Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Carlene woke to the steady thrum of rain against the window and the faint ache behind her eyes from too little sleep and too many thoughts she couldn’t quiet.
The kiss replayed in her head before she even opened her eyes. The warmth of his mouth, the way his hand had slid into her hair, the sound he made when he finally let go of the control he carried like armor. She pressed a hand to her chest and tried to slow her breathing.
It shouldn’t have happened. Not with her client, not in the middle of a campaign where everything they did was being watched and dissected. But when she’d looked at him last night, standing there in the low light, something inside her had cracked open.
She swung her legs off the bed and stood, pushing the thought away. She’d built a career on keeping emotion out of the job, and she wasn’t about to ruin that now.
Her laptop sat on the kitchen table where she’d left it. Coffee, she decided. Work. Logic. That was how she handled storms.
By the time she poured her second cup, she’d already pulled up the band’s social feeds.
Engagement was still climbing, the rehearsal clip continuing to trend.
The comments were mostly good—fans praising the honesty and media outlets reposting snippets—but something caught her attention.
A duplicate upload, same video thumbnail, slightly different caption.
Her stomach dipped.
The file metadata looked wrong. It wasn’t her original scheduling. She clicked play and felt the color drain from her face.
The sound was warped. Someone had spliced Jami’s lyrics to make it sound like he was mocking the label and his bandmates. The clip ended with a new caption: Guess the truth finally comes out.
She froze, staring at the screen, pulse hammering.
No one outside of her or Tony had access to those files.
Her jaw tightened. Reed & Carr. Her former firm.
They'd tried this type of tactic once before, and she'd stopped it.
Would they try again? She opened the grainy photo and looked at the metadata.
She scanned it through software to see if she could find the origin of the altered photo.
While that scanned, she opened her email and began drafting a message to the label before they saw it elsewhere.
Fingers flying, she outlined the evidence she believed she'd find, leaving room to change it if her suspicions weren't true.
She'd attach screenshots and time-stamp her original upload. Then she opened her drives and prepared to trace the new file’s source.
It wasn’t hard. Whoever had done this had copied the original data structure perfectly...almost. They’d left a faint trail of code linking the post back to a Miami-based server she knew too well.
Her old firm. They were behind it.
Her phone buzzed. Looking at the name on the screen, she saw Marla.
“I see some things never change,” she said the moment Carlene answered.
“Yes,” she said. “And that isn't an admission from me. That means some folks we both know can't let things go.”
Marla was quiet for a long time. "Are you sure?"
Carlene clicked the computer tab that was scanning the photo, and her jaw tightened. "I'm quite sure."
Marla's tongue clicked, but that was the only sound that came through the phone. Carlene hissed, then ended the call before she could say more. She pressed a palm against her forehead and closed her eyes.
The sound of the barn door creaking open drew her attention. Jami stepped inside, hair damp from the rain, shoulders tense. He held up his phone. “Tell me this isn’t real.”
“It’s not,” she said quickly. “Someone tampered with the file.”
“Why?”
“Because they can,” she said, eyes meeting his. “Because we’re gaining momentum, and someone wants to derail that.”
He set the phone on the counter. “Can you trace it?”
“I already did.”
“And?”
“It came from Reed & Carr’s servers. My old firm.”
He swore under his breath, pacing once across the room. “You think they’re trying to take you down, or me?”
“Both,” she said. “They lost their biggest client when I left, and they’ve been waiting for a reason to prove I can’t handle a band this size.”
He stopped pacing and looked at her. “You don’t have to fix this alone.”
Her throat tightened. “I know how to handle it.”
“Maybe. But you shouldn’t have to.”
The softness in his voice broke something in her. She looked away, focusing on the laptop instead. “If I can prove they altered the file, the label will back off. I just need time.”
He nodded, watching her. “Whatever you need.”
She felt his eyes on her as she worked, and it made her fingers stumble. Every click and scroll felt louder than it should. The memory of his mouth on hers made her pulse skip, and she hated how easily her body remembered him.
When the last file finished processing, she exhaled. “Got it. The upload originated from a Reed & Carr account. I’ll send the proof to Tony and the label.”
“Good.”
She closed the laptop and leaned back in her chair. “I’ll have to make a statement. The label will want something from both of us.”
He crossed the room and rested his hand lightly on the back of her chair. “Then we’ll do it together.”
She looked up, and for a heartbeat the air between them thickened again. He still smelled faintly of rain and coffee, and she wondered what would happen if she let herself lean back against him.
Instead, she nodded once. “Together.”
He smiled, slow and certain. “We’ll fix it. And when we do, they’ll wish they hadn’t started this.”
Carlene tried to smile, but her chest felt heavy. She had fixed plenty of PR nightmares before, but this one had her name and heart tangled right through the center.
When Jami walked back toward the door, she let her eyes follow him. She wasn’t sure what scared her more, the sabotage that could ruin everything she’d built, or the man who already had the power to undo her with a single kiss.