Chapter Forty-Seven
Cooper
FOUR YEARS AFTER THAT
“Reign, tilt your chin up and look at me,” Carlos yells. “And for the love of God, smolder!”
His thick Italian accent ricochets off the walls, each word shrill, slicing through the studio air like a blade.
I lift my chin anyway. Smolder. Right. Got it.
My jaw aches from holding the expression I perfected years ago—half seduction, half don’t-fuck-with-me—an image crafted by my marketing teams and managers, brought to life by stylists who wouldn’t recognize the real Reign Cooper if he slapped them across the face. I don’t think I would either.
A new guitar is shoved into my hands. Fourth? Fifth—fuck if I know—one of the shoot. It’s not even tuned, not that anyone here cares what it sounds like, the limp strings brushing off the frets as my fingers tighten on the headstock.
“Drop your left shoulder. Not the right. Yes, stay there.”
The overhead lights bake down on me, hot enough to sting, suffocating the studio air. Sweat drips down my skin, catching at the base of my spine where a leather jacket hangs artfully off one shoulder and sticks warm against my back. My T-shirt clings to me, damp and tight, outlining every muscle.
“Reset. Again. Faster this time!”
Carlos lowers the camera, and the swarm descends. A stylist yanks at my belt as another slicks oil over my exposed arm. A makeup artist pats at my face, muttering something in Italian that I don’t understand. They move fast, efficiently, practiced to a fault. But not one asks if I’m okay.
They don’t need to.
Reign Cooper doesn’t get tired or need breaks.
Reign Cooper performs.
Reign Cooper fucking delivers.
Even if the album isn’t finished, or if the words aren’t coming. Or even when I feel like peeling off my own skin just to breathe. He’s a brand, not a person.
I blink, slow and hard, trying to push away the dizziness creeping at the edges of my vision. The light bursts white-hot behind my eyelids, and the migraine sitting there pulses like it’s trying to claw its way out. Black spots dance across my sightline, making me wince.
“You’re collapsing your posture. Keep everything lifted.”
Swallowing hard, I try again.
I need a minute. I need…something. Anything. A second when I’m not being eaten alive.
“No, no, no. Stop!” Carlos snaps at an assistant, hand flailing as he storms closer. “His hair! What’s wrong with his hair? Fix it! Now!”
My hand flies up instinctively, brushing the stubborn curls that fall around my ears. Curls that have been part of me since before all this, before stages and labels and cameras. Before Reign was even a thing.
The stylist barrels toward me with a can of over-perfumed hairspray, waving it dangerously close to my head.
“Don’t worry, Reign,” she purrs. “We won’t chop off a single strand.”
“Lucky me,” I mutter.
She yanks a comb through it, jerking my head back, my scalp screaming in protest. Something in my chest does too.
“You really should think about a change,” she says, tweaking strands in place. “A trim, at least.”
A change. Yeah, great. Trim the hair, change the brand, cut out all the parts of me I barely recognize anymore. Before I can say anything, Liam’s voice booms through the room like a crack of thunder.
“How much longer is this going to take?” The question is clipped, impatience bleeding through every word. “Reign has another shoot across town he has to get to.” He claps loudly, and the sound rings in my ears. “Let’s go, let’s go, people. Move it.”
Great, another round of pruning and plucking and preening. More pretending the studio lights don’t burn. Lately, it feels like all I do is run. City to city, stage to stage, shoot to shoot.
I’m so fucking tired.
The guitar feels heavy in my hands, the leather jacket stifling, the collar of my shirt tightening around my throat like a fist.
“Can I get some water?” I croak, raising a hand to shade my eyes.
“You know I’ve worked with bigger acts than you, and they didn’t complain nearly half as much,” Liam says without looking up from his phone. “After this shot, you can get water, okay?”
My hand trembles as I adjust my grip on the guitar. My fingers brush the untuned strings, the thud of their discordant ring echoes something hollow inside me. This isn’t who I wanted to be, isn’t who I worked my ass off for, this isn’t—
“Drink.”
The gruff voice snaps through my melancholy haze. Lockie steps in front of me, blocking the light with his broad frame, two water bottles shoved into my chest.
“Both of them,” he orders in his thick Scottish brogue.
Twisting off the first cap, I squeeze the bottle and gulp so fast that water spills down my chin, soaking my shirt. I throw the empty plastic to the side and try to open the second bottle, my hands too unsteady to be useful. Lockie sighs, doing it for me, and presses it into my grip with a scowl.
“You look like shit,” he says bluntly as he scans my face before doing a quick sweep of my body.
I snort, coughing mid-swallow. “Wow. Compliment me more.” Swiping my arm across my forehead, I point above me. “I’d like to see you stand under these lights for hours.”
That almost-imperceptible tightening at the corner of his mouth? That’s Lockie’s version of a smile, or annoyance, or both. Hard to tell sometimes.
“Too much for the little prince to handle?”
