by Jaime Samms
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Damian demanded, pointing a finger in Stanley’s direction.
“Me?” Stanley took a step back. “I suppose any number of things could be credited to me,” he said, fighting to sound calm and collected. “You’ll have to be more specific if you want a definitive answer, I’m afraid.” He glanced at his assistant. “Okay?” he asked her, hoping removing his focus from Damian would be enough to calm his racing heart.
She crossed her arms over her chest and scowled, but she nodded. “You want me to call security?” The glare she leveled at Damian was a nasty one and it almost brought a smile to Stanley’s face. She was a bit of a pit bull when it came to protecting the sanctum of his inner office. Not that he would ever tell her, but he was pretty sure he couldn’t afford to pay her what she was worth to him.
“I think the two of us can handle one skinny goth boy, Miss Miranda.” Vance had been spotting Stanley’s work with the free weights and he emerged from the workout room at the commotion, no doubt to take a first-row seat to the younger musician’s imminent meltdown.
Stanley managed not to roll his eyes as Miranda blushed and nodded to the country star. “Of course, Mr. Ashcroft.” She turned to Stanley and the blush deepened to brighter spots of aggravation. “Will there be anything else?”
Stanley managed not to grin, grateful to her for diffusing his reaction to Damian’s ire, which shouldn’t have struck him as that appealing in the first place. “No, thank you, Miranda. You can go.”
“I’ll be right outside.” She backed out of the room and closed the door.
“And so.” Stanley draped his towel around his neck and turned to Damian. “Here you are. But I see no signed contracts in your hand.”
“We can’t sign them.” Damian glared at him, eyes bright, gaze studiously riveted on Stanley’s face while his own cheeks flushed. “But you knew that, because you already spoke to Kelly Granger.”
“We do lunch sometimes,” Stanley admitted. He wandered to the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of water, one of which he tossed to Vance.
Not having any desire to slide his sweaty, half-dressed body into the leather chair behind his desk, Stanley leaned on the bar and twisted the top off his water bottle. He took a healthy swig before going on. “We may have had lunch together yesterday, in fact. She was going on about how difficult it was to find reliable work-a-day musicians nowadays.” He smirked and took another swig of his drink.
“Well, she’s not going to have an issue with that now, is she? I’m as good as shackled to her studio for the next five years, thanks to you.”
“Me?” Stanley hid another smile behind his bottle. He shouldn’t be enjoying the younger man’s fit of pique so much, and he knew it. But it was either keep himself aloof or he’d be falling deeper into that heart-pounding, too-near-to-lust reaction his body seemed to want to have, and that was disconcerting. “What did I do?”
“You told her you wanted us. She went ballistic. Every single clause in our contracts that would keep me and Lenny tied to her, she invoked. The rest, she cut loose. They’ve got nothing but a buyout they can’t pay.”
“That so?” Vance spoke up from where he was leaning in the doorway to the workout room. “Did you expect something different to happen?”
“I expected to have time to figure out how to get around them before she knew about this,” Damian said.
“Do you really think,” Stanley asked, “she’s dumb enough to write clauses like that into contracts and not have them be ironclad? How did you expect to get around them?”
Damian’s eyes darkened, his lips turned down, and his fingers tightened, but he said nothing.
“You didn’t have a plan,” Stanley guessed.
Still, the singer remained silent.
“You didn’t have a plan. You just grabbed at something pretty and hoped for the best.”
“I assumed you knew some way—”
“You should know something about this business, kid,” Vance cut in.
Stanley glanced at him, surprised by his interjection.
“You want the shiny bright career? You want to make it big? You make sure you know what’s going on, how every contract works, and what you’re signing away before you sign it. No one else is going to do that for you. Everyone is going to look out for themselves, and you have to assume no one wants what’s best for you but you.”
“Did I ask you?” Damian turned his glare on Vance. “I know what’s in the contracts. I figured he had a plan.”
“I did,” Stanley said mildly.
“Well.” Damian shuffled a little uncertainly. “What was it, because I would sure like to know.”
“My plan was to offer you a deal you couldn’t resist. How you deal with Granger isn’t my problem. All I had to do was offer something so much better than what you had, you’d be motivated to figure it out.” He pushed himself away from the bar. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I was in the middle of a workout. You can see yourself out. Come back when you have something worth taking up my time for.”
“Wait!” Damian sprang forward. “It isn’t that simple!”
“Seems simple enough to me. You want out of her contract, and you want to sign mine. Do what you have to do and come back when we can do business.”
“You don’t understand.” Damian’s demanding tone broke and his shoulders slumped. “It isn’t just a matter of doing what I have to do. We can’t afford it. And if I can’t get out of that contract, I have nothing to offer you anyway. Unless I can buy her out, she gets all our music. All of it.”
“You signed that kind of deal?” Vance straightened. Thick brows came down to shadow his eyes and he frowned. “Are you insane? That’s your livelihood. She’s a greedy bitch to have even put that in there. She’s your agent. She has no right to dig her claws into your flesh like that.”
