Love So Tender: Taking Care of BusinessPlay It Again, ElvisGood Luck Charm

by Stephanie Bond

  “It’s okay,” she admitted finally once she found her voice again. “I know you didn’t mean to rile me, and you just might have given me the tool I need to prevent Rosa from hurting herself again.”

  It was a crazy plan, but it just might work.

  No, it had to work since Rosa’s life could depend on Alyssa’s success. Besides, since when had Alyssa Renato backed away from something crazy?

  “How can I do that?” Brett’s brow furrowed before that dark hair of his slid over his eye again.

  Alyssa’s fingers itched to twine through that dark brown hair and brush aside the errant strands, but she reminded herself that her new plan would call for a more hands-off approach. She couldn’t very well look at Brett as eye candy if she was going to form a professional relationship with him.

  Pity.

  Gathering her courage to do what needed to be done, she took a deep breath and shared her scheme.

  “You can consider me your manager long enough for you to beat the pants off my sister in the Elvis Legacy contest.”

  “You’ll represent me?”

  “Just until I can be sure you win. After that, I’m making no promises.”

  Brett’s grin could have made an ice princess melt. And Alyssa Renato had never been the cool and reserved type.

  “Then I guess you really are my good luck charm.” He offered her his hand to seal the deal. “I’m in.”

  That Graceland tattoo flexed along with a string of Chinese letters underneath. Alyssa dragged her eyes off his arm long enough to shake his hand and recognize she’d probably just lost her mind.

  “You realize I’ve just agreed to represent you without ever seeing you perform live?” Decisions like that made for really bad business. But then again, her deal with Brett wasn’t about business. It was about saving Rosa from herself.

  “Not to worry. I’ve got a set at Planet Soul on Friday night. You can take in the act and figure out how we can tweak it for the competition.”

  Alyssa nodded. “Great. Friday at eleven?”

  “I’m not in the eleven o’clock set.” He shrugged like it didn’t matter. “I go on at one.”

  “Not anymore you don’t.” Alyssa bristled, already looking forward to going head-to-head with the owner of Planet Soul. God, she’d missed this business. “We’ll get you in the earlier set. And maybe before you take the stage Friday we can head over to Golddiggers and scope out the terrain for the competition? There’s an Elvis-fest leading up to the main event.”

  “Sounds good.” Brett smiled and backed up a step toward the door. “I can’t thank you enough for working with me on this, Alyssa. You won’t be sorry.”

  “You did me a favor by giving me a heads-up on Rosa. I’m going to call her now and see if I can talk some sense into her.”

  “But either way, we’re still on for Friday, right? You’re with me through the competition?”

  “I’ll be there. And win or lose at the competition, I’ll make sure we get a few music execs on site to see your act.” She could do that much for him. In fact, now that she’d warmed up to the idea, she had to admit it would be a pleasure to make a couple of phone calls on his behalf, catch up with some old friends.

  After seeing him out, Alyssa ignored the leftover séance snacks and dirty dishes stacked by her register and started searching for Brett’s old demo. She’d take notes and brainstorm how to improve his act right after she called her sister again.

  Two hours later, ensconced in her queen-size, four-poster bed that was the sole piece of furniture she’d lugged from L.A. to Las Vegas, Alyssa finally got through on Rosa’s cell phone. Alyssa flung aside her notebook and the portable CD player with a copy of Brett’s original material as soon as the phone was picked up at the other end.

  Too bad the voice that answered wasn’t Rosa’s but a southern-accented male’s.

  “Rosa Renato’s phone.” The speaker strung out the last syllable like a resounding note on a steel guitar.

  “Um. Yes. Rosa Renato, please.” Alyssa wracked her brain for the name of her sister’s new man. Obviously a very significant new man if he answered her phone.

  Shuffling noises sounded on the other end before Rosa’s soprano took over.

  “Hey, Night Owl. You ever look at a watch?” Her voice rasped with a sleepy note. “It’s after midnight.”

  “Since when do you go to bed early?” When they’d been on the road together, they’d never gone to bed until dawn.

