Now he’s just rubbing salt into a very fresh wound. I turn to face him, folding my arms across my chest and cocking my hip.
“Then why’d you pass on me?”
“I wondered when you’d ask.” A slow smile hangs between his jowls. “I wanted you on the show, but I’m only one of five executive producers.”
“Well, I guess if they didn’t want me then—”
“Oh, they did.”
I jerk my glance to him, a frown pinching my brows.
“What do you mean?”
“They just wanted him more.” He nods his head toward the stage where Rhyson is still singing my song.
“I don’t . . . what do you mean they wanted Rhyson more?”
“We asked him months ago to appear this season as a guest judge.”
“Yeah, but he turned it down.”
John Malcolm nods, turning his thin lips down at the corners.
“So he did tell you that part.”
“That part?” I shake my head to clear it. “I don’t . . . what do you mean?”
“We got a call from him personally, not even his manager. That sister of his.”
“Bristol?”
“Yeah, before, we only dealt with her. He wouldn’t talk with us at all.” One side of Malcolm’s mouth creaks into a grin of sorts. “So knock me over with a feather when he called us himself not even five minutes after your audition.”
“Five minutes?” I look from the man I love onstage singing to thousands about how he yearns for me, back to the calculating eyes of John Malcolm. “I don’t understand.”
“He told Julie Schwimmer that if we passed on you, he’d guest judge for us this season.”
“No, he . . . he couldn’t have because he . . .”
He held me when I cried. He wiped my tears. He assured me my time was coming. He got me through this failure. There’s no way he orchestrated it.
“Why are you telling me this?” I swallow my hurt long enough to ask the obvious question. “I’m sure Rhyson wanted some assurance that you wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, if we talk, he walks.”
“Then why are you talking?”
He pats my shoulder, almost avuncular, if it weren’t for the hardness of his beady eyes.
“Because I, unlike the rest of my team, know that having you is worth more than one guest appearance from Rhyson Gray.”
“So you want me to come on the show after all?”
“Oh, we filled that spot right away. I have something better in mind for you.”
Even as he details the opportunity, something that is beyond my wildest dreams for this stage of my career, I’m only half listening. My heart is fully occupied with breaking. My illusions waste no time shattering into a billion pieces scattered all over this venue. I trusted Rhyson. I let him lull me, just like I thought he would, to put myself second. I’ve forfeited my independence and positioned myself to depend on him, all because I trusted he’d never do anything to hurt me. I was actually about to go on tour and sing a pity duet with him, enduring the behind-the-hand snickers of those who speculate how good my pussy must be to score a spot on Rhyson Gray’s tour. And for what? For who? A liar? A fraud?
I just stare at John Malcolm while he offers me a golden opportunity on a platinum platter. It’s only when the applause filters into my hazy consciousness that I realize the song and Rhyson’s set are over.
He’s walking offstage, eyes on me and a smile on his face. His eyes slide to John Malcolm, and I see it. I see that moment of panic before he sheaths it. His eyes go wide and then narrow. His mouth drops open and then snaps closed. His fists clench, and then slowly, deliberately relax at his side. But I know him too well. Or I thought I did.
“Hey, baby.” He bends to kiss my forehead, eyes still on John Malcolm. “Malcolm, what are you doing here?”
“Luke is an Arts School alum too, remember?” Malcolm offers a plastic smile. “Just here for my artist, but I’m going.”
He turns to me, reaching for my hand.
“I hope to hear from you.”
There is one last moment of silence between my lover and me. The sad part is that if I could eradicate the last five minutes, I probably would. Go back to that bliss of not knowing the lengths to which Rhyson went to manipulate me. To bend me to his will. To crush me so he can mold me into what he wants. But I do know, and there’s no way I can pretend.
“Is it true?”
He drops his lashes, shielding the truth from me, hiding behind this curtain of lies a little longer.
“Is what true?”
But his voice is too quiet, and doesn’t actually hold a question. He already knows that I know.
“Rhyson, how could you?”
I expected anger, but my voice withers in the air, the words swallowed by a tiny sob. I cup my hand over my mouth to suppress it, but little whimpers slip through my fingers.
“Kai, I can explain.” He extends his hand, but I step back, out of his reach. My body will turn on me. I can’t trust him, and I can’t trust myself.
“Don’t.” I stretch the word over a tight rope between us. “Don’t touch me.”
“Baby, you’ve gotta listen.”
His voice is even and calm, but he can’t hide the desperation rising in his eyes. He’s blinking a mile a minute. He’s a placid surface with anxiety churning beneath. We’re so tuned in to one another that he can’t hide it from me. Does he feel my hurt as acutely? My disappointment in him?
“How dare you play games with my life?”
There’s the anger. The indignation. It’s bubbling up, spilling over.
“You manipulated me. Made a fool of me. You ruined one of the most special performances of my life so I’d do what you wanted me to do.” My volume climbs until heads are turning in our direction, but I can’t control it. I can’t stop. “Do you have any idea how opposite that is of love?”
Rhyson flicks a glance over my shoulder, takes my elbow, and bends to my ear.
“Baby, someone has a phone recording us. We can talk about this, but we need to get out—”
“I don’t care!” I snatch my elbow away from him, whirling around in search of the camera phone. As soon as I see the stagehand wearing a black T-shirt with his phone trained on us, I flip him the bird.
Bristol stutter-steps over to us in her three-inch heels.
“What the hell is going on?” Her low-voiced demand sends me over the edge.
“The hell that’s going on, Bristol,” I say, hands on my hips, “Is that your wildest dreams are coming true. I’m breaking up with your brother.”
“The hell you are, Pep,” Rhyson snarls, pulling me so close I feel his heart slamming into mine. “Do you honestly think I’m letting you leave me over this shit? For some line of crap that scum, John Malcolm, fed you?”
I knew I shouldn’t have let him touch me. Just his hands on me dim the anger, turn down the intensity, because even rough, his touch feels right.
“Line of crap, was it?” I jerk myself away from him, ignoring the way my body misses him already. “Did you do it?”
“Pep—”
“So you didn’t tell the producers if they passed on me you would guest judge this season? You didn’t take away my shot to do things on my own terms so you could control me on yours?”
Bristol drops her head into her hands, plowing her fingers through her hair.
“This is a nightmare, Rhyson,” she says. “There are phones everywhere, most of them capturing all of this. Nothing we can do about that now, but you have press waiting.”
“No way,” Rhyson says. “Pep and I—”
“Are done,” I snap. “Stay away from me. You’re as bad as your parents.”
He winces, shaking his head, eyes pleading with me.
“You don’t mean that. We can work this out.”
I claw at my neck, seeking the symbol of the friendship we built, of the trust I thought we had. I pull until the clasp on the necklace gives, and I hurl it at his chest.
“Not if I’m gone we can’t.”
And with that, I charge blindly toward the exit. I have no idea how I’ll get back to my apartment, but there’s one thing I know: my bags are already packed, and I’m getting out of this town.