Rock Star: The Contest (Book 2 of a Bad Boy Romance) (10 page)

Ah what the hell, I was never one for planning. I banged on the door and stepped to the side. I didn’t want her seeing through the peephole who it was. She had been into the café several times since arriving in Lakeside, and she had seen me at the cabin. She would likely be on high alert. No doubt she fully expected Meghan to try something. This had to be convincing.

Just I couldn’t think of anything.

I heard footsteps approach the door. I moved to one side.

“Who is it?”

I ground my teeth together. Damn.

“Hello?”

“Room service,” I said in a high-pitched voice.

“Not today.”

“Ah madam, I have a special gift from management.”

That was all it took. I heard the click of the latch and the door cracked open. In a flash I burst in.

“
W
hat the hell
is going on?” Leann yelled as I shoved my way in and kicked the door closed with my foot.

“Quiet down. This won’t take long.”

“You’re that guy who works at Meghan’s coffeehouse. I should have known she was behind this. Get out now.”

“Listen up,” I moved towards her. Every step I took forward, she took several back. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help you.”

“What? I don’t need your help.”

“Oh I think you want to hear this.”

She flipped her hair over her shoulder and grabbed a bottle of Evian water. I gazed around the hotel room. It was immaculate. The whole place smelled like strawberries. I hadn’t ever seen her close up before. But one thing for sure, she was hot. She was the kind of girl that you wanted to have sex with, but not the girl you would want to bring home to introduce to your mother.

“I already have enough information on them both.”

“Right. You want Meghan to leave the contest. I get that. But you don’t realize that if you show that video, you will also be kicked out.”

“Bullshit. They would have no reason to. I would get my father to sue them.”

I laughed and slumped down on the couch, put my feet up and grabbed a handful of nuts from a side table and started tossing them into my mouth.

“Where you from?”

She scowled but walked around the room as though she was in charge. She didn’t appear scared in the least. It was if having a guy barge into a room was pretty normal for her.

“New York.”

“Let me guess, your parents own restaurants? Or are in the music business?”

“No, they own a hotel chain. You’ve probably heard of it.”

“No.”

She rolled her eyes.

“What is it with you backward town people? Don’t you ever get out of this town? I couldn’t stand living in this place. I’m already starting to hate being here.”

“Did you audition to get into this?”

“My father has connections.”

I grabbed a bottle of water off the side table and cracked it open.

“Well, sit your cute ass down here and I will spill the beans on why I’m here.”

I scanned the table and saw the diamond encrusted phone sitting there. I shuffled over to be closer to it, but she picked it up and flipped through it.

“Expecting a call?”

“Messaging the police.”

I laughed. “No, you’re not.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“Because if you wanted to kick up a fuss you would have made a dash for the front door by now. You are worried about what they have on you, don’t you?”

“I’m curious. Yes. But not worried.”

“Right. Of course. Listen, let’s face it, you are a better singer.”

I couldn’t believe I was saying it. She sucked bad but it had to be said.

“So why not just blow Meghan out of the water?”

“I could do that, but it’s much more fun to see her humiliate herself.”

“True. True.”

“Why are you interested in helping me? You work for her? I would have imagined you were on her side.”

“Ah, that’s where you would be wrong. I am one hair away from leaving that coffeehouse. I’m a guitarist. I have a bright future ahead of me. I don’t need their crap.”

“What crap?”

“Having me be their errand boy.”

“So she did put you up to this?”

“No. I’m doing this for myself. You see, for a long time I have been in love with that girl, and she has ignored me. Now I see her with this Chase guy. Yeah, I don’t like it one bit. Now I’ve seen the way you look at Chase. You like him.”

“Don’t we all.”

I sniffed. “Well, I don’t.”

“Now the way I see it, you want Chase and to win the competition, am I getting warm?”

“Continue.”

