I barely lifted my eyes. “Yeah?”
His face twisted in disbelief. “We’ve been waiting for this album for four years. You haven’t toured in five.” He spat the words. “You’ve been idle for fucking years, Ciarán. Are you even an artist anymore?”
I shrugged. “And?”
“And?” he repeated, shaking his head. He started over, his voice lowering into a condescending lilt. “I get what you went through. You should be over it by now, though.”
My jaw ticked. My hands curled into fists in my lap.
How do you put a time limit on nearly losing your mind and the woman you loved?
“Finish the fucking album,” he growled, slamming a contract onto the table, “or I sue your ass—and Jordin Black.”
I flinched.Jordin Black.I hadn’t purposely spoken her name in four years. I thought about her every minute of everyday but couldn’t bring myself to actually say her name. I hadn’t even gone back to my own house because it screamed of her. I knew she was gone; the security system had been armed and never disarmed again. After the first year of calls, she’d stopped. I wasn’t disrupting her life anymore.
I swallowed hard, my throat burning, then leaned back and lifted my chin. “How much to get out of it?”
Tyrell—my manager—spoke before Whitmore could. “Whoa, now. Wait.” His voice was tight with warning. “That’s forty-five million to buy out your contract. Another fifteen for breach. That’s sixty fucking million, C. That’ll make you broke.”
“I don’t care,” I said, and I meant it.
Tyrell slammed his hand on the table. “The fuck you mean, you don’t care?” He turned to Whitmore. “Can I talk to him alone?”
Whitmore let out a laugh. “You better talk some sense into him.” He shot me a final glare before storming out.
The second the door shut, Tyrell let loose. “You lost your damn mind?”
I exhaled, rubbing a hand down my face. “I ain’t singing, Ty. I don’t feel like it. I haven’t felt like it in years.”
He stared at me, a portrait of disappointment. “I get it, man. I do. But you gonna go broke on purpose? What about Jordin?”
I stiffened. “Thisisabout her. I’m saving her from me. From this.”
Tyrell rolled his eyes. “So you don’t want to see her? Work with her again?”
“No,” I lied. But what the fuck was I supposed to do to make up for ignoring her for years? I didn’t want her to see me at my worst—and I’d made worse.
“Then why you be spraying her perfume on your bed? All over your house. You miss her.”
I snapped my head up, glaring. “You watching me now, nigga?”
“I manage you, motherfucker. And you’ve been walking around like a ghost for four years. So yeah, I notice shit.” He exhaled, trying to calm down. “Look. I can make it so you don’t have to see her. She can work with you like she did Ezra Lane.”
I froze. Glaring at him? He had dropped Ezra as a client, which was the only reason I still was one.
Jordan had written for Ezra. They’d never been in the same room. Never interacted. Just files sent back and forth. I still had the recording where I made her cum on beat.
The thought of working with Jordin again, even from a distance, made me feel something for the first time in years.
I ran my tongue over my teeth and sighed. “Fine.”
Tyrell nodded, relieved. “Good. We’ll figure this shit out. Just don’t do anything stupid.”
Later That Night
I was halfway through a blunt—medical marijuana—staring out at the city lights from my penthouse in Atlanta when my phone rang.
Avian. It had been a couple of weeks since she’d called.
