Chapter 14
Near the end of October, they were making progress.
Their working relationship had survived—but Raine already knew she should never again bring up his past. There was something there that made Quentin lash out as, something like a thorn stuck in his flesh—and she’d accidentally poked it, not knowing it was inflamed and sore.
She wouldn’t make that fucking mistake again.
As she sat up in bed and stretched, she heard rather than saw her phone blowing up. What the hell was going on? When she picked her phone up from the nightstand, her heart started thudding in her chest. She missed multiple text messages from Mal—and the label.
Not just text messages, but voicemails too.
What the fuck was going on?
Sitting on the side of the bed, she punched in her passcode and started scrolling through her text messages—and froze as she began reading Mal’s texts in order. The first was fairly simple: I know you’re on your creation retreat and you’re working hard, but I need you to call when you get a moment.
The next: I suppose you’re busy, but we REALLY need to talk.
There were several more like it until the last one from this morning. Call me, FFS. Are you ignoring me?
She had a couple from the label asking that she call them at her earliest convenience.
Her hands began to shake, making her regret flushing all her Xanax. That had been so stupid. But no. She didn’t need it. Drawing in a slow breath through her nostrils, she reminded herself that she was strong—and those pills were just a crutch.
Unable to imagine what the hell was happening that had caused all this commotion, she decided to listen to the voicemails.
And, when she listened to the last one from Mal, she knew she had to bring it to Quentin’s attention.
Without another thought, she got up from the bed and quickly made her way to the kitchen.
She knew, at six-thirty, that Quentin might not be there, but she was hoping.
After all, there was always coffee ready when she got there, regardless of the time.
Sure enough, he was in there—and was scooping ground coffee into a filter. When he turned, he said, “You must be desperate for a cup of joe. Did you have a hard time sleeping?”
“No, I slept fine—but you need to hear this.”
Quentin’s dark eyes seemed to widen for a second. Closing the gap, Raine held up her phone, pressing the speaker button before hitting play.
Mal’s slick voice coming out of her phone snapped her back to where she’d been when she’d first arrived in Joshua Tree, reminding her of the shame, guilt, and defeat that had been coursing through her veins.
And his tone conveyed that not all was sunshine and roses back in the City of Angels.
“Hey, Raine. Mal here. I don’t know if you’re not getting my messages or if you’re ignoring them, but you need to know that we have a situation here.
Last night, a demo leaked, apparently one you’re working on with Russo.
It’s gaining a lot of traction, way faster than anyone might have expected, and that’s less than ideal. ”
There was a short pause and Raine looked at Quentin. The man’s face was stone—like granite, unmoving and hard. And she couldn’t fucking read him.
Mal’s voicemail continued. “I—we—need you to keep your mouth shut about it. Don’t start posting on any of your social media channels and do not comment or explain or say anything. You need to let me—let us—handle this.
“Now, the main thing I’d like to stress is that this leak can work in our favor, which is why you shouldn’t do anything rash. We just need to be smart about it. You need to be calm—and available. Call me back when you get this.”
When she looked at Quentin again, he was staring at her phone screen—but said nothing. Jesus. Was he blaming her? She definitely hadn’t touched those files. The only time she was ever in the studio was when Quentin was there.
But he must be blaming her. God, would he please just fucking say something?
“He has a lot to say, but he doesn’t sound concerned about you,” Quentin finally said, meeting her eyes.
Out of anything he might have said, she hadn’t expected that.
“That’s Mal for you.” After a second, she said, “I swear I didn’t do this.”
“I know.”
But he was awfully quiet. Raine asked, “You didn’t, did you?”
“Of course not. I’ll call the l—actually, why don’t we talk to the label together after breakfast?”
Once again, Quentin Russo took her completely off guard. Even though she’d panicked, wondering what all this meant, questioning how it had happened, she’d expected Quentin to blame her and let her have it with both barrels.
Instead…he’d been understanding. Not only that, but he seemed to have Mal’s number too.
As she deescalated out of panic mode, Raine arrived back in her body—with her messy, slept-in hair, no makeup, the oversized soft gray t-shirt that all but covered the black sleep shorts, and no shoes. “Um…I’ll go shower first.”
“Want a cup of coffee to take with you?”
Despite her turbulent insides, she smiled. “Just tea if I’m singing. I’ll be back.”
“I’ll heat up some water for you.”
As soon as she was heading back to her room, though, her brain was on fire, absorbed with the mystery of what the fuck had happened and how the label was planning to contain it.
Back in her room, she dropped to the bed and tried to decide if she should call or text Mal or the label and decided not to.
Her trust was with Quentin now and, as she’d promised, they would contact them together.
Quentin was right. Mal was not concerned about her and never had been. Instead, he cared about what she could do for him and his career. So why the hell should she respond to his messages?
But her curiosity was out of control. She had to see what the buzz was.
For the past several weeks, she hadn’t been online much—that was partly because of Quentin’s rules, of keeping her phone in her room during the day—and, after their intense daily music workouts, she hadn’t had the emotional energy to devote to online bullshit.
Besides, much of what people had still been saying about her, when they’d bothered, had been lingering on her performance at the charity concert.
Last she’d checked in, people were speculating that her online silence confirmed she was in rehab.
She could lurk without participating. First, she went to TikTok, making sure the volume on her phone was low—and her feed was filled with videos that played part of the first song she and Quentin had worked on.
