was no point. She’d made her bed and she’d spend the rest of her life lying in it. No one was going to let her change. And, really, she didn’t need to change. At least not publicly. She could spend the rest of her life living quietly in Vermont. She didn’t need a comeback, despite her pathetic attempt at one.
Just the memory of the Bryant’s booking made her cringe. The only reason she’d accepted it was to have a kind of test run, to see how people responded to a new and different Aurelie. And it had failed at the very first gate. The Head of PR who had booked her had been appalled by her suggestion she do something different. People are coming to see the Aurelie they know and love, not some wannabe folk singer. We only want one thing from you.
Sighing again, she poured herself a coffee and added milk, stirring moodily. She’d given them the old Aurelie, just as that woman had wanted. She’d given it to them in spades. Briefly she thought of bossy Luke Bryant, and how she’d baited him. Even now she felt a flicker of embarrassment, even shame. All right, yes, she’d seen the desire flaring in his eyes, but instead of ignoring it she’d wound him up on purpose. She’d just been, as always, reacting. Reacting to the assumptions and sneers and suggestions. When she was in the moment it was so incredibly hard to rise above it.
The doorbell rang, a rusty croak of a sound, surprising her. She didn’t get visitors. The paparazzi didn’t know about this house and the townspeople left her alone. Then she remembered she’d ordered a new capo, and went to answer it.
‘Hey …’ The word died off to nothing as she stared at the man standing on the weathered front porch of her grandma’s house. It wasn’t the postman. It was Luke Bryant.
Luke watched the colour drain from Aurelie’s face as she stared at him, obviously shocked. As shocked as he had been when he’d found this place, for an old farmhouse in a sleepy town in Vermont was not what he’d expected at all. He’d supposed it was a pretty good cover for someone like her, but it had only taken about ten seconds standing on her front porch to realise this wasn’t a bolt-hole. It was home.
‘What …’ She cleared her throat, staring at him with wide, dazed eyes. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Looking for you.’
‘Why?’ She sounded so bewildered he almost smiled. Gone was any kind of innuendo, any flirt. Gone, in fact, was so much as a remnant of the Aurelie he’d encountered back in New York. He looked at her properly for the first time, and knew he wouldn’t have even recognised her if not for the colour of her eyes. He’d remembered those straight off. The woman in front of him was dressed in faded jeans and a lavender T-shirt, her silky hair tossed over one shoulder in a single braid. She wore no make-up, no jewellery. She was the essence of simplicity and, despite the slight gauntness of her face and frame, Luke thought she looked better now than he’d ever seen her in person or on an album cover.
‘May I come in?’
‘I …’ She glanced behind her shoulder, and Luke wondered what she was hiding. Suspicion hardened inside him. All right, the house might be quaint in a countrified kind of way, and her clothes were … well, normal, but could he really doubt that this woman was still the outrageous, unstable pop star he’d met before?
Well, yes, he could.
He’d been doubting it, aggravatingly, ever since Jenna had suggested he book her for a string of openings and he’d refused. Refused point-blank even as he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Those eyes. That sense of both sadness and courage. And how she must have come to Bryant’s wanting to be different.
That was what had finally made him decide to talk to her. What a coup it would be to have Bryant’s orchestrate a comeback for a has-been pop star that no one believed could change.
Although if he were honest—which he was determined always to be—it wasn’t the success of the store that had brought him to Vermont. It was something deeper, something instinctive. He understood all too well about wanting to change, trying to be different. He’d been trying with the store for nearly a decade. And as for himself … Well, he’d had his own obstacles to overcome. Clearly Aurelie had hers.
Which had brought him here, five weeks later, to her doorstep.
‘May I come in?’ he asked again, politely, and she chewed her lip, clearly reluctant.
‘Fine,’ she finally said, and moved aside so he could enter.
He stepped across the threshold, taking in the overflowing umbrella stand and coat rack, the framed samplers on the walls, the braided rug. Very quaint. And so not what he’d expected.
She closed the door and kept him there in the hall, her arms folded. ‘How did you find me?’
‘It was a challenge, I admit.’ Aurelie had been off the map. No known address besides a rented-out beach house in Beverly Hills, no known contacts since her agent and manager had both been fired. Jenna had contacted her directly through her website, which had since closed down.
‘Well?’ Her eyes sparked.
‘I’m pretty adept with a computer,’ Luke answered. ‘I found a mention of the sale of this house from a Julia Schmidt to you in the town property records.’ She shook her head, coldly incredulous, and he tried a smile. ‘Aurelie Schmidt. I wondered what your last name was.’
‘Nice going, Sherlock.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I still don’t know why you’re here.’
‘I’d like to talk to you.’
She arched an eyebrow, smiled unpleasantly. ‘Oh? That wasn’t the message you were sending me back in New York.’
‘That’s true. I’m sorry if I appeared rude.’
‘Appeared? Well, I appeared like I was strung out on drugs, so what does it really matter?’ She pivoted on her heel and walked down a dark, narrow hall, the faded wallpaper cluttered with photographs Luke found he longed to look at, to the kitchen.
‘Appeared?’ he repeated as he stood in the doorway, sunlight spilling into the room from a bay window that overlooked a tangled back garden. Aurelie had picked up a mug of coffee and took a sip. She didn’t offer him any.
‘I told you, it doesn’t matter.’
‘Actually, it does. If you have a substance abuse problem, I need to know about it now.’ That was the one thing that had almost kept him from coming at all. He would not work with someone who was unstable, who might overdose. He would never put himself in that position again.
‘You need to know?’ she mocked. She held her coffee mug in front of her as if it was some kind of shield, or perhaps a weapon. Luke stayed by the door. He didn’t want its contents thrown in his face. ‘What else do you need, Luke Bryant?’
Her eyes flashed and he tensed. He hated innuendo, especially when he knew it held a shaming grain of truth.
‘I have a proposition to put to you,’ he said evenly. ‘But first I need to know. Do you have a substance abuse problem, of any kind?’
‘Would you believe me if I told you?’
‘Yes—’
‘Ri-ight.’
