Chart Toppers (Star Maker Book 3) (20 page)

Spencer
nodded and grinned as she walked away.
 
Before Spencer could even look at Kit or say a word, she leaned over to
him, still watching Tabitha from afar.
 
“Hire her and her band too.
 
I haven’t heard them yet, but my gut tells me that she’s got a killer
instinct like…”

He
chuckled.
 
“Just like you.
Uh-huh.
 
See, I told you.”

She
nodded.
 
“You were right on the
mark, little brother.
 
Bull’s-eye.”

CHAPTER 11

Kit
struggled to keep her eyes open as she sat at her desk the next morning.
 
She had ended up going out for drinks
with Spencer, Tabitha and her band, Blood Brother, at the Rainbow, then to a
party afterward.
 
She didn’t get
home until four and had a seven o’clock conference call with Diamond that
lasted three hours.
 
She had just
finished the call and felt like her eyes were about to close.
 
She set her head down for a moment fully
relishing the invitation into the luxurious haven of sleep, only to hear
Giselle’s accented voice seconds later.

She
placed a fresh cup of coffee in front of Kit and slapped down a padded
envelope.
 
“Wake up, pookie.
 
You’ll want to see this one.
 
Time for round two.”

Kit
reluctantly lifted her head and glared at Giselle.
 
“Do you have any idea how many shots I
had last night?
 
Don’t talk so
fucking loud or slap things down on my desk like that.”

Giselle
grinned, playing with Kit.
 
“Not my
problem, amiga.
 
Maybe you shouldn’t
have drunk so much.”

She
glared again and took a sip of her coffee, playing back.
 
“Stop throwing in fucking Portuguese
words I don’t understand when I’m this hungover, Miss Brazilian
Sassy-pants.
 
You’re so fired.”

Giselle
giggled.
 
“Right.
 
You can’t live without me, and we both
know that.”
 
She put both of her
hands on the front of her desk and hovered.
 
Her big hazel eyes met Kit’s bloodshot
green ones.
 
“And, by the way, amiga
means girlfriend, silly bird.”
 
She
pushed the padded envelope toward her.

Kit
frowned and stared at it, wondering what was so important in the padded Fed-Ex
envelope.
 
She looked at the return
address, and instant recognition had her pushing it away with one finger.
 
“Oh no.
 
I’m so not ready for this now.
 
Are you kidding me?
 
This early?”

Giselle
stared at her.
 
“C’mon, Kit.
 
It’s not that early anymore.”

She
shook her head vehemently.
 
“No.
 
Not until Sully’s up.”

Giselle
rolled her eyes.
 
“Are we going to
have to go through this again?”

Kit
took another sip of coffee slowly as she held the mug in both of her
hands.
 
“Yes.
 
I knew with
Platinum Magazine
it would be classy, and I had an agreement with
Alexa.
 
Billboard
is a different animal.
 
They may have gone rogue on me and made
me look like a total ho.
 
You should
have seen what they did with the band and me a few years ago.
 
They made me look like this heavy metal,
mistress of the night, dominatrix.”

Giselle
burst out laughing.
 
“I remember
that layout.
 
I thought you looked
cool.
 
I didn’t think you looked
like how you just described.
 
You’re
being louco… I mean crazy.”

Sully’s
timing was perfect as he strolled in easily jumping into the conversation.
 
He looked at Giselle and snickered.
 
“Why is she being crazy, G?”

Giselle
held up the Fed-Ex.
 
“She won’t open
this.
 
She thinks they’ve turned her
into a slut.”

Sully
giggled, looked at Kit and then back at Giselle.
 
“She’s already a slut.
 
I can attest to that. So what’s the
problem?”

Kit’s
mouth dropped open, and she started laughing, knowing he was joking with
her.
 
She wadded up a few pieces of
paper and pelted one after another at his head in rapid fire succession.
 
He laughed and held his arm up to
deflect them from hitting his face. Giselle continued laughing
uncontrollably.
 

She
shook her head, still giggling.
 
“Really, now.”

He was
still chuckling as he pointed to the envelope in question. “What is that?”

They
had stopped laughing, and both stared at him like he was slow for not paying
attention to the original conversation.
 
They both yelled in unison.
 
“
Billboard Magazine
!”

He
giggled.
 
“Oh, I see.”
 
He looked at Kit and shook his head
thinking she was taking things a little too far.
 
“Babe, you saw the contact sheets.
 
You looked fine.
 
What do you think they did?
 
Do you think they went back to the
contact sheets of you from years ago and used those without your permission?
They wouldn’t do something so stupid.
 
Duh.
 
Before you were CCO,
you were chief counsel.
 
You know a
thing or two about legal stuff, and they are well aware of that.”

She shrugged
her shoulders.
 
“I guess you’re
right.
 
I was a little nervous.
 
I always feel better when you’re here,
baby.
 
You opened the last one.
 
Can you open this one, please?”

He
shook his head and grinned.
 
“I’m
starting to think G is right.”
 
He
winked at Giselle and tore into the envelope.
 
He pulled out the magazine and looked at
it, with Giselle leaning in to catch a glimpse.
 
He smiled.
 
“Oh yeah, that’s my hot wife.
 
Damn, Kit!
  
Every guy in Hollywood is gonna
want to do you now.
 
