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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Jade

I’ve never been so embarrassed.

Or humiliated.

Or emotional.

And if Atlas has heard the recording, then the rest of the world has too.

Which is horrifying.

Grandma Louise would be so upset with me right now.

I don’t know how this happened unless?—

My head snaps up.

No-no- no .

Now I’m as furious as I am humiliated.

“What is it?” Royal asks softly, watching my face.

“Darn it!” I burst into tears all over again. “This is my fault. Oh my God, I’m so sorry!”

“Hey, it’s okay. Jade…baby.” Royal does that thing I love, where he grabs my chin between two fingers and forces me to look at him. “It’s not the end of the world, okay? We’ll get this taken care of. I promise.”

“How? It’s not like it’s fake!” I shudder against him. “I’m so sorry…”

“Tell us what happened,” Atlas says in his scary-but-I’m-not-scared-of-him voice. The murderous glare has actually softened. Just a tiny bit. Softer for Atlas anyway.

“I remember that night,” Royal ponders thoughtfully. “We wound up making love in the middle of working on the song—I guess we left the recording on?”

“We did.” I nod miserably, my face still incredibly hot. I can’t remember the last time I blushed as much as I have since meeting Royal. “I didn’t realize it at the time but then later, when I found it, I decided to keep it.” My face might be competing for the surface of the sun in temperature. So, so hot. I can’t even look at Atlas, but even if I wanted to ask him to leave the room, what would that accomplish? He’s obviously already heard everything.

And he’s trying to help.

Not that you can put a genie back in the bottle.

This is out in the world.

My millions of fans have heard me?—

Nope.

I can’t even think about all the little girls out there who adore me, listening to me having a very loud, boisterous orgasm.

“How come?” Royal’s voice is soft, his eyes boring into mine, breaking into my haze of self-flagellation.

“Because I’m falling in love with you and I love your voice when we…” I let myself trail because Atlas doesn’t need to hear any more detail than that and?—

Royal presses his forehead to mine.

“I like it too,” he whispers. “And I’m sorry this happened. Do you know how it got out? Did you share it with someone?”

I nod, still miserable.

“Not intentionally but I’m pretty sure I know when it happened. When Rico came over. I was so excited to play ‘Midnight Snow’ for him. I must’ve sent him the wrong file—you and I made so many recordings that weekend.” I pull out my phone and start scrolling through our texts. “Yup. Right there.” I sigh and close my eyes. “I’m so, so sorry. I can’t blame anyone but myself. How could I be so stupid?”

“Look, if it was just me, I’d be laughing my ass off right now,” Royal says firmly. “Seriously, babe. If you’re worried about my reputation, please don’t apologize. All I care about is how embarrassed you are. People can think whatever the fuck they want about me. And frankly, I’m never going to apologize for hot, consensual sex with a beautiful woman. There’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing on that tape.”

Atlas has somehow managed to make himself as unobtrusive as possible, surreptitiously handing me a couple of tissues.

“Thank you.” I blow my nose and dab at my eyes.

God, I must be a mess.

“My legal team is on it, and once we coordinate with yours, this will go away.” Fierce, scary Atlas is back, but he’s the last person I’m afraid of right now.

“I’m going to text Maddie,” Royal says, pulling out his phone.

I don’t have the energy or mental bandwidth to do anything but stare off at nothing.

How could I have done something so stupid? Reckless?

Old Rico, the Rico I thought I knew, would have laughed his ass off and immediately deleted it, telling me to be more careful. Reminding me that there are a lot of crazies in the music industry.

That Rico doesn’t exist, though.

That Rico was friends with a Jade who hadn’t won Song of the Year.

Award-winning Jade apparently doesn’t have any friends.

Other than a handful of people in this club right now.

How have I allowed myself to become so isolated?

I’m incredibly grateful for Royal and this newfound friendship with his family, but that doesn’t excuse me from putting myself in this position. At some point, I have to think about that.

“Maddie’s calling,” Royal says, putting her on speaker phone.

“What the hell is going on?” she demands.

Royal introduces her to Atlas, and they have a conversation like Royal and I aren’t even here.

“We should bring Kate in on this,” Maddie says. “Hang on, let me add her to the call.”

A moment later, Kate’s voice fills the room.

“I’m sorry to bother you this late at night,” Royal tells her.

“That’s what I’m here for,” she says. “My husband and I just got back from a day at an indoor water park with the twins—so I might be out of the loop. What’s going on?”

“Hang on, let me text you something,” Madeline tells her.

