Toronto Collection Volume 2 (Toronto Series #6-9)

by Heather Wardell

  He withdrew his hands. "You okay?"

  I nodded. "Why?"

  "You look all spacey. And you're just standing there."

  I said sorry but then couldn't think of anything else to say.

  "Never mind. Come here."

  He pulled me close and kissed me, hard but without risking making me throw up again. Though my mind was still numb, my body began to respond to his mouth and his wandering hands, and when I gave a whimper he said, "Let's get out of here."

  The night club was connected to a hotel, and he walked us to the front desk, his security team and mine following. In moments, his platinum credit card had obtained us a suite and a box of condoms from the desk staff. I stood staring at the carpet during the whole process, trying not to feel like he was buying me for the night. Trying and failing.

  After making sure I didn't need anything from them, my guards left me in Bart's guards' charge, and they escorted us up in the elevator. Bart kissed me all the way to the thirty-eighth floor, apparently not bothered by the burly men standing so close to us.

  When the elevator doors opened, he released me and we followed the guards out into the silent plush-carpeted hallway. They didn't seem embarrassed either, and I briefly wondered how many pop stars and actresses they'd seen him kiss but then decided it didn't matter.

  A guard unlocked the suite door then went inside while we waited with the others. After a moment, he returned and said, "All clear. Need anything else?"

  "Yeah," Bart said. "Not to be disturbed until the morning."

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The gossip sites wound up with far more excitement over my night with Bart than I'd experienced. He wasn't bad in bed, but he seemed to think his admittedly stunning looks should be enough to satisfy me.

  He tried several times to get me to go down on him but I refused each time, eventually saying, "I'll just throw up again. Is that what you want?"

  I didn't care what he wanted, really. Physically I was responding to him but my mind was still numb and somehow distant, and even when our bodies were locked together in the most intimate way possible I didn't feel close to him. I didn't know why. But I didn't care why either.

  After the sex was over, we fell asleep, not touching, in the king-sized bed. When I woke up next to him I surprised myself by not feeling embarrassed or weird. He ordered us a huge room service breakfast, and we sat chatting about his upcoming movie while we ate. Then I stuffed myself back into my hot pink costume. I didn't have all Leah's makeup at my disposal but the touch-up kit she'd given me was enough to get me looking right.

  While I fixed my face, Bart called his security and said, "Misty's leaving now. Her guys here? Good. Send them up."

  I wanted to leave alone but of course I couldn't. I was too famous for that.

  Bart smoothed my wig and said, "You look adorable. Give me your number, okay? I want to see you again."

  Bart Miles the movie star wanted to see me again. I should have been excited, but I just said, "Sounds good." We traded cell phones and stored our numbers, then he kissed me again, patted my butt, and held the door open for me. When I emerged, my security team pushed away from the wall opposite the door and followed me without comment to the elevator. I couldn't think of anything to say either.

  The morning after sex 'walk of shame' home is bad enough for regular people. Doing it past the crowd of photographers, in my Misty outfit from the previous evening, trailed by security guards who knew exactly where I'd been all night, should have been unbearable.

  It wasn't, though. I held my head up and smiled and turned to face a few photographers who yelled, "Misty, to me!" louder than the others, then cruised out to my waiting car and sank into the back seat without feeling a thing. The robotic Misty had left the building.

  I went home, showered, and thankfully put on a different set of Misty's clothes, then called my driver back to take me to Sapphire Angel. I was meeting Tim in the afternoon and Jo had said we'd chat about my North American tour, due to start in just a few days, this morning before a photo shoot. I wondered whether she'd be upset about my spending the night with Bart. Did it make me look bad? Probably. But I couldn't do anything about it now.

  I sat on the couch and waited for the driver to arrive. My mind was still blank. No stress, no worry, no nothing. I wondered briefly whether Bart had drugged me, but I knew he hadn't. I'd watched the preparation of every drink I'd been served, and anyhow he hadn't needed to. I hadn't been anything but willing.

