Facing the Music

by Andrea Laurence

  She didn’t budge, not one inch. Instead, she just shook her head and dropped her guilty gaze to the floor of his office. Apparently, those pictures hitting the paper was the price she was willing to pay to run Ivy off once and for all. A fatal checkmate that made losers of both players.

  Blake would never understand women. “Fine, don’t help me save my relationship with Ivy. It’s just as well. People in this town need to know what kind of person you really are. Not even that beauty pageant smile and your family contacts will get you out of the hole you’ve dug for yourself. It didn’t have to come to this.”

  “I know,” she said quietly.

  “I don’t want to see you—any part of you—for a long time. I mean it. Not at the football games. Not at the bank. I don’t want to run into you at Woody’s or see you hanging around with my sister at the bakery or my parents’ house. I’m pretty sure no one else in town is going to be too keen on hanging out with you, either, so you’d do good to lay low for a few weeks. Do you understand me?”

  He waited for Lydia to nod, then he brushed past her into the hallway without another word.

  Chapter Twenty

  “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, my boy.” Adelia Chamberlain stared her grandson down with a look that would make lesser men wet themselves.

  Blake should’ve known he was in trouble when he got a summons to the house Wednesday morning. When Winston had called and said his presence was requested by his grandmother, he’d gotten a sinking feeling in his stomach.

  He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d done to make his grandmother upset, although if he had to guess, he figured it had to do with those pictures of Lydia. Those photos and the accompanying article in the paper had caused quite a stir around town. Sheriff Todd even had Lydia arrested and charged with endangering public safety. She was probably looking at a hefty fine, probation, and a few weeks of unpleasant community service.

  It was a huge scandal for such a fine, upstanding family as the Whittakers. Things like that just didn’t happen around Rosewood very often, and when they did, they were never linked back to a family like theirs.

  Clark hadn’t credited Blake with the photos when he ran the story, but he had no doubt word had gotten around that he was responsible for them. He didn’t care. Lydia needed a little public shaming. If that caught him hell with his grandmother, so be it. There was still the question about the picture in the slideshow, though. He hadn’t done it. He hadn’t even known there was going to be a slideshow.

  “Sit,” his grandmother commanded, as if he were one of the little lapdogs she’d had when he was a child.

  Well trained, he complied, settling into the velvet wingback chair opposite her own. He looked down at the small table between them. There was no tea, no nibbles. Not even a plate of stale cookies. His grandmother almost always had something set out when people were over, even family. An empty tabletop did not bode well.

  “Where have you been, Blake?”

  He wasn’t expecting that. He’d been out of the public eye for a few days. He’d taken some vacation and spent his time fishing on his little pond and futzing around the house. Honestly, he hadn’t thought anyone would notice his absence, especially his grandmother, who rarely left her mansion.

  “I’ve been around,” he argued. “I took a few days off work after all the fund-raiser activities. I needed a break.” It was a legitimate response, though untrue. In reality he was trying to avoid the fallout of his breakup with Ivy. If word got out about it, he wanted to be unavailable for consultation. The last thing he needed was to see the news of his scandalous breakup plastered across the cover of a magazine at the grocery store. What confused him was why his grandmother cared what he was doing.

  “Needed a place to hide is more like it!”

  Blake’s eyes widened and he jerked back as though she’d reached out and slapped him. “Why are you so upset, Grandma? Is this about Lydia and the newspaper article?”

  His grandmother rolled her eyes. “No, it is most certainly not about that scheming, insipid Whittaker girl. She got what she deserved, if you ask me.”

  A sly smile curled her lips after a moment and Blake was hit with the sudden realization of who had been responsible for that photo getting projected at the concert. Clark had said the montage included old pictures, some of which had to come from his family. He didn’t know how his grandmother had gotten her hands on a copy of Nash’s photograph, but it would’ve been child’s play to slip that picture into the box with all the others they’d used for the show.

  “Grandma Dee?” he asked, the obvious question unasked.

  She didn’t respond. She just smiled and shrugged. “That’s not important. I’m more interested in discussing what is going on between you and Ivy.”

  He couldn’t help but wince at the mention of her name. “Nothing is going on,” he said. “Literally nothing.”

  Adelia Chamberlain eyed him with suspicion, reading into his cryptic words. “Something was going on between you two a few days ago. You’d become quite the hot item. Then she released that new song . . . I thought things were progressing nicely, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. She flew back to California the night of the concert without a word to anyone. Women in happy relationships don’t flee like they’re leaving the scene of the crime. So, are you sticking to your story or are you going to tell me what the hell happened?”

  Hearing his genteel southern grandmother cuss was a little unnerving, but not as unnerving as having someone mention that song again. This was the third or fourth time someone had brought up Ivy’s new song, but he still hadn’t heard it. He didn’t want to hear it.

  He’d shoved Grant out the front door of his house when Grant tried to play it for him on his phone. People insisted it was a love song, not “Size Matters, Part Two,” but he still didn’t want to listen.

