Page 1 of With Stars in Her Eyes

PROLOGUE

Courtney

Just as the worldly and sensual duchess slid nimble fingers into the beautiful widow’s corset laces, a waving hand forced my attention away from my book.

It took several blinks to force my mind away from the misty Scottish moors and back to the dimly lit green room of the Troubadour in Los Angeles.

Somewhat ironically, the hand belonged to a winner of a major Scottish radio station’s sexiest musicians holiday poll, who was leaning over the back of a sofa to laugh at me.

Demetrius Adeyemi was saying something I couldn’t hear.

With an exasperated sigh, I yanked off my noise-reducing headphones. “Yes?”

“I said you might want to take a break soon.”

The same band had been opening for the Violet Trikes for the last two years, so I knew their sets. The song playing was from the first half. “Why? I’m not late.”

“You’re not late yet . But you’ve got that characters-are-about-to-fuck face on, so I thought I should break you out of your book trance sooner rather than later.”

“I do not have a ‘characters-are-about-to-fuck’ face, thank you very much.”

“Then why can I tell exactly what’s about to happen between those lovely ladies on the cover by how ludicrously scarlet you are?”

With a mild snarl, I snapped the book shut and stood with a few audible hip and spine cracks.

Jesus, I’d been sitting in a semi-squat behind the couch, looking like Gollum staring at the one ring, for at least forty-five minutes.

I stretched the tight spots on my shoulders.

The book had been a needed distraction from how badly my head had been hurting all day.

The bass from the music onstage pulsed directly against my skull.

My vision rippled at the edges. Nothing new.

But the draining jet lag of transcontinental travel made it worse.

I headed across the room to a lit mirror.

After applying the makeup that transformed me into my stage persona, I smoothed my waist-length blue hair with a wince.

The fresh gloss had added some shine. But on days like today the weight of every strand yanked my scalp.

Maybe if tonight went perfectly, I would have enough clout to convince the record label execs to change their mind and let me chop it off.

I pulled on the outer layer of my stage dress and zipped up the back, cringing at my pale reflection once before looking behind me to see why Demetrius had gone quiet.

During my seconds of strayed attention, that smirking jackass had dared to grab my book.

“ Hey . Give that back.” I nearly tripped over my half-laced boots as I snatched it back, sliding in an old Violet Trikes flyer to mark my spot.

“I was just looking for the reason you’re all flushed. And I certainly was right.”

“The reason for the blushing is residual purity culture. And you can be right and also be an asshole.”

“Perhaps. But this arsehole still wants to know how he can get himself on the lovely Samantha Powell’s bookstore’s curated smut mailing service.” He tapped the book cover in the spot between two women draped in tartan sharing an intimate embrace in front of stormy skies.

I gently bopped him on the nose with the book. “Sorry, dude. I think scheduling all those add-on shows between Thanksgiving and New Year’s so I couldn’t visit her over the holidays sank that ship for you.”

“ Damn . I’ll just have to add sweet-talking Samantha to my tour break to-do list.”

“Don’t you dare.” I stuffed the novel in the outer pocket of my duffel bag and began rifling through the main pocket.

I pitied anyone on the other end of a Demetrius “sweet-talking.” His accent alone drove people wild.

It came from his years attending the most expensive and elite prep schools in London, but on certain words it held an extra melody he attributed to his parents.

His father was a Nigerian diplomat to the United Kingdom and his mother a Scottish pianist. The combination of the voice with his face, and the fact that he was the lead singer and songwriter for one of the biggest upcoming bands in the world right now could make even the most levelheaded person I knew melt into a puddle.

That person being my aforementioned best friend, Samantha Powell.

My complete immunity to Demetrius when we met at Yale should have been the first sign I was gay.

Unfortunately, it had taken a disastrous marriage to a covert narcissist and former front man for a Christian ska band, subsequent messy divorce, and several awkward years of post-religious deconstruction sexual experimentation with men to cement the idea that yes, I was definitely, undeniably, and absolutely a lesbian.

Compulsory heterosexuality could go fuck itself.

“Are you smiling because you’re already counting the hours until you can clack your heels together and run off back—?”

“It’s amazing how you haven’t run out of Wizard of Oz jokes after all this time of me visiting Sam in Kansas.”

Having figured out what I was looking for in my bag, Demetrius held out my new in-ear monitors. “My sense of humor is as fresh and charming as my face.”

“Didn’t you say yesterday you thought your Botox was wearing off?”

“Touché, darling.” He held up his watch and tapped the face. “Almost time for Kestrel’s full launch.”

My satisfied smile faltered when I remembered the other reason I had needed the distraction from my book. The performance of my life was minutes away.

Demetrius didn’t miss the shift in my expression. “You’re going to be fantastic. They already love Kestrel’s music, and they’ve only gotten peeks at the crumbs so far.” He squeezed my shoulders as I touched up my makeup.

They meaning the currently applauding and cheering crowd.

My “take-wing,” as Demetrius called it, began during the last leg of our European tour.

Halfway through the shows, he had me at the front with him performing the songs from the Trikes album that featured my voice and cello the most. Although I had a cowriting credit under the name Kestrel on the last few albums, I had never officially joined the band.

But lately fans had been recognizing me and begging me to sign CDs and posters more frequently.

It was all going according to Demetrius’s plan.

My album would launch his side career as a producer while we all waited to see if the Violet Trikes would finally win any Grammy awards after five years of multiple nominations, but always getting snubbed in every category.

After I finished getting ready, I followed the rest of the band down the hallway. Demetrius stopped me on the way and lowered his voice so only I could hear it.

“Richard says you’re avoiding him.” A statement, not a question.

