Exclusive Contract (2 page)

“They're both being paid,” I argued. “Carter is paying
me
.”

Kent's blue-green eyes narrowed. “
I
am paying you, Miss Alton. Do not forget that.”

Next to me, I felt Rose stiffen, and Mr. Guire went still. Kent closed his eyes for the briefest of moments and sat back in his chair. When he opened his eyes again, the storm had calmed. For now. “These are the terms of the contract, Miss Alton. You may take it, or leave it. I'll not budge on it. Carter must redeem his image, and he needs to be seen with a more wholesome woman than his normal fare.”

Wholesome? Me? I looked around, wondering if there were a mirror nearby where I could check to see if I had accidentally become respectable overnight, but there was nothing. I turned back to Kent and set my shoulders.

“Just making out?” I said.

“Yes. Preferably where you will be photographed and noticed.”

No overtly sexual stuff. I took a deep breath. I could do that. Maybe after all this was over I could be an actress or something. “All right,” I said. “I can do that.”

Rose put her hand on my arm. “Do you want to talk about this first?” she asked. I almost said yes, but then wondered what there was to talk about. The contract clearly outlined that I was under no sexual obligations, and that the public displays of affection—
Hereafter known as PDAs,
I thought—were strictly business.

I shook my head. “I think I can handle it,” I said. “We can keep this strictly business, can't we, Mr. Hudson?”

Carter was staring at me, but he nodded. “Yes. Uh... This can stay strictly business. Definitely.”

There was a pregnant pause, and Kent cleared his throat. “Good,” he said. “That's settled. Let's go over the payment schedule, sign and get out of here.”

That part went quickly, and when we were done my head was reeling with the sums being thrown around. I could buy a car. Several new cars. On a month's salary
alone.
And not shitty cars; really good ones. I could pay off those student loans dogging me. I could get my own place after all this was finished. I could do anything.

Rose turned to me and gave me a searching look. “Do you need to ask me any questions, Rebecca?” she asked me.

I pressed my lips together and looked Kent and Carter over. Carter was looking more and more as though the walls were closing in on him, and I sort of felt the same. I mean, I could get up and walk out right now if I wanted to, and the rational part of me had plenty of reservations about the situation, but this kind of opportunity didn't come along every day.

With the swipe of a pen, I could leave San Diego behind. I could leave behind Rebecca the Loser. Rebecca the Wimp. Rebecca the Doormat. I could be someone totally different.

I gave Rose a bright smile. “No questions at all,” I told her.

She hesitated, then nodded. “All right.” Turning back to Kent, she said, “Time to sign.”

Without even looking at his brother, Kent passed a pen to Carter. Carter took it and plastered a sullen signature across the last page. Then he slid it across the desk to me. For the briefest of moments our eyes met. His face was unreadable, and I had a sudden, clear premonition that my immediate future was going to be full of incident.

I signed anyway and held my breath.

Contrary to my expectations, no thunder rumbled and the skies failed to part. All that happened was Rose and Mr. Guire also signed the contract as witnesses, and then it was done. Rose stood up and extended her hand to him.

“It was good working with you,” she said. She shook Kent's hand, and then Carter's before glancing back at me and giving her head a little jerk, indicating that I should get to my feet. I stood quickly and reached out, shaking Mr. Guire's hand, then Carter's, and finally Kent's.

His hand was huge and warm and rough on mine. Our eyes met and my heart stopped.

He watched me, like a tiger watches its prey, stalking through the jungle. His stormy blue-green eyes pierced straight into my chest, grabbed my heart, and wrung it dry. Shivery heat radiated from where our palms met, and I remembered exactly—
exactly—
what those calloused fingers felt like buried in my core. Sudden memories, poorly repressed, exploded across the inside of my head and my knees buckled as I remembered exactly what his cock felt like stroking between my thighs.

Then he let go and the moment passed, leaving me faint and shuddering and I nearly stumbled when I stepped back.

Someone was talking. I could barely hear them over the blood in my ears, and Kent's eyes held mine. I was only able to pull myself out of my sex-induced fugue state when Rose nudged me in the ribs hard enough to bruise.

I shook my head and blinked at her. “What?”

She gave me a weird look. “Carter was just asking what sort of things you were going to move into his house?”

I looked at Carter and he was staring at me curiously. I waved a hand. “Oh, uh. Sorry. Late night.” He nodded. He knew about late nights. “I, uh... I don't have a lot of stuff. Just some clothes and personal things. They're all at Rose's apartment.”