  “Since I have a normal life. What’s up?”

  Seeing no sense in dancing around the issue, Alyssa dove right in. Subtlety had never been her strong suit.

  “I hear you’re singing again. Publicly.”

  A long pause followed and Alyssa remembered why she and her sister rarely talked anymore. Anytime one of them brought up a sore subject, they ended up in an argument or shedding stupid tears that solved nothing. Not the most effective communication.

  Finally, Rosa cleared her throat. Came up with an answer. “I thought you’ve always said you were okay with whatever I decided to do.”

  “Of course I’m okay with whatever you want to do, just as long as you don’t get hurt in the process. Hell, Rosa, I thought you decided you shouldn’t perform anymore.” Alyssa remembered all the negative junk that had surfaced in her sister’s therapy while she’d fought her way through recovery. The pressure of live performances and media attention had caused most of her problems. And since Alyssa had set up every last one of Rosa’s gigs along with the demanding interview schedule to give her the necessary exposure to make it to the top, Alyssa took plenty of the blame.

  “I need to do this, Lys. And you don’t have to do anything for me this time. I’ve already got it all set up.”

  “So I’m out of the loop now?” Alyssa tried to ignore the hurt in her chest without much success. Didn’t Rosa care about all they’d weathered together? “After everything we’ve been through?”

  “I just don’t want any pressure this time.” Frustration threaded through Rosa’s voice, her words going softer as Alyssa’s grew louder.

  “You think I’ve pressured you?” Alyssa considered pounding her head against the nearest column on her four-poster bed. “Rosa, I walked away from everything just so I could—”

  “Alyssa?” The southern accent came back on the line sounding none too pleased.

  “I really need to talk to Rosa.” Her sister had a guard dog now? Her temper simmered as she thought of all the other times Rosa had bolted before they could resolve anything. “I didn’t even get to tell her I’m representing someone else at the Elvis Legacy.”

  “I’ll let her know. Don’t worry about her, okay? She’s doing really well.”

  Alyssa wanted to impress upon the guy—why couldn’t she remember his name?—that Rosa couldn’t perform next week, but before she knew it, she’d been politely shuffled off the phone.

  Well, hell.

  Refusing to feel guilty about taking Brett on as a temporary client when Rosa couldn’t even be bothered to tell Alyssa that she was singing again, Alyssa pressed the play button on Brett’s demo and went back to work. She would make sure Brett won the competition and the potential recording contract that went along with it because Rosa seemed to have developed amnesia about the detrimental effects of performing. Rosa could have her one night in the limelight, but no way would Alyssa allow her to get hurt again just because her new boyfriend thought she could handle a comeback.

  Letting the sweet music of Brett’s voice carry her away, Alyssa tipped her head back on the pillow to listen. She might only be reentering the music business for a short time, but damn it, she might as well jump in with both feet and enjoy herself. Her personal life sucked big time, so why not have a little fun in the profession she’d missed for two years?

  And since fooling around with her sexy new client wasn’t an option, she’d just have to keep them relentlessly busy and primed to take the number one slot at the competition.

  BRET
T HAD HEARD Alyssa’s promotional methods were unconventional, but that knowledge hadn’t prepared him for her maneuverings at the site of the Elvis Legacy shindig on Friday night.

  He sat on a bench in the middle of the chaos in the casino’s biggest reception hall and watched Alyssa argue with one of the hundred vendors setting up their wares in preparation for the weekend crowds. No doubt Alyssa was in the process of telling the ninety-year-old bald T-shirt salesman that his graphic renderings of her idol were all wrong. Brett had already heard her launch the same arguments with a leather goods merchant, an artist selling velvet paintings and two impersonators whose pompadours were too high and thin.

  According to Alyssa, the King had exceptional hair.

  All of which was well and good except that Brett couldn’t see how a single one of her disputes had any bearing on his ability to clinch the Legacy title and a shot at a recording contract. With only a week left until the competition, shouldn’t they be ironing out rehearsal schedules, discussing what to perform or even going over the basics of how to appeal to the judges?