Not like they
didn’t before.
 
This is gonna take
it to a whole new level.
 
I love the
headline. That’s fucking rad!”

Giselle
giggled.
 
“It is pretty good,
Kit.
 
I don’t know how you’ll feel
about it, though.”

Sully
set it down in front of her.
 
She
stared at it, shook her head and sighed.
 
“Oh man, really?
 
I look like
a bimbo in a red leather dress.”

He
shook his head.
 
“No, you
don’t.
 
You look great, babe.
 
Super hot.”

She
looked up at him.
 
“I don’t want to
look super hot; I want to look like me.”

He
laughed.
 
“Guess what, babe.
 
You are super hot.
 
It’s about time you got that clue.
 
The guys and me figured that one out a
long time ago.
 
You’re a little late
to the party on that, sweetie.
 
Definitely a little slow on the uptake, but that’s ok, you have other
talents.”
 
He smiled.

She
shook her head and frowned.
 
“Oh and
the headline.
 
Shit.
 
Really?”

Sully
raised his eyebrows.
 
“I like
it.
 
It’s sexy, and it’s true.”

She
stared at him and grinned.
 
“Yes,
you’re supposed to say it’s true, you’re my husband.
 
I don’t want other guys to know
that.
 
Do you?”

He
shrugged his shoulders and grinned.
 
“It’s just selling magazines, honey.
 
That’s all it is.
 
It’s cute.”
 
He read the headline out loud: ‘A Head
For The Music Business And A Bod For Sin.
 
The Industry’s Hardest Working Girl, Kit McKenna.’ Now what’s so wrong
about that?
 
It says you’re hard
working.
 
It’s a spin from the movie
‘Working Girl.’
 
You like that
movie.”

She
stared at him.
 
“A bod for sin?
 
Me?
 
Working girl?
 
I sound like a
hooker.”

He
chuckled.
 
“You don’t sound like a
hooker.
 
Everybody who’s anybody in this
biz knows you’re not.
 
And it is
true.
 
C’mon, babe.
 
You gotta admit, it is kinda fun.”
 
His steel blue eyes lit up, and he snickered.
 
“We should send autographed copies to
your dad and James.
 
They’ll
especially love it.”
 
He winked at
her.

That’s
all he had to say to send Kit into loud peals of laughter complete with tears
that lasted for a good while.
 
She
finally composed herself, still chuckling.
 
“That was a good one, babe.
 
You got me on that.
 
I could
just picture the horrified looks on their faces.
 
So classic.”
 
She giggled again.
 
“Thanks for the good laugh.
 
That was pretty brilliant.”

He came
up behind her and started massaging her shoulders.
 
“So, you’re not going to pull it,
right?
 
You’re going to let
Billboard
push it out?”

She
grinned.
 
“Yes, yes.
 
I’ll go forward with it.”

He
leaned forward and kissed her cheek.
 
“See, it wasn’t all that bad.
 
When does this hit stands?”

Kit
looked over at Giselle.
 
“Did they
include that information with the extra copies?”

She
looked through the stack of complimentary copies that they had provided Kit and
found the insert.
 
Her eyes
widened.
 
“Oh, shit.”

“What
is it, G?”

She
looked up at Kit and chuckled.
 
“It
hit stands yesterday.
 
They’re
apologizing for getting this out to you late.”

Kit
shook her head and buried her head in her hands.
 
“Oh no.”
 
She looked up at Giselle.
 
“I don’t know what’s going to happen
today as a result of this.
 
Let me
just state for the record that I apologize in advance.
 
I remember what happened last week when
that issue of
Platinum
hit
stands.
 
Holy shit-storm.”

Giselle
grinned.
 
“It’ll be fine, Kit.
 
Yes, call volume was a bit heavy, but
it’s no big deal.
 
Don’t sweat it,
baby girl.
 
I’ll take care of it
with your publicist.”

Sully
leaned forward and gave Kit a sweet kiss on the cheek.
 
“Welcome to fame, honey.”

She
looked up at him, wide-eyed.
 
“I’m
not ready for this, Sull.”

He
grinned and chuckled.
 
“That’s the beauty
of it, Kitty-Kat, no one ever is.”

* * *

Kyle Nicholls walked into the
break room and let out a long sigh, barely able to keep his eyes open.
 
He reached for the coffee pot to pour a
cup that he hoped would serve as a pick me up, but highly doubted its ability
to fulfill that need.
 
He was in the
midst of a thirty-six hour rotation that had two hours left.
 
He heard the chatter of his fellow
colleagues in the background and elected to ignore it.
 
He didn’t exactly feel social.
 

He wanted nothing more than to
sleep but knew that wasn’t a possibility.
 
He headed out, toward the nurses station with coffee in hand, sipping
and willing himself to stay alert.
 
One of the nurses noticed him approaching and greeted him with a smile
so big it made him uncomfortable.
 
She clearly had a crush that he was in no mood to entertain at the
moment.

Normally, flirting was part of
his daily duties that he relished.
 
He was quite popular with the nurses and his fellow female
colleagues.
 
Today was different,
though.
 
He was maxing out and his
seventy-plus hour workweek was catching up.
 
He was due to hit eighty hours the
following day and knew his boss would kick him out to get some rest.