"What's going on?" King asked, striding toward the two of them.
He forced himself from taking a step back. Alice should see his anger, but it was better if King did not.
"Nothing that should concern you. Your assistant and I have some unfinished business."
If he could fake temper tantrums when he needed, he could use his acting skills to pretend that he was less insane from pain. He could act like a sane person.
"Are you done now?" King asked
"Not by a long shot," he said, without looking at Andrew.
His eyes bore into hers. She was the only one who needed to know and to fear.
He turned on his heels and stormed out of the room even more enraged than he had entered. In passing, he told Mark to work with all his contestants. He had to take get out of there. He let his brain melt under the blazing inferno of his hatred.
Alice
"What was that all about?" Andrew asked when they were alone.
If he was anyone else, Alice would have lied without hesitation. She settled for a vague truth.
"He thinks I ruined his life."
"How?"
"A few months ago... I helped a friend of mine get very close to him. He fell in love with her, and now he found out about… my involvement."
"It doesn't sound a good reason for such a strong reaction," he said.
She shrugged. TC was famous for his overreactions.
"Maybe."
"Alice, I need to know."
She closed her eyes and sighed. She tried to compose herself. She felt as though her flesh and her bones were made out of jelly. She felt shapeless, about to collapse in on herself at any moment.
"He feels tricked. They... They had a child."
Andrew let out a harsh breath. His marriage was over and his only child lived an ocean away from him. He was bound to understand why Tim would not be happy to have a child with a woman he could no longer trust.
"You're not responsible for his choices," he said.
She pinched her lips. Maybe Andrew would have reacted rationally if he found out that she'd been helping Vy to seduce him. It hardly mattered. Vy wasn't the seducing type.
"TC is not the kind of man who can admit he made a mistake," she said. "He finds it easier to deal with unpleasant things when he can blame it on someone else. That doesn't change anything though. He believes it's my fault. I wronged him and he hates me."
Andrew looked at her oddly.
"You seem very sure of that."
"I am. He is… let's say, my specialist subject. It just so happens that Isabella was more open to my advice than Vy ever was."
"What do you mean?"
"Last year, I wanted to help Vy get on his team. I tried to nudge her to present herself at the audition in a way TC would die to have her on his team. She didn't take my advice, but fortunately he was more intuitive than I gave him credit."
Even in that situation, with the TC crisis looming over her, she barely held back the urge to say something to make Andrew feel bad for not getting Vy. She would do anything to keep TC from messing with his mind, but she felt she had the right to torture him on that subject. One day, if Vy and Andrew weren't going to work it out on their own, she was going to stop holding back and do something to get them together.
"I see," he said. "Well, we'll have to arrange your schedule so that you don't run into him for a while."
What? Schedule? She needed to be in a different zip code than TC. If he didn't calm down, she might have to go into the jungle of South America with her tomb raiding parents
"Andrew, that's not going to be possible," she said in a reasonably calm tone. "I know him. You didn't notice how much of his negative energy I diverted from our team, but he hasn't been stable for a long time. It's not just that now he actively hates me. He will try to get back at me for what I did."
"Are you asking to be let go from this position?" he asked.
She couldn't ask him that. If any of her friends needed her, she'd go through fire. Literal or metaphorical.
"It would be the smart thing to do. I already did what you brought me here for. Our people already know what to say in front of the cameras. At semi-finals and finals, the off-competition focus is more on what the contestants learned and what activities you Captains do with them. We already scheduled those. They'll do fine."
"It never ceases to amaze me how sometimes when we talk you sound like the older and wiser one between the two of us."
Alice smiled. Andrew was sweet to notice that. Most people didn't catch on that she often played the adult when the adults around her were acting like children.
"I'm used to being the grown up. You're one of the few people who doesn't activate that part of me all the time."
"I don't want to pull you off the team to appease Carter," he said somberly.
She'd been afraid of that. Andrew had a stubborn streak and nothing turned it on like his rivalry with TC. She had to try to change his mind.
"It's not that. You don't need me any longer. The only reason I didn't ask you earlier to quit was the very fact that my being here dampened the toxic effects Carter would have on our team. Now I'll have the exact opposite effect."
He shook his head unconvinced.
"I don't want to lose you. What you do for the contestants, it's more than a PR thing. You got them to open up. It improved their performances tremendously. When we started, I didn't think Tyler was ever going to tap into his feelings enough, but you got him to open up. Or that Jade had any hidden depth, but I don't know what black magic you did, she sings with passion now."
Black magic. Same words Isabella had used.
"Is that more important to you than Carter's wellbeing? I know you guys aren't the best of friends, but do you really want him to spiral out of control? As long as I'm here, his energy will be very negative."
"Do you care about his well-being?"
"Of course," she said. "Andrew, I never meant to hurt him. Maybe I foolishly hoped he would never find out, but I didn't expect him to take it so bad. He seemed in real pain."
"Are you sorry for him?" he asked surprised.
