Broken Records by Bree Bennett

Chapter 9

Lucy arrived at the Derelict Records office in Manhattan ten minutes earlier than the scheduled meeting time, armed with two notebooks and a slew of pens and sticky notes. A perky intern at the front desk directed her to a chair in the foyer, where Lucy waited.

And waited.

Ten minutes after the scheduled meeting time, the door to the building flew open with a metallic bang, and Jack sauntered in, strolling right past her. Each footstep was imbued with celebrity cockiness until he stopped and retraced his steps to where she sat, her purse clutched to her chest.

“Cottontail?” he asked, sliding off his sunglasses like a crime show hero. “Why aren’t you in the meeting?”

She frowned. “Because I don’t know where to go. Or who to see. Or what to say.”

He scrutinized her, and his lip quirked. “Those are good reasons.” He held out a hand, and she took it, letting him lead her to a posh conference room where three other people waited.

“This is Kim,” Jack said, gesturing to a taller woman in her forties. The woman gave Lucy a cordial but confused smile and held out her hand. Lucy stared at her hand for three interminable seconds.

You’ll be fine, Lucy. Just for God’s sake, don’t be you.

“Nice to meet you,” she said, clasping the woman’s hand in hers. Kim’s gaze was calculating and assessing, and her eyes narrowed as they darted back and forth from Jack to Lucy.

Jack pointed across the table to where two men sat, both typing at their respective laptops. The first man exuded tension as he shifted back and forth between his computer and his smartphone.

“That’s Martin,” Jack said. “He sucks.” Martin held up his middle finger, his busy eyes never abandoning either screen.

“And that’s Trent. He’s my lawyer. He also sucks.”

The second man stood when she approached him, holding his hand out. Lucy had to keep her jaw from dropping. He was one of the most handsome men she had ever seen, with jet black hair, caramel brown eyes, and a robust and sensual jaw. In fact, he almost reminded her of—

“Have mercy,” she breathed out.

Jack’s eyes shot from her to Trent, and then he rolled his eyes. “Well, fuck. Can’t unsee that.”

“Nice to meet you,” she quavered, making eye contact with Trent for a few precisely calculated seconds.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Lucy.” His eyes crinkled when he smiled, and she tensed her fists to keep from fanning herself.

“Come on, Lucy.” Jack grabbed a paper cup of coffee and an obscene amount of sugar packets and led her to a set of chairs. She didn’t sit, though her knees were nearly knocking with nerves.

“Lucy, if you want to wait for Jack while we meet, there’s a little kitchenette just down the hall,” offered Kim.

Lucy glanced at Jack and started inching her way toward the door as the others took their places around the table.

Without looking up from his coffee, he snapped his arm out and circled her wrist with his fingers. “No running this time, Cottontail.”

She sighed in surrender and lowered herself into the chair next to him, immediately preoccupying herself with the uneven groove on the side of the table.

“Jack?” Kim asked with a warning note.

“Lucy stays.”

Kim and Trent’s gazes stayed glued to Jack as he prepared his coffee with dramatic precision. By the time he slowly—very slowly—took his first sip, Kim released her frustrated groan.

“All right, Jack,” Trent said, gracious but serious. “What’s going on?”

Jack took another delayed sip. “I decided on a plan to fix my reputation.” Martin’s brows perked. “We’re gonna go with the fake marriage angle. Picture it now.” He raised his hands as if pitching a newspaper headline. “Insane Musician Tamed by True Love.” He pouted his lips and made a squeaking, smooching sound.

Lucy rubbed the middle of her forehead to ward against an impending headache. Miracle of miracles, Martin raised his head from his phone. Lucy took it as a hopeful sign.

“You’re getting married,” scoffed Kim.

“I’m getting married.”

“To who?” His manager crossed her arms expectantly.

“I believe it’s ‘to whom,’” Jack corrected. Lucy couldn’t hold back her facepalm.

“To whom, then.” Kim accentuated every syllable through gritted teeth.

“To Lucy. Say hello, honey.”

