Читать книгу Everything to Me - Simona Taylor - Страница 11

Chapter 3

The men exchanged muffled goodbyes and there was the sound of the front door closing. Then, a presence in the doorway. She spun around.

Trent stood just a few feet before her, hands on hips, contemplating. The forced intimacy of shared quarters made it hard for her to breathe.

“Traveling’s a real bitch,” he finally said, sounding sympathetic. “You must be tired.”

She was way too keyed up to be tired. “I’m…fine, thank you.” She was carefully polite: as tense as the situation was, she couldn’t forget she was here due only to his kindness.

“Good. Why don’t we take twenty to freshen up? Then we can head out to the dining room and see what they’re offering.”

Eat. With him?

Her hesitation was just shy of being damn rude.

“Hey,” he said reasonably, with that same easy smile that made him as much of a star as his singers, “if the Pilgrims and the Indians could call a truce long enough to eat…”

She could have countered with a sharp rejoinder about smallpox-infected blankets, but good manners forced her simply to nod in mute, weary gratitude.

He accepted her concession with the satisfaction of a man used to winning. “Twenty minutes, then.” He headed back to his room.

* * *

“Anything you don’t eat?” Trent asked as he studied the menu. All around them, guests were already dining in the gorgeously decorated hall. The meals were included in the price of the stay, so most of the hotel guests stayed on the grounds for dinner. The vaulted ceiling was bright white, and the glow from small lamps on each table danced along its surface like a light show.

Dakota sat in the comfortable polished teak chair, several degrees cooler now that she’d showered and changed into a light linen sleeveless dress with a square-cut neckline. She could have sworn for a second that, upon first seeing her, Trent’s eyes had lingered briefly at her bare collarbone before sliding downward and away, but she could be mistaken.

The air was filled with the dizzying scent of hot food, an opulent blend of roasted meats, baked yams and potatoes, and vegetables drizzled with olive oil. A sharp pang of hunger stabbed at her, reminding her it had been hours since she’d had anything.

“I’m not normally fussy, but I hope the soup of the day isn’t goat liver or something weird like that.” She was startled to find her sense of humor hadn’t abandoned her.

In response, the rigid squareness of his shoulders softened a little, letting her know she wasn’t the only one anxious over their arrangements. “Well, they cater to Americans and Europeans, so I’m sure they’ll have something less exotic for the guests. And I think that soup you’re talking about is called mannish water. It’s Jamaican, not Tobagonian.”

“Well, if I ever go there, I’m not having any.” She ran her finger around the top of her water glass, glad for something to focus on. Anything to keep her eyes off him.

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” He seemed as relieved as she was to have something safe to talk about. As if food could be a safe topic in a place like Rapture. From what she’d seen so far, she’d be grateful if the coconut mousse wasn’t molded in the shape of a penis.

As for her sense of adventure? She was having dinner in the least likely of places with the least likely of people. This was enough adventure for her.

At the next table, a movement caught her eye. A long-haired young man with deep blue eyes reached across the table to his companion, a champagne flute in his hand, and slowly drew the chilled glass over her left nipple. The woman laughed, and her physical reaction to the icy contact was instantly obvious as the small, hardened bump poked through the thin satin of her blouse. That simple gesture was so outrageously erotic that Dakota sucked in a lungful of air, shocked at herself for watching.

She exhaled through pursed lips, commanding her body to be still. Many dangers lurked in this place. One night, she reminded herself. It’s just for one night.

She could tell Trent was studying her reaction. The low light made long feathery shadows of his lashes. She noticed for the first time that a tiny mole perched near the corner of his lower lip. On a woman, it would have been a beauty mark. On a man, it was…something else. His smile was lazy, his gaze assessing. “I’ve never met a reporter who was a prude,” he remarked.

“I’m a columnist, not a reporter,” she answered, dragging her gaze away from the most erotic sight she’d seen in a long time. Upon deeper thought, it would have been a very long time since she’d even experienced something so erotic.

“I stand corrected.” He tilted his head in the direction of the couple, who were about five minutes from getting it on right there at the table. “This really bothers you.” It was a statement, not a question.

“No, it doesn’t,” she lied, and felt her face flush. “I’m not opposed to PDA, per se,” she added, hating the primness in her voice.

“Just in my presence?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

A waitress arrived just in time to save her from his response. Trent asked the waitress to surprise them with their meals, which shocked the hell out of Dakota.

“Adventure,” she noted dryly.

“I embrace it whenever it presents itself,” he shot back smartly. Then his brow furrowed a bit. “Although maybe I should stop short of ordering red wine with the meal?”

She knew at once what he was referring to: her wine-pouring escapade at the cocktail party seven months ago. He’d deserved it, she reminded herself, for his behavior. Rather than be embarrassed, she felt a grin break out. “I think your odds are good tonight.”

