Chapter 14 #3
“Are you familiar with Laila Fitzgerald?” Reed prompts.
I roll my eyes. “Of course.”
“And you didn’t hear the similarity? The way she copied Laila’s inflection? Georgina, she was literally copying Laila. She doesn’t have a sound of her own. Doesn’t know who she is. That makes her a hard pass for me. Next.”
And the hits just keep on coming. Alessandra doesn’t try to sound like Adele or Laila! She’s been singing the same way since she was little! Is Reed saying Alessandra wouldn’t be a legitimate prospect for him simply because she sounds like a combination of two fabulously successful artists?
“What’s wrong?” Reed says. And when I look at him, he’s doing that thing again. Staring at me like he can read my mind.
“Nothing,” I say, but even as I say it, I know my tone is less than convincing.
Reed sighs. “Look, I’m sorry if you feel sorry for this girl.
But move on. She won the lottery that I listened to her at all.
I have a team of people I pay a lot of money to scout bands and artists for me, and then present their findings to me at weekly meetings.
And you know why? Because I’m too busy and impatient to get eyeballs deep in this shit myself.
I’m sorry if the reality of the music business seems harsh and heartless to you, but I know my business.
And not only that, I have only one life to live, and finite hours in each day, and I can’t waste valuable minutes on anything, let alone aspiring singer-songwriters who I know within seconds aren’t going to be a fit.
I know within the first ten seconds of a song if someone has a glimmer of a chance to make it onto my roster.
The minute I know they don’t, then I move on.
Life is too fucking short to do otherwise. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I say softly, feeling like I’m being physically crushed by the weight of the music demo sitting in my purse.
Why, oh why, did I have to have that damned thing in my purse tonight?
This night would have been so much more fun, so carefree and sexy and glorious, if I had nothing on my mind but Reed’s smoking hot body right now.
Reed pulls onto a side street, where we twist and turn in silence for a bit, until finally coming to a stop in front of a large metal gate.
Reed pushes a button and the gate begins sliding slowly open.
Silently, he drives through the gate and down a driveway, until parking at the top of a circular drive in front of an extremely large house nestled into the slope of a hill.
Reed turns off his fancy car’s engine and turns to me, his brown eyes blazing. “For the love of fuck, just ask me already, Georgina. Let’s get it out of the way, whatever it is, so we can move past it and have a great time together.”
My heart stops. “Ask you what?”
“Whatever the fuck it is you’ve been scheming and plotting to ask me this entire car ride. Probably from the second you winked at me in the lecture hall, if I were a betting man.” His eyes harden. “Which I am.”
Words won’t form. I’m a deer in headlights. A thief caught with her hand on a combination lock. Shit.
“You want me to listen to a song, I assume?” he says, letting his hand drop from his steering wheel with exasperation. “‘Someone’ who doesn’t have a big social media following?”
He’s taken the air out of my lungs. Sent my heart rate galloping. I nod slowly, my cheeks burning. “I’m sorry.”
“Is this ‘someone’ you, Georgina?”
“No.”
He looks unconvinced.
“It’s my stepsister, Alessandra. Well, my former stepsister.
Her mom married my dad when I was eleven and she was nine, but they divorced a year later.
” I take a deep breath. “She’s so talented, Reed.
A true artist. I’d be thrilled and grateful if you’d, please.
..” I swallow hard. Shit. “Take a quick listen to her music and tell me what you think.”
A small puff of air escapes Reed’s nose. He shakes his head and looks out his driver’s side window. “I knew it,” he mutters. “It never fails.”
I’m horrified. “Wait. No. You think Alessandra is the reason I came here with you tonight? She’s not.”
Reed swivels his head to look at me, his face nonverbally communicating he thinks I’m a fucking liar.
“Reed, I’m here because I’m genuinely attracted to you.”
He bites back a scoff. “Do you just so happen to have Alessandra’s music demo with you right now, Georgie, or do you want me to check out her Instagram page?”
Oh, fuck. “I... I have her music demo.”
His chest heaves. “Wow. What a coincidence. Do you carry it around with you, everywhere you go?”
I feel tears threaten, but I stuff them down.
“Did you have it earlier today, when you went to the event to ‘meet CeeCee,’ and our eyes met, and you winked at me? Did you have your stepsister’s music demo then, Georgina?”