“Hello, honey,” she said, raising her head and smiling nervously at Kim. Kim’s jaw dropped, and Trent looked dumbfounded. But Martin…Martin was intrigued.

“Yeah, this is good. I can work with this.” Martin bobbed his head as if ideas were flying at him from all angles, and he had to duck from his own brilliance. “Okay, we gotta build a narrative first. Start from the beginning. How’d you two meet?”

“Mutual friend,” said Jack.

“I punched him in the face,” Lucy said at the same time.

“You did that?” Kim considered Jack’s fading bruises with renewed interest.

“It was an accident,” Lucy said. “I swear.”

“Um, yeah, so no,” Martin dismissed them with an Oscar-worthy eye roll. “The point is to not show Jack involved in anything less than savory. Got anything else?”

“She stayed with me while I had the flu,” Jack offered.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about! Little Miss Nobody nurses you back to health, and you fall madly in love. People eat that shit up.” Martin’s fingers flew over his keyboard. “Is it even worth asking how you proposed?”

“Which time?” Jack asked, sliding a laconic glance toward Lucy.

“He was very annoying about it,” Lucy added.

“I had a fever for most of them. That nullifies the annoyance factor.” He peered over at his lawyer with an impatient scowl. “The hell you smiling about, Trent?”

“Absolutely nothing,” said Trent, leaning back in his chair with a wicked grin, his gaze bouncing between the two of them.

“Once again, not going to work,” huffed Martin. “It’s autumn in New York. We’ll stage something and get some good pictures. And pictures are going to be key with this campaign. This isn’t just a few appearances with the paparazzi. We’re recrafting Jack’s whole life. We start with slow hints on social media, introducing the idea that Jack is new and reformed. Add some thoughtful, stupid quotes about how life is fleeting and changes all the time and bullshit like that, and hint that he has fallen in love. Then BAM!” Lucy jumped as he pointed at her with enthusiasm. “We introduce you. His love nurse.”

“My love nurse.” Jack’s skepticism was unmistakable.

“We’ll work on the name.” Martin waved him off. “Once we get her introduced, we really take off. Photos of the two of you, romantic walks, laughing at each other’s stupid faces, blah blah blah. Pictures doing domestic, fluffy shit that people will go nuts for. We’ll get you your own Instagram and Twitter accounts, Lisa—”

“Lucy,” corrected Jack, his eye twitching.

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll have you get married as soon as possible. Girlfriends only stay exciting for so long, so the sooner you’re married, the better. You’re not the Duchess of Cambridge; we don’t need to draw out the wedding anticipation. The focus is the necessity of this relationship, the power that you have to pull Jack from the dark, tragic hole he lives in now.”

Lucy had to admit, Martin had an enticing plan. If she were watching this unfold on social media, she’d want to find out what happened next. Jack, however, was shifting in his chair like a toddler at the dentist, his eyes round with panic.

“Holy shit, we’re really doing this,” he wheezed. Lucy tentatively reached out her hand, starting at the contact of his skin against hers. She squeezed his hand, a single pulse of comfort. His head tilted as he stared at her fingers, and she hoped he understood what she was trying to say with her simple caress.

I’m touching you, and it doesn’t bother me. I trust you. And you can trust me.

Without facing her, he flipped his hand palm up, and their fingers laced together naturally as if they had been holding hands for years. It was a subtle reply, but she read it loud and clear.

We’re partners. We’re equals. We’ve got this.

“Actually, Jack, I wanted to talk to you about a possible way to kick this off,” Kim said. “Laser Wolves was supposed to play the Big Apple Harvest Festival this Saturday. Patrick Hodelle broke his leg in a jet ski accident. If you took his place, it’d give you some karma points in the eyes of the public.”

“Patrick’s an idiot,” mumbled Jack, his opinion of the Laser Wolves’s lead singer apparent. Kim curled her lips around her teeth, most likely holding back stories of Jack’s own jet ski antics. “But I’ll do it.”

