Epic (Fierce)

by Voight, Ginger

  I thought about the perfect redhead sitting just across the way, flashing her long legs for his benefit. I would never have that power, so I couldn’t even fathom what it would be like. All I had was my voice – which apparently failed me whenever there was a real life guy anywhere in the vicinity.

  I was no siren, no matter what Vanni or Jace said.

  And nowhere was this clearer than in the eyes of Griffin Slade. They darkened as they scanned my face, and I couldn’t help but think how ridiculous I looked to someone like him. He had dated the most beautiful women in the world, many of whom he shared a recording studio with beforehand.

  And then there was me.

  Which one of these things was not like the other? Which one of these things just didn’t belong?

  I issued the kill signal as I tore off my headphones.

  “Is there a problem?” Griffin wanted to know in his Aussie drawl.

  Yeah, me, I thought. Or – more to the point – you. “I don’t know why this is so hard for me to nail.”

  “You’re putting too much pressure on yourself,” he said as he shifted to face me. “This song isn’t the end-all, be-all. It’s just a track. It’s just a song. Let’s try something else,” he said as he began to strum the guitar in a familiar riff. It was a song I had sung countless times, both on Fierce and the subsequent tour. His eyes never left my face as he played the intro, expecting me to jump in on cue.

  And of course I did.

  Unlike my song, which was overtly sexual, the song he had chosen was more of an anthem. I was able to pull it off just like I had all those times before. When I was done, he launched into an INXS song that had a slower, more seductive groove. It changed the vibe from an anthem to a love song, but I kept the pacing as he sang backup and guided me along with his eyes and his soft voice. Without missing a beat, he segued right into my song, but instead of feeling self-conscious I was able to get through the lyrics.

  He was right. It was just a song. I laid each word like a brick in a wall, going from lyric to lyric until he finally played the outro guitar solo. He gave me a smile when we were done, which I tentatively returned.

  “That was good,” he said. “But I still don’t believe you.”

  My brow furrowed. “What?”

  “The reason you stumble in that song is because it’s not coming from you. You don’t believe the lyric, so it’s a hard sell. Someone else told you to do it, so you sing it – but you don’t believe it.”

  I didn’t know what to say. He was exactly right, and I found his shrewd perception of me unsettling. “I’m sorry,” I offered again.

  He shrugged as he slid off of the stool. “No need to apologize to me,” he said as he packed away his guitar.

  “It’s your song, too,” I offered, thinking about the changes he’d made to the tune.

  He wore a lopsided grin as he passed me on the way out the door. “I’m just the guy sitting on a stool,” he remarked. “You’re the one who has to bring it home.”

  Later, after Griffin had left with his redheaded companion, I sat with the producers and listened to the take. I agreed, like they pointed out, that it was flat. We’d need to keep working on it, which meant my collaboration with Griffin was far from over.

  Joy.

  I was still in a funk that night when Jace came home. I was puttering around in the kitchen, tackling a new vegetarian recipe, and singing my song softly to myself to make it as old hat as reciting the pledge of allegiance every morning before class.

  Jace walked up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, and pulled me against his hard body. “I don’t know what I want to sink my teeth into first,” he growled against my ear.

  I giggled. If anyone could jumpstart my mood, it was Jace Riga. I turned into his embrace. “If you’re a good boy, maybe you can have both at once,” I said in a lower, sultry voice. I offered him my forefinger, which was covered in a sweet teriyaki sauce. His mouth was hot as it surrounded my finger, and his tongue slid around to capture every last drop of the sauce. Our eyes locked and held before he finally abandoned my finger for a taste of my lips.

  “Delicious,” he murmured against my mouth. It was a deep kiss full of love and promise, and it was all mine.

  How’d I get so lucky?

  It made the lackluster day beforehand forgettable. As long as I could end up in his arms, it was worth every single disappointing moment.

  He helped me finish dinner, and we retired onto the balcony to eat. He lit the candles in several lanterns scattered around on several tables, which helped illuminate the cozy space in the fading light of day. We watched the sun disappear into the ocean as lights twinkled across the L.A. basin, a familiar sight to both of us as we had both grown to love our patio space. It was the only place on earth we could unwind and find peace when the rest of our lives were chaotic and busy. We decorated it together and it featured wicker furniture and hanging swings and healthy plants for a bit of greenery. We were both big fans of candles, so it was not uncommon to find a dozen flickering lights around the patio as night fell.

  It centered me and made me realize what was important, especially after our plates were emptied and he gathered my feet into his lap for a massage. “How was the recording session today?”

  I shrugged. “It fell flat. Going to have to call Griffin back in to do it again.”

  His sharp green eyes missed nothing. “You make it sound like it’s a big deal.”

  I sighed. “For Griffin it probably is.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Another shrug. “Let’s just say after the time we spent together today, I’m probably not on his list of favorite people.”

  “What happened?”

  “I blew it. It’s different when I’m not singing to you. I can’t sell this song to just anyone. It’s not who I am.”

  Jace chuckled. “Baby, trust me. That song is all Jordi. You just have to muster up the confidence to sing it. After all you’ve been through, I think it’s time you realize how powerful you are. As a performer and as a woman.”

