My Soul To Keep (Soul Series Book 1) (50 page)
DOWN TO MY SOUL
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THAT WEARINESS DOING WHAT YOU LOVE
kind of loses its novelty around the second week of eighteen-hour days. Dub and I expend so much energy working on my opening act for the second leg of the tour, I barely have energy for the tour each night. It’s just singing easy BGV parts for Luke’s show. When Luke performs his hit single, I join him onstage to simulate the lap dance from the video. It’s a show-stopper.
The whole plan is getting me lots of face time, lots of exposure. It’s a brilliant strategy, but it’s wearing me down. I can’t let on though. I don’t want Mr. Malcolm to think I can’t pull this off. I can. I’ve waited too long for this. Nothing will get in my way. Certainly not my own body.
I keep hearing Rhyson’s warning about John Malcolm. It’s galling that I kind of already see what he means. Mr. Malcolm’s not tyrannical, but he definitely focuses on the bottom line, and requires the talent to do whatever it takes to meet it.
It’s been a week since Rhyson called or texted me. We have a fifteen-minute break from rehearsal, so I sit on the stage step and pull out my phone to look at his last text. It was a long one, but I almost have it memorized, I’ve read it so many times. It starts, of course, with a movie quote.
Rhyson: So I’m single now, and everything’s changed. I hate it.”—Say Anything
I know you’re mad at me. It was a dick move. I know that, but don’t give up on us, Pep. San told me you’re on tour for three months. I’ve started my tour too. We can take this time to clear our heads and do what we need to do, but you know I can’t let you go. Please don’t see me not coming after you as giving up. When you get back, you have to give me another chance. You have to. I thought I was doing what was best for you. I wanted to protect you. I’m sorry I went about it the wrong way. Please forgive me, and PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF! You know I don’t trust John Malcolm, but this is a great opportunity, so kill it. Your whole life is about to change, because when the world sees what I see, they won’t be able to get enough of you. I can’t. Don’t forget I’m yours and you’re mine. I LIVE you.
I’m reading the last line when a new text comes in.
My heart patters in case it’s him. Stupid heart. After all he did—the manipulation, the deception, the out and out betrayal—a chain still hooks my heart and Rhyson’s, stretching from wherever I am to wherever he is in the world. I have no idea how to break it. When it comes down to it, in spite of everything, I’m not sure I want to.
The text is not from him. It’s an unknown number. Odd.
There’s a link, and I open it, which is probably stupid, but I’m curious. It’s to a
Spotted
post detailing our very public fight. And breakup. Okay. Old news. Even my tourmates have stopped looking at me funny by now. Their curiosity has waned, and thank God, so has the public’s.
Another text comes in.
Unknown: You and Rhyson Gray don’t belong together. I advise you to keep things this way.
What the hell?
Me: Who is this?
Unknown: Don’t worry about who I am. Worry about what I have.
A video file comes over. This can’t be good. Finger hovering over the screen, I tap the file. Sounds of loud panting and grunting come from my phone. Two naked bodies in profile, a man and a woman, fucking hard, doggy-style. The man at the back turns his head to grin right into the camera like he’s giving the performance of his life. My heart skids to a halt, burning rubber and slamming on the brakes in my chest. Horror and disgust war in my belly, churning dark emotion until it leaks out through my sweaty palms and under my arms. I can’t process what I’m seeing. How did he . . . how could it . . . It can’t be. The handsome face smeared with a devil grin is Drex. Even though I know it’s not possible, I feel like those malevolent eyes are looking right at me—taunting and toying with me.
My brain is still catching up to what my eyes are seeing, when I focus on the woman. She’s on all fours, her face forward and turned away, but I know her. I see the words hugging her ribs. Lost in the iniquitous sight, buried in the lusty sounds, the prayer looks out of place.
My soul to keep.
As if I needed further confirmation, the woman turns her head just enough for me to see her face clearly. I’m ashamed of my face, looking so much like my mother in a situation she would never have allowed to compromise her.
I tap the screen to stop the video, doing a frantic sweep of the stage to see if anyone heard or saw. Sweat covers my body, slicking my palms and dampening my forehead. My heart rages and rattles inside of me. My hands tremble so badly I drop the phone.
Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.
On the brink of my big break, the girl who wanted no distractions, could be ruined by the biggest distraction of all.
A sex tape.
But it’s not the buying public I consider, who’d probably be titillated and maybe even more intrigued than ever. It’s not the good people of Glory Falls Baptist, who’d be scandalized to see Mai’s little girl getting herself plowed from behind. It isn’t Aunt Ruthie, who might not judge, but would probably never see me quite the same way. It’s none of those people, none of those responses that strike fear right down the center of my heart.