  In the end, it didn’t matter what the song was about or how great it was. Even if it was the sweetest love song ever written, listening to it would just amplify the fact that he’d ruined what they had together. It had been written and performed before she walked in on him and Lydia. It didn’t matter what she said before, because he was willing to bet good money she didn’t feel the same way now.

  Blake took a deep breath and tried to figure out how much he should say about it. The problem with his grandmother was that she had a keen sense for lies. If he held something back, she’d know it. He didn’t know how many times she’d busted him as a child for one thing or another. He might as well tell her everything at the start so she didn’t have to drag every detail out of him. He was certain she would torture him until she found out what she wanted to know.

  “Well,” he began, and before he knew it, he had dumped the entire story on her. Lydia’s scheming, the photos, her luring him to his office, Ivy walking in . . . the whole shebang. “She wouldn’t listen to me. She just ran off. After what happened in college, there’s no way I can convince her that it wasn’t what she thinks it was. I mean . . . I love Ivy.”

  Saying the words aloud for the first time felt strange, especially admitting it to his grandmother instead of the object of his affection. “I wanted to tell her how I felt after the concert. I certainly wouldn’t have ruined things twice by getting involved with someone else.”

  Adelia sat back in her chair and folded her hands across her lap. She had listened intently throughout his entire story, not saying a word to interrupt. Now, he awaited her verdict on the situation. At this point, he’d be happy to hear what someone else thought he should do.

  “You’re a damn fool.”

  That was about right, but not an entirely helpful observation. “Tell me something I don’t know, Grandma.”

  She arched an elegant gray brow and pointed her manicured index finger at him. “Okay. Do you know how much trouble it took me to get Ivy to come back to Rosewood? How many calls I had to make to th
at Lynch fellow before she’d even consider it? Did it ever occur to you that we could’ve gotten someone else to do a charity concert for a lot less aggravation?”

  “Well, actually, yes, it did. When she first arrived, I’d wished we had gotten someone else. It felt like the fund-raising committee had a personal vendetta against me, bringing her here.”

  “I brought her here because I wanted Ivy. And I wanted Ivy because I decided that you two deserved a second chance to make things right.”

  Blake was stunned. He’d never known his grandmother to give a hoot about other people’s love lives. The fact that she had gone to this much trouble to help with his own was mind-boggling. He wished she’d asked first, although he probably would’ve resisted the idea. “Really?”

  “Yes, really,” she said with a sarcastically flat tone. “And it worked, because I was right. You and Ivy were meant to be together. And once again, you ruined it with your foolishness! What were you thinking, staying alone in your office with a naked Lydia Whittaker? You should’ve bolted the minute she slipped a sleeve.”

  Blake dropped his face into his hands. “I know. Believe me, I know.”

  “You’re damn lucky, Blake.”

  At that, he sat up and frowned at her. He didn’t feel lucky. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about that song.”

  His grandmother rose elegantly to thumb through her iPod and dock it when she found what she was looking for. After a moment, the first few guitar notes started and he realized she was playing Ivy’s new song. He’d heard that much of it before he’d shoved Grant out onto the porch.

  He moved to stand, but a stern look from his grandmother kept his rear in contact with the upholstery of his chair.

  “You’ll listen to this song right now, Blake Allen Chamberlain, or I’ll have Winston restrain you and play it while you’re tied to the chair.”

  Blake swallowed and relaxed back into his seat. He knew better than to call his grandmother’s bluff. If she used your middle name, it was deadly serious.

  Ivy’s voice drifted from the speakers. He wanted to block it out, but there was no point. He closed his eyes and tried to pay attention, since everyone insisted he needed to. Whatever she said in this song had to be important.

  And it was. Christ, it was.

  This wasn’t a song about him. She was singing to him. Pouring her heart out like he’d never heard her sing before. This wasn’t the typical Ivy Hudson song. It was incredible. Romantic. Heartfelt. He was struck by the realization that she’d never stopped loving him. She might have been angry and resentful. But she’d still loved him all this time.

  No wonder everyone wanted him to listen to it.

  The live recording ended as the crowd cheered. The track must’ve been laid down during the concert. The part he’d missed because of Lydia.

  It made his gut ache miserably to think that she’d sung that song and then, moments later, found him in another woman’s arms. That was why she was wearing his letterman jacket and they’d projected old pictures of them. That was why she’d had her guitar with her. She was going to sing it to him since he’d missed it to do an “interview.” He’d lost that beautiful moment, that opportunity to tell her he felt the same way. He’d never have back what Lydia stole from him.

  “Thank you,” he said once the room was silent again.

  “You’re welcome. You needed to hear it so you could understand how lucky you are.” His grandmother lowered back into her chair and crossed her ankles. “Six years ago you did cheat on her! And despite that, she still loves you.”

  “Loved me. I’ve ruined it.”

  “No.” She chuckled softly. “If you didn’t ruin it then, you certainly didn’t ruin it now. The difference is that last time, you let her go.”

  “I didn’t—” he started to argue, but she was right. He had let her go. She’d kicked him in the balls and driven away, and he hadn’t chased after her. If he had truly loved her as much as he claimed to, he would’ve chased her across the state and fixed this.