  Instead, Alyssa moved through the crowd on an endless mission to groom the King’s image instead of Brett’s. Hell, he hoped he hadn’t made a mistake by joining forces with her. He’d embraced the clear-cut rules and regulations of the financial world after his wacky childhood with his aunt the wannabe Miss Marple. And even when he’d left behind his neat world of organized columns of numbers to pursue music, he’d never aspired to live an over-the-top rock ’n’ roll lifestyle.

  Thinking he should have shared his mindset with Alyssa from the start, he was just about to rejoin her and suggest they head out to his gig at Planet Soul when a tall, frosty-looking blonde approached Alyssa. A clipboard in one hand and a sleek silver pen in the other, the woman glided to a stop in front of Alyssa, her white pleated skirt floating gently around her calves.

  The event coordinator. Brett recognized her from when he’d signed up a few days ago. Maybe now Alyssa would get down to business and discuss the order of the performers on Saturday, or help finagle him a favorable slot on the schedule.

  He rose to his feet and headed across the room to join them. Ducking under a wooden trellis covered in silk roses and a banner advertising weddings on the spot, Brett arrived at Alyssa’s side just as the event coordinator was shaking her head.

  “I don’t know about sponsoring a séance here, Ms. Renato.” The blonde wrinkled her nose, shifting her horn-rimmed glasses higher on her face. “Don’t you think the event would be a little distracting for the people who were trying to make contact with…um…the other side?”

  Crap. So much for Alyssa discussing his career.

  She’d started off on a séance kick instead of promoting his music.

  “I’m sure we can find some creative ways to work around that, Ms. Bristol.” Alyssa whipped a business card from the back pocket of her jeans. “Just keep it in mind and we can talk more about it tomorrow.”

  After exchanging a few more pleasantries with the coordinator who surely thought Alyssa was insane, Brett’s new manager steered them toward the door, her arms weighted down with shopping bags full of Elvis loot. A purple satin sleep mask embroidered with a Cadillac convertible propped on her forehead like forgotten sunglasses.

  “Un-freaking-believable.” Brett shoved open the doors to the reception room and led them through the main casino toward the entrance where he’d valet parked an hour ago.

  “What?” Alyssa rummaged through a brown bag on her arm while Brett handed his valet ticket to a kid dressed in tuxedo pants and running shoes.

  “You brought us here to shop for Elvis memorabilia and angle for a séance at the show this Saturday?” He watched the elaborate bob and weave of valets retrieving cars and hoped he hadn’t made a big mistake gambling on Alyssa to save his music career.

  “Of course not.” She pulled a miniature velvet guitar out of her shopping bag and dangled it under his nose. “Isn’t this cute? It’s a purse.”

  She flicked a button of some sort to show him how it opened.

  “Yeah. Cute.” Gritting his teeth, he tugged the sleep mask off her forehead as his car pulled up to the curb. He’d been intrigued by her offbeat personality when they’d first met, but he hadn’t been relying on her business savvy when he’d asked her out. For that matter, she hadn’t been conducting séances as a sideline back then, either.

  She followed him to the vehicle, flashing a sexy smile at one of the other valets who nearly tripped over himself in his haste to open the car door for her. Brett helped her settle her bags in the back on top of his guitar before they pulled out onto the street toward Planet Soul.

  “Okay, so I managed to fit in a little shopping while I was doing business. Is that a crime?” Alyssa rolled down the windows on his vintage Caddy, which was similar to the model on the sleep mask she’d been wearing. “Don’t forget, you came looking for me to help you. Now that I’ve agreed to represent you the least you can do is cut me some slack on how I do business.”

  He knew she had a point. But, damn it, why couldn’t they at least set some goals together so he could get a better idea of what they were working toward?

  “And you think holding a séance while I’m performing will help me secure the recording contract?” He slowed down for another red light in stop-and-go traffic on the Strip. After living in Vegas for the past eighteen months, Brett knew plenty of shortcuts around the city but there weren’t any that would help him reach Planet Soul faster.