She still hadn’t given it a title other than “The Box,” but there was no denying it was her song when she heard her voice in the clip: “My soul, my heart, my bones, my art,/ You’ve ripped it all away from me. ”
But people online didn’t know it was her.
They hadn’t quite figured it out. Somehow, though they knew Quentin had produced the track.
How had they known? There were a lot of videos and posts saying “He’s back from the dead” and “Quentin Russo’s making a comeback,” all while dredging up his own dark past.
As she continued doom scrolling, she saw that there were a few people who were putting two and two together. A few posts said things like “That sounds like Raine Dennison” and “That girl’s channeling her inner Raine.”
She could handle that shit. Good or bad, people were always talking about her online, but Quentin? If he was aware of what was going on, this had to be hitting him hard.
When Raine finally regained her senses, she didn’t miss that it was closing in on seven-thirty.
So she quickly hopped in the shower, but while she brushed her teeth, put on her heaviest makeup, and got dressed, she was quietly playing TikTok videos relating to the leak to confirm that most people still hadn’t figured out it was her.
Walking up to the kitchen, she shoved her phone in her back pocket, obsessed again with social media and what everyone was talking about.
It was like a fucking drug and she’d just jumped off the wagon with both feet.
Because Quentin wasn’t in the kitchen, she assumed he was in the studio getting ready for her.
Grabbing one of the travel cups, she pulled her phone out again to watch more videos while getting her tea ready, but she had to reheat the water.
There would be no breakfast today—and that was probably okay, because she doubted her stomach could handle anything solid.
When Quentin came back to top off his coffee, her relapsed social media addiction was on full display.
A twenty-something girl was on screen in a TikTok video, speculating in a Valley Girl voice that maybe now that Quentin Russo was back on the scene, he just might be working on his second solo album.
“Oh, sorry.” Raine tapped her phone screen to pause the video. “I was just—”
“I know. But that shit’s disrupting our peace.” His face was firm but expressionless and Raine didn’t have a word to say because he was right. “I’m shutting off the WiFi. We don’t need this shit.”
As he left the kitchen, he said, “We’ll turn it back on after this bullshit is over.”
For a second, Raine got ready to protest. How dare he not ask? But he was already gone. And, as the pissed off feeling subsided, she noticed something else.
Lighter shoulders, less constriction in her chest.
No WiFi meant she would be protected from the onslaught of news about them.
Sure, she could have tried watching anyway, but she had no idea what kind of reception she had here.
And now that he was out of the room, she closed the window on the phone, sensing how huge a weight was lifting off her shoulders.
So, before going to the studio, she went back to her bedroom, depositing her phone back on the nightstand, flipping it facedown so she didn’t have to see all the new notifications she was getting from Mal.
When she got to the studio, Quentin was listening to his own voicemail from the label.
Although she walked into the control room, she stood back a bit, hoping he didn’t think she was invading his privacy.
After all, the call was about the song they’d created together and the leak affected them both.
Turning to her as the message stopped playing, Quentin’s jaw tightened again. Raine knew that look immediately—he was angry. Jesus. She’d felt that fury before…but she knew that now, at least, the anger wasn’t directed at her.
When he spoke, though, his voice was calm and controlled. “I’d like to say we should work first and then call the label, because it would be better for creativity. That would be ideal. But I don’t think we’re going to be able to get anything done until we address this.”
Raine simply nodded, biting her lower lip.
Soon, they were seated with Quentin holding his phone between them. It was on speaker and ringing. He punched a few numbers to make it through the automation and finally got a woman’s voice. “Crushed Velvet Records. How may I direct your call?”
“Tristan Jackson, please.”
“Who may I say is calling?”
“Quentin Russo. He’ll want to take my call.”
“One moment, please.”
Raine looked at Quentin, but his attention was on that screen, almost as if he could will the faces at the label to communicate with him.
Generic elevator hold music wafted through his phone’s speaker, and, had it been any other day, Raine might have laughed.
Crushed Velvet owned so many artists’ music; why didn’t they play some of that while people waited on hold?
But then she knew…having it used that way would cheapen the music. She would have been furious if they’d picked one of her songs to play on a loop while people waited to talk to the execs.
Why wasn’t the guy picking up?
When he finally did, he barely said hello before spitting out his next words. “Quentin, thank you for calling. We’ve been trying to get hold of both you and Raine. Do you know if she’s spoken with her manager yet?”
“Raine’s here. I’ll let her answer that.”
When Quentin nodded at her, she said, “I have several messages from Malachi, but we thought we should call you first.”
“I’m glad you did. I’ll bring him up to speed after this call, but first I need to ask: are you both aware of what’s happening?”
“That a snippet of a demo of one of Raine’s songs has been made public?” Quentin asked. “Yes, we’re fully aware.”
“We’ve got our marketing team working on it. They know how to handle these sorts of things, and they’ll come up with something to get this back under control.”
Raine said, “What do they have in mind?”
“I’m not sure, but trust that we have our best and brightest on it.”
“What do we need to do on our end?” Quentin asked.
“Nothing—yet. That’s to be determined. But, in the meantime, just know that there will be a team of us arriving at your studio later this afternoon to discuss next steps.”
Raine saw the way Quentin’s face tightened, because she could feel it happening in her gut as a shadow settled over them both. More than anything else, she realized that this sanctuary of Quentin’s had slowly become her safe haven—and it was about to be stormed by the whole fucking world.