Ugh.

How many more people are going to hear that recording?

Oh, wait.

The whole freakin’ world.

My face flames all over again.

“It’s going to be okay,” Royal whispers. “Breathe.”

“Ohhh.” Kate’s voice is all business now. “Okay. So this is bad, but not horrible.”

Not horrible?

Easy for her to say.

“What do you suggest?” Madeline asks her. “From a crisis control standpoint. We’ll handle the legalities.”

“At the end of the day, there’s nothing we can do. The recording is real, not doctored or made with AI. And if there’s proof that Jade knowingly sent him the recording, even if it was by accident, you can’t go after him that way. The best course of action is to take ownership.”

“Take ownership?” Royal repeats, glaring at the phone. “What does that mean?”

“It means, if we behave as though we’ve done nothing wrong, people will believe it. Ooopsie, that wasn’t meant for the public. But we’re so in love…and we’re working on new music. Guess what? ‘Midnight Snow’ is coming out on Valentine’s Day—how do you guys feel about new music from Jade Cantrell and Royal Ewing? You know, that kind of thing. Otherwise, we feed into the narrative that the two of you making love is dirty, wrong somehow.”

The room is eerily quiet.

“I don’t like it,” Atlas snaps.

“Atlas.” Madeline’s voice is patient. “Sit back and think for a moment. This is what Kate does. There is no one better in the entertainment industry for this type of thing. If you, or anyone else, has a better idea, let’s hear it.”

And of course, they don’t.

“I’m fine with it,” Royal says abruptly. “I am not ashamed that I make love to my girlfriend. Yes, we apologize for the mistake, but when it’s all said and done, we didn’t mean any harm. It was supposed to be a text between friends, not some dickhead trying to get her back for not hiring him to produce her next album.”

“Ohhh.” Kate’s voice fills with glee. “No one told me that part. Yay! This is awesome. I will vilify Rico in the press. Leave this to me. I’m going to write a statement, okay? All the things I talked about a second ago, and you two can sign off on it. There will be an apology, but only because she never wanted to embarrass her young fan base with something like that. We’re not apologizing for being in love and having sex—just that something so private got out. Period.”

“I love this,” Madeline says. “Royal? Jade?”

I can’t formulate a response just yet, but I’m nodding.

This is the best course of action.

Of course it is.

I hate it but I’ve been around long enough to understand how these things work.

“Just, you know, maybe not Valentine’s Day for the release of ‘Midnight Snow,’” Royal says. “It seems really soon…”

“Why not?” I ask slowly, the idea starting to take root. “We can record it. It’s done. I’m sure we can find some musicians to play on it—my drummer, Wayne, is always available, and we can get studio musicians for anything else. It’s actually brilliant marketing.”

Royal looks startled for a moment but then nods. “Yeah, okay. I guess Valentine’s Day can work.”

“I still don’t know if I like this,” Atlas mutters.

“It’s okay, big guy,” Madeline soothes. “You and I will have a little chat one-on-one and you’ll feel better.”

He nods even though she obviously can’t see it.

Wow.

I love that there’s someone out there who can manage Atlas.

I really can’t wait to meet Madeline in person.

“All right, the twins need baths, and then their Dad can feed them while I start working on this,” Kate says. “Are we good with the plan? I’d like to get this statement out as soon as possible.”

“Yes, and we’ll check in tomorrow.” Madeline is all business again, her soothing tone gone.

“So we’re just going to let them get away with this?” Atlas demands.

“Not at all.” Soothing Madeline is back. “We’re going to sue the fuck out of Rico. But we can’t stop the people who’ve already heard it from listening, downloading…so we spin the narrative. And what are they going to say? Two adults who are in a relationship had sex and recorded it. Big fucking deal.”

“Jade’s reputation is predicated on her not doing things like that,” Atlas protests. “This makes her look?—”

“Like a grown woman with a boyfriend,” Kate interrupts gently.

“We’re going to make Rico pay,” Madeline says. “And behind the scenes, we’re going to get the audio taken down. A good cyber security firm can start working on that, but it takes time. Short-term, we’re apologizing for allowing it to get out, but hey, there’s a new song coming out on Valentine’s Day. Let’s focus on that.”

They talk for a few more minutes but I’m distracted now.

“Midnight Snow” is releasing on Valentine’s Day.

Holy crap.

Royal and I are not theoretically working on a new album with no release date or album title or anything else.

This is a real-life roller coaster ride.

And all I can do now is hold on for dear life.