  I didn't mind the blankness, though. So much nicer than agonizing over my various career options. I'd accidentally begun following Angel down the 'milk the fame' path and it turned out to be the easiest way to go. So why not keep going, at least for now?

  Jo surprised me by being delighted with my new path. She was on the phone when I reached her office, but quickly ended her call and grinned at me. "Bart! You brilliant girl. No better way to get attention for your tour."

  I didn't know what to say to this, so I just smiled.

  "Poor Cindy is swamped with calls wanting us to confirm you two are in a relationship. His publicist called too so we'd get our story straight."

  "What story?" They hadn't even asked me. How had they already come up with a story?

  "That you get along great and enjoy spending time together but that's it for now. You're not dating, you're just friends."

  I blinked. "I... do you know where I was last night?"

  "In his hotel suite." Completely matter-of-fact. "And everyone else knows it too. Us denying that there's a relationship means they'll watch even harder, and all that attention will be good for your career. And his, since he has a movie coming out in a few weeks."

  I nodded slowly, trying to take all this in. I hadn't deliberately hooked up with him to boost our careers. I hadn't deliberately hooked up with him at all. Had he planned the whole thing to help his movie? "But, doesn't it look bad?"

  She frowned. "What?"

  Not wanting to spell it out, I said, "Me staying there overnight."

  "Spending the night with the hottest young movie star around? All your fans will be jealous, and it'll just make them like you more that you could land a guy like him."

  Those sweet girls I'd met at the restaurant the night I broke up with Jason. I didn't want them envying my emotionless fling with Bart. But I could see Jo's point. The more buzz my personal life got, the more attention my music would get too. That was what I wanted and needed, right? "Still..."

  She stood up and patted me on the shoulder. "Trust me. It's perfect. You couldn't have done a better thing for your career."

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  "Don't you care about your songs?"

  I rolled my eyes. "For the tenth time, of course I do."

  "For the tenth time," Tim said, mimicking my tone, "it doesn't look like it."

  I'd never admit it, but he had a point. I'd been out every night the last week with Bart, hitting night clubs and a premiere of his friend's movie and even taking over the revolving restaurant at the top of the CN Tower for his birthday dinner. We'd had sex every time we were together, and he turned out to be more attentive to my needs when he'd had less to drink, which was nice. But with all the time spent with him, I had little time and less energy for other things. Like my music.

  "You know he's an idiot, right?"

  I'd begun to notice that he might be, yes, but I couldn't tell Tim so. "Why would you say that? He's a sweetheart."

  Tim laughed. "Amy, Angel said he was too stupid for her when they broke up. Angel!"

  I struggled to hold my face still as I processed this but Tim saw my reaction. "Didn't know they'd dated? Last year. Coincidentally right when his last movie came out."

  Since Bart's next movie would be out soon, Tim's implication was clear. I didn't like it, and I hated him comparing me and Angel. She and Evan had been hanging out with Bart and me nearly every time we were together, and though she was still prickly and self-obsessed I was getting used to her. She was t
he closest thing I had to a friend at the moment, really, especially since Tim had been so grumpy since I started dating Bart. "What do you care? Even if he is stupid, even if he's using me for publicity, which he's not, what's the difference to you?"

  I expected an angry response but instead he leaned back in his chair and sighed. "You're better than this, Amy, this whole 'movie star girlfriend' thing. You're better than this." He gestured at the computer where we'd been going over my admittedly lackluster new lyrics. "And you're so much better than being a pop princess. You should go after it, go after doing your songs your way."

  Tim and Jo were like a little angel and devil sitting on my shoulders, one telling me to go after what I really wanted and never compromise and the other pointing out, as Jo had just today when I'd expressed an interest in deepening a song, that I had something great in Misty and I shouldn't ditch it because I wanted something else great.

  The problem was, I didn't know which was the angel and which the devil.

  "Tim, I can't. You know that. Misty is taking off and I need to make sure I don't screw it up. Changing my songs now will ruin everything."