“Where were you when we were signing the damn things?” Damian mumbled. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. It’s done, and the only way to undo it is to pretty much pay her every penny we would have made for her over the next five years.”
“Why did you give her any control over your music at all?” Vance asked.
“When we signed, we’d just lost out on the biggest chance of our lives. The show went with the pretty straight girl.” He shook his head. “If you think those shows have anything to do with fan voting, you’re wrong. They know from day one who’s gonna win, and it was never us. They keep you hoping, though. Right up to the last minute.”
From the doorway, Vance nodded his agreement. “They always go with the pretty straight girl. You are not the first gay guy to come in as runner-up.”
“I know. Not the point. The point is, we needed something, and hers was the only offer on the table. We needed some way to pay the bills. Jethro’s dad needed surgery. Beks had no place to live, we had no practice space. We were desperate. Believe me, she wanted much more. Alice managed to get us a really decent contract, considering all Granger wanted was me. She got all of us three years playing together with an option to re-sign the band when the three years were up, if she was satisfied. None of the music was on the table except what we wrote during the duration of the three-year contracts, unless we breeched them. She wasn’t letting me go for five years, no matter what. She still isn’t, but now there’s no way she’s even keeping the band to the end of the original contracts. She wants them out, and she can invoke the breech clauses now. They can’t afford to pay.”
“What about you?” Vance asked.
“Me?” Damian shrugged. “My buyout is five times what theirs is. I have savings. I can pay it, but what’s the point?” He looked up at Stanley. “I’m not going onstage without them. I got them into this mess, I have to buy them out of it.”
“So.” Stanley settled back against the counter and studied the younger man. Thankfully, his libido seemed to have calmed down, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t still fascinated by this man. “You’re going to buy their contracts for them, and
then what? You will still be shackled to her.”
“They can at least find new gigs. Or something. They don’t need me.”
“But you need them.”
Damian shrugged. After a moment, he sighed. “You could sign them still.”
“Who says I want them, without you?”
The singer drew in a sharp breath and set his shoulders. “They’re talented. You can use them as studio musicians, or a touring band or something. Beks can fix any wonky arrangement, hear what’s missing, fill in the sound. You won’t believe the ear she’s got. Clive’s a great drummer. He’s solid, and Jethro’s more than just a bassist. He’s got a wicked sexy voice. He can sing backup. Hell, if he wasn’t so damn shy, I’d have him up front with me, but he’s too frickin’ chickenshit to step up.” He shrugged again and ducked his head. “Lenny’s just… I mean it’s his dream, right? He’s incredible. He can do it all. Write, play, sing.” He shook his head. “I’m just the singer. They’re the musicians.”
“And you screwed them over.”
Anger flashed over the young man’s face, and the fire in his pale eyes sent a shiver through Stanley. “Yes, okay? I screwed everything up for them, so that’s why I’m here. I’m asking you. Please. Once I get them free of Granger’s greedy, vindictive money grab, will you sign them?”
“I don’t see why I should.” Stanley met his gaze and forced himself not to react to the fury building behind the singer’s eyes. “You’re the one I want. Insisting you get to work with them is a prima donna attitude that isn’t going to win you a lot of friends in this business.”
“Well, I’m not insisting, am I?” Damian snarled. “Because I won’t be here. I’ll still be slaving away under Granger’s whip.” He straightened, consciously loosening his fingers until his hands hung limp at his sides. The anger was still snapping in his eyes, but to his credit, his voice remained steady and calm. “All I’m asking is you give them a chance. You said you heard us at the Evangeline, so you know we’re good. They can do it without me. They can’t do it without you.”
Stanley took a moment to sip his water and consider the man’s plea. It was completely unfair the kid could look at him like that, defiant and pissed, and well within his rights to be completely furious with Stanley for spilling the negotiations to Granger, and still get his blood thundering in his veins. By rights, Damian should be panting himself. It wasn’t like Vance was hard to look at, especially with his shirt off and covered in a shimmering veneer of sweat, and yet he stood there as if he was immune to him.
“It’s not like I’m the only manager in the business.”
“No. But you are the best. And since I fucked up the contracts they had, I owe it to them to make sure they get what they deserve, and that’s the best this time.”
“You’re pretty confident,” Vance said.
Both Stanley and Damian looked at him.
“I’ll tell you what.” He walked into the room and leaned an elbow on Stanley’s shoulder.
Damian blinked and swallowed, his gaze falling down over both sweaty chests, then flickering back up.
Thank God, he was human after all, Stanley thought. He had begun to worry the singer might actually be able to outbluff him.
“Buy them out. Stan will sign them.” His golden brown eyes narrowed and too late, Stanley began to worry what his friend might be up to. “I’ll pay your way out of Granger’s clutches, and we’ll see if this band of yours is as loyal to you as you are to them. Bring them here, and we’ll put it to a vote. If they say you’re in, then goody for you. A percentage of your royalties will go to me until I get my investment back.”
“What percentage?”
