I Choose You (The Billionaire Brothers Series) (23 page)

He started a website offering royalty-free music, soundtracks, sound effects, and the like, which has gotten more and more popular as the years slipped by. Movie producers, music producers, et cetera all had memberships on his site and downloaded his work for commercial or personal use, sometimes reproduction with additional payments for extended rights. His soundtracks could often be heard in commercials, as background music in movies, or were sometimes bought by musicians.

Where did I come in?

I was the voice he used for whole songs, sound effects like moans, laughter, feminine whispers, scary screams, giggles, yawns … I also created guitar pieces for him because I played the guitar well. And I did it all for free because, when in Carlo’s studio, I was
me
. The girl left on the beach side to die.

I was someone else other than Krissan Kingston. I was Krissan Something. Because Kingston blood wasn’t the blood running through me. No, the blood of someone who possessed musical talent ran through me.

The reason I hid this side of me from others — even Jahleel — was because I wished this talented blood
didn’t
run through me, just like those said talented people had wished I’d never been born, so much so, they’d tried to kill me. I refused to embrace the talent they passed on to me, just as they refused to embrace me as their child. So, passion for music was my dirty little secret.

Seconds after ringing the doorbell, Mark, Carlos’ older brother, swung it open, holding a half-full brandy snifter in his hand. Shirtless, he displayed his rock-hard abs cockily at me.

Mark was an average hunk. He wasn’t handsome, but he wasn’t unattractive. He had a gapped-tooth smile, a crooked nose and sand-brown hair receding much too early for his age. He did, however, own a body that would make any woman salivate.

Mark was also a whore. A whore without remorse.

He was moneyed, too, but I wasn’t sure how. Carlos didn’t know what he did for a living, neither did I. Yet he could afford luxury such as this residence: a six bedroom house that was a lot like a mini playboy mansion, seeing there were always naked girls running around.

“Hey, KK,” he drawled, and I could tell he was far beyond tipsy.

I pushed past him into the foyer. “Jeez, Mark, it’s not even three in the afternoon, and you’re already shitfaced.”

Laughing, he closed the door, stretched his arms out wide and started walking backwards into house. “YOLO!!” he shouted. “I could walk across the street right now and get hit by a big ole truck. And
boom
! Life’s over.”

Shaking my head, I rolled my eyes at him. “You’d get hit by a truck only because you’d be too damn drunk to remember to look up and down before you cross.”

Leaving Mark with his brandy snifter turned up at his mouth, I made my way through the house and tried keeping my eyes straight ahead to ignore: the two half-naked girls tonguing each other on a couch in the living area, the three performing body shots on the floor in the hallway, and the nude Hispanic who was eyeing me as she licked her lips while I strode past her to the stairway leading down to the basement where Carlos’ studio was located.

See?
Mini Playboy mansion.

Carlos and I were the same age, and he had no qualms whatsoever about squatting with his debauched, mysteriously-wealthy brother. He claimed squatting with Mark gave him the opportunity to save his own dough, what with Mark taking care of all expenses, including groceries and his wardrobe.

Carlos was hunched over his mixing board with headphones on when I arrived down in the studio, his head bobbing. Even being on the chubby side and under six feet tall, Carlos was better-looking than Mark, kind of cherubic.

As if he sensed my presence, he glanced up with a wide grin. “KK … ” — Oh, he also grinned a lot for no reason — ” … You’re early.”

Setting my handbag down on a nearby chair, I went over to hug him. “Yeah. Have an empty schedule, so I can afford punctuality.” I ruffled his curly hair as I perched on the handle of his chair. “How may I be of assistance today, boo?”

Carlos reached over to his desk on the left, picked up a notepad with some scribbled lines on it, and handed it to me. “I have a smooth track I want to weave your breathy voice into, saying those words. After that, I want to do some new horror screams, sexual moans, and sexy morning yawns — change it up a bit. Members are requesting them.”

Going by the phrases on the paper, the track had to be a sexual one: Touch me, Take me, I want you, ssssss, Yours, Mine, Yours alone, Give it to me, Don’t stop … .

Time to have some fun.

I smacked the top of Carlos’ head with the notepad and grinned my I’m-Fucking-Free grin as I got up and opened the door to the sound room. “Let’s get it crackalacking,
baby
!”

Two hours later, we were good to go, and Carlos was wearing his perpetual grin, excited about his new track. But I wasn’t done.

“I’ve got a song I want you to lay down for me,” I told him. “It’s half a song, actually.”

“To what rhythm?” he asked without hesitation.

Carlos would never deny me anything, plus this was the first time I’d ever asked him to create a track not for his benefit.

“Acoustic. I’m playing the guitar.”

“Raw music today, huh?” His grin widened. “What’s this new happiness about?”

I shrugged and murmured, “The unexpected,” more to myself than to him and turned to head back into sound room.

As Carlos prepared to voice me, I took my white Gibson off its hook on the wall, wired it up, tossed it across my shoulders, and waited for Carlos’ cue. I’d been writing the song in my head since last Saturday on Sweet Sins. Even though it was incomplete, I wanted to lay it down, anyway. Just for the sake of confessing the words out loud that I was falling. Maybe the other half would come to me as I sang.

