“Excuse me?”
“Donovan and Sabrina came up with the idea to have you work with Ian.”
He barely heard the words before he slammed his hands on her desk. “No. Hell no!”
She scarcely blinked. “Knowing that would be your reaction, I told them no. I didn’t even want to consider it. To be honest, I felt blindsided by the way Ian was contracted to Ripper Records without my knowledge. They know the relationship we have. It goes beyond manager and artist, and yes, that’s on me for letting those lines blur. But Donovan knows.”
“He only gives a shit about how fat his wallet gets. People are meaningless to him.”
“Careful,” Lila said. “You don’t want to go so far you can’t take back what you’ve said.”
“No worries there. I’ve thought Lord Lewis overreached since day one.”
“Since day one when he signed you and made you and your bandmates international stars. How dare he.” She examined her nail polish. “Since you’re you, and I’m me, I will acknowledge I don’t always agree with Donovan’s methods. But I never doubt the decision-making behind them. He knows what he’s doing.”
Simon grunted. Yeah, easy for her to think that. She wasn’t the puppet he wanted to make dance.
Or in this case, sing.
“Ian has a ton of buzz behind him. Partly because of his look, partly because of his antics onstage, partly because of his British accent and his way with the ladies. The rest? All has to do with his voice. Donovan has approximately one other male artist on his roster with that kind of range who would blend well with Ian’s style of music. And I’m looking at him.”
“Bullshit. He wants to cash in on the feuding brothers crap.”
“You stand to make a fuckton of money for what amounts to not a lot of time in the studio. We’re thinking one four-song EP. Three new songs with the two of you, and the live single already released from his last show.”
Simon smirked. “The one where he nearly lost his pants?”
“It worked, didn’t it? And seeing as you can’t make it through a show with your shirt on, I wouldn’t act too haughty if I were you.”
“Why should I do this? Just to make money? Just so he makes money? So Donovan makes it?”
She shrugged. ‘“Seems like a good reason to me.”
“What about fucking personal integrity?”
“What about getting a chance to see him up close and personal, day in and day out, for a few weeks? What about figuring out if he’s running a con—or putting our concerns to rest on that score, if it turns out he isn’t?”
“Our concerns? Is that what we’re calling them now?”
“You have yours, I have mine. We both want to make sure he doesn’t pull something. Who better to ferret out what’s behind his golden smile than you, someone who came from a similar background and can smell a con from fifty paces?”
She had him, and she knew it. But that didn’t mean he was going to go down easily. “I don’t have to deal with him. Donovan can make his requests, but I never signed a contract saying I had to shine Ian’s balls. If I say no, he can’t do a damn thing to me.”
“Nope. You’re right. He can’t. And if Ian’s up to no good, absolutely no one is going to figure it out because everyone else is too blinded by dollar signs.” She smiled thinly. “But you don’t need to trouble your pretty little head about that.”
“You just boxed me in, didn’t you?”
“I prefer calling it showing you all the variables and letting you decide.”
“Three songs.” Simon pushed his hands through his hair. “That’s it?”
“As it stands now, yes. If your collaboration takes off—”
Simon snorted. “It will not.”
“If it takes off,” she repeated, “there is the possibility of a few shows. But that’s not anything to concern yourself with now. You may not be able to work together well enough to produce anything of merit. And if not, we’ll just chalk it up to a failed experiment.”
“You don’t believe that.”