Fade Into You (Shaken Dirty 3)

And it wasn’t just because she didn’t want to blow this chance—though she’d be lying if she said that didn’t play a small part in it. But the real truth was—orgasms notwithstanding—she really was the best person for this job.

Besides the four men on stage, nobody knew this band better than she did. Not their management, not her brother, definitely not her father. From the moment Caleb had convinced her dad to sign them at her behest, she’d been there, behind the scenes. Listening, watching, learning all she could about them. Strategizing about how best to break them out in today’s pop-heavy market.

Their dad thought Caleb was behind the bold publicity and social media moves Shaken Dirty had made over the last few years, thought her brother was the one who’d finalized the song choices for the album. But the truth was, it was all her. She’d spent weeks, months, years of her life figuring out a plan to blow Shaken Dirty up, and when it had succeeded—when they’d broken wide open and started selling out stadiums—she’d sat down in the middle of her office and cried with joy.

She’d tried her hardest to help this band get what they deserved that the idea of backing away now, of trusting anyone else—even Caleb—to make sure that they held together, was anathema to her. At the moment, things were so delicate with them, the line they were walking between being rock gods or screw-ups who were just a footnote in rock and roll history was so thin that they couldn’t afford to blow this chance. The next steps they made didn’t just have to be right. They had to be perfect. Now that she knew they weren’t just laying low for the next couple of months, she wasn’t ready to trust Caleb or their management with them. Not when so many mistakes had already been made.

No, she was sticking around. Sticking this out. There was no other option. Not when she was standing here in the audience of this too-small club watching every single person in the room melt for them. Not when she was watching the show of a lifetime unfold right in front of her eyes. Shaken Dirty was on the brink of making history—she could feel it in her bones—and there was no way she was going to miss it. No way she wasn’t going to do everything in her power to make that happen.

And so she didn’t call her brother, even though her phone was burning a hole in her pocket. She didn’t mosey over to the bar where Richard and Gus from their management team were currently watching the show with eagle eyes. She didn’t even strategize about what to do to keep the post-show meet-and-greet from becoming one big humiliation for her.

Instead, she said to hell with all of it and settled back to finish the best club show she’d ever seen. And if at the end of Shaken Dirty’s set, she snuck out of the club without ever introducing herself to the guys, well then, there was no one but herself around to blame her. Besides, tomorrow morning was soon enough to start fixing the mess she’d made with Wyatt. Or at least, that was her story and she was sticking to it.

…

Of course, as it turned out, the next morning she was no more ready to deal with the mess she’d made than she’d been the night before. The only difference was, today she didn’t have a choice. Not if she was going to do the job Caleb had entrusted her with.

As her alarm went off for the third time that morning, Poppy threw back the luxurious duvet she was cowering under and crawled out of bed. According to the schedule Caleb had given her, the guys of Shaken Dirty were meeting at Quinn’s house at noon today to write on the new album. And, she assumed, to discuss the bassist they’d auditioned the night before.

There was no way she was going to miss that, no matter how embarrassed she was. Not when Li had been so wrong for the group. On the off chance that they didn’t recognize how bad a fit he was, she wanted to be there to steer the conversation. Or more likely—since she was going to be undercover as the new social media consultant—to call Caleb and demand he refuse to accept the former Firestarter bassist as the new fifth member of Shaken Dirty.

The fact that she still didn’t know what she was going to do about the whole alley/losing her panties thing from last night was something she refused to dwell on. At least until two hours later, after she’d spent the morning drowning in work emails, and she was standing under a hot shower with nothing else to think about.

How the hell was she going to pull this off? How the hell was she going to face Wyatt after she’d let him do all those wicked things to her in that alley? Or Jared, for that matter, when he’d seen her pressed up against that wall, jeans unbuttoned and Wyatt on his knees in front of her.

She could just brazen it out, could pretend that this was something she did all the time. The only problem was, she didn’t think she was a good enough liar to carry it off. The vibes she normally gave off didn’t exactly scream groupie…

Then again, they were rock stars. They probably did do this kind of thing all the time. What were the odds that they’d even remember it today—or, at least, remember her?

The alley had been dark, so dark that she hadn’t recognized Wyatt even when he was on his knees in front of her. Admittedly, he’d cut his hair and grown a short beard while in rehab, plus his trademark tattoos had been covered up by the long-sleeve black T-shirt he’d been wearing. Not to mention the fact that he’d stuck to the shadows while she hadn’t bothered to.

But still, it had been dark. And it wasn’t like she’d introduced herself. Maybe if she wore her hair differently and acted uber-professional, they wouldn’t put today’s Poppy together with the girl who had let Wyatt do whatever he wanted to her last night.

She figured it was the best bet she had. Was it perfect? Not even close. Was it better than going in there and admitting she’d behaved completely unprofessionally? Abso-fucking-lutely. She would if she had to, but if she didn’t…well, what was one more lie at this point? She was already screwed …

After finishing her shower, she dried her hair and straightened it to within an inch of its life. Then she wound it into a super tight, super high bun that was about as far from the loose curls she’d worn last night as she could get. A quick stop at the mall yielded a gypsy-looking maxi skirt and peasant blouse that were so not her normal style, and a pair of glasses distinctive enough that she hoped they’d keep the attention off her features.

Which left her just enough time to stop by a local bakery for a dozen cupcakes—she was a big believer in never approaching a band empty handed—before driving to the Island, the small, exclusive peninsula where Quinn Bradford and Ryder Montgomery owned houses.

Caleb, genius planner that he was, had left her credentials at the gatehouse to the exclusive neighborhood, and then it was just a matter of following the trails around until she found Quinn’s house.

She pulled up his long, winding driveway slowly, promising herself that everything was going to be fine. Telling herself that her “disguise” would totally work. Reminding herself to breathe.

She’d brought cupcakes, after all. They’d probably be so blinded by the chocolate frosting that they’d barely even look at her.

After pulling into one of the guest parking spaces to the left of the main house, she gathered her cupcakes and her courage and made her way to the small guesthouse (and by small she meant a couple thousand square feet) that Caleb had told her served as Quinn’s recording studio. If she was lucky, maybe they’d already be hard at work and have no time to deal with her at all right now.

Except no one answered her fi

rst knock or her second or even her third. She was about to try the door—maybe they were all in headphones or something—when a hot pink, totally bedazzled Harley Davidson pulled up the driveway and stopped right in front of the door to the main house.

A woman wearing tight jeans and a leather jacket the same color as the Harley slowly climbed down. As she pulled her helmet off, she stared straight at Poppy, her long dark hair flying in the breeze behind her. She was wearing motorcycle gloves, but as she took them off, Poppy saw that one of her wrists was tightly wrapped in an ace bandage.

So this was Elise McKinney, piano maestro and Quinn’s fiancée. She had to admit, the pink Harley and leather jacket were so not what she’d been expecting of the former child prodigy. Then again, she’d lost nearly everything a couple of months ago in the car crash that had left her wrist damaged and her unable to perform. Maybe all these changes were part of learning to live with the nightmare of that.

“Is there something I can help you with?” Elise asked, and Poppy couldn’t help but notice she kept the motorcycle between them. Not that she blamed her—fans could be crazy, especially when you reached the status Shaken Dirty had.

“My name is Poppy G—” She froze right before she blurted out her last name and ruined all of the morning’s hard work before she even had a chance to test out her disguise. In her defense, she’d warned her brother she was a terrible liar. Not that that would matter. He’d still kill her.