What the fuck was he thinking? She wasn’t his. She couldn’t be his. He was like some whack job, stalking her. He was becoming the very thing his club went after. Still, he didn’t move from the shadows, where he knew Seychelle Dubois would be safe from everyone but him.
“Seychelle?” Maestro spoke softly, hoping he didn’t startle her.
She swung around fast, gasping, smoke drifting through the alley. “Yes?”
Savage had to give her credit. She covered up her shock fast. She even managed a faint smile directed vaguely toward Maestro.
“My club, Torpedo Ink, owns a bar in Caspar. Caspar’s a small town right off Highway 1.”
“I’m aware of it. Hank does all the booking.” She gave him another smile and started to turn away.
“We don’t want to book your band,” Maestro said. “Can you give us a few minutes of your time? This is Keys.” He indicated Keys, who tried not to look intimidating. “I’m Maestro. We have our own band, and we play mostly our bar, but take a few gigs other places, so not a lot of travel, but it tends to be very lucrative. We’d like you to come to our place next Thursday night and listen. If you like what you hear, we’d like you to sing for us. If it works out, we want to hire you to sing in our band.”
“You don’t have a contract with this group, do you?” Keys gestured toward the door of the club.
She shook her head. “Hank was adamant he didn’t want a contract with me because he said I didn’t have any experience, no fans, and he wanted to be able to dump me when he could.” There was no bitterness in her voice. If anything, there was amusement.
“You have perfect pitch,” Maestro said. “Perfect. You have to be aware that Hank can barely tune his guitar.”
She gave him a much more genuine smile. “Only he seems unaware of that fact.”
“Oh, he’s aware,” Keys said. “He’s so aware he’s trying to make you think you need them. You don’t. We’ve been looking for a singer for some time and held out for the right one. We think you’re that singer.”
Maestro handed her a card with their number and the address of the bar. “Please come on any Thursday. The other two members of our band, Master and Player, are holding back some idiot scout who is high on coke and wants you to listen to his proposal. Before you take his offer, give us at least another opportunity to persuade you.”
She inclined her head and watched them as they left. She had that little enigmatic smile on her face that told Savage nothing. She looked beautiful, even there in the shadows as she watched Joseph Arnold approach. He looked puffed up with his own importance. He didn’t walk, he swaggered. Seychelle’s eyebrow went up and the smile was instantly gone.
“Mr. Arnold. I thought we’d settled this already. I see you’ve tracked me down again.”
Savage had been leaning against the wall, but something in her voice made him come to full attention. Evidently, she’d met the man before and she didn’t like him. He watched as she carefully put the cigarette out under her foot but kept her eyes on Arnold the entire time, almost as if she expected an attack.
“Don’t be such a fool, Seychelle. You’re not going to make two dollars with this group, not unless you whore yourself out.”
“You have such a pleasant personality. I’d like you to leave.”
Joseph Arnold stepped forward, right into her personal space, forcing her back against the wall of the building. “You think you’re so high and mighty, always superior. I’m not putting up with it. You’ll work for me or you’re going to be very sorry. No one in the industry will touch you. You’ll spend your life with going-nowhere bands.”
“Better than spending my life with a grubby little man who tries to force himself on women. First you try to ask me out a million times, and now you’re suddenly a music scout. It’s a crock of shit. Get away from me.”
“You little cunt. You’re nothing without me.”
“You’re drunk and high, just like you were the last time you made your pathetic little pitch. Get away from me now.”
He grabbed her around the throat and started to shake her, squeezing hard with his big fingers. Savage was already on the move, exploding out of the shadows with blurring speed. “Get the fuck off her,” he snapped, grabbing the scout by his hair and wrenching him back away from Seychelle.
Joseph hung on grimly to her, roaring with rage that someone dared interfere. He pulled Seychelle with him over backward so the two nearly fell to the asphalt. At the last moment, to try to save himself, Joseph let go of her and threw out his arms to prevent his face from hitting the hard surface.