Page 59 of How NOT to Seduce a Rockstar
“Shewho?”
“Medusa.”
“Medusa was drinking milkshakes with Chad.”
“She’s gorgeous, Bea. You should see her. Emerald-green eyes, a storm of dark curls. I honestly don’t know how Chad landed a woman like that—maybe he’s spiking the milkshakes—but whatever. Point is, I walk in and they see me immediately.”
“So much for that magic ten percent…”
“She looked at me like she already knew my entire life story—or at least Chad’s version of it. That I’m intense, boring, frigid, psychotic… plus the scene I’d pulled that day. We locked eyes, and I swear I felt petrified. Me, Bea! Protégé of la Contessa Éloïse de Saint-Rouge! I had a lapse, a little crisis of confidence, maybe from all this waiting… and instead of being gloriously diva as usual, I got distracted. And before I could come up with a sharp comeback—not too bitter, not too meek—I walked straight into a six-foot aluminum magazine rack.”
“Oh no.”
“It toppled like the Tower of Babel. The second I hit it, I knew it was going down. I tried to grab it, but it was dragging me down with it, so I let go. When it hit the floor it was deafening, like someone unloading a machine gun. Newspapers and magazines flew everywhere, and the rack rolled three, four feet before stopping against a table.”
“Itoldyou not to go back to that diner.”
“Everyone stared. I was just standing there, a total idiot, my glasses crooked on my nose. The other customers politely pretended nothing had happened, and thank God for that. But Chad and Medusa? Oh, they were definitely laughing into their drinks.”
“Does the manual say anything about handling public humiliation?”
Tess shook her head, taking the question dead seriously when I’d only meant to joke. “The manual says: be present in the world. Be here and now. But I saw Chad with her, and the wound reopened. I got distracted—and it was fatal. Think about it, Bea: I abandoned la Contessa’s teachings for a fraction of a second, and look what happened.”
“So what now?”
“What happened was like throwing a barrel of gasoline onto an already burning house. I’m even angrier now—and more motivated.”
“And if Ryder never reaches out again?”
“Hehasto. He will.”
“And if he doesn’t? Do you have a plan B?”
“There is no plan B, Bea. We’re talking about laws of nature here. If you’re planning to launch a rocket, you don’t prepare a backup in case the sun decides to rise in the west. What I’ve done to his brain means hewillget in touch, and soon. It’s physics. It’s anatomy. It’s math. You smashsomeone’s finger with a hammer—they feel pain.”
Right then, the doorbell rang.
32
We ran to the door like two hunting dogs catching the scent of prey.
It was the courier.
Another envelope for Tess.
Inside—another disc.
“God, enough with these damn records,” Tess muttered, like Zane Ryder was mailing her stamp collections instead of potential musical relics.
And another letter.
The message was simple, almost bare: this was his very latest track, written in his suite at the Vellum Hotel after their meeting.
“Uh,” Tess said, tilting her head slightly as if weighing a diamond against the light. “Since he wrote this oneafterour encounter… Ihaveto listen.”
She didn’t waste a second. The CD slid into the stereo with a decisive click, and a moment later theroom filled with plucked strings—raw, stripped down, intimate. Just him and his guitar.
The lyrics… well, they were a riddle. Words that felt like they belonged in a secret attic diary, metaphors folding back on themselves, as if the meaning was there but only if you looked from the exact right angle.
