Chart Toppers (Star Maker Book 3) (38 page)

Kit sat
across from Sean, sipping her third pint of beer after a delicious lunch of the
best fish and chips she’d had since they landed in London.
 
“Ok, lay it on me.
 
You’ve been beating around the bush this
whole meeting.
 
Cut to the chase, my
friend.”

He let
out a long sigh as he fingered the rim of his pint.
 
His kind brown eyes met hers and he
quieted his voice.
 
“They’re ganging
up on him, Kit.
 
Bryan hasn’t been
too bad about it.
 
He’s gone
introverted on everything.
 
He
disappears and runs off to Giselle.
 
But with the rest of the guys, it gets ugly.
 
What you saw at soundcheck yesterday was
tame.
 

“They
dish it out before a show.
 
He
fights back, but it’s not good for the daily dynamic.
 
It seems they’re jealous.
 
Sully gets plenty of attention.
 
In interviews, they always feature him.
 
In photos, the fans want him.
 
Backstage, the groupies ask for him…”

He was
about to go on when Kit interrupted, frowning.
 
“Back up.
 
Groupies asking for Sully?
 
Is this a new development?
 
I thought groupie traffic had been
suspended for him since we got married.”

Sean
swallowed hard and shifted his eyes away, silently sipping his pint and
carefully ignoring her question.
 
He
continued, pretending he didn’t hear her inquiry.
 
He finally faced her again. “The guys
feel like it’s the Sully show and honestly, I don’t blame ‘em.
 
It’s been bollocks on this tour.”

She
shook her head.
 
“Kind of like all
those cover shots and feature stories have caught up with him?”

He
nodded in agreement. “Yeah.
 
And the
guys want equal billing, especially Jimmy.
 
He feels like he’s not getting enough credit for being one of the principal
songwriters.”

She raised
her eyebrows.
 
“I can see that.
 
Frontmen always get more attention than
the rest of the band, but there are always superstar musicians within bands
that manage to get out from under it.
 
Jimmy Page or Eddie Van Halen are perfect examples of that.
 
Jimmy’s just pissed off at himself for
being lazy.”
 
She rolled her
eyes.
 
“And Sean, he’s always been
lazy.
 
He hasn’t pushed hard enough
in the past and now he’s kicking himself for it because Sully’s spotlight is as
enormous as the sun, and it’s casting quite a shadow.
 
So, now he’s sitting in that darkness
pouting and playing the victim.
 
I
know how we can get Jimmy more attention.”

Sean
stared at her.
 
“How?”

“Have
him help Sully with the vocals.
 
That will help Sully’s voice and get Jimmy more attention.
 
Win-win.”

Sean
raised his eyebrows and then lifted his glass to her.
 
“Great idea.
 
How do we propose this?”

“After
we leave here.
 
I’ll call a band
meeting.
 
Done and done.”

He
laughed.
 
“It’s always so easy for
you.
 
Why is that?”

She
laughed.
 
“I just make it look
easy.
 
I’ve been dealing with these
jokers for almost eight years solid.
 
I know how they tick.
 
It
wasn’t always this easy.
 
I can’t
tell you how many yelling matches I’ve had with Jimmy or Remo or how many times
I’ve had my feelings hurt by every one of these guys and ended up in
tears.
 
Shit, if I had a dollar for
every one of them, I’d be a very rich woman.”

He
chuckled.
 
“You are a very rich
woman.”

She
laughed and nodded her head.
 
“See?
 
It’s from all that
bullshit I’ve put up with all these years!”

He
pulled money from his wallet and threw it on the table to cover their check,
happy the meeting had been successful and relieved he had dodged her direct
question earlier.

They
engaged in small talk, discussing his childhood growing up outside of
London.
 
Once they were back in the
confines of the limousine, Kit leaned forward and double-checked that she had
alcohol within range.
 
She glanced
at Sean.
 
“What do we have in here
today?”

He
nodded.
 
“Glen Fiddich 15.
 
Why?”

She
forced a grin and lowered the partition, calling out to the driver.
 
“Can you please pull it over and park
somewhere?
 
Mr. Finley and I need to
have a discussion.
 
Thank you.”
 
She put the partition back up and faced
Sean, who was now squirming in his seat as the limousine came to a stop.

He
stared at her in anxious anticipation.
 
“What’s going on Kit?
 
Why
are we stopping?”

Her
intense emerald-eyed gaze did not waver.
 
She took a deep breath, shook her head and poured scotch for both of
them.
 
She handed him the drink and
waited until he had taken one sip.
 
“Sean, I asked you a direct question in the pub back there and you
completely glossed over it.
 
It’s in
your best interest not to play dumb.
 
I’m going to ask you again, and you will answer me, honestly.
 
If you choose not to answer again, there
will be unfortunate repercussions.
 

“We
have a great working relationship and I trust you always to be straight with
me.
 
This conversation is no
exception.
 
I understand you want to
protect the guys at times.
 
I get
it.
 
You’re out here with them
constantly and in many ways, they’re like family, but I am your employer.
 
I don’t like that I have to say these
things in the first place, but I wanted to get things straight before we
entered into this conversation.”

He
nodded and regretfully cast his eyes down.
 
