Sheet Music
Tibby Armstrong
Music journalist Kyra Martin faces the toughest assignment of her career—to write a cover story about enigmatic heartthrob David Tallis. Deadline looming, Kyra plans to go undercover. When she ends up under the covers with the sexy superstar instead, can both her career and their budding relationship survive?
With a closet full of skeletons to hide, and a paparazzi-fueled divorce behind him, David Tallis despises the press. When Kyra Martin bribes her way into his life, her sexy assets have him composing a duplicitous seduction. Ensnared in a media maelstrom of his own making, can David face the music? Or will he lose Kyra, along with another piece of himself?
An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication
www.ellorascave.com
Sheet Music
ISBN 9781419929625
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Sheet Music Copyright © 2010 Tibby Armstrong
Edited by Grace Bradley
Cover art by Dar Albert
Electronic book publication August 2010
The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.
With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Sheet Music
Tibby Armstrong
Dedication
To Kristin Daniels, author and friend. Thank you for your encouragement and mentoring.
Acknowledgements
Any creative work requires a supporting cast. The following people were instrumental in helping this story come together: John Ryan, for details on how recording studios operate. My mother, for catering and location support. Daniel Abraham, for acting as key grip and get-a-grip. The Burlington Writer’s Group for their untiring faith and support—thank you for making me feel like a rock star!
Trademarks Acknowledgement
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Bentley: Bentley Motors (1931) Limited Corporation
BRIT Awards: British Phonographic Industry Limited
Burberry: Burberry Limited Corporation
Coca-Cola: The Coca-Cola Company Corporation
DVR IT: Time Warner Cable, Inc.
ET: Paramount Pictures Corporation
Google: Google, Inc.
Hustler: L.F.P., Inc. Corporation
Les Paul: Gibson Guitar Corporation
Manolo Blahnik: Blahnik, Manolo
Neve: AMS Neve Limited Corporation
People: Time, Inc. Corporation
Ritz: Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co.
Rolling Stone: Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc.
Starbucks: Starbucks U.S. Brands
Tavern on the Green: City of New York
The New York Times: New York Times Company
Times Square: City of New York
Chapter One
“Name?”
David Tallis’ velvet-over-steel voice made Kyra’s stomach do a little flip that had nothing to do with nerves. Her reply was throaty, laced with all the pent-up need she’d intended to hide.
“Kyra. With a y.”
She licked her lips and stared as his strong, long-fingered hand made a flourish across the liner notes and flipped the CD case shut. He held it out to her in a graceful motion, rough-cut onyx cufflinks twinkling in the ambient lights.
She flicked a glance at the CD then met his cobalt eyes and promptly forgot she was here for professional research purposes only.
The next words out of her mouth shocked them both.
“Mr. Tallis, I’m Kyra Martin.”
“Bloody hell,” he muttered under his breath, placing his hands, palms down, on the linen-covered table.
She straightened her shoulders and fought not to close her eyes at the blunder she’d kick herself for later. She’d planned to introduce herself tonight when she “accidentally” bumped into him at the bar, not at Danny Owens’ music store opening, but there was no going back now. In for a penny, in for a pound.
“I realize this is unusual, but I was in London and I haven’t been able to get your publicist to show you—”
“Out!”
His voice rang through the upscale store, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the paid event photographer lower his camera rather than taking the perfect paparazzi shot.
Kyra felt all eyes upon her as a hush fell over the gaggle of women who had been let past the ropes for the publicity event. She calculated she had about ten seconds before Tallis’ infamous private goon-squad threw her out the door, but persisted nonetheless. Award-winning music journalism didn’t happen without a little chutzpah, after all.
Leaning forward she played the sex card, letting her cleavage peek above the sweetheart neck of her black cashmere sweater, her pearls swinging forward in a rhythmic arc.
“I’m sure we can find something to talk about that would be mutually agreeable.”
He held up a hand to stay the bodyguard who’d appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and his eyes made a disdainful dip to the offered view.
“I’m sure we could. I doubt you’d be writing about it in Rolling Stone, however. Hustler, perhaps?” His crisp accent made the jibe more pointed than it otherwise would have been.
Kyra smiled slowly. “Touché.”
Opening her purse, she took out a business card and slid it into the breast pocket of his suit jacket. With a breathless “Call me” that would bring most men to their knees, she turned and sashayed past the line of gaping women out into the early summer rain to hail a taxi.
“The Ritz,” she directed as she slid into the gleaming black car.
Stretching, catlike, she smiled at her bit of brilliance. It might not have gone off exactly as she had planned, but it was a first step. Yes, there was always a way around a publicist.
