“He’s here.” Dale nodded to the Porsche 911 that reminded me of a squished VW Beetle in front of the house with the license plate: SPD DMN. Speed Demon. It was like he was asking to get pulled over, but that was Greg—bold, brash and in your face.

“Awesome.” I carried the bag with our clothes in it up the steps. “I can’t wait.”

John and Greg were sitting at the kitchen table. I smiled at John but I didn’t even acknowledge Greg as I passed them on the way to the stairs. The townhouses were built with one, two, or three bedroom units. We had the latter. John’s bedroom was on the ground floor and ours was upstairs. The third bedroom, on the other side of the bathroom from ours, he used as an office.

“Sara!” John called after me. “I made cinnamon rolls!”

He knew they were my favorite.

“We ordered room service,” I called back over my shoulder, seeing Dale standing there, hands in his jeans pockets. He’d told me to go straight upstairs, that he would handle things with the manager. Which was fine with me. Greg Richer didn’t like me and vice versa. It was always better when we weren’t in the same room together.

“Are you sure?” John asked.

“I’ve got to get ready for work.” I trudged up the stairs, heading into our room at the top of the stairs. I loved coming home. When Dale was gone, I spent a lot of time in our room, on the bed where we made love, smelling him on the sheets. The room was an amalgam of us—my easel and paints, his guitars and sheet music.

I tossed the bag and crawled into bed, hugging my pillow and closing my eyes. I hadn’t slept much the night before—not that I was complaining—but the moment my body hit the mattress, I realized how tired I really was.

I hadn’t shut the door so I could hear them. At first it was just talking, mumbled voices, nothing clear. Then the voices got louder. And louder.

“I don’t give a flying fuck if they know!” That was Dale. “I’m going to marry her. If I lose some crazy little girl bubblegum pop fans because they can’t handle that? Well so fucking what!”

“If this gets picked up by the teen mags, you’re over before you even started, kid.”

That was Greg. When Dale told me his full name for the first time, I couldn’t believe it. Greg Richer. Managers, as a concept, were mind-boggling to me. They took twenty percent of an artist’s income, and for what? It was Dale who had put his foot down with the record company. They had songs and tracks for him all planned out—they wanted him to sing what they wanted.

Dale refused. He’d been the one to negotiate with them, not Greg. In fact, Greg had insisted he concede or there would likely be no record deal at all.

But he was wrong.

Dale had gotten what he wanted—Black Diamond had recorded all of their own, original songs. I often told Dale Greg’s last name was apropos because as far as I could tell, Greg got richer while Dale did all the work. But for some strange reason, a manager was considered necessary. A necessary evil, maybe.

“What do you want me to say? Our friends were getting married. I wasn’t going to skip out on them because there might be cameras around.”

“You didn’t have to dry hump her in the hallway!” Greg snapped. “They’ve got a picture in here of you grabbing her crotch under her skirt.”

“I was not. I was putting on a garter. It’s a tradition.”

“Image is not about what happened. It’s about what it looks like happened. And right here, it looks like you’re grabbing her crotch.”

“She’s my girlfriend,” Dale said. “So it’s out. We deal with it.”

“Jan’s got to find some way to spin this.”

“Did you come here to lecture me or was there a point to this meeting? My fiancé is waiting for me.”

“The record company wants to cancel the tour.”

My head came up off the pillow, my heart dropping to my toes. I couldn’t even imagine what Dale was feeling, hearing those words. I ran to the doorway, straining to hear.

“I told you, image is everything. So you can sing, big deal. You have a pretty face and you can play the guitar and make girls go nuts. Big fucking deal. Do you know how many others there are just like you? Kids like you come and go in this business.”

I couldn’t hear anyone then. I held my breath, trying to hear something—anything!

“Did you talk to Roy Masters?”

He was the head of Sonic House, the label that had put out Black Diamond’s album. He was a gruff old man, nearly entirely bald, who smoked cigars and rasped when he talked. I had met him only once, when Dale had taken me to L.A. to show me around—it had been my very first time in an airplane. Roy had gotten up from the chair behind his desk, which was no easy feat, considering he had to weigh three-hundred pounds, and peered at me, frowning.

“So this is the young lady who’s giving us so much trouble?” Roy mused, glancing at Dale, then back to me, where I was pressed tight against Dale’s side. “Well son, she looks like the good kind of trouble to me.”

Then he’d laughed and puffed on his cigar, sitting back down in his executive chair, the leather making a “whoosh” sound under his weight.

“He’s the only thing standing between you and disaster, punk.” Greg again. He sounded weary and I smiled. I couldn’t blame him. When Dale wanted something, he was tireless and fearless in his pursuit. And breaking him down wasn’t easy, although I’d watched it happen over the course of the past two years, inch by inch.