“They’d better be. Don’t want to lose another shirt.”

“I sent you a replacement. Didn’t it fit?”

“Perfectly,” he conceded. “You have a very good eye.”

A clear implication that she’d been looking at him long and hard enough to correctly guess his size. She debunked that at once. “It was a wild guess.”

He gracefully let the matter drop, and they settled on cashew wine. The waitress floated away, promising them she’d be back with their dinner “just now.” At that, Trent’s lip twitched.

“What?”

“Nothing, but maybe you ought to fill in the cracks with a few breadsticks while we wait.”

She’d heard enough about island service to think that was a good idea. As she broke off a crumbly piece of bread and slipped it into her mouth, she hoped they’d be too busy nibbling to make much small talk. No such luck.

“What’re your plans for tomorrow?” he asked.

“Find a hotel,” popped out of her before she could restrain it.

“I’m sure that’ll be a priority,” he agreed. “I meant, apart from that.”

“Oh,” she said with deliberate casualness. “I think I’ll go down to the festival site and get started on my interviews.”

He tautened visibly, but his voice was steady. “Do you already have appointments booked?”

“Of course, a few,” she said noncommittally, and couldn’t stop herself from adding, “but none with your people.”

He smiled like a wolf. “Did they all turn you down? Even Mango Mojo? Those youngsters would grant an interview with a supermarket rag if they thought it would give them more exposure.”

The comparison between her nationally syndicated column and a write-up in a tabloid stung like blazes. She worked hard on her craft and was well respected in many entertainment circles for her writing. The fact that Trent seemed stubbornly intent on not acknowledging her successes rankled. But instead of defending her work, she retorted, “Yeah, they all turned down my requests. And why wouldn’t they? You obviously told them to avoid me like I’ve got leprosy.”

His face didn’t even twitch. “I gave no such instruction.”

“Oh, don’t ask me to believe—”

“I’m their producer, not their publicist. I don’t decide who they talk to and who they don’t—”

“But you must have let on how you feel about me,” she argued.

He shrugged. “I’ve never made my feelings a secret. Anyone who knows anything about the industry knows what went down last year, and what happened after your column hit the newsstands.”

What went down last year…as if she needed a reminder. Shanique was enjoying a meteoric rise up music’s A-list, was on the second album of a four-disc deal with Trent’s Outlandish Music and had celebrity endorsements piled up to her impressively sculpted butt. Those who’d noted a few cracks appearing in her stunning facade had chosen to overlook the growing problems. There was talk of her losing her voice, her edge. She’d denied it, claiming that her album and concert sales were proof enough that she was still on top of her game. Until Dakota’s story broke that instead of singing live at her sold-out concerts, Shanique, due to her overindulgent drug use, had been lip-synching to the voice of another singer, hidden backstage.

Dakota’s solid connection with the right person… She stopped midthought. Truth be told, she could hardly call her source the right person, considering how much pain he’d caused her. Deliberately, carefully, she rephrased, even if it was only inside her head. Her solid, well-connected source had gotten her the exclusive and all the proof the doubters needed. It was the exposé of Dakota’s career. Shanique had denied it until she was purple, sobbing to anyone who would listen that she’d been set up, and the whole thing was a ruse to make her look bad. While some of her fans took it in stride—stuff like that did happen in the music business, after all—others were outraged at spending their hard-earned money on tickets to hear someone else sing. Websites and Facebook pages sprang up overnight, boycotting her concerts and demanding their ticket money back. Parodies of her fraudulent performance went viral on YouTube. The sponsors took notice. Endorsement deals dried up like a creek in Death Valley.

Trent’s reputation also took a hit. Questions rolled in. As Shanique’s producer—and rumored lover—had he known about her subterfuge? Did he willfully aid and abet? Had it been his idea all along? His publicist had released a statement expressing concern for Shanique’s well-being, while stopping short of admitting any involvement in the lip-synching debacle. Nonetheless, the damage was done.

Their waitress arrived with steaming bowls of dark green soup, just in time to stop Dakota from getting further sucked into the depths of Trent’s accusing gaze. He seemed glad for the distraction. “Callaloo soup,” he informed her, reading off a small card that came with the meal. “It’s like spinach.”

She’d have eaten warmed-up tar if it meant they could change the subject. She sipped experimentally and discovered it was pretty good.

That could have put an end to the conversation, but the man had a one-track mind. “I never banned them from giving you an interview, Dakota.”

There: he was using her name again. She swallowed a mouthful of hot liquid. “But they won’t.”

He shrugged eloquently.

“And neither will you,” she couldn’t resist pointing out.

“Did you expect me to?” The thought seemed to amuse him.

“Not since…my story, sure. I understand that. But you turned me down well before—”

“I’m not very good with the media,” he responded offhandedly.