It’s Rhyson.
He wouldn’t even
hear
the details of what went on with Drex. How would he handle seeing it in dirty, living color? Could he ever scrub his mind completely free of it? Would it change how he saw me? How he loved me? Even if he said it wouldn’t?
All these weeks I thought his transgression was the thing that might irreparably break us.
Turns out it may be mine.
I'm a wife, a mom, a writer, an advocate for families living with autism. That's me in a nutshell. Crack the nut, and you'll find a Southern girl gone Southern California who loves pizza and Diet Coke, and wishes she got to watch a lot more television. You can usually catch me up too late, on social media too much, or FINALLY putting a dent in my ever-growing To Be Read list!
Let’s stay in touch!
And coming February 2, 2016 . . .
The world knows her face . . .
Mean girl. Goddess. Bitch. Supermodel Sofie Baston has earned those labels . . . yet they don't scratch the surface of who she really is. Before she can follow her own dreams, Sophie must do her daughterly duty and reel in a "fish" for her father's business-a tall, brown-eyed entrepreneur who immediately hooks
her.
He's a big guy with an even bigger heart . . . but will that heart be open to Sofie once her darkest secret is revealed?
. . . but only one man knows her heart
To Trevor Bishop, Sofie is a beautiful mystery he would gladly spend his life solving. He figures her tough demeanor is armor against a world that's hurt her too many times. Then Sofie's deepest wounds are reopened by the powerful, ruthless man who made them. When she musters the courage to take him down, her world shatters. Now Trevor is determined to help Sofie pick up the pieces so they can build a future together. The challenge will be convincing his ice princess that it's safe to melt in his arms . . .
Here’s a “first look” from Bennett #4, UNTIL I’M YOURS
FIRST SIGHT—Trevor
The Big Apple. The city that never sleeps. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
“How long are we here again?” I glance out the cab window and up at the flock of billboards flying overhead in the Times Square airspace, a confetti skyline swirled with Technicolor and kinetic lights.
“Three months, give or take,” my assistant Henrietta says, not looking up from her phone.
I already miss my house in Atlanta. Despite all the miles I log flying all over the world, I’m a Southern boy at heart. A city like Atlanta makes an excellent home base for me. A world-class city with the charm and sensibility of a much smaller town. When I’m in New York, I feel on edge, like the Big Apple is taking a bite out of
me
. It’s not an easy place to negotiate. It’s a city bursting with possibility and creativity, but it requires a certain amount of armor. Feeling that way for three months . . .
“We’re lucky to have your sister’s place while we’re here.” Harold, my business partner and best friend of fifteen years, looks at our schedule on his iPad. “We have so many meetings at the UN this month. All the companies interested in buying us out are here in New York. We have several galas in the city over the next few weeks. Just makes sense not to keep going back and forth; just make this our base for a little bit.”
“Yeah, at least we’ll be staying in Brooklyn.” I lean an elbow on the cab window, considering the changing digital billboards while we’re stopped at a traffic light. “Downtown gives me a seizu—”
The word freezes on my tongue when one advertisement in particular catches my attention. Or should I say the model does. Her name is nowhere on the ad, but it doesn’t need to be. Sofie Baston’s been one of the most recognizable faces in the world for more than a decade.
She’s naked. Even though she’s stretched out flat on her stomach with her chin propped on her hands, breasts pressed to the floor, she’s obviously naked. Her hair, famously silver and gold, is ruthlessly scraped back, exposing the flawless bone structure. It’s rare to see someone like her wearing no make-up at all, but her face is completely bare. Matter of fact, the product she’s promoting is called BARE.
BARE: Skin care so good you’ll have nothing to hide.
She’s naked, no cosmetics at all, and yet her eyes make a lie of that tag line. She’s utterly exposed, and though her green eyes are the clearest I’ve ever seen, they yield nothing.
“You were saying?” Harold wears a knowing grin, glancing from my face to the billboard before it swipes to the next product being advertised. “I hope you’ll be less obvious when we meet her in person tonight, Bishop.”
“Tonight?” I frown. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s Ernest Baston’s daughter,” Henritta pipes in, eyes still fastened to her phone. Sometimes I think she has eyes in the back of her head under that ponytail. “She’ll be at the Bennett charity dinner tonight. They’re at your table, if I’m not mistaken.”
I look back to the billboard even though a different image has taken its place. I still see her as vividly as when she stared back at me with those guarded green eyes.
Even when we’re several blocks away and have started discussing our upcoming trip to Cambodia, I’m still wondering how a girl naked on the side of a building managed to hide in show nothing at all.