  His eyes intense, he reached out and took my hand. "But they'd be real. Don't you want that?"

  All that sex with Bart, and Tim holding my hand was the most intimate thing I'd felt in forever. There was something so true and honest about the feel of his skin against mine. I shut my eyes, not wanting it to end. "I'm so confused," I mumbled, my throat tightening with tears. "Everything's gone numb."

  The numbness I'd felt the first night I slept with Bart had never gone away. It was at its weakest when I sang for an audience, like during a rehearsal when reporters came to watch, but I couldn't shake it entirely. No surprise considering how tired I was from so much work and so much time spent with Bart, but also no surprise that I couldn't write songs with my emotions buried under a thick layer of blankness.

  Tim's hand on mine, though, thinned that layer, made me feel safe, and just for a second I realized that maybe I was hiding under the numbness not being buried by it. Before I could wonder why I'd be hiding, Tim tightened his grip. "Amy, talk to me. You're so great, and you'd be even better if you let yourself go for it. Why won't you? Ditch the Misty thing and we can make Amy a star."

  I jerked my hand away before I realized I was going to, rage shredding the comfort his touch had given me. "There is no 'Misty thing'. There's me. I am Misty. And what's this 'we' stuff? I'd be taking all the risks, giving everything up, and you'd just get a free ride to success. You think Bart's using me. What are you doing? It's just the same."

  His mouth opened, then he closed it. The warmth in his eyes shrank to nothing as he said, "Forget I said anything. Let's get this song in shape. You still need three for the tour."

  I waited to feel bad about what I'd said to him. It didn't happen. So I must have meant it. "Okay."

  We put together three perfectly suitable songs over the next three days. They'd have been a hit for anyone who chose to sing them. Jo was delighted with them.

  Of all my songs, they were the only ones that didn't penetrate my numbness when I sang them.

  *****

  I'd thought being on tour was challenging enough when Angel was the headliner. This time around, I was the headliner and Jo's newest discovery was my opening act. I couldn't even remember the kid's name: Marian something. I didn't have time to remember, I was too busy.

  Busy fighting with Tim. I didn't feel numb with him, but only because we were at each other's throats every second we were together. He was constantly telling me I needed to work harder, get back to adding the depth I'd insisted on at the beginning, and I was constantly telling him to stop pushing me because I was giving it everything I had even to write the 'good enough' songs. I must have been: I had nothing left.

  Busy doing interviews and meeting fans. Neither of those things was as enjoyable as they'd been before, and the numbness enveloped me at all times, but they were both huge parts of the job and they needed to be done so I did them. I put on my wigs and huge smiles and I gave everyone the Misty they loved. Nobody seemed to be able to tell I was putting on an act. In my darkest moments I wondered if they'd have cared if they did notice.

  Busy finding myself in a different city every night, getting used to a new hotel room and a new dressing room backstage at the show. Everything was different every day, no continuity in my life.

  Except Bart.

  Whether he really liked me or was just hanging out with me for the publicity as Tim had suggested, I didn't know. But he contacted me every night, and often during the day, and the gossip sites were full of pictures of him on the phone or sending text messages with a wistful expression.

  They really had a field day when he came to visit me in New Orleans on my first night off, a week into the tour with three more weeks to go. When Bart arrived, unexpectedly, at my suite while Tim and I were working on a song and arguing more than we ever had before, I threw myself into his arms. At last, someone who wouldn't tell me what to do or mock my music. We'd barely discussed my work, or his, and we certainly didn't talk about how to do it better. Of course, we didn't spend much time talking.

  Bart tipped my face up and kissed me. "Hey, baby. How're you doing?"

  I could feel Tim's eyes on us, and something mean inside me made me say, "Better now that you're here."

  He kissed me again and slid his hand down my back to squeeze my butt. "That's what I like to hear."

