Lauren Conrad - Infamous

Kate raised her eyebrows. Beverage rule?

Drew grinned. “Basically, anytime you take a meeting with someone, they’re going to offer you something to drink. And you should always say yes, even if you have no intention of drinking it. It’s polite.”

“That’s right,” Todd said, nodding. “We have interns whose entire job description is Beverage Fetching.”

Kate looked back and forth between them. She couldn’t tell if they were kidding or not, and she didn’t want to be a dope and ask. Todd was gazing at her expectantly.

“Um, I’ll have a water?” she said.

He clapped his hands. “Excellent,” he said. He pressed a button on his phone and told the voice that answered to bring him three bottles of Pellegrino. “So,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Now we can begin. Rumor has it you’ve got a new song I should hear.”

Kate nodded as she pulled Lucinda from her case. Keep calm, she reminded herself. This is an audience of two. Well, plus the PopTV camera crew, but she was used to them by now.

She’d already warmed up in the parking lot outside, so she dove right into the song. A melodic, catchy intro, and then the words: “I never had a day like this / I dreamed about a kiss like this / Whoever said dreams can’t come true / Has never met someone like you . . .”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Drew tapping his foot. Todd’s face, though, was blank.

“All the things I should have said / When I woke up next to you in bed / They didn’t matter anymore / Just hold me close and lock the door . . .”

When she was done, she set Lucinda back in her case and took two deep breaths before she looked up at her manager.

His expression was dark. He hit a button on his phone. “Hello? The Pellegrino?” he demanded. Then he turned to Kate and smiled. “That was great,” he said. “Smart, sassy, poppy. Perfect.”

As his words sunk in, she felt her phone buzz beside her in the chair. NICE WORK, Stephen had texted, thereby breaking Laurel’s rule against unnecessary texts during shooting.

“Yes,” Todd went on, “I’ve got some good news for you, Kate.”

“You do?” Her heart fluttered hopefully in her chest.

“We’re going to have you do a showcase. You’ve got a handful of great new songs, so you’re ready for it. We’re going to give the labels who’ve expressed interest a chance to see what you can do. Up close and personal.”

Kate sucked in her breath. “Wow, that’s amazing. I think? I guess I don’t actually know what a showcase means, but it sounds good.” She glanced over at Drew. His expression was unreadable.

“That’s what I’m here to tell you,” Todd said. He snatched the waters from the flustered-looking intern who’d finally come in, and then he explained the concept of the showcase.

Kate’s mind whirled as she listened. Todd’s management company would rent a fancy rehearsal room, complete with an engineer and a full stage. They would invite A&R executives from various labels, and Kate would perform two or three songs for each group of executives. And, to hear Todd tell it, by the end of the day, she’d have a record deal.

“That sounds . . . terrifying,” Kate said. She didn’t want to be ungrateful, but “terrifying” actually didn’t even come close to describing how it sounded.

“It is,” Drew said. He sounded grave. “I’ve sat on those couches, watching bands perform.”

“You’re going to be great,” Todd said.

Kate looked to Drew. She wanted to believe Todd, but Drew knew her. He understood how she still struggled with stage fright. Even though she had come a long way, she still wasn’t always comfortable in front of a crowd.

“What do you think?” she asked him. “Does that sound good?”

Drew gazed out the window for a moment and then turned back to her. “Sure, it’s one way to do it. But there are other ways.”

“Like what?” Kate asked.

He shrugged. “I mean, personally? I think you should keep playing around town and building up your confidence. And I think you should have another handful of songs. You should have more of a demo album. Something to send to the A&R guys.”

Todd exhaled loudly. “So it can sit in a stack of four million other demo albums? No, they need to see Kate. I mean, look at her! Those blue eyes! That smile! They’re going to love her.”

Kate flushed. “I don’t know about that,” she said, then gave a nervous giggle.

“Well, you can think on it,” Todd said, looking pointedly and perhaps somewhat angrily at Drew, “but don’t think too long. In this business you have to strike while the iron’s hot!”

“I know,” Kate said. “I’d hate to miss my chance, but I also want to do this right. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

Todd said to Drew, “See? Looks and brains. I mean, come on, Drew, you think she’s the bee’s knees. Why won’t everyone else? Don’t hide her light under a bushel. Remember: Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Kate wondered if Todd was going to bust out any more clichés. Apparently, Drew had the same thought.

“I’m more the ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ type,” he said. “She has solid interest from two mid-sized labels. I don’t know that she should chase them off by going after the big guns with a showcase. But Kate, the decision is yours. Just remember, you only get one chance at a first impression.”

Kate bit her lip and knocked her toes against the leg of Todd’s desk. Should she do the showcase? Take the risk?

Her phone buzzed again. YES YES YES, Stephen had written.

Of course PopTV would want her to agree to it—a showcase would make for a much more exciting story line. They probably already had the space scouted and cleared.

She could almost imagine Trevor rubbing his hands together in excitement. Either she’d do great and get signed to a record label, which would majorly raise her profile—or else she’d utterly bomb, and then Trevor could make it a centerpiece of a “heartbreaking, bittersweet” (or some other BS) episode of The Fame Game.

She knew she owed it to her producers to say yes. She owed it to herself to do what was right for her career.

She stared down at her feet in their new Belle by Sigerson Morrison booties. Why should those things be mutually exclusive? If Todd said she was ready, shouldn’t she listen to him? That was what she was paying him for, after all. As amazing as Drew had been, he was just an intern. He still had a lot to learn about the music business. They both did.

She set her jaw. This was her career. Her life. She couldn’t keep sitting on the sidelines. “I say we go for it.”

She smiled at her decision and turned to Drew.

He looked significantly less pleased.

Carmen fished a leather Gucci key chain from the bottom of her oversized purse and let herself into Luke’s cozy Venice bungalow. Then she dropped down on the worn olive-green couch and exhaled a sigh of relief. She was blissfully alone.

She hadn’t exactly jumped at the opportunity to keep an eye on Luke’s house while he was filming abroad. Even though she really liked him, and kind of owed him for letting her crash there, she didn’t like the idea of driving all that way to visit an empty house. (If he’d been lying in bed, waiting for her—that would have been a different story.) But back then Carmen hadn’t known that she’d be living with a couple who were currently in the most annoyingly lovey stage of their relationship, either. So in a way, Luke’s house had become something of a refuge.