oh, yes, I’m sober. Who are you?’
‘Luke Bryant.’ He heard his voice, icy with suppressed rage. Damn her for scaring him. For making him remember. ‘I’m paying you to perform, princess, so I’ll give you five minutes to pull yourself together and get down there.’ She folded her arms, her eyes still narrowed, her face still grey and gaunt. ‘And put some make-up on,’ Luke added as he turned to leave. ‘You look like hell.’
Aurelie Schmidt—not many people knew about the Schmidt—wiped the last traces of water from her face and blinked hard. Stupid man. Stupid gig. Stupid her, for coming today at all. For trying to be different.
She drew in a shuddering breath and grabbed a chocolate bar from her bag. Unwrapping it in one vicious movement, she turned to stare at the clothes scattered across the impromptu dressing room. Jenna, the Bryant stooge who had acted as her handler, had been horrified by her original choice of outfit.
‘But you’re Aurelie … You have an image …’
An image that was five years past its sell-by date, but people still wanted to see it. They wanted to see her, although whether it was because they actually liked her songs or just because they hoped to see her screw up one more time was open to debate.
And so she’d forsaken the jeans and floaty top she’d been wanting to wear and shimmied into a spangly minidress instead. She’d just been about to do her make-up when she must have passed out. And Mr Bossy Bryant had come in and assumed the worst. Well, she could hardly blame him. She’d done the worst too many times to get annoyed when someone jumped to that rather obvious conclusion.
Clearly she was late, so she wolfed down her chocolate bar and then did the quick version of her make-up: blush, concealer, eyeliner and a bold lipstick. Her hair looked awful but at least she could turn it into a style. She pulled it up in a messy up-do and sprayed it to death. People would like seeing her a little off her game anyway. It was, she suspected, why they were here; it was why the tabloids still rabidly followed her even though she hadn’t released a single in over four years. Everyone wanted to see her fail.
It had been a good twenty minutes since she was meant to perform her once-hit single Take Me Down, and Aurelie knew the audience would be getting restless. And Luke Bryant would be getting even more annoyed. Her lips curved in a cynical smile as she turned to leave the break room. Luke Bryant obviously had extremely low expectations of her. Well, he could just join the club.
Stepping onto a stage—even a makeshift one like this—always felt like an out-of-body experience to Aurelie. Any sense of self fell away and she simply became the song, the dance, the performance. Aurelie as the world had always known her.
The crowd in front of her blurred into one faceless mass and she reached for the mike. Her stiletto heel caught in a gap in the floor of the stage and for a second she thought she was going to pitch forward. She heard the sudden collective intake of breath, knew everyone was waiting, even hoping, she’d fall flat on her face. She righted herself, smiled breezily and began to sing.
Usually she wasn’t aware of what she was doing onstage. She just did it. Sing, slink, shimmy, smile. It was second nature to her now, first nature, because performing—being someone else—felt far easier than being herself. And yet right there in the middle of all that fakery she felt something inside her still and go silent, even as she sang.
Standing on the side of the makeshift stage, away from the audience assembled in the lobby, Luke Bryant was staring right at her, his face grim, his eyes blazing. And worse, far worse, since he should be staring at her, was the realisation that she was staring back at him. And some part of herself could not look away even as she turned back to face the crowd.
Luke watched as Aurelie began her routine, and knew that was what it was. She was on autopilot, but