I can’t move. Or breathe. I’ve never felt so cornered in my life. So misunderstood... and, yet, so guilty.
Reed leans toward me, overwhelming me with his intensity. “Did you walk into that lecture hall today, hoping to give me that flash drive, Georgina? Tell me the fucking truth.”
I open and close my mouth. And then slowly nod. “But it’s not what you think. I genuinely went there to meet CeeCee, like I said, but since I knew you were going to be there, I also—”
He waves me off. “It’s fine. I get it. You were multi-tasking. Killing two birds with one stone, right?”
My breathing is labored. I’m physically squirming in my seat. “Exactly. I didn’t lie to you, Reed. I flirted with you only because I’m attracted to you. Not because of the demo.”
He looks out the window again. “It doesn’t matter, either way. Don’t worry about it. I knew you were gaming me this whole time, so it’s not like this changes anything. Frankly, it’s par for the course for me, and a huge relief to finally have my hunch confirmed.”
“Reed, listen to me. I haven’t been ‘gaming’ you—”
He returns to me and his face is calm. Like he’s wearing a Reed Rivers mask now.
“It’s okay, Georgina. I strongly prefer knowing someone wants something from me, rather than having to suffer through the exhaustion of them pretending they don’t.
God, I hate having to play along when they pretend they’ve never heard of me or any of my artists.
To be honest, I don’t have a problem with you letting me do filthy things to your body for four hours in exchange for me listening to your stepsister’s demo.
In fact, I think that’s a fair trade-off.
If you want to know the truth, one of my kinks is that I sometimes like to treat myself to a bargained-for exchange, just for the simplicity of it.
The thing is, though, if I’m gonna pay for sex, whether with money or some other form of currency, I like knowing that’s what I’m doing, rather than having a woman lie to my fucking face about it. ”
I’m livid. Beyond offended. In a flash, rage surges inside me, supplanting the arousal I’ve been feeling up to this horrifying moment.
“You’re calling me a whore,” I say through gritted teeth, and to my shock, he doesn’t correct me.
He simply raises his eyebrows and tilts his head, as if to say, If the shoe fits. ..
And that makes me even angrier. “You asshole!” I seethe. “I wasn’t going to sleep with you in exchange for you listening to Alessandra’s music! They were two separate things!”
Reed flashes me yet another nasty look, conveying his disbelief.
“Fuck you,” I spit out, the Italian in my blood taking over. “How dare you imply I’m willing to whore myself out to get something for Alessandra. How dare you!”
He chuckles. “How dare I? Save your indignation for your next performance, Georgina. The jig is up. You want something from me. I want something from you. There’s no need to scream and act outraged about any of it.
Let’s talk like rational adults about the terms of this exchange and put this deal. .. to bed.” He winks.
My jaw thuds to the floor of the car, even as my heart explodes with rage. “Asshole!” I unfasten my seatbelt with frantic fingers, swing open my door, and stomp away from Reed’s fancy car, pulling up the Uber app on my phone as I go.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Reed says, marching after me.
“Home. Call me crazy, but my lady-boner sags to my knees when an arrogant, self-entitled prick-asshole calls me a fucking whore.”
“Sweetheart, trust me, if I fuck you hard enough while calling you that, you’re gonna come harder than you ever have.”
I whirl around, intending to slap him, but he grabs my arm and laughs. The bastard laughs.
“Fuck. You,” I spit out, wrenching my arm from his grasp. “I wouldn’t sleep with you now if you were the last man on earth!”
We’re just inside the metal entrance gate of his driveway now, standing in the foggy darkness near a streetlamp. And, in this moment, I’ve never hated anyone as much as I hate Reed fucking Rivers.
“Stop being so dramatic,” he says. “Nothing’s changed.
I admit I was thrown for a loop for a split-second, but I still want to fuck you.
The only difference now is I’m aware I’ve been your mark all along.
Well, bravo, Georgina. Well played. But like I said, that’s not a deal-breaker for me.
I just like knowing the price list in advance, that’s all.
” He looks me up and down. “The menu of options, shall we say, of what I’m getting in exchange for giving this stepsister’s music a listen. ”
I ball my fists, forcing myself not to punch his smug face. “I’m not being dramatic,” I shout. “I’m disgusted and enraged at you because you’re a pig and a jerk who’s treating me like a whore. Because I’ve suddenly realized: I hate you.”