“Now you could have her eliminate herself, but as you know she’s already in a relationship with Chase. You would only piss him off and that would likely work against you. So what I’m proposing is you force him into a situation where you get both. Him and the winning hand.”

“And how do you expect that to happen?”

I noticed her put down her phone.

“I simply put in a word with Meghan, to say that you want one thing and then you will delete the video you created. That one thing is to see Chase in person. Then you just work your gorgeous New York charm and he will be eating out of your palm, or wherever you want him to eat.”

My eyebrows shot up and I saw a glint in her eye.

“You could arrange for him to see me?”

“You and I both know, he loves women, and let’s face it, you are far more beautiful than Meghan. She’s bland. You are divine.”

I could see she was loving the attention. All girls like her lived for this. That’s what made them act up. They wanted to be the center of the world. They wanted men to hang on their every word. They wanted men to lust after them. Chase them. And bend over backwards for them. I was simply offering her a way to get Chase to do that. The girl couldn’t see the forest for the trees. It wasn’t rocket science.

“Chase dumps Meghan, she more than likely will step out of the competition before you even reach the finals. I swoop in and get Meghan.”

“I don’t know what you see in her.”

“Well, let’s face it. I wouldn’t be interested in her, if a woman like you was interested in me. But be honest. Would I stand a chance with the likes of you?”

“I see your point.”

“A guy can’t be picky. I will take my small-town girl and you can take your uptown man.”

I really wasn’t sure if she was buying it. Sure she was ditzy and had spent most of her upbringing eating out of the hand of her wealthy parents, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t smart. She had been smart enough to video them both. Smart enough to follow them to the cottage.

I tossed a few more nuts in my mouth and gazed around the room, giving her a false sense that I had it all figured out.

“So I don’t delete the video?”

“No. You keep that as insurance. Just in case things go sour. What I’m suggesting is you rethink the plan. Get what you want. Not just a title, but the guy as well.”

She stood up still holding the phone. Put it down, I said quietly to myself. Put it down.

“I like the way you think. For a moment I thought I was going to have to call the police. But you make a good point. Let’s give it a go. But listen. You only have until tonight to do this. You screw it up, I hand over the video to the judges and they both can kiss their ass goodbye. I’m not stupid.”

“Never said you was. I think you are pretty smart actually. Smart and good-looking.”

She sat back down and placed her phone on the table.

“So what time will you arrange for me to meet him and what will you say?”

“Five o’clock. How’s that work for you?”

“Fine. And?”

“Like I said. He comes here thinking you are going to hand over the video. Boom. You work that tight little ass of yours.”

Her nostrils flared. OK, maybe a little too much.

“What can I say, you have a nice ass.”

She smiled, enjoying the compliment even if it came out the wrong way.

“Well, that should do it.”

As I got up, I nudged the table with my leg and the open water bottle knocked over and water spilled all over the table.

“Oh you idiot.”

“Ah, room service will clean it up.”

As she tried to protect her bag, I reached for her phone and tapped the corner with the magnet. It didn’t take long to work. Few people even knew about this hack. I had learned it from a friend of mine who was notorious for stealing phones. Obviously he needed a way to get into them. That’s when he figured out how magnets allowed you to bypass the need for the PIN code entry.

“Just gonna use your bathroom.”

I took the phone with me and entered. I turned on the tap and began rooting around in her phone. It didn’t take me long to find the video. I hit delete and then checked her email and the cloud, just in case she had sent it. There was nothing. I had to assume that she hadn’t thought of doing that.

When I came out she was standing there with her hands on her hips.

“Nice try. Give me the phone.”

I handed it to her.

“Just wanted to give you my digits.”

She flipped through the phone, her face starting to get red. Which reassured me that she had only one copy. No panic if you have a backup. She was panicking.

“You deleted it.”

“Of course. I’m in love with her.”

“This was all just a ploy.”

“No, you will still see him tonight. You have my word on that.”

“Why? Why would you go to the trouble now that you have removed the file?”

I turned and went to leave.

