“Make sure the contract is in order before you jump the gun and go see her,” Jason said. “I want to cover our asses and not get ourselves tied up with something we come to regret.”
Landon nodded. “I’ll call Ryan and set up a conference call after he emails the documents,” he said of their attorney on retainer, Ryan Walker. “We’ll all be in agreement before we go forward,” Landon promised, his phone with the video burning a hole in his pocket.
He needed to see her again. To pause on her face, listen to her sing, and know whether or not the initial gut reaction that had his pulse thudding, his heart pounding, and his dick hard as hell had been real.
Because one look at the sexy songstress and Landon was hooked.
* * *
The sound of banging woke Vivienne Zane from a deep sleep. Exhaustion still nagging at her from her late night of tossing and turning, she dragged herself out of bed, pulled on a pair of pajama pants and a sweatshirt, and padded toward the door of her apartment.
She looked into the peephole and saw her best friend and personal assistant, Ellie Roberts, standing at the door, waving at her. “Let me in, sleepyhead! I have news!”
Vivi groaned and opened the door. “You’d better have coffee this early.”
Ellie, with full makeup, blonde hair curling around her face, met her with a smile. “It’s noon. And you won’t need caffeine after you hear what I have to tell you.” She pulled out her phone. “You went viral! I know you didn’t want anyone to know you went out to sing, but oh my God, look at the views!”
Ellie shoved the screen in her face, and Vivi blinked in shock at the number of views beneath the video of her belting out her favorite tune.
“Vivi, this could lead to big things!”
And Lord knew they needed something to shake loose. Between bills that needed paying, her band that required money or they’d have to go their separate ways, and her family that had fallen apart thanks to her brother having been found guilty again, this time of so many crimes she’d lost count, she’d been emotionally drained for too long.
Needing a break, she’d just wanted to just be herself, not someone who had people counting on her to come through. She just wanted to be Vivi, the girl who got lost in music when life was hard. So one night last week, she’d put on a pair of worn jeans, an old tee shirt, and a baseball cap and made her way to a bar owned by an old friend, where she sang her heart out to drunk people.
“I didn’t notice anyone with their phones on me.” Then again, she hadn’t been looking.
“Well, the contact email from your website has so many hits I’m never going to get through them all!” Ellie’s excitement was tangible. “Oh my God! Good Morning World picked it up on their Sunday Pop News segment!” She was practically bouncing on her heels, her body vibrating with contagious energy. “They used your actual music name!”
Vivi swallowed hard. She wasn’t well known in the industry, but she was an up-and-coming artist known as Vivi Z, doing small gigs with her band and hoping to get a break.
“Let me look at it again,” she said, now wide awake and realizing the implications of Ellie’s news.
Her goals, to be a big-name pop star and to take care of her band and her people, were possibly within reach if they leveraged this opportunity the right way.
Ellie handed her the phone, and she began scrolling through the comments. To her shock, not only had the video gone viral, but her fans, people who’d found her as an up-and-coming indie artist, had recognized her and were clamoring for the song to be recorded.
“I’ll be right back.” She darted into the bedroom for her own phone, yanked it off the charger, and returned to her friend, already pulling up her social media pages, which were blowing up like crazy.
She looked up at Ellie in shock. “This is unreal.”
Her friend grinned. “If the world didn’t know who Vivi Z was before, they will now!”
Hard banging on the door sounded.
“Owen,” they both said at the same time. Her manager, Owen Rhimes, who had taken her on last year, would jump on this in a heartbeat.
Vivi strode to the entryway, glanced through the peephole, and nodded at Ellie before opening the door. “Owen, what a surprise,” she said somewhat drolly.
He walked in, tablet in hand, wearing a pair of light-colored chinos and a green Polo tee shirt, collar up, as usual. “If I’d known you were doing anonymous gigs for no money, I’d have been pissed, Vivienne,” he said, using her full name, as he always did. “However, given the outcome, I have no complaints. Now I just need to organize the offers that have already started coming in and present you with the best of the best.” He sounded certain … and full of himself, as if he’d had something to do with her big break.