  “Just imagine what an impression you’d make if we conjure the King during your set.” Alyssa grinned over at him, the reflected glow of neon lights playing over her dark hair and delicate skin. He hadn’t noticed until now she wore snakeskin boots with her dark jeans tonight, the gray and white pattern gleaming from their perch on his floorboards.

  Of course, he’d been making a concerted effort to honor their deal and not hit on her.

  “Conjure Elvis? You can’t be serious.”

  Apparently Alyssa Renato had lost her marbles during her hiatus from the music industry. How could she take him to the top of the charts when she seemed more apt to get them both committed to the nearest loony bin?

  “Brett, you just remember who’s in the driver’s seat.” She leaned across him to give the horn a quick honk. “Figuratively speaking, that is.”

  Yeah, she’d lost it all right. He shouldn’t have been so quick to sign on with a woman who summoned dead musicians for fun. But he was going for broke, gambling everything he had on this one last chance.

  He shrugged his shoulders at the guy glaring at him from the front of a white stretch limo in the next lane. Maybe limo drivers didn’t take kindly to horn honkers.

  “Can you expound on the driver’s seat comment? Exactly how much control do you expect to wield in this partnership?” Sure, they were only bound to one another short term, but it was long enough to watch his fledgling music career go up in flames.

  Or a puff of incense smoke while she and her crazy friends huddled over the Ouija board during the biggest performance of his life.

  “Of course.” Alyssa tossed the contents of her old leather pocketbook into her new guitar-shaped purse.

  She sent wads of dollar bills, packs of cinnamon chewing gum and skinny tubes of lip gloss torpedoing from one bag to the other while he steered the Cadillac around a crowd of tourists snapping photos of the light display outside Bally’s.

  “With me at the wheel, there are no drugs, no drinking binges, no prima donna b.s. and no talking to the press unless I set it up for you. Simple enough?”

  “Hell, Alyssa, I worked on Wall Street for five years. I’m not some twenty-year-old punk guitarist with more balls than brains.” He’d jammed with plenty of guys who only played an instrument to help them score with women, but that had never been the point for Brett. “I’m not in this for the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle, you know.”

  “Yeah, well, neither was Elvis Aron and look what happened to him.” S
he waved out the window as they passed the Elvis wedding chapel and a couple kissing just outside the front door.

  “Friends of yours?”

  “No. Just sending good karma toward the newlyweds. With fifty percent of marriages ending in divorce these days, couples need all the help they can get.”

  “Especially when they marry on the spur of the moment in Vegas.” Brett moved to the right lane as they neared the turnoff for Planet Soul. “And I think I heard that it’s up to fifty-eight percent now.”

  “Shoot. Now a wave doesn’t seem like nearly enough good karma to send their way. You think we ought to go back and honk our horn at them?” She flipped open a compact from her purse and slicked on a layer of shiny lip gloss that smelled like bubble gum from clear across the car.

  At least she didn’t seem serious about honking the horn.

  “Does that mean you’re a romantic?” He slid the car into a parking spot on a side street near the back entrance of the popular nightclub where he’d be taking the stage in a few minutes since Alyssa had pulled a few strings and maneuvered him into the coveted eleven o’clock set.

  She had done that much at least, and she’d made it happen as fast as she’d promised. Maybe he needed to relax a little more and let her take the lead, but he’d never been the kind of guy to give up control easily.

  “Not really a romantic. I just think those souls who are either foolish enough or brave enough to try for happily ever afters deserve the support of the people around them.” She toyed with the strings on her velvet guitar and then met his gaze. “It’s hard enough to stick to a monogamous relationship without the people around you trying to tear it down.”

  He sensed a story behind those words, but knew he didn’t have enough time to ask about it. Still, he wondered if Alyssa had been in a relationship like that before. Somehow he could picture her being both brave and foolish, and he hoped she hadn’t been hurt for her trouble. Alyssa might be a little wild, but now that he thought about it she’d followed through on her promises so far, even giving him a few hints on improving his demo that he thought might work well.