As for David Tallis, he might not have given an interview in the better part of a decade, but she refused to be cowed by the likes of him. Rather, he was an irresistible puzzle. A man, who, no matter what strings the press pulled, seemed to have no past before age thirteen. No parents. No history. All they could uncover was a prep school education in a remote area of Scotland, and an improbably quick rise to international music stardom.
Even before he’d begun refusing to talk to the press, they’d all been prepped not to mention his childhood. Anyone who deviated from the script had received the famous Tallis glare and an abrupt end to the interview.
He had another think coming if he thought he could brush her off so easily. She could tolerate living naked on an iceberg—as long as she got her story. And she would get it. She might have blown the advantage of surprise, but she hadn’t failed yet in an assignment. It was something her editors counted on, and something on which she had
staked her reputation and built her career thus far.
She would be the go-to name for the music industry glossies by the time she was finished, and no one would stand in her way. Her editor had assured her that if she got this story she could write her own ticket. If she didn’t… Well, failure was something she refused to contemplate.
Leaning her head back against the seat, she rested her eyes as the cabbie made his way to The Ritz where she—and David Tallis—would be spending the next week. Behind her closed lids she remembered his eyes. They had been even more stunning than on the cover of his latest CD. When they shot his picture for the story she’d have the set draped in fabric dyed to match their Mediterranean blue.
She pictured him naked from the waist up, in a casual pose that showed readers the sensual man behind the music. His covers were far too reserved for her taste. He needed more smoke, like his voice. Something that screamed sex.
Feeling a flush spread through her veins, Kyra wondered if the cabbie had turned up the heat. She shifted in her seat and blew out a breath. It was probably jet lag combined with the stress of her opening salvo with David that had affected her. It certainly couldn’t be his famous sex appeal. She was too jaded to be taken in by someone as pampered, pompous and self-interested as a musician—especially one with a pour-down-your-spine accent and hands that looked like they could caress the clothing off her body with one deft flick of his fingers.
Her purse rested between her thighs and she rocked forward to let the leather bite into her, imagining the heel of David Tallis’ palm in its place, picturing sitting on the edge of the autograph table in front of him at the signing. He’d have her thighs splayed wide, her skirt bunched so that her bottom rested against the cool linen.
He’d grind his hand harder into her folds, giving rough little slaps as he found a rhythm that reminded her of one of his Latin-inspired numbers. She’d arch her back and he’d hold her up with his other hand to grip her shoulder.
“Come for me, baby,” he’d growl, and she’d widen her thighs.
Her cell phone rang and her eyes flew open to meet the cabbie’s stare in the rearview mirror. They must have been sitting curbside for a full minute. Had the man been watching her? Did he know what she’d been doing? A twinkle in his brown eyes told her he did.
“Martin,” she snapped into the phone.
“That’ll be thirty quid, miss,” the driver interrupted.
Digging two twenty pound notes from her purse, she forgot about her budget and shoved them in a wad at the driver.
“How’s it coming?”
“Gil! I only just got here!” she breathed, still a tad disoriented from the abrupt end to her fantasy.
She’d known Gil for what seemed like forever, and had been beyond pleased when he’d garnered the position at Voice and Vibe. He was the reason the magazine’s senior editors had been willing to bring her on for the Tallis piece in the first place.
“I know, but I’ve got corporate breathing down my neck. Slater’s on the warpath about all the money they’re laying out. Both of our necks are on the line if you don’t get something. Fast.”
She looked up at the hotel’s warm lights, letting the light drizzle cool her cheeks. Picturing David’s face when he figured out she had managed to get the room next to his, she smiled.
“No worries. I’ll get it,” she said, and she meant it.
She wasn’t a little girl anymore. She learned a long time ago that big boys played rough, and if they didn’t fight fair, neither would she. Yes, she would get the interview, and she would let herself enjoy every moment of the pursuit.
* * * * *
David rolled his head to ease the tension in his neck. The afternoon’s promotional event had taken its toll on his body. He’d have to see about a massage before tomorrow’s recording session. Every time he released the little kink in his muscles he visualized that jezebel Kyra Martin’s twitching behind in a cream-colored crepe skirt as she sashayed away from him, and the ache returned.
She’d said his publicist hadn’t forwarded her proposal, but she was wrong. He knew all about her quest for a cover story for some international magazine that had taken off like wildfire just last year. He probably should be flattered, but he wasn’t.