“Because Richard kept trying to tell me something about ‘trending’ and what they were saying online about the songs we played in Europe and what it means for my album, and I—”

“Don’t want to know right now. Yes, but…” Seeing the attention from others settle on us, Demetrius pulled me over to an isolated spot in the wings. “I know you don’t, but I think we need to talk about a few things before you go to Kansas. The label execs scheduled a meeting with us tomorrow—”

“No. No. No. I can’t because I fly out at—”

“It’s a seven-thirty meeting, so it won’t mess with your flight to Kansas. They scheduled it around your itinerary.” He raised an eyebrow.

“ Oh …”

While we toured Asia, fans had started posting videos of me online.

Buzz grew, fueled by strategically leaked snippets of the songs I performed in clubs on nights when not performing with the Violet Trikes.

Demetrius had waited patiently until the label was practically salivating for my album.

Then he revealed it was already done, and they committed to throwing their marketing money behind it.

And now they were scheduling meetings around my schedule.

“So, I’ll tell them you’ll be there?”

I exhaled. “But I already signed the contract. What are they going to want me to—?”

“I think they just want to iron out some— Hey…” Demetrius’s expression flickered to concern, almost fear. “Are your eyes okay?”

Shit.

“Totally normal. Why?”

“I… I don’t know. Probably just the lighting in here. You’re sure you’re fine? Physically , I mean? You’re sure about not wearing the glasses tonight? I know the label had some strong opinions about them since they’re filming tonight, but—”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Some strong opinions” was a tame way of describing the argument between the band manager and label rep who had cornered me about the dark glasses I always wore while performing.

It hadn’t helped that when they had asked me to let them test the reflectivity, my pill case had fallen out of my bag and made it look like I was carrying a mobile pharmacy.

The pill explosion was why I gave in about the glasses. Exactly zero of the pills were the “fun kind” more often stereotypically used by musicians, but I didn’t want to have to explain them.

I would be fine without the glasses. Sure, stress made the migraines worse and tonight I would be using new in-ear monitors that also seemed to make my migraines worse while singing a song I had been working on for a long time and instilled with actual blood, sweat, and tears, and launching an entire new phase of my career—oh my god, I needed to stop thinking right the hell now.

Because it would be fine.

I grabbed my water bottle and guzzled half of it.

When I bent to do the normal checks of my electric cello and bow, the ripples of queasiness crested into a tidal wave.

When no one was watching, I stooped to get an anti-nausea medication from my bag.

After the bitter tablet dissolved under my tongue, I downed the rest of my water.

As the opener ended a fan-favorite song, the crowd erupted with the loudest cheers and applause yet.

If everything went according to plan, they would be cheering like that for me soon.

When the Violet Trikes’ US tour began at the end of the summer, I would be the official opener, playing my own music with my own band.

The first single would premiere in a few weeks.

Demetrius was featured on the track, so it was the perfect song to launch.

I had wanted to wait until closer to the tour to announce the full album, but the label execs insisted we announce my upcoming album release date at “home.” I had almost laughed in the meeting when they used that word.

Home? I might have been born in Los Angeles and lived my worst adult years there in my early twenties, but it wasn’t home.

Given how close I was to my dreams coming true, I didn’t argue the point.

An electric sensation zapped through the fingers of my right hand. Maybe they had fallen asleep because of my tight grip on my bow. Had my anxiety pushed me into this feeling of impending doom?

As I shook out my hand, my head pulsed. The world tilted.

A new tingling began at the side of my neck.

Tonight was about reclaiming my career on my own terms.

I could do this.

I had played through worse pain.

As I searched around for Demetrius to give him a heads-up about what was happening with my body just in case, a smartly attired woman stopped me. “Courtney Starling?”

“Oh. Uh—yes. That’s me.” How long had it been since someone in this part of my life used my given name? “I thought you were ‘Kestrel’?” Derisiveness from her implied air quotes hung in the air as she eyed my electric cello.

“Yep. Both are me.” I smiled weakly. Even Demetrius rarely called me Courtney these days. It was Kestrel when he asked me to join him in the main spotlight onstage. It was Kestrel to my new agent. Kestrel in meetings with the label.

“Lovely. Someone gave this to the back-of-house manager to give to you. Guess they knew a guy who knew a guy somewhere? Don’t know.

But they said you’d know who it was from and that you would want to know they were here to watch?

Very sweet, I’m sure.” She dropped what looked like a note into my open palm and was gone before I could thank her.

On closer inspection, I saw it was a bar napkin with a ship logo and a few scribbled lines of blue ballpoint pen beneath.

A rhythmic whooshing sound that might have been my heartbeat drowned out all other noise.

“ No…” I crumpled the napkin, grateful I had stuffed it into my bag just before Demetrius appeared beside me.

We walked together out onto the stage. Ten years of playing as an adjunct instrumentalist with Demetrius’s band meant I usually barely had to think at all while doing pre-performance rituals.

I hadn’t had nerves like this since I was onstage as a kid singing solos in front of sold-out crowds under yet another name.

I rubbed another spot on the right side of my forehead that was stinging and took the deep breaths I’d used when I was a child performer plagued by stage fright.

Maybe that was why I was nervous. Maybe it felt like history was repeating itself, and my body remembered.

I would not let old fears sabotage me.

The lights went down. “You ready to be a star, darling?” Demetrius asked.

My attempt at a cocky snort was strangled by my thick throat. “I guess I’m ready to start shooting for them though.” I winked—or rather, I had tried to wink. My eyes still weren’t working right.

Despite this, my legs were steady beneath me as I held my bow and positioned my cello. Everything would be fine.

I would not mess up my second chance.