“That and I’ll Always Come For You just hit Billboard’s number one.”

Greg said it like an afterthought but his words seared through me like fire. I couldn’t breathe, I was so stunned. Then I was running, bolting down the stairs, jumping the last two and tearing around the corner, heading to the kitchen.

“Number one? Number one!” I squealed, putting my arms around Dale, who looked so stunned I nearly knocked him over. He grabbed me by the waist, meeting my eyes, and I laughed when he squeezed me tight and swung me around the kitchen.

“I have to call the band.”

“You have to lay the fuck low!” Greg insisted, wagging his finger at both of us. “And you, missy, you need to be invisible. You hear me? In-fucking-visible! Don’t you go anywhere.”

I laughed as Dale put me down. I heard his heart hammering in his chest when I rested my flushed cheek there. Greg Richer wasn’t going to put a damper on this day, I wouldn’t let him.

“Go to hell.” I stuck my tongue out at him and hugged Dale harder. “He’s got the number one single!”

“I know.” Greg stood, running a hand through his thick, dark hair. I was sure he had it dyed because the lines around his eyes told me he was at least fifty, in spite of the spray-on tan. “But that all happened before this.”

He picked up the newspaper and shook it at us.

“Shake the stupid paper and yell all you want, he’s still number one.” I grinned up at Dale and he grinned back,

“If I thought it would do any good, I’d roll it up and smack you both on the nose like the naughty damned pups you are.” Greg glanced over at John, who just sat quietly, sipping his coffee. “John, can you talk any sense into these two kids of yours?”

“Only one of them is officially mine,” John reminded him over the rim of his coffee mug. It had a reprint of Munch’s “Scream” on it. “But I’d love to make the other one official, since I already think of her as my daughter.”

His words filled me with warmth.

“If he marries her, all this goes away!” Greg exclaimed. “Don’t you get that? Nights at the Waldorf Astoria and two hundred dollar pairs of Nikes go bye-bye!”

He waggled his fingers, glaring at me. I looked down at my shoes, feeling guilty. Had they really cost two hundred dollars?

“You don’t know that.” I turned to the manager, frowning. “So the news is out now. Let’s see what happens. Black Diamond is number one and the world now knows Dale Diamond has a girlfriend.”

“A fiancée,” Dale countered, putting his arms around my waist from behind. I closed my hands over his.

“So let’s see what happens,” I said.”Maybe it won’t make any difference at all.”

“I can tell you after twenty years in this business, it’s going to make a very big difference, young lady.”

“You can’t cry over spilled milk,” John interjected. “The horse is out of the barn, as they say. So let it run.”

“Let it run?” Greg put his head in his hands. “Listen, kid, I’m on your side. Quit treating me like the damned enemy. I do what I do for a reason. You might not know what that reason is, but I always have one.”

“You’re just afraid your gravy train is going to run dry,” I countered.

Greg gave me a sharp look and then met Dale’s eyes over my head.

“Did you ever think about what would happen to Sara if it leaked out that she’s your girl—fiancée? She’s going to be hounded, constantly, by the paparazzi. And they can be brutal. Once they know her name, they are going to uncover everything they can about her. And I mean everything.”

“What?” I felt suddenly faint.

“Didn’t think of that, did you, sweetheart?” Greg gave me a sad little smile.

“Fuuuuck.” Dale drew the word out, arms tightening around me, resting his cheek against the top of my head. “I’m sorry, Sara.”

“It’s not your fault.” If anything it was my fault, for nudging Matt to ask Dale to be a bridegroom, so we could walk down the aisle together, even if it wasn’t my wedding. What had I been thinking? Of course it would mean they’d dig into my past. They’d find out about the stepbeast, about my mom. About everything.

“Well I’m glad you both now see the gravity of the situation.” Greg leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Well what do you want me to do?” I threw up my hands, exasperated. “Become a hermit and never leave the house again? Move to Taiwan? Kill myself?”

Dale’s arms tightened at that last.

“No of course not.” Greg sighed. “Well… maybe that first one… just until the tour is over…”

“About that…” Dale kissed the top of my head. “It’s probably not the best time to bring it up, but I want to bring her on tour.”

The manager looked at him, aghast, and so did I.

“Absolutely not.” Greg’s jaw tightened. “I forbid it.”

“Everyone already knows, right?” Dale shrugged. “So if she’s on tour with me, we have round the clock protection. If she’s here?”

“I’ve been fine here,” I protested, glancing at John. “We’ve been fine, haven’t we?”

“True.” John nodded. “But that was before they were focused on you. Now they have a name to go with the face. We’re secluded here, but not that secluded.”