“Good,” Kim said. “Lucy, you’re welcome to come, of course. Maybe someone will get a picture.” Lucy gave a noncommittal shrug, but her stomach contracted with nerves. A chaotic concert was not the best place for her.

“It’s a good start,” said Martin. “Helping out a fellow musician, and it’s a charity. It’ll tide us over as we prep the whole relationship and marriage narrative.”

“Do they actually have to get married?” asked Trent. “Legally, I mean. If it’s all just for illusion, they could fake it.”

“Twenty years ago, yes,” sighed Martin. “Now you’re in the age of instant information. TMZ checks marriage license records for every celebrity marriage. Showmances used to be so much easier.”

“Got it,” nodded Trent, turning his attention to Jack and Lucy. “This isn’t my first marriage of convenience contract, so it should be easy to draw up. As long as you’re both American citizens and not doing anything nefarious or illegal, it should be pretty standard.” He flashed that swoon-worthy smile, and she tried not to flutter her eyelashes like a cartoon character. “Are there specific terms you’ve discussed?”

Lucy tensed. They hadn’t discussed anything significant yesterday, other than her acceptance of the proposal and her living situation.

“Lucy stays with me at my townhouse,” started Jack. “With a monthly allowance in a separate account to use at her discretion. A set lump sum should we divorce.” He glanced at her. “Anything else you want?”

She blinked, her mind momentarily emptied not because of the amount of money, but that he had said should we divorce instead of when we divorce. A simple slip of the tongue, but it still set a few butterflies skittering around her belly.

“And in return, Lucy agrees to enter into a marriage with you for…” Trent waited for Jack to fill in the blank.

“Two years?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at Lucy in question. “That would cover recording an album, promotional time, and a subsequent tour. Even if the album sucks—” he held up a finger to stop Kim’s impending protest, “—which it won’t—it should still get a lift in sales from the publicity. Then we break up, and I get to make a kick-ass broken heart album.” He punctuated his point with a righteous air guitar riff.

“Two years is okay,” Lucy repeated, her head wobbling in an over-enthusiastic nod. Two years she could handle. Two years was nothing compared to the hell of the last fourteen.

“Lucy, what’s your background?” Trent asked. “Are there any skeletons that might come up? We already know all of Jack’s.”

She peered around the room as she tried to recall anything troublesome she had done in her past. “I got detention my junior year because I helped the class cheat in Spanish.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, and she felt her skin flush.

“You devil,” said Jack proudly, smacking the table. “How did you help the whole class cheat?”

“When the teacher left the room, I translated the answers in my head and then read them all to the class.”

Another quiet moment passed. Jack continued to grin like a jackal until Trent cleared his throat.

“Well, Lucy, I’m sure you’re very remorseful about that,” he said. “But, um, we were thinking of illegal activities. Petty theft, that sort of thing.”

She shook her head, and Trent continued. “What about past relationships? Are you divorced?”

Lucy’s muscles tensed, and her mouth went dry. “I, um, was engaged until recently.”

Jack froze beside her, and his fingers tightened around the cup until it crinkled like Christmas-morning wrapping paper. “You were? You never told me that.”

She bit her lower lip. “You didn’t ask.”

“Are they someone we should worry about? Would they make trouble in the press?” Trent asked in a gentle tone.

She cocked her head, frowning. “I don’t think so. Brock was very much about appearances, and this wouldn’t look good. It’s bad enough his fiancée left him, but if it gets out that I left him for, uh—” she waved her hand to indicate Jack’s entire body, “It wouldn’t look good for him at all.”

“How long were you together?” Jack asked, his forehead creased in disapproval.

“Fourteen years.”

Jack choked on his over-sugared coffee. “You—what? What?!”

“Do you two need a moment?” offered Kim, studying the shock on Jack’s face. “We could take a quick break.”

“No,” said Lucy, just as Jack answered, “Jesus, yes.” He sprang to his feet and headed out of the room. She stared at the door for a moment before reluctantly following him down the hall.

