Page 69 of Hard Rock Temptation
I closed my eyes briefly and sighed.
I’d been seventeen when we’d gotten our first recording contract. The others had all signed. Because I was underage, I needed a parent to sign for me. But I’d left home at sixteen to move in with the band. I’d cut off all contact with my mom by then.
“Are you sorry for anything else?” Micah bit out. He never used that tone of voice with me. “Can you think of something else you might be sorry for?”
I let a breath out through my nose and lowered my gaze to the floor. I’d worried he wouldn’t understand why I’d done it. I’d hoped that, if he ever eventually found out, he would come around to supporting my decision. That he would realize I’d done the right thing.
“So she told you?” I asked, looking back up. “What did she say?”
Micah’s jaw muscles were visibly working as he clenched and unclenched his teeth.
“You forged your mother’s signature on our recording contract,” Micah said, his voice a low hiss.
I looked him in the eye.
“Yes,” I said. “I did.”
His eyes blazed in a way I’d never seen before. There was no passion, just fury.
“Do you know what you did?” Micah burst out, his biting tone now turning to enraged. “Our contract is null and void. It has no legal standing. It’s a completely worthless piece of paper!”
“I—”
“Do you even understand the consequences here?” Micah seethed.
“You—”
“Not to mention that forging a signature isillegal,” he stressed, continuing to speak over me before I could say a word. “People get sued for pulling this sort of shit. People go tojail!”
“It—”
“They can sue you and make you pay back every penny they’ve ever given us,” Micah ranted. “They can press charges and get you arrested.”
“Micah.” I said his name firmly to stop his tirade, and forced myself to remain calm in the face of his growing wrath, despite my rapidly beating heart. “The label’s not going to sue meorput me in jail. You’re thinking in worse case scenarios again.”
“Did you even think about the band at all?” Micah demanded, running a hand through his hair roughly and completely ignoring what I’d said. “That contract is meaningless. What do you think the label is going to do when they find out?”
“They don’t have to find out,” I said. “No one needs to let them know.”
“Tell that to your mother!”
It felt as if a vice had grabbed ahold of my heart and was slowly squeezing, bleeding it dry. I swallowed hard as a flutter of panic took wing in my stomach.
“Did she say she was going to tell them?” I asked.
“Not outright, but sheheavilyimplied it,” Micah said. “And I wouldn’t put it past that woman.”
I’d had months to think about this, years even. I’d been thinking, and worrying, and wondering about what my mom might do from the very day I first signed those papers.
“I don’t think she will,” I said. “She knows that it’s the only leverage she has against me. If she tells them and they drop us, her cash cow is gone. She wouldn’t risk that.”
“I don’t think you understand,” Micah said, seemingly frustrated that I wasn’t as worked up as him. “It’s not about the money anymore. You told her to fuck off. You pushed back against her, you stood up to her, and it pissed her off. Now I think she just wants to hurt you, like she’s done a hundred time before.” Micah pinned me down with a glare. “But this time her ammunition is literally explosive. She could blow up our lives if she wanted to, and I think right now that’s exactly what she wants to do.”
“Yes,exactly,” I said, nodding emphatically. “She just wants to hurt me. She’s always hurt me. She’s hurt me my whole life. What do you think she would have done if I’d asked her to sign that contract? What do you think she would have done if we gave heranypower or say over the band?”
“She—”
Now it was my turn to cut off Micah.
