* * *
I’m reaching out regarding potential production work on an upcoming project for Raine Dennison.
This project will involve production and recording for a complete album. We are flexible as to the location and schedule. Given recent developments with this artist, we are seeking a producer with a strong creative point of view and the ability to work independently.
If you’re open to further discussion, please reply, letting me know your availability in the coming week.
* * *
Quentin read the email through twice before sitting back in the chair to absorb it—but he didn’t delete it. The offer was promising…but there was a huge problem. The artist was none other than Raine Dennison. That girl was a hot fucking mess, even more likely to garner negative press than he’d been in the day. How would that affect his reputation?
Was that why they were throwing him this bone? Because no one else would touch that girl with a thirty-foot pole? Did they think he was that fucking stupid and willing to trash what little he had left to deal with that girl’s dumpster fire career—especially over the last show she’d done? Quentin might not have been in the loop like he’d been in the day, but everyone the world over knew how she’d trashed her career in front of an audience of thousands.
Still…he didn’t delete the email. Despite his hesitation, he was curious and more than a little interested.
But he didn’t reply, either.
He was going to have to sleep on this—because saying no might be just another nail in his career coffin…but bringing someone like Raine Dennison here to his sanctuary could disrupt everything he’d worked so hard to build.
Either way, it might be the worst decision of his entire goddamned life.
Chapter 3
The next morning, Raine had her battered, faded blue spiral notebook spread across her lap as she wrote words for a song she might never have the chance to sing for an audience:
* * *
You use me.
I like it.
You play me.
I ask for more.
You rape me.
I bend over.
You steal me.
* * *
As she tried to think of the next line, her phone screen lit up with a notification.
Fucking Mal. Why couldn’t he leave her alone just for a day or two?
But, of course, he wanted her to move quickly before the label changed their mind about their offer yesterday—and she hated feeling that fucking pressure. With a sigh, she closed the notebook because, much as she hated it, she knew he was probably right.
Still, she stared at the notification for more than a minute before responding. His message said, Can you meet at the Starbucks a block from your apartment today? We need to talk.
Yeah…Mal always needed to talk.
But maybe she needed to get this shit over with.
After coming home yesterday from the meeting at the studio, she’d fallen into bed and slept until morning—a full nineteen hours—and had felt like she could have stayed under the covers even longer. But she’d forced herself up and into the shower. She’d been drinking coffee already and hadn’t had a bite…so maybe, if nothing else, she could find something to eat at Starbucks.
If she could keep it down. It all depended on whatever Mal had to say.