“Good.” Kent's voice cracked through the room like a snapping branch. “If it's just a few things we will swing by after rehearsal and pack them up.”

We?
As in,
Kent
would come? The thought of him in Rose's little apartment, stanking it up with his pheromones was almost comical. Rose hadn't had a date in ages and her apartment was as sexless as a janitor's closet. And Carter would be with us. Nothing would happen.

Relieved at having worked this out, I nodded. “Okay.”

“Rehearsal, then.” And he started for the door without even saying goodbye to Rose or Mr. Guire.

I looked at Carter, wondering if this were part of Kent's standard operating procedures. He just gave me a little shrug and a helpless smile, as though he couldn't believe I'd signed up for this of my own free will.

“Welcome to the Monkey House, Mrs. Girlfriend,” he said. He held out an arm as though he were a chivalrous Victorian gentleman and I a lady. I turned to Rose.

“I guess I'll see you later,” I said, then my eyes widened in shock.

A bright sheen of tears covered Rose's eyes.

Rapidly she blinked them away, then wrapped me up in a fierce hug. “I hope you know what you're doing,” she whispered to me.

I didn't. I had no idea. But I just smiled at her anyway as I took Carter's arm. I didn't want to worry her.

Then Kent called from the lobby: “Get the lead out! We're already late!”

Carter put his hand on mine and swept me out of the room and off to a new life.

T
he ride to the studio was short and sweet, but still a bit awkward, and I rode in the back so I wouldn't be tempted to crawl across the stick shift and fuck Kent's brains out while he drove. I have no excuse, except to say that our handshake had been a handshake that bards should have sung about through the ages and I was so turned on I hardly paid any attention to where we were going. I spent most of the short trip shifting in my seat, trying to find just... the right... angle...

When we parked I jerked out of my trance and stared at the building where we'd stopped.

I don't know what I'd expected a rehearsal studio to look like, but this wasn't quite what I'd had in mind. It was a squat, square stucco building that looked like it could possibly hold the worst apartments ever conceived in the history of mankind... and that was it. It was utterly unremarkable. The roof was flat, the doors were painted shit-brown and unmarked, and the cars in the parking lot were almost all junkers. It was actually a little depressing.

I started when my door opened and Carter leaned down, offering his hand. “Here we are,” he said without any sort of finesse. “Where all the magic happens.”

I put my hand in his and he helped me out of the back seat. Whereas the chemistry between Kent and I was immediate, all I felt with Carter was a pleasant warmth, and his dark blue eyes were kind. I let go of his hand and adjusted my messenger bag, staring at the building.

“I thought it would be bigger,” I said to no one in particular.

“Why would it be bigger?” Kent snapped from the other side of the car. “It's a place to practice, not to throw a party.”

I winced. What had I said?

“Yeah, but you have to admit, it was a pretty good party,” Carter replied, and I realized that the barb hadn't been aimed at me. Kent just snorted at him, locked his shiny black car, and stalked off toward the building, his whole body stiff and angry.

Carter waved me ahead. “Come on, Mrs. Girlfriend,” he said. “Let's get this over with.”

“Sorry,” I said. I felt utterly incompetent. I was supposed to be the one who was looking after him, not the other way around, but he just smiled at me. He had a lovely smile.

“About what? Pissing Kent off? He's always like that. Don't worry about him. If you're not pissing him off you're boring him, and then he gets
really
pissed off.” He laughed as we followed his brother. “I swear to god, sometimes I think he doesn't want me to stop partying because then he won't have anything to worry about any more.”

Somehow I doubted that. I had to hurry to keep up with his long-legged stride. He was remarkably chipper for someone I had seen half-dead only twenty-four hours before and I wondered if he'd had some of the hair of the dog that bit him or if he was just one of those natural drunks who never get hangovers. I thought I might as well ask him. “And how are you feeling, uh, Mr. Hudson? After last night, I mean.”

He laughed at that, a quick, easy thing. “Call me Carter. You've already seen me naked at my worst, and you are my Mrs. Girlfriend on paper anyway. I have to say I kind of like that part.”

I blinked. “What part?”

He smirked as we reached one of the brown doors that looked like every other brown door ringing the building. Kent had already gone through it, and I could hear the sound of lazy drums from inside. “The part where I get a girlfriend without having to go on a first date or any of that awkward dancing around each other,” Carter said. He reached out and opened the door for me.

The stink of cigarettes and weed hit me full in the face as I stepped inside, and I had to blink several times to dispel the bright afterlight of the afternoon sun that hung behind my eyelids. When I did, I saw that the rehearsal room was just that: a room with muffled walls and no windows and the bare minimum of equipment: a keyboard, a drum set, a guitar and a bass, and a number of amps. The only thing remarkable about it was the small loft above the back half of the room. A rickety white ladder led up to it. Three people were already here.