  He looked past me, and I turned to see Tim watching us, his face blank. "Sorry. Bart, this is Tim. He works with me on the lyrics for my songs. Tim, this is—"

  "We've met." Tim got to his feet and approached us. "When you were dating Angel."

  Bart smiled easily. "She's a great girl." He wrapped his arm around me. "Not quite as good as this one, of course, but great."

  "Yup, Misty's great."

  My stomach twisted. Tim never called me Misty, and I didn't like him starting now.

  He turned his eyes to me. "I assume you'll be going out for dinner or something? We'll have to finish this song later."

  His face hadn't changed, and his tone was perfectly polite, but I knew he was angry and disappointed with me and it made me furious. I snuggled into Bart. "The song can wait until tomorrow."

  Bart drew me closer and let his fingers brush along my arm, just skimming the side of my breast as he did, then kissed my ear. "Glad to hear it. We've got things to do tonight."

  The caresses made it clear what we'd be doing, and Tim took the hint. "Well, have a nice evening." He looked at me a moment, his face calm but his eyes sad, then walked out leaving the printouts of the song scattered on my desk.

  For an instant I wanted to go after him, tell him I loved the song and wanted to finish it, apologize for Bart feeling me up like that. But Tim had spent the whole tour so far pushing me to be more than Misty, and I was so tired of it, so I made myself smile at Bart and say, "So, what's your big plan for the evening?"

  "Where's the bedroom in this place? We've got time for a quickie. Then I made dinner reservations."

  After Bart had sex with me, he sat on the bed in his boxer shorts and called his agent while I got myself ready to go out, then we spent the evening, first at dinner and then at several night clubs, smiling big for the trailing herd of paparazzi and not talking about anything that mattered.

  Chapter Thirty

  I dropped into a chair before my legs gave way. "Gone? Gone where?"

  Jo shook her head. "He just said he had to go. Had to quit."

  I sat, struggling to accept this, until she said, "Stop opening and closing your mouth like a shocked goldfish. This may actually be a blessing in disguise."

  I couldn't see how but I did make myself keep my mouth closed.

  She sighed. "I've been worried about Tim for a while now. He's obviously not happy writing pop songs, and he's been trying to drag people along with him to write serious ones. It's not good for my business to have my singers pressured to be someth
ing they're not."

  I'd thought he was trying to make me return to being Amy, but if he was attempting to remake everyone then I wasn't special to him. I wasn't special to anyone. Misty was, but Amy wasn't. Through the jumble of thoughts in my head, one thing made its way to the front. "But I need him."

  Jo gave a decisive shake of her head. "Not a chance. Look, you've become Misty to an amazing degree but Tim's been holding you back from going all the way. Take it from someone who did it, you have to completely commit to being your role. With Tim gone, there'll be nothing to stop you being Misty."

  I barely heard her. All I could think of was Tim's face yesterday when he walked out of my suite leaving me with Bart, the sad disappointment in his eyes. I hadn't seen him since. He hadn't even said goodbye. "Is he going to write his novel? Or is he—"

  "Misty!"

  I jumped.

  Jo softened her voice when she said, "Look, honey, here's the deal. Not every guy can handle success like yours. I thought Tim would be one who could, but here we are. I've got another lyricist lined up for you, Phil, and he's thrilled about getting to work with you. Let's not worry about Tim, okay? Let's worry about you."

  *****

  Not even being on stage that night completely stopped me worrying about Tim, but I was able to push him to the back of my mind as I focused on the show's choreographed moves and comments to the audience. That might have been a bad thing, as it turned out, because when I sat in my dressing room after the concert sipping warm water with honey before my interviews, all the emotions hit me at once.

  Tim was gone. Regardless of what he'd told Jo, he'd left because of me. And I didn't believe he'd been trying to change everyone. Who, Angel? She didn't have any further depths than what she'd been showing and Tim knew it. This Marian kid? She didn't write her own songs. She was six feet tall and her legs were probably five feet of that and she was gorgeous and with Steven's autotune magic applied she sounded pretty good. But she didn't want anything more than what she had.