  I shook off the praise, as usual. “We’ll see how strong I am after I decide what to do about my birth mom.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “So does that mean you’re going to Vegas?”

  “I don’t know,” I said quietly in return. “I want to. But I’m scared. Getting what I think I want hasn’t always worked out for me.”

  He leaned across to give me a kiss. “I wouldn’t say that,” he offered with a lazy smile.

  I returned each lazy, warm, luxurious kiss, until he pulled me from the balcony toward our king-sized bed. He called me his goddess, he called me his queen. He brought me to life at the tips of his fingers, Venus rising up to meet every kiss, every touch, and every thrust. “This is who you are, Jordi,” he whispered against my skin. “Your sexuality belongs to you and no one else.”

  I shivered against the cool night air. I knew what he was doing, but honestly I couldn’t bear to let any thoughts wander. Our time together was sacred. I refused to let any demons in. Instead I pushed him onto his back, slid across his lap and let all discussion ebb away into incoherent groans and urgent whispers.

  When I awoke the following day, he had already left for work. But there was a flower on his pillow, a lovely little tradition he began when we had moved in together. I took it into my hands and brought it up to my nose. It was sweet and earthy, and tickled the tip of my nose until I couldn’t stop myself from giggling.

  I glanced around the spacious bedroom, once again awed that I could be living in a place like that… with a man like that.

  He was right. Despite the challenges, things were so much better than I ever dreamed they could be.

  After a shower and some breakfast, I killed time waiting for Maggie to come over for our exercise session by sending a text to Vanni. I needed his input on what to do about my birth mother. He was a fellow orphan like me, so he had been my closest confidante throughout the process I began when I ca
me home from Iowa.

  “I’m scared,” I confided in the text.

  Though I knew how busy he was juggling the new season of Fierce, he was quick to reply. “You’re fearless,” he corrected.

  I laughed. “You must have me confused with someone else.”

  “I know you better than almost anyone,” he reminded. “I see you, Jordi. I always have. And I think you should do it. You’ve spent too long and lost so much to carve out this future for yourself. Don’t let regret stop you now.”

  I was still torn with what to do by the time Maggie arrived in her sweats, carrying a towel in one hand and a DVD in the other.

  When she produced said DVD, I dissolved into hopeless laughter just reading the title. “Belly dancing? Are you serious, Mags?”

  She waved away the rest of my giggles. “Scoff if you want but there are a lot of health benefits to belly-dancing, and I thought it would be a fun way to strengthen your core, release your stress and relieve your back pain.”

  I glanced at all the women on the jacket of the DVD, all of whom combined probably didn’t weigh what I weighed. They were slight wisps of femininity, with a fluid grace that made me feel like a thundering hippo in comparison. “And look completely and utterly ridiculous,” I added.

  Maggie took the DVD from my hand. “Who’s going to see but me?” she asked with a pointed look.

  I shrugged. She was right. We moved the furniture from in front of our big screen TV and started our new workout.

  The beginning was fairly generic, warming up the body the way I’d become accustomed to warming up before a workout. Some of the moves involved the hips and pelvis more, and I tried not to think of how comical I must have looked. It wasn’t so much a dance, but a serious of exercises. Within a few minutes, I realized that it was, in fact, a low-impact workout. Best of all, it wasn’t too intimidating when slowed down and broken into simple steps. Once the tempo increased, I was able to pull off the movements in a way I never would have expected.

  I guessed I had all the numbers on Fierce to thank for that.

  Unlike the dance numbers on my reality show, however, the belly-dancing actually felt more organic. When I said as much to Maggie, she said, “It’s designed to work with the body rather than against it.”

  After two more routines, we brought the workout to a close. Maggie left the DVD with me before she was off and running back to the studio. Out of curiosity, I cued up some additional workouts on the DVD, just so I could see what I was getting myself into. Since I was still feeling pretty good, I decided to walk through some of the different steps. It wasn’t nearly as intimidating as I might have feared. In fact, it was even kind of fun.

  There was a smile on my face as I grabbed a glass of water flavored with cucumber and mint, opened up my computer and checked my social media.

  As usual, letting the “real world” invade the sanctity of my hermit hole was my one-way ticket to a bad mood. I found that Eddie Nix was trending, along with Shelby Goddard. Curiosity got the better of me and I clicked on the link, which was a candid shot by PING to announce how chummy Eddie and Shelby were now that he’d moved to Tennessee to go to school. Miles O’ Rourke was also quick to post his opinion on how the cozy couple seemed to be comforting each other through their troubles, being run over by that big ol’ train of celebrity.

  @MilesKnowsItAll Sources close to the couple say they’ve been inseparable since Eddie landed in TN.

  A pic was posted alongside, showing Eddie escort Shelby toward a restaurant, her head down and his arm up to shield her.

  @MilesKnowsItAll Looks like our dear Shelby finally found a true hero. #eddieandshelby

  Bile rose in my throat as I stared at the photo. She looked dainty and small in his strong arms, much thinner even than the last time I saw her. She looked all of twelve, and it hurt my heart to realize that she had been thrown back into the shark tank that masqueraded as her family homestead in Tennessee. Worse, a barracuda like Eddie was determined to hitch his wagon to her broken cart, which would only compound her problems and send her even closer to the grave.