There was Kent of course, still in his suit, but as I watched he swept his coat off and flung it over the back of a chair, then rolled his white cuffs up, revealing brilliant full-sleeve tattoos wrapping his forearms. I forced myself to tear my eyes away from him and study the other two band members.

First there was the drummer—
Manny Reyes,
my brain spat out. He sat behind his drum set, tipped back in his chair with one foot up on the wall. A joint hung out of his full-lipped mouth, his curly, glossy black locks long enough to brush his shoulders. He wore a tight black t-shirt and faded jeans, but his feet were bare. Thick, heavy brows shadowed golden eyes as he flipped his drumsticks over and over through the air. He didn't even look up when Carter and I entered.

I couldn't say the same for the lead singer, Sonya Kyle. I'd seen pictures of her, but even in real life she was gorgeous. Her eyes were huge and green, and her cascade of red hair tumbled down past the middle of her back, streaked with blond and purple. She wore a tiny tank top and skinny jeans with a pair of platform flip-flops that probably required a signed waiver to wear. She paced back and forth in front of the keyboard, sucking down a cigarette and drinking a glass of clear liquid that I could only hope was water. She turned and shot me the most poisonous glare I had ever seen when I walked in, and it took all my self-control to not melt like a Nazi standing before the Arc of the Covenant.

“Hello,” she said. “Nice to meet you.” It was astonishing how she managed to convey, with those few words, that she would prefer to toss me into a meat grinder rather than talk to me. I barely mustered a faint smile before she whirled away and lit another cigarette from the butt of the first one. “Are you ready, Kent?” she demanded. “You guys are late.”

Kent didn't even answer her, and Manny just smiled as he sucked on his joint before blowing a huge cloud of smoke into the air above his head.

“Welcome to our happy home,” Carter whispered, clapped me on my shoulder, and pushed past me to the chair where his guitar stood, waiting and ready. Then he paused and turned back to me, a grin on his face.

“By the way, Mrs. Girlfriend,” he said, “could you get me a beer from the fridge upstairs in the loft?”

Everyone in the room turned and stared at me. Except Kent, who just put his hand over his face. He was a jerk—the kind of sinfully hot asshole you fuck but never talk to again afterward, more fool me—but I was starting to feel rather sorry for him.

“Mrs.
Girlfriend?”
Sonya demanded, her eyes narrowed. “What the hell...” She stopped as she raked her gaze over me again, this time far sharper and more exacting. She clearly didn't like what she saw. She whirled around. “What is this, Kent? You said no one but band members and staff at rehearsals. If Carter can bring his
girlfriend—
”
Girlfriend
was apparently synonymous with
dingleberry collection
in Sonya's mind, “—then why can't I bring my entourage? They're staff!”

Manny giggled, and Sonya shot him a glare. He blew smoke at her. “They're staff, all right,” he said, then trailed off and looked confused.

Carter sighed. “I think what Manny
means
to say is that your entourage is enormously gay, but he can't think of a good dick joke while he's stoned off his ass.”

Manny laughed again. “Stones. Ass,” he said.

Oh boy,
I thought. This was terrifying. I looked to Kent for help, my eyes wide and pleading. Surely this was the best time to mention that I was, indeed, staff, and that I wasn't actually Carter's girlfriend. But when Kent dropped his hand and looked straight at me I had the curious premonition that this was where everything was going to jump the rails and never come back.

I was right. Those blue-green eyes locked on mine, and Kent just gave a one-shouldered shrug. "She's a good influence on Carter," was all he said.

A tiny squeak came from Carter, but it was lost in the sudden Sonya explosion. "Excuse me?" she said. "Excuse me? Are you saying we can now bring our one night stands with us to practice? What kind of influence is she? She sure as hell doesn't influence him to show up on time!"

To my utter shock, Kent ignored her. I wanted to run over and shake him. What kind of a manager was he? And if he wasn't going to share the real nature of my relationship to Carter with the rest of the band, then why the hell was it written into the contract?

This whole situation was absurd and stupid and everyone in this room was beyond fucking insane, including me. If I'd really wanted to get away from drama for a while, I could have chosen a far better career path to follow than Rock Star Babysitter.

Sonya was starting to vibrate with rage, and Manny wasn't helping the situation by dissolving into a puddle of wheezing giggles. It was high school all over again, and I was suddenly blessed with uncommon insight as why the whole music biz had a reputation for being high as a kite on blow twenty-four seven.

