Page 1 of Her Beastly Billionaire Rock Star
Chapter 1
Leaning closer to his sister, Malakai Raven whispered, “Why did I ever agree to this?”
“Because if you don’t, your days as lead singer are over,” Bella whispered sharply in reply.
That crash eight months ago was still making his life miserable. Why had he agreed to pick up Sunny? He knew she’d been drinking and using again. How was it that she was able to hide every flaw she had from her public, and here Malakai was, paying for sins he hadn’t committed? Maybe if he were as ruthless and horrible as everyone thought, he wouldn’t care about protecting her image.
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” he muttered.
The vault-like lobby they were currently in gave him the creeps. Over six feet tall with double the attitude, even Malakai felt a little intimidated by the place. Dark colors, dark wood, dark, dark, dark. Not a vault. A coffin. If nothing else, The Company You Keep lived up to its name. The public-image fixing company was one big, shady Los Angeles secret, hidden right in the middle of downtown LA.
Before his sister could reply, the office door opened and a tall dark-haired woman in a black pantsuit walked out. The blood-red stain on her lips stood out against the stark white of her skin.
They stood, and as she approached, she stuck out her hand to his sister. “Bella and Malakai Raven, I’m Octavia Ellington.” Her gaze darted to Malakai and quickly raked from his head to his toes. “It’s…nice to meet you.”
This woman didn’t like him in the least, or that’s the vibe he got. In her defense, it was probably warranted. He didn’t have the best reputation to start with. Add the death of Sunny to his list of wrong-doings, and the hole he was standing in was eight feet deep and growing.
“It’s nice to meet you too. Thank you for agreeing to see us on such short notice,” his sister replied.
Malakai stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets. “I don’t want to be here.” No desire whatsoever. It was the middle of June, and all he wanted to do was hide out in his house, away from anyone who might have questions about the accident last Halloween.
Octavia trained her gaze on him a second before returning it to Bella. “You said he’d be on board.”
“He will be.” His younger sister grabbed Malakai by the arm and dragged him to a corner of the office. “You’re a founding member of Crush. Do you want to be kicked out?”
When he didn’t answer, she took him by the ear. It was the same thing their mom had done when he was a kid. Only now, he was a thirty-year-old man with almost the same number of tattoos. “Bella, stop.” She was four years younger than him, but she could make him feel like he was a toddler.
She clamped her fingers down a little harder. “Well? Do you want to be kicked out? Because I called in every favor I’ve ever had to get this meeting with Octavia Ellington. She is the only fixer willing to touch you with a ten-foot pole.”
Weren’t rock gods supposed to have bad images? According to Crush’s label, they could as long as the public loved them. Malakai’s problem was that he was no longer loved. “I don’t want to be kicked out.”
“Good. Now, go shake that woman’s hand, and if she says jump, you ask how high. Got it?”
“Got it,” he grumbled.
Dropping her hand to her side, Bella’s posture softened. “Just…try to control that temper of yours until we get out of here. Then you can punch walls until your knuckles bleed.”
Rubbing his ear, he said, “Fine,” and followed his sister back to Octavia.
Bella smiled as they reached her. “I’m sorry for my brother.”
The woman’s gaze traveled down Malakai’s body. “From what I’ve learned, you spend a lot of time apologizing for him.” She turned on her heels. “Come on in. It’s my job to fix that.”
Malakai shuffled into the office behind Bella, taking a seat in a chair facing Octavia’s desk. “So, is this really going to work?” he asked, setting his ankle over his knee.
Octavia’s fingers grazed her desk as she walked to her high-back leather chair. “It can. As long as you follow the program. Think of this as boot camp, with me as your drill sergeant.”
“I’m not so great—” He stopped short as a side door opened.
A woman hurried through the door and shut it behind her. Petite with strawberry-blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, freckles dusting her entire face, and, from what Malakai could see, not a stitch of makeup. Her age? Maybe twenty, if that. Based on appearance, she was definitely younger than Octavia—although, he’d learned it was more the miles than the years when it came to age. She was Octavia’s complete opposite in every way.
“My assistant, Charlotte Gooding,” Octavia said, glaring at her.
Charlotte quickly dropped her bag next to a chair as she sat, pulled out a laptop, and opened it. “I’m ready.”
Like the exchange hadn’t even happened, Octavia returned her attention to the monitor sitting on her desk, tapped a few buttons on her keyboard, and sat back in her chair. “So, that car accident. I know what was reported, but I want to hear from your lips what happened.”
Malakai returned his attention to Octavia. So far, he’d avoided talking about the crash except to the police. “It’s just like the papers said. I had too much to drink, and between that and the heroin…I lost control of the car.” A complete lie, but he’d kept the secret so far, and he wasn’t planning on letting it out anytime soon. A last-breath dying wish he’d promised to keep.