"Aren't you, too? He's such an incredible creative force and yet he's so deeply unhappy. He shows to the world as this profoundly obnoxious persona, but he's trying to protect himself."
"When did he become your specialist subject?"
"I've been watching him forever. Long before Vy's audition. She and Sebastian wanted to play so many Waves songs and it got boring after a while. I know you can't understand this because you're obsessed with music. I like music, but I don't have the same relentless need to study it and play it. I needed to distract myself."
"Studying Carter?"
"Some people go around the world chasing tornadoes. I was safe in my house, watching old recordings of TC and the Waves."
So much for safe hobbies…
"There are only a few weeks left," Andrew said. "I need you here."
She nodded. He had used the magic word. She would do anything if her friends needed it. Besides, maybe he was right. How bad could things get in a few weeks?
Chapter Eighteen
Tim
HE DROVE to his studio like Superman to the Fortress of Solitude. The intensity of his reaction to Alice's presence worried him. What might have happened if King hadn't showed up?
At the studio, he asked as politely as he could muster to have the place to himself. The band that was scheduled to record were more than happy to leave once he agreed to be there for their next session. That and the promise that they'd get double time for the favor sent them scurrying away in a matter of minutes.
He kept an engineer in the control room and he went in the booth.
When he picked up the guitar he had a flashback. The very first time he'd laid eyes on Alice Lewis. Vy brought her to the studio. In that very booth, Vy had started to sing and Alice accompanied her at the guitar. Without their knowledge, he had recorded that session.
"Jim, fin
d a recording labeled 'Layla'. It's from earlier this year. January or February I think. Please play it."
It took the sound engineer a few minutes to locate it. Carter set the guitar down gently, although he felt like smashing it against the walls. He wondered if he remembered correctly how well she played.
Miss Lewis had studied him. Well, he had plenty of resources to study her. For one thing, he should go into the archive he had already amassed about Vy, and look at the recordings of her band. Vy was center stage, but snakey Alice was there, too.
Vy's voice filled his ears. He closed his eyes, trying to shift his focus from the voice to the guitar. Voice and instrument blended perfectly. It felt wrong to separate them. She wasn't anything special as guitarist, but it worked better with Vy's voice than many of his orchestrations. It sounded organic. As if they belong together.
He texted Vy.
"Come to the studio tonight."
He hadn't done that in months. He had left her live her life in Salona without night-long practices in his studio.
The answer came almost instantly. Maybe she missed their sessions as well.
"When?"
"When you finish classes. Time not important. I'll be here."
"R u ok?"
He didn't reply. He picked up the guitar, and started playing.
#
Vy burst into the control room like a tornado around six in the afternoon. The drive from Salona to Orsino took at least two hours. Add to that the heavy afternoon traffic in the capital, she must have left the moment he texted her.
"Did you eat anything today?" she asked.
"How is that always the first thing on your mind?"
"It is not," she said, comically outraged. "But I'm kind of hungry."
Her reaction brought a smile to his lips. She had her own darkness, her own sentimental troubles, but she was best friend material. He threw her his cell phone.
"Order pizza."
She set it fussily on the mixing table, and took out her own cell.
"Yeah, sure, I'll use yours. Like I don't have the best pizza places in Orsino with ranks cand comments in my own phone."
She scrolled thorough, frowning and making all types of grimaces for his amusement until she made up her mind.
"What do you want?" she whispered while the number connected.
"Whatever."
"I don't think they have whatev-. Oh, hello. I'd like to order..."
He stopped listening to her as she started to ask for a long list of extra toppings. She'd get it right. He didn't care what he ate. It was going to taste like ashes in his mouth.
They worked on a new song he had written for her until the pizza got there and kept working long after it had grown cold.
She was relentless. When he asked her to work, she forgot about hunger or exhaustion. Tim, Vy can outwork you. Alice's words rang in his ears. Damn her!
They finally took a break and he relaxed, watching Vy attacking the cold pizza. She sat in her usual chair, industriously trying to chew on a slice of rubbery pizza.
"Does it bother you that I didn't take you to Sing?"
She looked at him surprised.
"When did you last care if something bothers me?" she answered with her mouth full.
"Indulge me," he said.
"Don't I always?" she said with a sigh. "No, it didn't. It doesn't. It didn't even occur to me that you might, but that was the first thing Alice asked me when King offered her the position."
He took a bite of pizza. It was cold, it tasted like cardboard and it had consistency rubber, but he went on chewing to keep from asking details.
Alice. Always bloody Alice. Vy spoke, to fill the uncomfortable silence as he expected.
"She was worried that I might not be ok with her being on King's team because of my loyalty to you. I told her even then. It's so weird that that I was on your team and she on his, since as long as I can remember she always preferred your music."
The girl's voice trailed off.
"And you always preferred King's."
"It's in the past," she said feigning indifference.
"I don't remember her being all that star-struck when you brought her here."
"Oh, she's great at hiding her feelings. I asked her to teach me this, but..."
