Chapter 31 #2
He knew Sloane was nearby. He came down here, sat his expensive ass on a commercial carpet outside a studio he owns, and stayed on the other side of the door because I asked to be left alone.
He could’ve knocked. Could’ve decided concern outranked what I wanted.
Could’ve walked in and justified it afterward.
He didn’t.
My throat tightens for a reason Jenna can’t do a damn thing about.
Beckett watches me for a moment, his attention moving over my face as if he’s checking for something. “Are you okay?”
He means Sloane. I know he means Sloane.
Unfortunately, my brain is still split between the woman driving around my neighborhood, the note I managed to sing, and the mouth that was almost on mine less than a minute ago.
“I sang a verse.”
Whatever he expected, it wasn’t that.
His face changes. “You sang?”
The smile starts before I can stop it. “It sounded like shit.” His mouth curves. “And it was fucking amazing.”
That smile deepens, and God, this is terrible timing for him to have that face; especially now that I know exactly what the rest of him feels like.
“How did it feel?”
I look down at the guitar case. “Like something I buried knocked back.”
“Do you want me to hear it?”
I glance through the glass at the microphone under the low studio lights, at the guitar waiting where I left it, and feel something pull in two directions inside my chest.
“Not today.”
“Okay.”
Beckett bends for his laptop as if my answer requires nothing from him except accepting it, and now I want to hug him.
Or kiss him.
Jesus Christ. Possibly both.
I should leave before my judgment deteriorates any further.
“Beckett.” He straightens, and I tighten my grip on the guitar case. “Thank you for sitting outside.”
His eyes hold mine, and for one dangerous second the hallway feels too small again. “Anytime.”
Heat climbs straight back into my face. Traitor.
∞∞∞
Evelyn calls as Beckett is walking me to my car.
“The judge signed the temporary preservation order.”
I stop under the parking awning. “Already?”
“Grant’s counsel agreed to most of it rather than spend the afternoon losing an emergency hearing.
Neither of you can pledge, transfer, or liquidate the disputed assets identified in our motion without written agreement or another court order.
He also has forty-eight hours to produce the source-of-funds records for the Russell acquisition and the full collateral schedule for the term facility. ”
My eyes drift across the parking lot. “And the collateral call?”
“His problem. He can use property that is clearly separate or income he is legally entitled to use. What he cannot do is treat disputed marital assets like a personal ATM while we determine what belongs to whom.”
There is a note in her voice that, for Evelyn Shaw, qualifies as delight. Not joy exactly. More the temporary satisfaction of discovering the legal profession has managed not to disappoint her before lunch.
“There’s movement on the tour too.”
My fingers tighten around the phone. “What movement?”
“Tessa’s office is handling the public fallout, but your forensic team flagged the contracts because projected touring income appears in Grant’s loan package.
Redwood terminated this morning. Southern Crown followed.
The December network special is gone, and the promoter invoked its reputational-risk provision to reopen the fall guarantee. ”
I stare past the rows of parked cars. Beckett has stopped several feet away, near enough that I know he’s there without standing close enough to hear my call.
“The tour is cancelled?”
“Not yet. The guarantee is the immediate problem. If the promoter cuts the advance or requires additional insurance or escrow, the touring cash flow Grant projected drops with it.”
“And some of that cash flow secures the loan.”
“Exactly.”
For a moment, I say nothing.
Sponsors decide his name costs more than it earns.
A promoter reads the same headlines and decides his guarantee needs another number attached to it.
A lender looks at weaker touring income and wants safer collateral.
A judge looks at a pending divorce and tells him some of that collateral may not be his to touch.
Mercer counts its votes and continues operating without him.
No one sat in a room and planned any of this. Grant is simply standing at the place where all his choices finally meet.
“Laurel?”
“I’m here.”
“There’s one more thing. Sloane’s attorney contacted us.”
Whatever satisfaction I had disappears. “About the calls?”
“About settlement.”
I blink. “Settlement of what?”
“She’s offering mutual non-disparagement, a release of any civil defamation claim from you, and a neutral statement from Mercer Records. In return, she retracts the allegations, surrenders the unreleased recordings, and agrees to cease direct contact.”
A laugh leaves me, and Beckett looks over. “She follows me home and wants me to promise not to say anything mean about her?”
“That is the less elegant translation.”
“No.” I don’t even have to think about it.
“She retracts the lie because it was a lie. She stops calling me because normal adults shouldn’t require contractual consideration to stop frightening people.
Whatever happens to the recordings can go through Mercer counsel.
” I shift the phone against my ear. “I am not buying peace from a woman who helped fuck my ex-husband and followed me home because consequences hurt her feelings.”
“I’ll phrase it differently.”
“Please don’t improve it too much.”
“I make no promises.”
We hang up, and I stand beside my car with heat trapped under the awning until I realize Beckett is smiling at me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That is very clearly a something face.”
“I’m enjoying your lawyer’s afternoon from a safe distance.”
I unlock the car. “She says Grant’s tour guarantee might get cut.”
“That’ll hurt.”
“Financially?”
His mouth pulls to one side. “Financially. Emotionally. Spiritually. Musicians have complicated relationships with crowd size.”
The laugh gets me before I remember I’m supposed to be protecting my throat, and the scrape that follows makes me wince.
Beckett points at me. “Jenna.”
I glare at him. “You know her name too?”
“You complain about everyone by name.”
“I do not.”
“Levin, Jenna, Evelyn, Dean, Monica. Your mama.”
“Mama deserves full attribution.”
“Go home, Laurel.”
“Bossy.”
“Still not your doctor.”
“Glad we agree.”
I get into the car and close the door. Beckett steps back instead of leaning through the open window, and the stupidest part of me wishes, just for a second, that he wouldn’t.
I let myself have the feeling without turning it into a crime.
Wanting him doesn’t make me disloyal to a marriage Grant already gutted.
Whatever this becomes with Beckett—if it becomes anything—will have to survive time, divorce papers, my throat, my anger, his flaws, mine, and the extremely inconvenient fact that I’m only beginning to remember what it feels like to belong entirely to myself.
My phone lights up before I pull away, Grant Mercer filling the screen. I scoff and let it ring. He calls every day now, sometimes more than a hundred times, with texts threaded between them as if persistence might eventually wear my silence down into an answer.
A second call follows, then a text.
Grant: What the fuck did you do to my tour?
I don’t feel even the smallest urge to answer.
He still thinks revenge means I’m doing things to him, but his puny brain hasn’t caught up to the dangerous part yet.
I’ve stopped doing things for him.