Still. I was here to do a job. I was getting paid for it, getting paid well. If I couldn't handle a drama queen, then what kind of babysitter would I be? Supernanny would be disappointed.

I turned to Sonya and gave her my brightest smile. "Sorry, Sonya," I said loudly. My voice was so chipper you could have used it to mulch a garden. "I'm not a one-night-stand. I am Carter's girlfriend. And sweetie—" I turned to Carter and batted my lashes at him, "you know you shouldn't drink so early in the day. It's not good for you!"

Once again the whole rehearsal room stopped and stared at me, and I had to struggle to meet their eyes. I hoped I came across as dumb and well-meaning, because if people think you are dumb and mean well then they tend to be nice to you.
She can't help it,
they think.
She's just kind of dumb.
It's the sort of thinking that kicks in when a puppy pees on the floor. I reached up and grabbed a lock of hair and began to play with it while showing off my pearly whites to the whole rehearsal room.

Finally Sonya snorted. "Whatever," she said, turning away and pulling a chair over to the keyboard. "Let's get this shit over with. I'm meeting Jax and Art at eight."

The tension in the room finally eased and the rest of the band set about setting up. It was pure torture, but I didn't even glance at Kent. Instead I kept my eyes on Carter the whole time. He looked mildly disappointed that I had refused to enable his alcohol habit, but that couldn't really be helped. He knew as well as I did that I was supposed to look after him.

I watched as he pulled his guitar off its stand and looped the strap over his head before sitting down and plugging it into the amp next to his chair. The crackle of static scraped over my ears, and then, with a few deft plucks of his fingers, Carter made the guitar sing.

Oh
, I thought. Yes. This is music.

A cascade of notes leaped from the strings, dancing through the wires to the amp, booming through the small room. At once Manny sat up in his chair, his whole body straightening, his drumsticks suddenly standing at the ready, poised to crash into the tight skins in front of him. At her seat in front of the keyboard, Sonya stubbed her cigarette out, took one last gulp of her drink—wincing and making me think that it certainly was not water at all—then settled her hands on the keys. With a ripple of her fingers, a sweet, unfamiliar melody flowed out.

Then Kent switched his amplifier on, put his fingers on the strings of his bass, and plucked out a low, thrumming beat.

My breath left me.

The rhythm hummed and pulsed, resonating in my chest and stomach, rattling my heart in the cage of my ribs. I felt it, deep inside me, pounding through the soles of my feet where I stood. I felt the vibrations in the backs of my legs, shaking my bones. My mouth went dry and without thinking I sank to the floor, settling in to listen. There weren't any other chairs anyway, of course, but I didn't mind. With my ass on the carpet, I could feel the hard, driving rhythm Kent had found, and it took all my willpower to not lick my lips and close my eyes and squirm where I sat.

Even so, his music hummed deep inside my core.

Then the rest of the band joined in, and a quick jam session was on.

Here's my confession: back in San Diego I'd lived with, and been the nominal girlfriend, of a guitarist in a band.

I know, I know. The band had been much like this one, except with a quarter of the talent, none of the charisma, and approximately negative dollars to its name, but when I was a young college dropout I'd thought it was romantic or some stupid shit like that. I'd thought it was thrilling, that musicians were sensitive and spiritual. He'd asked me to rehearsal quite a few times, and I'd always gone, because I wanted to be a supportive girlfriend. Of course, the times when he didn't ask me he usually asked one of his fuckbuddies to go. It actually took a whole year for me to find out that most of the rest of the band didn't even know I was supposed to be his girlfriend. That I'd stuck around for three years after that... Well, maybe I really am as dumb as I look.

The point, of course, is that I've known band rehearsals. I've heard bands. I knew the "scene" as it were, and while I'd enjoyed The Lonely Kings, up until now I had thought they were like every other band out there—processed to shit and hyped far beyond their talent deserved.

All that changed in that shitty little rehearsal studio in the crappier part of LA.

The music crested and fell, ebbed and flowed like water. The beat of the drums, the falling riffs of the piano, the sliding melodies slipping through Carter's fingers—they swept up and over me, bearing me away, and underneath the swirl of noise was the thrum of Kent's bass, hard and driving. The vibrations thudded through the floor and I shifted where I sat next to the door, my back against the wall. The music, magnified by the amplifiers, rushed through me, crawling up the walls, radiating outward through the building. Overwhelmed, I closed my eyes, let my head fall back against the wall and allowed the music buffet me.