Carter clenched his jaw. Vy was wrong. The snake-woman was great at pretending to have feelings, not hiding them. He'd made him believe that she was nice and friendly like Vy. Instead she was two-faced and dangerous. Like Isabella.
"Why did King hire her?" he asked.
"What do you mean? He hired her as an assistant."
"To do what? She can't be of much use as a vocal coach. He had virtually limitless choices, why would he get her?"
Vy squirmed in her seat.
"Vy?"
"I don't want to talk to you about her. I don't talk to her about you."
"You don't?"
"No," she said earnestly. "I can't choose between the two of you, and the only way I can keep you both in my life is if I don't mention you to each other."
"You must have talked to her about me before she got the job on Sing."
She bowed her head, and dragged the words out.
"I did. We used to talk a lot about you. Before my audition, I couldn't get her to shut up on the subject of you. Alice advised me to pick you as my Captain."
"So how did she end up working with King?"
"He offered them a contract."
"He must see something special in her," he said.
He put just a pinch of insinuation in the tone. Alice may have worked wonders with Isabella, but Vy was transparent in her reactions. He saw her heart shrinking at the thought of Andrew King and her best friend. He didn't enjoy hurting Vy, but he was pleased to have planted that particular seed of jealousy. She was too good for King anyway.
"Alice said that he gave them a chance because of Bryce. You know how much King loved him on the show."
Alice said. Alice advised. Alice. Alice. Alice.
"But it's not Bryce in the House as his assistant."
"Be fair. Bryce has talent but no formal musical education."
"What aren't you telling me, Vy?"
She huffed.
"It's not something I know, ok? It's just a guess."
"Then it doesn't even count as betraying her confidence. You're just hypothesizing."
She shook her head, suspicious of his sudden hair splitting abilities, but she relented.
"Fine. Alice is very good at getting people to show themselves in their best light. Had I listened to her when they did the interviews with us, for Sing, I wouldn't have come off as a rich arrogant bitch. Even the song I chose…"
So, he was the only idiot not to know about Alice's skills. King had chosen her to work on his contestants' presentation, not their musical abilities. He was getting sneaky in his old age.
"What do you mean?"
It would be interesting to know Alice's strategy for Vy. Besides, Vy wouldn't feel the same scruples to talk about it, since it didn't pertain to the current season.
"She tried to tell me that the song for my audition wasn't a good choice."
"Your voice sounds amazing in that zone of androgynous rock."
"Yeah, but you know how it is. The difference between my upbringing and a song about social justice could work against me. She was too careful not to hurt my feelings and I was too thick to catch her hints. It took me a long time to realize that she also tried to warn me about appearing entitled."
He nodded. That much was true. When he heard Vy sing for the first time, without the benefit of seeing her, he heard the power of her voice and sensed the potential behind it, but a more jaded part of himself noted that she couldn't convey the pain behind the words because she never felt it.
He was proud of himself for her progress. A year later, she sounded a lot different. He had made sure of that.
"Are you worried?" she asked. "About your team this year."
"I have no o
ne like you on my team," he said honestly.
Thinking back at the year before, his heart lurched at how close he'd been to losing her. If King had fought harder for her... They both knew King had been her first choice. Second best wasn't all that bad if it meant he got what he wanted. And he wanted her voice singing his songs.
"I'm glad you chose that song. You probably wouldn't have been on my team if you listened to your friend and chose a song that showcased your voice differently."
He saw the tension in her jaw. She tried to mask it by stuffing some more rubbery pizza in her mouth. She should find herself a nice boyfriend and work out some of her issues. How many months since the Summer Festival? She still bled every time she thought about Andrew King.
"Water under the bridge. Tim, why did you call me here today?"
He poured himself a cold, stale coffee that matched the horrible pizza.
"That's the thanks I get for allowing you to have a break and eat, huh?"
"Is it really just about the song? You wanted to hear me sing it, and no one else?"
"There's no one like you in my life," he said. "When you're around, you distract me from everything else."
It was true and yet he was lying to her.
"That's... flattering?"
He smiled again, despite his heavy heart.
"It was meant to be flattering. But it's also true."
"Why do I want to say I'm sorry then?"
"Because you're too empathetic for your own good," he said.
He gathered his courage. The whole world was going to know soon enough. At least he could tell it to someone who cared about him, and who wouldn't judge him too harshly.
"I asked Isabella to move out. I set them up in their own place, but I couldn't stand having her in there anymore. It wasn't working."
"Christ, Tim, I'm so sorry. I thought you were going to work it out. You do love her, don't you?"
He looked into his coffee.
"No."
Chapter Nineteen
Alice
SHE TOOK the fastest road to Salona as soon as she finished her work at Sing. Vy had classes for a few more hours, and she wanted to see her before she found out. Carter was just the type of spiteful bastard to tell her immediately in an attempt to ruin their friendship.
Rockstar vs Heiress (Love in Illyria Book 3) Page 10