“Then you’re in the wrong field.”

He gave her a slow smile, one that had a curious effect on her stomach. “Oh, I’m pretty sure I’m in the right field. Music is my life, and my life is music. I’m just lucky I can afford to hire people to handle stuff I’d rather not do.”

“Such as interviews with bottom-feeding scavengers like myself.” She quoted one of the last things he’d said to her at the cocktail party months ago. Even to her own ears, she still sounded hurt.

He must have heard it, too, because he leaned forward, and his self-satisfied smile faded. “I apologize if my words were a little…harsh. I’m not normally that uncouth. I was a bit ruffled at the time.”

He had been ruffled? Just thinking about the way he’d repeatedly dismissed her made her feathers curl. “You’re prejudiced,” she told him bluntly.

He looked shocked. “Excuse me?”

“You don’t know who I am or what I’m capable of. You treat me like I’m nothing more than a tabloid hack—”

“Your story on Shanique had all the hallmarks of a hack job—”

“It did not,” she defended herself hotly. She counted her points off on her fingers. “It was well researched, well substantiated and it turned out to be one hundred percent true. And yet you made a decision about me, and that’s the end of that,” Dakota said with finality. “You call yourself a businessman, but you don’t have the guts to change your mind once it’s made up. I’d have thought someone in your position would be more flexible.”

She went on, too upset to care if she was treading on his toes. “And furthermore, all you care about is how my column affected you and your precious goldmine. But Shanique needed to be reined in and helped, and nobody around her, none of you who knew her, did anything about it. I know that these days, the music business is more about image than substance—”

“Shanique has true talent,” he interrupted at once. “She has perfect pitch. Her vocal range spans almost four octaves.”

“It certainly didn’t last year,” Dakota shot back. “Or she wouldn’t have had to get help from an out-of-work R&B singer called Michelle.” She was surprised at how upset she was getting at his instinctive defense of his superstar. She slapped her hand on the table to make her point. “Shanique’s fans didn’t deserve to be cheated out of their hard-earned money. What she did to her fans and to her body was wrong, and somebody had to say something.”

“And secure their own writing career while they’re at it,” he countered scornfully.

She ignored the assault on her motives. “I know I did the right thing. Did you?”

From the way he flinched, she could tell her barb had struck a nerve. She pressed home her advantage. “Not only that, but you compounded the appearance of guilt by saying precious little. You’ve consistently glossed over every single question aimed at you about the whole affair.”

“I believe it’s my constitutional right to—”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “You know the music business better than that. If there’s a void in information, people will fill it with whatever suits their fancy. Not facing it head-on only makes you look worse.”

“Worse?”

“That you were complicit in the drug use. That you were a party to—or even the mastermind behind—the whole lip-synching scam.”

“Operational issues such as her concert performances are the responsibility of her manager, not her producer,” he protested.

“You work closely with all your acts. You had to have known.”

His light skin took on a mottled hue; he was mighty irritated but struggling to hide it. Take that, she thought.

The waitress glided back into view, whisked away their soup bowls, and set down aromatic, steaming dishes. Like their appetizer, the meal came with a little menu card, which listed the featured food: spit-roasted chicken, herbed grouper and tomatoes stuffed with saffron rice. Glasses of amber-colored cashew wine were placed next to each plate.

When Dakota lifted her glass, her hand shook slightly. “Cheers,” she said, clinging to her cool.

“The same.” He lifted his glass to her.

Silence followed as they ate. Then, halfway through their meal, “Go ahead. Shoot.”

She frowned. “What?”

“You wanted to interview me? Ask me a question.”

Her little potshots had worked? Seriously? A man’s ego really was his weakness. She looked around, flustered. “But I haven’t prepared. I need notes…a recorder…”

“I’ll bet you have an excellent memory.”

She did, but still… “Here? Now?”

“Now or never.” He was challenging her, testing to see what she was made of.

But her triumph had fizzled. He’d thrown her off balance with his acquiescence, and all she could manage was a weak, “How old are you?”

“Thirty-four, but everybody knows that. That all you got?” His toffee-colored eyes were taunting.

She wished she had a paper napkin, anything to scribble a few notes on. What she really needed was a minute to clear her head. “What made you get into the music business?”

He opened his hands in an expansive gesture. “Are you writing for the school paper?”

He was right; she was handling this like a cub reporter. She bought herself a moment by taking a bite of the delicious chicken, asking herself what it was about him that so unnerved her. She was a writer, and a good one, and had done interviews with subjects far tougher than he. She needed to find her mettle.

She set her knife and fork down, straightened her spine, and nailed him to his chair with a look. “Mr. Walker,” she demanded, “Did you have anything to do with Shanique’s lip-synching scandal? When she stopped singing live at her concerts, and started using a voice double…when she started cheating her fans…did you know?”