Despite everything, a weak laugh slips out. Lockie’s sarcasm might just be the only thing keeping me sane these days.
“I’m tired,” I admit, barely above a whisper, gaze casting to the floor, like saying it out loud feels like peeling back something raw I’ve been hiding for too long.
“Then let’s go,” Lockie says, not missing a beat.
My grip tightens around the bottle. “Yeah, right.”
He doesn’t blink. “You’re Reign fucking Cooper. You say you’re done? Then we’re fucking done.”
“Excuse me?!” Carlos shrieks, camera trembling in his hands. “He’s in the way of the shot! Move!”
Squaring his shoulders, Lockie turns slowly, even more intimidating than usual. Carlos, tiny in comparison, pales, his throat visibly bobbing as he swallows.
“He’s done.”
There’s no growl, no raised voice, just a simple fact spoken in a tone so flat it’s louder than any shout. Everyone in the room freezes because Lockie doesn’t need volume to be terrifying. Silence is his weapon. And for the first time all day—maybe all year—I actually hear myself breathe.
Liam’s head snaps up. “Excuse me?”
Lockie moves, not even by much, but just enough that his shadow eclipses everything, his presence swallowing up the whole damn room. His eyes barely flick toward me, the smallest tilt, a micro-shift no one else would catch. But I’ve worked with him long enough to know what it means.
Go. I’ve got you.
With a certainty I haven’t felt for a long time, my hand finds the edge of the leather jacket, pushing it from my shoulder, letting it drop to the floor with a heavy thud.
“I’m done.”
An assistant swoops in for my discarded clothes, and I’m already turning away.
Liam lunges, hand clamping around my arm, fingers digging hard enough to bruise.
It’s not the first time he’s grabbed me either, but it’s the first time I’ve felt it.
This isn’t guidance; it’s control. Maybe because I’m too exhausted to pretend anymore, or maybe because today the mask finally slipped too far. But I finally speak up.
“Let go.”
“You’ve wasted enough time,” he hisses, yanking me toward him. “And the label—”
He doesn’t finish, lip curling upward as his gaze lifts over my shoulder. Lockie’s standing just behind me, not touching, but I feel him there, a silent wall of muscle and warning. Backing me without saying a damn word.
Liam snarls, his fingers loosening a fraction. I shrug out of his grip and head toward the studio door. Lockie comes to my side, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out my necklace, holding it out like he always does, the chain coiled carefully in his palm.
It’s an unspoken ritual by now, my bodyguard keeping the one thing that I refuse to give up, even if Liam says it’s off brand.
Brushing my thumb over the pendant, I trace the worn grooves, the faded shine, the little imperfections it’s gathered over time before sliding it over my head, the cool metal settling against my chest a small reminder of who I was before all of this.
The hallway is somehow louder than the studio; Liam yelling at someone while the assistants whisper around him, the echo of cameras being set down. But it all fades under the pounding in my skull and the raw heat clinging to my skin.
Fresh air slams into me the second we step outside, the sun too bright against the ache in my temples. It should feel like freedom… Only, it doesn’t.
“Reign!”
“Oh my god, Reign!”
“We love you!”
A cluster of fans waits by the barricade, phones raised, voices loud and eager. Signs with my name scrawled in glitter, held high about their excited faces. It’s supposed to be flattering. It used to feel like oxygen.
Today, it’s nothing but a noose. And if I’m honest, I think it has been like that for longer than I want to admit.
Lockie shifts subtly, putting himself between me and them. He doesn’t bark at the crowd, doesn’t push through, simply guides me with a hand hovering near my back. Never touching unless he needs to.
“C’mon, lad,” he mutters, low, quiet, just for me.
The black SUV door opens, and I slip inside, collapsing into the cold leather seat, grateful for the air conditioning. The contrast on my heated skin sends a shiver through me. Pressing the heel of my hand to my eyes, I will my migraine to back the hell off.
“Here,” Lockie says as he leans through the door just long enough to pull a small packet from his pocket, placing it in my hand. “You’ll need these.”
“You were sent to me from Heaven, weren’t you?” I mumble, tossing the Tylenol back dry. “My guardian angel.”
He snorts—barely—an exhale with judgment attached. “Babysitter.”
“See? I knew you wanted me to call you Daddy and not Liam.”
He stares at me, deadpan, before closing the door and moving up front. The second I’m alone, my head falls back against the headrest. My pulse thrums at the base of my throat, too fast, like my heartbeat is trying to outrun me.
“You alright?” he asks, getting into the passenger seat, turning to glance back.
I nod. “Yeah.”
I don’t even believe it. Not even a little.
His gaze flicks to the driver. “Hotel?”
“Please,” I breathe, my eyes threatening to close before we’ve even pulled away from the curb.
The city blurs past the window, and everything from the last hour bleeds together—the noise, the lights, the grab of Liam’s hand. It all hangs heavy, settling low in my gut.
When did Reign Cooper become my entire personality, and how did Cooper Riddick just…get lost?