  “You have to fight for her love, Blake. You have to force her to listen to the truth and let her know you love her too much to let her walk away again. Prove to her that you’re worthy of her love.”

  Blake swallowed hard. He could do that. He could book the next flight to Los Angeles and bang on her door until she either listened or had him arrested. It was a scary prospect, but his grandmother was right. He needed to fight for Ivy’s love; otherwise, he’d never deserved it to begin with.

  “What if it doesn’t make any difference?” he asked. “What if she doesn’t care about how I feel for her and slams the door in my face?”

  His grandmother shrugged slightly and waved her jeweled fingers in a dismissive gesture. “She won’t. And to prove how confident I am, I’m going to give you something.”

  She worked at her hand for a moment until her engagement ring slipped from her finger. Blake opened his mouth to argue with her, but she immediately silenced him with a stern look. “Your grandfather gave me this ring in 1957. It was the happiest day of my life. We had so much potential, so much time to look forward to being together. We had nearly fifty wonderful years before the cancer took him.” Her pale blue eyes were a little misty as she reminisced about his grandfather.

  Placing the ring in the palm of his hand, she said, “Now it’s your turn.”

  “Girl, if you don’t get dressed and get out of this house, plastic surgery rumors are going to start swirling. The only reason a celebrity goes off the grid for more than a few days is to have work done!”

  Ivy instantly regretted giving Malcolm a key to her house. She didn’t budge from her spot on the couch, however. She remained a lump in front of the television, where she was six hours into an Ancient Aliens marathon.

  “Are you wearing sweatpants?” Malcolm asked, his face contorted in horror.

  “They’re yoga pants,” Ivy corrected. “And I didn’t ask for your fashion critique, Joan Rivers. Shouldn’t you be off filming some action flick?”

  “I’m not on the call sheet today.” He eyed her sloppy ensemble, shook his head, and flopped down on the opposite end of the couch. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes and Ivy could just tell it was killing him.

  “Well, I’ll start with congratulations,” he said at last.

  Ivy frowned. She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. “Dare I ask what for?”

  “For hitting number one on iTunes with your new single. Your live concert video already has over twenty million views on YouTube. Not bad for three days.”

  Oh. That. Yeah, apparently this was her fastest-climbing single ever. She should be excited. Thrilled. And yet, she couldn’t work up the enthusiasm for it. That song was tainted. She would perform it when she had to, but that didn’t mean she would enjoy it. The song would haunt her, just like those images of Lydia half-naked.

  “I find it kinda funny,” she said, “that I’ve made a career on songs about bad relationships and never had any trouble separating the song and the work from the dating drama. When I finally write a positive song about love and then break up, I’m overwhelmed with the emotions. I can’t even stand to hear it, much less sing it. And guess what? It may be my biggest hit ever!”

  “Yes, and that’s why you’ve got to snap out of this funk, pronto. Your career is taking off in a whole new direction and you need to make the most of it. You’re not going to be able to float a career with your old, bitter songs anymore.”

  Considering his words for a moment before speaking, he furrowed his brow. “You want to know why everything is different now?”

  She shrugged.

  “It’s because you didn’t care about any of those other guys. They were just tools you used to get in touch with your feelings for Blake again. The angst those guys caused was secondary. You needed it to help you
relive the pain of betrayal and loss so you could write. None of those songs were really about John or Carey or Sterling. The lyrics might have sounded like they were, but the emotions behind every song were one hundred percent Blake.”

  She eyeballed Malcolm, not quite sure how to respond to that. By his theory, she’d done nothing but moon over Blake for the past six years. She wasn’t saying it wasn’t true, but her life seemed so much more pathetic when he put it that way. “How much do you charge by the hour, Dr. Holt?”

  “Only now,” he continued, ignoring her, “you can’t write those angry songs about him. You love him too much.”

  “And I didn’t love him before? The first time?”

  “Of course you did, but you were stunned by your first real heartbreak and you lost touch with everything but the pain. Now, your love is too recent and real, but so is your disappointment with how it ended. So of course you’ll be conflicted about that song. But you should embrace it. It’s a beautiful song.”

  Ivy leaned back into the couch, tempted to reach for the remote to start her show again. This conversation wasn’t helping. Of course that song was painful. Conflicted didn’t quite touch it. “I just need some time. Eventually, I’ll get over him and the song won’t have such sharp edges anymore. I’ll date someone new. I’ll come up with some new songs.”

  “Another pointless relationship that doesn’t get anywhere? How long are you going to keep dating men you’ll never commit to? It’s not fair to them. When are you going to admit to yourself that it never works out because you’re still in love with another man? I mean, you said it yourself—you’ve never stopped loving him.”

  It was just like Malcolm to throw her own lyrics in her face. But he was wrong. She could get back on the metaphorical horse and things would be fine. With a new song, she’d be a hot commodity to be seen with. Finding a new guy wouldn’t be a problem. Looking at him and not seeing Blake . . . that was another matter.