* * *

Jack hauled Lucy into one of the label’s studio spaces. Inside, she immediately released his fingers, her eyes wide with wonder as she looked at the recording booth. If Jack hadn’t been there, pacing and cursing, she probably would have snuck in to visually feast on the rows of buttons and screens and instruments. As it was, he had to flap his hand in front of her face to reclaim her attention.

“Did you know that the Beatles had to record Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band using a pair of four-track tape recorders because eight-track tape recorders weren’t available yet?” she spouted, trivia flying from her like ticker tape. Her fingers swirled mid-air as she recited, dancing on a stage all their own.

“What?” spluttered Jack. “No, no, no. Stay with me, Cottontail. Focus.”

With reluctance, she dragged her gaze from the booth to Jack.

“You were with your ex for fourteen years?” Jack hissed, shock spurring his heart into a breakneck speed. It was a miracle if he stayed with a woman for fourteen hours, let alone fourteen years.

Lucy wandered away from him, trailing her hands over a music stand. “Yes.”

Jack exhaled a languid breath. Lucy’s mood had switched from reticent to—well, more reticent, and getting any information from her in this state was impossible. He took a moment to reform his questions.

“Dating since high school then?” he asked, before huffing out a laugh. “I mean, I assume so. Jesus, I don’t even know how old you are.”

“I’m thirty,” she said. “So yeah, high school. We were sixteen when we started.”

“I’m forty.” And he certainly felt it today. “You know, the media will probably point out the age gap. Although ten years is nothing in this industry.”

She shrugged and eased herself into a metal folding chair. Jack took one next to her, attempting to appear nonchalant.

“So, I’m not your first fiancé, then?”

Again, a simple head shake, and for reasons he couldn’t explain, intractable jealousy rammed itself through Jack’s senses like a runaway train. “How long were you engaged?”

“For about a year. It ended when I came here.” Her face clouded, but her fidgeting had slowed.

“Why did you break up?”

Her fingers sped up again, drumming against her knee, and she looked back at the recording booth.

Jack cursed and covered his mouth with a broad palm, dragging it across his face. This conversation was like a game of snakes and ladders, with too many snakes for his comfort.

“Would you come home with me?” she asked, her eyes snapping to his with cut-glass focus. “To tell my family before we announce all this.”

Jack gawked at her, his head spinning from the sudden topic switch. “Why? Do I have to ask for your hand in marriage or something?”

For the first time since they’d entered the room, Lucy’s eyes glittered with amusement. “I would pay money to see that.” Her expression relaxed. “Brock—my ex—he’s from Sparrow Hill, too, and he had—” She paused and shook her head as if resetting herself. Her lips worked through a few silent words before she said, “I only saw my family when we went home for holidays with his family, and only for a few hours at a time.”

“I don’t understand.” He peered at her. “He didn’t want you to spend time with your family?”

Her smile was as sweet and sad as spring rain at a picnic. “He was strict.” She swiveled her head away, scanning the room, looking everywhere except at Jack before murmuring, “I just want to start this engagement off right. I want it to be good.” Her breath hitched on the last word, and a niggling suspicion rose in Jack’s mind. He tamped down a flare of rage, but it was something he couldn’t address. Not yet.

“Do you miss him?” he asked instead, his throat constricting. “Would you ever go back?”

Her brow furrowed. “I miss who he could sometimes be. He was capable of being very nice, I think.”

“Capable,” Jack repeated, his fingers pinching a permanent crease in his jeans. The ordinarily positive word left a sour taste on his tongue. “You think.”

There was a weighty pause, then she shook her head, words spilling out of her in a frantic flow. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m tired. I want to go back to my apartment.” She wrung her hands over and over until Jack worried she would hurt herself with her own nails.

“Alright, Lucy, alright.” Jack sighed. “And we can go see your family next week, okay?” He had once performed karaoke with the Osmond family; meeting his future in-laws would surely be a piece of cake in comparison.

She brightened. “Really?”

“Really. And hey,” he offered a hand, and she took it without hesitation, “you can visit your family as much as you want, as long as you want, as long as nothing is going on with our little plan here. If I get a tour, you can stay there the whole time if you want.”