Kate Hewitt - In the Heat of the Spotlight

‘What …’ She cleared her throat, staring at him with wide, dazed eyes. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Looking for you.’

‘Why?’ She sounded so bewildered he almost smiled. Gone was any kind of innuendo, any flirt. Gone, in fact, was so much as a remnant of the Aurelie he’d encountered back in New York. He looked at her properly for the first time, and knew he wouldn’t have even recognised her if not for the colour of her eyes. He’d remembered those straight off. The woman in front of him was dressed in faded jeans and a lavender T-shirt, her silky hair tossed over one shoulder in a single braid. She wore no make-up, no jewellery. She was the essence of simplicity and, despite the slight gauntness of her face and frame, Luke thought she looked better now than he’d ever seen her in person or on an album cover.

‘May I come in?’

‘I …’ She glanced behind her shoulder, and Luke wondered what she was hiding. Suspicion hardened inside him. All right, the house might be quaint in a countrified kind of way, and her clothes were … well, normal, but could he really doubt that this woman was still the outrageous, unstable pop star he’d met before?

Well, yes, he could.

He’d been doubting it, aggravatingly, ever since Jenna had suggested he book her for a string of openings and he’d refused. Refused point-blank even as he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Those eyes. That sense of both sadness and courage. And how she must have come to Bryant’s wanting to be different.

That was what had finally made him decide to talk to her. What a coup it would be to have Bryant’s orchestrate a comeback for a has-been pop star that no one believed could change.

Although if he were honest—which he was determined always to be—it wasn’t the success of the store that had brought him to Vermont. It was something deeper, something instinctive. He understood all too well about wanting to change, trying to be different. He’d been trying with the store for nearly a decade. And as for himself … Well, he’d had his own obstacles to overcome. Clearly Aurelie had hers.

Which had brought him here, five weeks later, to her doorstep.

‘May I come in?’ he asked again, politely, and she chewed her lip, clearly reluctant.

‘Fine,’ she finally said, and moved aside so he could enter.

He stepped across the threshold, taking in the overflowing umbrella stand and coat rack, the framed samplers on the walls, the braided rug. Very quaint. And so not what he’d expected.

She closed the door and kept him there in the hall, her arms folded. ‘How did you find me?’

‘It was a challenge, I admit.’ Aurelie had been off the map. No known address besides a rented-out beach house in Beverly Hills, no known contacts since her agent and manager had both been fired. Jenna had contacted her directly through her website, which had since closed down.

‘Well?’ Her eyes sparked.

‘I’m pretty adept with a computer,’ Luke answered. ‘I found a mention of the sale of this house from a Julia Schmidt to you in the town property records.’ She shook her head, coldly incredulous, and he tried a smile. ‘Aurelie Schmidt. I wondered what your last name was.’

‘Nice going, Sherlock.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I still don’t know why you’re here.’

‘I’d like to talk to you.’

She arched an eyebrow, smiled unpleasantly. ‘Oh? That wasn’t the message you were sending me back in New York.’

‘That’s true. I’m sorry if I appeared rude.’

‘Appeared? Well, I appeared like I was strung out on drugs, so what does it really matter?’ She pivoted on her heel and walked down a dark, narrow hall, the faded wallpaper cluttered with photographs Luke found he longed to look at, to the kitchen.

‘Appeared?’ he repeated as he stood in the doorway, sunlight spilling into the room from a bay window that overlooked a tangled back garden. Aurelie had picked up a mug of coffee and took a sip. She didn’t offer him any.

‘I told you, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Actually, it does. If you have a substance abuse problem, I need to know about it now.’ That was the one thing that had almost kept him from coming at all. He would not work with someone who was unstable, who might overdose. He would never put himself in that position again.

‘You need to know?’ she mocked. She held her coffee mug in front of her as if it was some kind of shield, or perhaps a weapon. Luke stayed by the door. He didn’t want its contents thrown in his face. ‘What else do you need , Luke Bryant?’

Her eyes flashed and he tensed. He hated innuendo, especially when he knew it held a shaming grain of truth.

‘I have a proposition to put to you,’ he said evenly. ‘But first I need to know. Do you have a substance abuse problem, of any kind?’

‘Would you believe me if I told you?’

‘Yes—’

‘Ri-ight.’ She shook her head. ‘Why are you really here?’

‘I told you, I have a proposition to put to you. A business proposition.’

‘It’s always business, isn’t it?’

Luke bit down on his irritation. Already he was regretting the insane impulse to come here. ‘Enough. Either you listen to me or you don’t. If you’re interested in making a comeback—’

He saw her knuckles whiten around her coffee mug. ‘Who said I was interested in that?’

‘Why else accept the Bryant’s booking?’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Boredom?’

Luke stared at her, saw the dangerous glitter in her eyes, the thin line of her mouth. The quivering chin. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said quietly.

‘Why are you interested in me making a comeback?’ she challenged. ‘Because you certainly weren’t in New York.’

‘I changed my mind.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Look, I’ll tell you all about it if you think we can have a civil conversation, but first just answer the question. Do you have a substance—’

‘Abuse problem,’ she finished wearily. ‘No.’

‘Have you ever?’

‘No.’

‘Then why were you passed out in New York?’

Her expression was blank, her voice flat. ‘I hadn’t eaten anything. Low blood sugar.’ Luke hesitated. It hadn’t seemed like just low blood sugar. She eyed him cynically. ‘Clearly you believe me, just like you said you would.’

‘I admit, I’m sceptical.’

‘ So honest of you.’

‘I won’t have anything to do with drugs.’

‘That makes two of us. Amazing,’ she drawled, ‘we have something in common.’

He thought of the tabloids detailing her forays into rehab. The pictures of her at parties. He really should turn around and walk right out of here. Aurelie watched his face, her mouth curling into a cold smile he didn’t like. ‘That doesn’t mean I’ve been a Girl Scout,’ she told him. ‘I never pretended I was.’

‘I know that.’

‘So what do you want?’

What did he want? The question felt loaded, the answer more complicated than he wanted it to be. ‘I want you to sing. At the reopening of four of my stores.’

He felt her shock even though her expression—that cold, cynical smile—didn’t change. ‘Why?’ she finally asked. ‘You certainly didn’t seem thrilled I was singing at your New York store.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ he agreed evenly. ‘Bryant Stores is important to me and I didn’t particularly like the idea of endorsing a washed-up pop star as its mascot.’

‘Thanks for spelling it out.’

‘I’ve changed my mind.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Well, that’s a relief.’

‘The opening was well received—’

‘Oh, yes, the papers loved the irony of a store trying to reinvent itself hiring a pop star who can’t. I got that.’ Bitterness spiked her words, and Luke felt a rush of something like satisfaction. She was trying to change.