“Small-town mind, I guess. I want to see the back of him. You want him. It’s a win-win situation.”

She exhaled hard, and scowled.

“You better not fail.”

“I won’t.”

“
Y
ou agreed to what
?” Meghan looked as if she was about to bust a gasket.

Chase was with her in her apartment at the café when I returned. They both seemed eager to know how it went. I felt pretty confident about it all.

“Relax. We’re not going do it. Your secret is safe.”

“That’s if she doesn’t have another copy of it.”

I shook my head. “When she found out I had deleted it…”

“Found out?”

“OK, so the plan went a bit south. I improvised. Listen, you don’t need to worry.”

Meghan paced up and down. Chase looked equally disturbed.

“Look, I’ve done my job here. You lovebirds can get back to whatever the hell you were doing. I’m going back to work.”

I left them alone and went downstairs. Sophie was sucking face with Teddy. I blew out my cheeks and went about attending to the line of customers.

* * *

“
I
f he says
it’s OK, it’s done. We are in the clear.”

“You don’t know Spike. He has a way of screwing things up.”

“Anyway, how did you convince him to do it?”

I slumped down across from him. “We had a little get-together the other night. Nothing special.”

“He likes you, doesn’t he?”

I cast my eyes away. “Yeah. But I’ve told him we are seeing each other.”

“Anything I should be worried about?”

“No.”

“Don’t lead him on.”

“Did you really say that? Like I would do that?”

He laughed, getting up and heading toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I have a few things to get done in preparation for tonight. As much as I would love to hang out here all day.”

“Well, don’t I get a kiss?”

His lip curled up as he came over and placed his warm mouth over mine.

* * *

T
o think
she had gone to all that trouble for me was nerve-wracking to say the least. I had thought about Meghan often since I had arrived in Lakeside. It wouldn’t be long before I would be on the road again. And I could be gone for an entire year. Long-distance relationships didn’t work. I had tried them a few times and they always ended up the same. Breaking up.

I had thought about what might happen if she didn’t win the contest. I didn’t tell her that the thought had passed through my mind. But the other contestants were good. Really good. The competition was stiff. These were guys and girls who had been around the block. They had put in the time and written their own songs. They were ready for the next stage in being an artist. Meghan, however, was a different story entirely. She was rough, raw around the edges. She was naïve about the way things worked in the industry. At least that’s what I had picked up on. She had the talent. There was no doubt about that. She could sing the roof off a stadium, but she couldn’t play an instrument. The others could. That immediately set them apart from her. Singers were a dime a dozen in the industry. Sure, if you could sing well you could have a good career, but with the ease of uploading a video, more and more kids were being discovered online. Most had killer voices. But it was those who possessed that little bit more. A gift for music. The ones who could play guitar, or piano. They stood out and in this contest that was a huge factor that I knew the other two judges were looking at.

The truth was, I had more faith in her than the suits ever would. All they saw was money. If you could bring in the money, they didn’t care whether you could play an instrument or not.

The votes were strong for the other contestants. She had fared well throughout the contest but in reality, she needed a few more years to hone her talent. To get on the music circuit and play in front of live audiences. The other contestants had done that, many times. There was something to be said about those who had done their time in the trenches, so to speak. Very few artists were one-hit wonders. Occasionally a prodigy would come along. But usually they were gifted in both singing and playing an instrument. I was hung on that one thing.

If she didn’t win, or make it into the finals, I knew that it would be it for both of us. I couldn’t stick around Lakeside for the next year while she prepared herself for season four. Hell, I didn’t even know where I would be at that point. My feelings might have changed. They did often. What I felt one day, changed the next.

She needed to win, for us to stand a chance together. Being on the road together, that was another thing entirely. Seeing her occasionally was nice, but seeing her all the time? That’s how many of my relationships had gone bad. The magic, the mystery vanishes and they see you in your full glory. Flawed.

No, I knew what I had to do.