  Despite my common sense screaming at me, I decided to dig a little to find out exactly what was going on. It was even worse than I could have predicted. Eddie was taking political science classes, no doubt to cozy up to Coy Goddard, who had recently thrown his hat in the ring to run for state senate.

  Both of these men were lying, no-good, snakes in the grass. And poor Shelby was the defenseless mouse about to be ingested.

  I opened up my desk drawer and withdrew the security DVD that would expose all Eddie’s lies and stop his nefarious plan right in his tracks. I could send this to her for no other reason than to protect her from trusting the wrong person – again – but I knew it would come at a great cost. My tapes with Jace would be released far and wide, and I could only imagine how the media would receive that.

  It made me think about my song and my stupid, silly attempts to belly dance. If that tape got out, I really would be a colossal joke for anyone out there who had an opinion.

  And I already knew that just about everyone did.

  I sighed as I put the DVD back in the desk. I opened my email and replied to my birth mother.

  “I’ll be there tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  May 26, 2012

  Jace insisted that he go with me to meet my biological mother, and honestly I was relieved that he offered. It had been bad enough to be pruned unceremoniously from my previous family tree, but that was nothing compared to the frightening free fall I experienced being tied to nothing whatsoever. I was about to meet a total stranger who, by some cosmic twist of fate, gave birth to me nearly two decades before. I had no idea who she was, where she was from, or whether or not I traded the evil I knew in Marianne Hemphill for the evil I couldn’t predict in an entirely new person.

  That person, I found out, was named Maya Palermo. I spent much Saturday night digging through the web for whatever information I could unearth. I traced her all the way back to the East Coast, New Jersey in particular. Unfortunately the paper trail was sparse. I could do a simple background check and trace her trek from Jersey to Vegas, but it didn’t do much to fill in the gaps.

  The most surprising revelation was a custody battle that involved her and a man named Ronald Diego, which took place in Clark County, Nevada in 1998. There was a restraining order filed against him, asserting physical harm to her and her dependent child.

  That meant I not only had a new mother, but I had a half-sibling as well. It had been my fondest wish when I was a little kid, now it was frightening as hell. I was barely ready to meet Maya, much less a brother or sister.

  Scarier still, I learned that Ronald Diego was serving time in a Nevada prison for armed robbery and assault against a police officer.

  None of this boded well for my meeting. Jace suggested maybe we hold off until we knew more about the situation we were walking into. “You’re famous, Jordi,” he said as he held me close in our bed. “You know better than anyone the kind of people that brings out of the woodwork.”

  I thought about Eddie with a shiver. Yes, I did know. I also had Vanni’s horror stories to consider. Once you became a target, everyone else was suspect by default. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…

  But I decided to go forward with my plan. With my hero Jace at my side, I knew I was in a much stronger position than I had been in the past. And all my questions about whom I was and where I came from deserved to be answered.

  That didn’t stop the nerves from nearly strangling me as we pulled up to a run-down house near downtown Las Vegas, far beyond the flashing lights of the strip. The exterior of the boxy dwelling was an ugly, dull yellow, indicating the small, one-story house hadn’t been painted in a while. There was a simple, chain-link fence surrounding the property. What passed for a yard was a dull swath of earth, littered with discarded food and drink containers along the sidewalk. Small groups of people
congregated near the corner, and graffiti marred the decrepit city street which featured more empty lots than actual buildings. The whole neighborhood resembled a war zone. It was hard to believe that mere miles away, people were reveling as they pissed money away like water, drinking away the worries and monotony of their normal lives back home. I myself had stayed in one of the finest hotels just months before, when I finally broke free of my life as Mrs. Eddie Nix.

  And here I was, once again at a crossroads, as I stared at the house that could have very likely been mine had this woman not given me to my father and Marianne.

  To say it was a bit of culture shock was an understatement.

  The Hemphill house in Oswen had been modest, but tidy and well-kept. There were flowers lining the sidewalk to a fastidious house kept neat and in good repair. It made the creak of the lopsided gate Jace opened in front of us all the more pronounced.

  There were no flower-lined walkways, just a cracked sidewalk that split the depressing square of land in front of the house into two equal, ugly halves. There wasn’t even a porch. There was a screen door, but in name only. There was no actual screen in the door. In truth it was just a metal frame that I easily reached through to knock, tentatively, on the flat, cheap door beyond.

  It didn’t even look like an exterior door, but more one you’d find when you open a closet. It was as hollow as my spirit when I knocked.

  Was Jace right? Were these people out to extort more money from me?

  It was obviously they were in desperate need.

  I held my breath until the door cracked open an inch. A short, Hispanic woman peered at Jace and me suspiciously. “Yes?”

  “Maya?” I asked. “It’s Jordi.”

  Her eyes widened as she pulled open the door. She was shorter than me, but just as wide. She wore a thread-bare housecoat that used to be white, but had long since drowned any of the cheerful daisies on the print with coffee and food stains that would never wash out.