Vance chugged the last of his water and tossed his bottle into the recycle bin. “Well, that’ll depend on what kind of contract you can find once you’re clear of Granger, won’t it? Whatever the percentage ends up being, it will be between you and me. Nothin’ to do with your manager or band or anyone else. No one else has to know about it. Don’t worry. I won’t leave you so poor you can’t pay your own way.”
“Why?”
Vance straightened and headed back to the workout room. “I don’t like Kelly Granger,” he said. “She took something of mine once, and it pissed me off.”
“So what?” Damian asked, stopping Vance at the doorway. “I’m a toy and you’re stealing me away from her?”
Vance laughed. “Pretty much, yeah.” Vance proceeded into the other room and closed the door, leaving Damian staring openmouthed after him.
“Can he really do that?” he asked after enough awkward silence had settled to make Stanley uneasy.
“I suppose he just did.” He emptied his water bottle and discarded it. “I mean, he can certainly afford it. He’s pretty much made of money at this point. Can’t spend it fast enough. And he really does dislike Kelly.”
“Because she took something from him.”
“Apparently.”
“What?”
That made Stanley grin. “Probably me.”
Damian’s jaw dropped a tiny bit farther. “You? And him?”
“Long time ago.”
“And you… and Kelly.” Damian actually shuddered, which amused Stanley.
“Don’t knock it, kid. If you stopped to look, you’d notice she’s pretty hot.”
Damian frowned. “She’s a skank.”
“Well. That too. Anyway, it’s all ancient, unrecorded history. Repeat it, and she’ll bury you. Vance’s preferences are not a matter of public record, so keep it that way.”
Damian nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”
“I mean it. You know I can make you into something.” Stanley forced away the gut-curdling sensation of what he was about to say. It wasn’t in his nature to threaten, but Vance’s career was his responsibility, and Vance’s friendship was important. “If I can make you a star, I can also make you unemployable.”
“You’re threatening me?”
“I’m reminding you. Careers are built and destroyed in offices like this one, and in the sound bites of the Internet, not onstage. Vance is offering to help you and it would be in poor taste to turn around and hurt him for it.”
“So you think I should take his offer.”
“I think it’s the best one you’re going to get.”
“Are you going to sign me?” He looked so damn hopeful. But Vance had made a stipulation, and Stanley would stand by him.
“That will depend on your friends, won’t it?” He glanced at his watch and back at the singer. “I think you probably have enough time to wrap this deal up by the end of the week. Friday afternoon, bring them by. This Alice person too. If she’s your contract lawyer, I want to meet her face-to-face and make sure she’s good enough. This is hardly the last contract she’s going to have to negotiate for your band. She’ll be working on my behalf, and I want to be sure she’s up to the task.”
“If she’s not?”
“I’ll find someone who is.”
Damian nodded. “If you don’t sign me I’m screwed. I’ll have nothing.”
“Not really my problem, kid, is it?”
There was that dark, angry light in his eyes again, and Stanley barely suppressed another shiver. “I fucking wish you had never called me,” Damian said, his voice dropping into that low, sultry, petulant range Stanley had only heard him use onstage. As if he wasn’t having enough trouble controlling his reaction to the guy.
“Whatever happens, you will be free of a shitty contract with a greedy slut you don’t even like and have no respect for. So you can at least thank me for that.”
Damian curled his lip, and the expression, with the black lipstick, his dark-rimmed eyes, and spiked hair was the picture-perfect image of the badass he wanted to project. And dammit, if it didn’t send all the right signals to Stanley’s lizard brain.
This was not the time to be falling into completely inappropriate lust with a potential client. And a messed up one, at that. Not that his brain ever listened to common sense when
it came to these things. How many times had he let it talk him into Vance, after all?
“All right,” he said, straightening and moving to the door. “Now we’re clear on where everyone stands, I have things to do. It’s been… interesting. See you on Friday.”
“Yeah.” Once again, Damian’s gaze wandered over Stanley’s bare chest and legs. “Right. Friday.” He lifted his gaze, and for a split heartbeat of a second, there was more than enough angry, frustrated heat directed at Stanley to set them both on fire.
Then Damian snarled, turned on his combat-booted heel, and stalked through the receptionist area and out into the corridor.
Stanley closed the door gently.
“Oh, I fucking know that look,” Vance said from behind him. “You are so fucked.”
Stanley ground his teeth, turned and prowled across the room. “Not yet, I’m not.” He flattened a hand across Vance’s chest and pushed him back into the workout room, closing that door less gently.
“Here?” Vance asked, eyes lighting, lips twisting in a lustful grin. “Now?”
“Fuck yes.”
“I thought we settled this.”
Stanley shrugged. “That was something going on in your head, not mine.”
With a little shake of his head, Vance capitulated. “You’re killin’ me.” But he already had Stanley pinned against the closed door and a hand cupped lightly under his jaw.
Stanley let his eyes drift closed as Vance’s weight and heat engulfed him.
9
OUTSIDE, DAMIAN had to stop and lean on the cool, rough brick to catch his breath. That was the first business meeting he’d ever had where he’d had to battle his own libido. Who worked out in their office, anyway? And then conducted business half-naked and glossed over with sweat?