“Sorry, I avoided your question in the first place.”
 
He looked up and nodded again.
 
“It won’t happen again.
 
You can trust me.
 
What is it, Kit?
 
I’ll tell you whatever you want to
know.”

She took
another deep breath and then sipped her scotch, wondering if she should be
guzzling it instead.
 
She stared
into his eyes.
 
“Sean, has groupie
traffic for Sully been completely suspended since we got married over two years
ago?”

He
swallowed hard and knew he had to be truthful.
 
His career depended on it.
 
“It was, yes.”

She
surveyed him carefully.
 
“It
was?
 
What does that mean, exactly?”

He
cleared his throat and gulped his scotch.
 
“Until recently.”

She
closed her eyes and remained silent for a moment.
 
She had a feeling this might
happen.
 
She remembered her
hesitation walking down the aisle on her wedding day—it was for this very
reason.
 
Despite Alexa’s and
Maxine’s encouragement that she was making things up in her head, she had never
shared this deeply personal concern.
 
She had even managed to convince herself that it wasn’t going to be an
issue, and now it was.
 
Over two
years later, a stark reality stared her in the face, and her uneasy gut told
her all she needed to know.
 
She
felt her heart sink.
 

Her
eyes slowly fluttered opened, and she nodded, speaking softly.
 
“Ok.”
 
She met his eyes.
 
“What does that mean?”

Sean’s
stomach turned, and he felt like the bad guy.
 
He was friends with both of them and was
present at their wedding.
 
He felt
like he was betraying all things sacred, but knew Kit was fully entitled to the
truth.
 
He leaned forward.
 
“He’s been hanging out with groupies
backstage.
 
He lifted the conditions
a few months back… When you wouldn’t come out to the road.
 
He was looking for attention…”

Kit
couldn’t contain her anger anymore.
 
“Goddammit!”
 
She shook her
head and closed her eyes again.
 
She
let out a frustrated sigh, opened her eyes and stared at Sean.
 
“How many of them has he fucked?”

He
shrugged her shoulders.
 
“Honestly,
Kit, I don’t know the answer to that question.
 
I can give you the chain of events, but
I can’t confirm that he had sex with any of them.
 
I’ll put it to you this way, even if he
did, he’s not advertising it.
 
Sully
knows how to be discreet at this point.
 
They all do, hence my not knowing for sure about Jimmy either.”

She
continued to stare at Sean, knowing he was truthful.
 
She could see it in his eyes.
 
She felt a strange numbness overcome her
as she sat frozen in her seat, only able to put the glass in her hand to her
lips slowly.
 
She did this in a
daze, once again, and noticed it was empty.
 
Sean reached out to her in hopes of
refilling it.
 
She gave in, and he
complied, handing back a double.

She
sighed.
 
“Ok.
 
I get it.
 
Obviously you can’t know what goes on
behind closed doors.
 
Can you tell
me how many he has taken back to his room?”

He
nodded.
 
“Two.
 
But, one of those two he took back for a
party.
 
And I was at that party
briefly along with Bryan, Danny and some of the crew.
 
It was a standard after party, nothing
too crazy.
 
I have no idea what
happened after I left, but you can consult with Jay to find out if the girl
stayed in his room or left in the end.
 
I believe he was there the entire time until Sully kicked everyone out.”

She let
out a long sigh and stared at him.
 
“And the other one?”

He
swallowed hard.
 
“All I know is he
took her back to his room with him, but I have no idea what happened.”

She
leaned forward and gulped her scotch.
 
“Were they physical in the dressing room before they left from what you
saw?”

He
nodded, confirming solemnly.
 
“I’m
sorry, Kit.”

She let
out an embarrassed chuckle, still completely numb to the situation.
 
She felt like a naïve idiot for
expecting her famous rock star husband to stay completely faithful to her.
 
She nodded and patted Sean on the
knee.
 
“You’re a good man, Sean
Finley.
 
Thank you for being
straight with me.”

Before
he could comment, she asked the driver to take them back to the hotel.
 
He glanced over at her.
 
“Right.
 
I hated doing that, you know.
 
What are you going to do now?”

She
snorted and shrugged her shoulders as she met his concerned eyes.
 
“What can I do, Sean, huh?
 
I should have known better.
 
There isn’t much I can do at this
point.
 
If we were a normal couple,
this might be grounds for a divorce, but we’re not normal.
 
We’re a high-profile couple in the
public eye, and he’s a major celebrity.
 
On top of all of that, we work together.
 
I’m his manager, and his career is on
the rise.
 
We can’t afford the bad
publicity right now—too much at stake.
 
I’m going to have to look the other
direction on this one, Sean.
 
I’ll
keep my mouth shut and hope he gets his shit together.
 
And I’d like to keep this conversation
off the record, ok?”

He
nodded.
 
“Of course.”

She sat
back and stared straight ahead.
 
“I
expect you to be my eyes and ears going forward.
 
You don’t have to alert me to
occurrences when they happen, but do file them away in the back of your mind.
 
I’ll inform you whether or not I want to
hear about them in the future.”
 
She
shook her head and looked away as tears welled up in her eyes.
 
“But, I do have to be honest here.
 
Ignorance sure was bliss.”