He’d never trusted the press, and he wasn’t about to start with this woman. Her willingness to do anything for a story, her she-wolf attitude, was common knowledge to his manager and friend, Brent Weber. He had enough reasons to shy away from the spotlight, without putting himself in the way of a viper like that. Especially not after Jessica.
Jessica Landon had been his everything on the way up the ladder to success. He thought she put up with his late nights, painful lengths of time away from home, the hangers-on and generally outrageous lifestyle during those early years because she loved him.
He’d discovered two things after a string of Top 40 hits—money bought you a lot of friends, and your wife could buy herself a very good lawyer to take that money away from you. He didn’t really begrudge her the settlement. It was the lies she had spread to the circus-like media to get the money that had hurt him the most. That he couldn’t even defend against the lies and insinuations about his past without risking some necks, including his own, had made him feel beyond helpless. It had made him feel like a penned animal being led to the slaughter.
After seeing their artificially torn wedding photo on the cover of an American entertainment magazine with the headline “Tallis’ Ex Tells All”, he vowed to never give another interview to a bloodsucking journalist. Publicity be damned.
Kyra Martin probably thought he didn’t know she had booked the room next to his. Oh, he knew a lot more about her than she’d like to believe. One of those things was that she wasn’t going to get her coveted interview no matter what it cost him to deny her. The other was that her sweet, swinging backside had given him an idea. He was beginning to think of it as his revenge upon the paparazzi.
If she pursued him, he would let her woo him into thinking about the interview. He would seduce and bed her. Then, promptly at 4:30 a.m. on Thursday he would check out of the hotel and out of her life. He would call in some favors from his previous life—a life he tried daily to forget. But it would be worth it to see the tables turned on the paparazzi, because when she followed, Kyra Martin would be the subject of a restraining order and front page news. A crazed reporter whose obsession with David Tallis had ruined her career.
David tightened his jaw as his chauffeur opened his door in front of The Ritz and steeled himself for the charade to come. If that woman wanted to play cat and mouse with him she was going to get much more than she had bargained for. After seven years of brushing reporters off like relentless flies he was more than ready to let the games begin again.
Chapter Two
Kyra sat in the Ritz’s sumptuous art deco Rivoli Bar, her back to the entrance, idly running a finger around the rim of her gin fizz. Yellow light bounced off the polished burled walnut of the walls to bathe her in a soft glow. She wore a black, backless sheath that flirted with her thighs and a pair of stilettos that lengthened her calves into sleek, sexy lines.
Yes. She was ready.
Her well-compensated contact had called to say Mr. Tallis usually had a cocktail at eight thirty followed by dinner at nine in the Ritz restaurant.
The bar was quiet that evening, and its few patrons well heeled enough not to look twice when David entered the room. She noticed the barkeep’s glance, the deft handling of crystal, and the splashing of amber liquid over ice.
A tingling at the nape of her neck told her he studied her from the doorway. He’d see her ginger hair, upswept, with a kiss of a curl at her neck. The pearls she had taunted him with earlier that day were a reminder of her unspoken promise. He would think he could have what he wanted—and she knew he wanted it—for a price. There was always a price, and this time she intended to be on the receiving, not the paying, end.
The rustling of fine fabric and the scent of
Burberry caressed her senses before he came into view at the curve of the bar. Not as close as she’d planned, but they were the only ones sitting there. That was something.
She studied her drink, pretending not to notice him until the barkeep’s “Anything else I can get you, Mr. Tallis?” forced her attention his way.
She arched a brow. It was neither an invitation nor a greeting.
He ignored the barkeep and tilted his head to one side, just a fraction, studying her with a lidded stare so intense she could almost feel his thumb caressing her ear, moving down along her jaw to the pulse point in her neck. His mouth would be hot, Scotch-flavored and moist.
Her breath hitched and she looked away.
Damn it!
He wasn’t supposed to have this effect on her. No one did. She was the one in control here. Not him. Not anyone. Not ever.
“May I join you?” he asked and slid on to the high-backed barstool next to hers.
The sultry undertones in his voice raced down her spine for the second time that day. He was made of cashmere and gray flannel, steel knives and polished silver. She sensed more than saw the contradictions hidden within him and it piqued her interest both as a reporter and a woman.
Kyra looked up and was unable to look away. Ensnared by his eyes, she could only nod.
What was it about his stare? There was a guarded magnetism that he turned on and off like tap water. He’d been rumored to flood the recipient of his attentions with joy and passion, or unleash anger so cold and brittle it froze them where they stood. She felt a trickle of moisture warm her core just thinking about the sensuality and power so carefully leashed within him.
Holy hell, she was in trouble if she couldn’t manage to break the spell he had cast over her.
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