He set down his cutlery as well, finished his cashew wine, and steepled his fingers. “You used my last name, you know. You owe Declan a buck.”

She reached into her bag, extracted a dollar between two fingers, and laid it on the table before him. “Toss it into the jar next time you pass. Now answer the question.”

He sighed heavily. “I knew. I was dead set against it. When Shanique’s voice started to go, because of the…” He paused.

“Drug abuse,” she added helpfully.

He nodded. “I considered canceling the last few concerts. She almost lost her mind…and so did the backers. My financiers.”

“You’d have lost millions.”

“Correct.”

“So you decided the show had to go on.”

“As I said, I didn’t decide. The music director, her voice coach and other…interested parties…thought it would be best for all involved. Shanique just had a few more shows to go before her tour ended, and then she could get some rest. And some…”

“Help.”

“Correct,” he said tautly.

She took one more step onto dangerous ground, and behind her, the path to safety faded in the distance. “Did you know she was using?”

The answer was curt. “I knew.”

“And you did nothing?”

His expression darkened. “I know you don’t think much of me, but no, not even a dipstick like me would sit by and watch a woman destroy herself. I tried talking to her. I scheduled appointments with a therapist. She missed all of them. I was setting things in place for an intervention when…” A disgusted huff escaped his clenched teeth. “When your unnamed friend slipped you the details of this story. And the rest, as they say…” He trailed off.

The wine went sour in her mouth. When her column first hit, she’d received a furious call from Trent himself, demanding that she tell him how she’d gotten her hands on the information, but she’d remained professionally silent. She followed the first rule of journalism: protect your source. And in her case, she had more than one good reason to do so. She wondered what he’d say if he only knew exactly who that friend was.

She couldn’t…could not look at him. Her gaze dropped to her plate, and she discovered that the sight and smell of the meal she’d been enjoying so much had become overpowering. Her stomach rolled.

“Shanique made her own choices,” Dakota reminded him. “When you look at the bare bones of the case, she only has herself to blame.”

“She did make her own choices,” Trent agreed softly, much to her surprise. “Bad ones.”

Dakota couldn’t help but notice the tenderness with which Trent spoke of Shanique and her problem. Realization dawned. “It was you who made her go into rehab after…you know.”

He nodded.

A memory resurfaced of Shanique outside the doors of an expensive rehab clinic, flashbulbs popping, a forest of microphones in her face as the newshounds, having caught wind of her presence, had converged on the scene. Tearfully apologizing for her actions, begging her fans to forgive her, promising she’d be back on stage once she was clean again. Trent had stood stoically by her side, his face a mask, eyes hidden behind dark glasses. One arm around her shoulders, the other urging the media back when they got too close. He was a silent, solid rock.

His protective body language, the way he positioned himself between Shanique and the aggressive slew of reporters, had spoken volumes. Only a man who loved a woman took that stance. Even as she asked the question, she knew there was no way he could deny it.

“You and Shanique really are romantically involved.”

He looked directly into her eyes. “Are we involved? No.”

She gasped. He was lying to her face! “How can you sit there and deny—”

“I’m not denying,” he said crisply. “I’m being precise. Shanique and I aren’t romantically involved, as you so delicately put it. Not now. We were. Past tense.”

She tried to conceal her satisfaction, tried to put a lid on her rising excitement, but it was difficult. To her knowledge, Trent Walker had never publicly discussed his personal relationship with his biggest star, and here he was, admitting it to her. The next question was obvious. “What happened?”

“Rehab happened. Shanique’s career taking a nosedive happened.”

So the relationship had fallen apart in tandem with Shanique’s career. His glittering singing star had gone supernova, and he’d bailed. Trent must have blamed Dakota for both catastrophes.

“You…broke up with her when she went into rehab.”

His brows shot up, shock resonating in his voice. “I…? You must really think I’m a son of a bitch, huh?”

She was too confused by the passion in his response to speak.

She didn’t have to. He continued, his words like acid rain. “I would never abandon a woman at the darkest point of her life. As much as it would surprise you, she broke up with me.” The mole at the corner of his mouth was like a period at the end of an abrupt sentence.

He sat back, his rigid body going limp, the eyes that held hers losing focus as he gazed off into mid-

distance. To Dakota’s horror, a cloud of hurt and sadness drifted across his face. She was looking at a man who’d been burned, and who was tasting grief and rejection warmed over.

Then she understood. Dakota’s story had led to Shanique’s humiliation, which, in turn, had caused Shanique to push Trent away. No wonder Trent hated her.

To ask was to bring fire raining down onto her head, but she did so anyway. “Are you still in love with her?”

The warm eyes went cold. His chair scraped as he got abruptly to his feet. “Interview’s over, Merrick,” he told her.

He threw a dollar onto the table.