Falling Out of Hate with You (The Hate-Love Duet 1)

Eli protests. Daria gives as good as she gets. And through it all, I bite my lip to prevent myself from caving. Honestly, if left to my own devices, I’d take the offered ten percent and be done with this. At this point, if push came to shove, I’d do the damned show for free, for nothing but the exposure and that invaluable performance slot in the finale.

“Laaaailaaaaa,” Savage coos softly, like he’s camped between my legs and has just raised his head. “Sweetheart, call off your pit bull. Let’s do this. Ten percent.”

“Mr. Savage,” Daria says, “Laila hired me precisely because I’m a pit bull. Fifty-fifty, or she walks. Tick tock.” Daria glares at me, her dark eyes commanding me to keep my mouth shut. But I can’t help myself. The pressure is getting to me. Maybe I am being greedy here, like Savage said.

“Savage, I have family members I want to help out with—"

“No, Laila!” Daria commands, putting up her index finger. “You don’t need to justify getting yourself paid. Men negotiate massive paydays for themselves in every industry, and nobody ever holds it against them or wonders if they have family members to support.”

I look at Savage, suddenly remembering our conversation in that green room in Philadelphia, when I admitted I’d been hired as a mentor on Sing Your Heart Out. “Actually, that’s an excellent point, Daria. In the past, I’ve made the mistake of mixing business and emotion and not realizing what I’m worth. A really savvy businessman once told me not to do either. So, this time, I think I’ll follow his brilliant advice.”

Savage narrows his eyes and practically snarls.

“So, what’s it gonna be, gentlemen?” Daria says. “We’ve got four minutes before Nadine hires Savage’s replacement. We want fifty percent of Savage’s take, whatever that is. Final offer.”

Eli throws a Hail Mary. He says Savage has four bandmates, and a shitty deal with River Records, which means he nets far less from his music royalties than we probably think.

“Cry me a river,” Daria replies. “Fifty percent. Yes or no?”

The guys huddle up. And as they do, I clutch my sides and rock in place, feeling like I’m going to explode from anxiety. But, finally, Eli and Savage break free of their conversation and confirm we’ve got a deal.

“Hallelujah!” Daria shouts, springing out of her chair. She shakes Eli’s hand, and then Savage’s, before wrapping me in a warm hug. And when I nuzzle my face into my agent’s neck, a dam breaks inside me. As I cry into Daria’s neck, she whispers into my ear, “This is gonna change your life forever.”

After thanking her profusely, I disengage from Daria, expecting to find Savage awaiting me, the same way his agent is doing. But to my surprise, as I shake Eli’s hand, Savage is sulking in a corner of Daria’s office, gazing out the window.

“I’ll call Nadine and tell her the good news!” Daria chirps, ignoring the thick anger wafting off the rockstar in the corner. She picks up her phone, but pauses. “Real quick. Now that we’ve shaken on it, what’s Laila’s fifty percent worth?”

Eli addresses his sulking client. “You wanna tell her?”

Savage turns his burning eyes from the window to me, leveling me with a glower that takes my breath away. “Congratulations, Miss Fitzgerald,” he says, his jaw tight. “You just extorted me for two . . . million . . . bucks.”

Twenty-Five

Savage

With jackets draped over our heads, Laila and I are guided into the backseat of an SUV in Daria’s underground parking garage—the chariot sent by the show’s producers to whisk us off, discreetly, to whatever overnight “hideaway” they’ve arranged until our permanent digs can been finalized. I hear the click of the back door as I settle into the backseat next to Laila’s body heat. Then, the sound of the car’s front doors opening and closing, followed by the voice of one of our two handlers—a bodyguard and driver sent by the producers—announcing, “All clear. You can uncover your heads now.”

I remove the jacket from my head to find Laila, her sandy hair mussed and her face aglow, sitting next to me in the large SUV. Without delay, the driver starts the engine, prompting Daria and Eli to wave goodbye to us through the windshield like proud parents, and off we go, under cover of dark tinted windows, out the garage and into the midday sun on Wilshire Boulevard.

“This is wild,” Laila says, sounding giddy. “I feel like ‘the package’ in a spy thriller!” She touches her ear, like she’s talking into an earpiece. “The Package . . . is on . . . its way.”

She giggles, but I’m still too pissed about the money to join her. I was more than happy to help Laila secure a seat at the judges’ table, if doing so didn’t impact me and my bottom line. But I never would have lifted a finger to help her if I’d thought, even for a minute, it would pave the way for her to fleece me out of half my salary. I need every dime of that salary, and then some, to comfortably pay for my grandmother’s house. I’m sure I can make the deal work somehow, probably with a loan. But a loan wasn’t part of my plan when I decided to buy that house.