Page 81 of Protect Your Queen

“What’s your favorite coffee flavor?” Gavin asked, tapping a pen against his lower lip.

“I prefer tea.”

He smiled and shrugged. “Okay, well, I’m going to the coffee shop downstairs. Earl Grey, okay?”

I nodded, because despite not having put pen to paper quite yet, we had spent two hours in the morning talking about my range, my style, and how I saw myself as a singer. He didn’t ask about dancers, or outfits. He didn’t even discuss collaborating with other people. He just wanted to know about the songs he would write with me, and that was different.

He left me alone in the writing room, the door left ajar.

I decided to sit at the piano. I didn’t want to play. Not quite yet. But so many of my best moments had happened sitting on a piano bench with an empty music stand in front of me. I wanted to capture just a little bit of that happiness.

It had been days since I’d heard that pulse in my ears or felt the inky blackness of night. I felt light. Like all things were possible – even my music career. Was this the healing power of a good night’s sleep?

A door slammed, and I heard the clack of high heels on the hard floor outside.

“Stasia, the girl is no good!”

“She was good enough for you!” I heard her snap back. “Or did you only like her when she was underage and powerless? Was that what got your nasty little cock hard?”

“Stasia, you don’t mean that. That’s not…”

My breath caught in my throat.She knew… she knew…

“You’re pathetic Michael. I find it unbelievable that I plucked your rubbish little bottom out of obscurity and let you get as high as you did.” I tensed, knowing that I wasn’t supposed to hear this conversation. I decided to keep very, very still, hoping they wouldn’t look and find me in this room. “You’re nothing, Michael. It’s time you truly knew that.”

“Stasia…”

“Go back to your office and wait there. Try not harass anyone along the way.”

“Stasia…”

“You have been dismissed!”

The door of the writing room slammed open, then bounced off the other wall until it closed. Stasia stood before it, her long legs made even longer in her high heels, as she placed her hands on her slim waist. Her eyes looked at the ceiling as she let out a gasp of exasperation.

All the while, I tried to stay very, very still.

When she finally looked at me, I tensed.

“I’m sorry you heard that,” she said, her eyes full of sadness. “Where’s Gavin?”

“He went to get coffee.”

“Hmm,” she said in a grunt. “Well, my dear, why don’t you show me what you’ve got.”

“I… we’ve just started …”

She smiled, pulling a chair from the little round table, dragging it over to me. The legs of the chair whined as she brought it over, the small distance between me and her seeming to take ages to get through.

“My dear, if you have no music inside you, then no songwriter will be able to bring it out.” She took a seat, and crossed her legs, her Louboutin dangling off of her heel, hanging on by a pointed toe. “Singers, songwriters, and artists have music in their blood. They obsess, and get inspired, and breathe the craft. If you aren’t knee-deep in it all the time, then you’re really just… a dilettante.”

That stung. I was used to people calling me a hack, or a fraud. I was used to all the tabloid name calling. But a dilettante? Well, that specific word delivered a bite that hurt just a little more.

Was she doing this because she knew I was her husband’s victim? One in a long line of them? Would she still be helping me if she knew thathewas actuallymyvictim? That I had him in the palm of my hand because…

“So, Jestiny,” she leaned forward until her elbows were propped on her bended knee. “Does the music live inside you, or are you the fraud everyone thinks you are?”

My nostrils flared in indignation. I felt the insult down to my core and I wanted to say something – to bite back. But I resisted.

---