Raine simply nodded, biting her lower lip.
Soon, they were seated with Quentin holding his phone between them. It was on speaker and ringing. He punched a few numbers to make it through the automation and finally got a woman’s voice. “Crushed Velvet Records. How may I direct your call?”
“Tristan Jackson, please.”
“Who may I say is calling?”
“Quentin Russo. He’ll want to take my call.”
“One moment, please.”
Raine looked at Quentin, but his attention was on that screen, almost as if he could will the faces at the label to communicate with him. Generic elevator hold music wafted through his phone’s speaker, and, had it been any other day, Raine might have laughed. Crushed Velvet owned so many artists’ music; why didn’t they play some of that while people waited on hold?
But then she knew…having it used that way would cheapen the music. She would have been furious if they’d picked one of her songs to play on a loop while people waited to talk to the execs.
Why wasn’t the guy picking up?
When he finally did, he barely said hello before spitting out his next words. “Quentin, thank you for calling. We’ve been trying to get hold of both you and Raine. Do you know if she’s spoken with her manager yet?”
“Raine’s here. I’ll let her answer that.”
When Quentin nodded at her, she said, “I have several messages from Malachi, but we thought we should call you first.”
“I’m glad you did. I’ll bring him up to speed after this call, but first I need to ask: are you both aware of what’s happening?”
“That a snippet of a demo of one of Raine’s songs has been made public?” Quentin asked. “Yes, we’re fully aware.”
“We’ve got our marketing team working on it. They know how to handle these sorts of things, and they’ll come up with something to get this back under control.”
Raine said, “What do they have in mind?”
“I’m not sure, but trust that we have our best and brightest on it.”
“What do we need to do on our end?” Quentin asked.
“Nothing—yet. That’s to be determined. But, in the meantime, just know that there will be a team of us arriving at your studio later this afternoon to discuss next steps.”
Raine saw the way Quentin’s face tightened, because she could feel it happening in her gut as a shadow settled over them both. More than anything else, she realized that this sanctuary of Quentin’s had slowly become her safe haven—and it was about to be stormed by the whole fucking world.
Chapter 15
One thing Quentin Russo had never been accused of being was a gentleman. But he would try his damnedest to entertain these motherfuckers before shooing them off his property as soon as possible. It was bad enough that there was a maelstrom surrounding him now that people were speculating what he was working on…but it was evident how much this whole thing had triggered Raine, and he’d do his best to protect her from the fallout as much as he could.
Shortly after one o’clock, they arrived in an SUV that didn’t look much different from Raine’s—and he watched from his bedroom window as they filed out one at a time: no fewer than four suits, probably concerned that the dust in his driveway might get on their shoes.
Exiting his bedroom, Quentin paused at the landing between the split levels and called Raine’s name. “They’re here.” Then he walked toward the front door, arriving just as they approached it from the other side. “Come in,” he said, standing back so they could enter.
Originally, he’d thought of taking them to the studio and then thought better of it. That was the last place he wanted them.
It needed to stay safe for both Raine and himself.
He recognized Tristan, the gray-haired man from the label that he’d been dealing with, and Malachi Storm, Raine’s manager—but he now looked upon that fucker with contempt. He now knew all about that guy and they would never be friends.
Had this not been a business meeting, he didn’t know what he would have done to the guy.
“We can meet in the kitchen,” he said, leading them off to the left. There were just enough seats around the table, and if they had paperwork, it would be easy enough to shuffle it around. “I’ve got some coffee made if anyone wants a cup.”
“The last thing I want is coffee,” said Mal. “It’s ungodly hot out there. Do you have something cold?”