Testing the flow I had in mind, I played around on the guitar for a while. By the time I had a solid flow, Carlos was ready. He nodded and leaned back with his arms crossed, watching me from behind the glass, his grin still present, curiosity bright on his face.

My fingers touched the strings as I closed my eyes and started a lengthy intro. Then, I took a breath and did what I did best:

I never wanted more

I never wanted us

I never wanted you

I never wanted me

But you gave me more

You gave me you

You gave me us

You let me be me

And now I’m fallin’

Deep down into the unknown

Yet I’m not screamin’

‘M not afraid of the unknown

Baby, I’m fallin’

With every kiss, every breath

And I’m not complainin’

No, not yet

My fingers worked the guitar strings as I did an instrumental bridge while mentally writing the next verse. But then, an eerie feeling prompted me to open my eyes, and when I did, I gasped.

Trevillo was standing on the other side of the studio staring at me through the glass, wearing a livid expression. Mark was standing beside him holding an icepack over his right eye, and Carlos was holding a hand over his nose, blood seeping through his fingers, his eyes watery.

What in the world … ?

At the reflexive thought to drop the guitar and run outside to find out what
the hell
was going on and why
the hell
Trevillo was standing there, he made a sharp shake of his head, and I understood. He was commanding me not to stop. To continue singing. He heard the words, knew they were meant for him, and he wanted to hear more. But, there wasn’t any more, I’d sung all the words I’d written, which made up only half of a song.

Afraid to stop because of the threatening expression on his face, I continued to work the guitar even though my friend’s nose was squirting blood.

Until the words for the other half came. And I sang them. With my eyes opened. Locked on him.

You’ve been trying to find my soul

You wanted to know more

You wanted to see more

You wanted to be more

I’ve been trying to hide my soul

Too afraid to show more

Too afraid to want more

Too afraid to accept more

But, baby, now I’m fallin’

With every kiss, every breath

And I’m not complainin’

No, not yet

‘Cause my walls are crumblin’

Liberty belongs to me

Ooh, my walls are crumblin’

Baby … this is
me
.

Long after I completed the song, we just stood there staring at each other through the glass. Trevillo’s face was still serious, but I couldn’t tell if he was still angry or not. After an eon of stare down, I saw his lips move, along with a wave of his hand and Carlos and Mark left the studio. Trevillo walked across the room, opened the door to the sound room, and entered to resume his stare down from a closer vantage point.

Finally, he said, “You have the most angelic voice.” His eyes smiled, but his lips didn’t.

“What in God’s good name happened out there?” I asked, because he was standing there complimenting my voice as if there weren’t two — or even more — people outside nursing injuries I was quite sure
he
inflicted.

“Did I forget to tell you you’re perfect?”

“Trev — ”

He cut me off by cupping my face and slamming his lips down to mine, kissing me as if it were the first time. Like he’d never kissed me before and just
needed
to know how I tasted. I moaned into his mouth at his attack, and he moaned back.

“I also forgot to tell you, you drive me wild,” he mumbled.

Despite the situation, I smiled. “Nope. You haven’t forgotten to tell me either thing.”

“Don’t talk against my lips, Krissy,” he scolded against mine. “It travels down to my cock and makes me want to fuck you really, really hard … and I can’t fuck you right now.”

Prying my lips apart from his, I laughed this time. “You’re
so
romantic, Trev.”

“Credits to Shakespeare.”

Before I could ask him again to explain what just happened, Mark’s voice came through the speakers in the sound room. “Limo’s here for the girls, Trev.”

Trevillo turned his face to the glass and shot Mark a withering stare. Mark was clearly not his favorite person at that moment. How did he even know Mark? And
why
was he here?

Lifting my guitar over my head and setting it aside, Trevillo wrapped his fingers around my wrist and turned with me out of the sound room, from the studio, up the stairs and out of the basement. With firm, purposeful strides, he navigated through the house and straight out the front doors.

There was a white Hummer limousine sitting out front with nine girls standing alongside it, including the ones I’d seen earlier. They were all flawless, polished, with perfect boobs and asses and blemish-free skin.

Trevillo released his hold of me and gave me a look that said “stay put”, before walking down the limestone steps to stand in front of the girls.

“You can tell I’m fucking pissed, right?” he directed to all of them in general.

Not one of them looked directly at him, they just traded ‘uh-oh’ glances with each other. “Yeah, two different cohorts flew in last night — one all the way from Europe — to see your asses.” He singled out a girl standing on the left end. “Especially you.”

She was taller and curvier than the others, with long, black hair flowing past her hips. She looked Indian, but I couldn’t tell for sure. Now that I took notice of her, she indeed stood out among the other girls, possessing more striking features.

“Yet, now I hear the club only had seven fucking girls last night because all of you dumb fucks decided to spend the night here partying with this fucking jackass?”

Without turning around, he pointed his thumb over his shoulder, and I thought it was at me, but I became aware of Mark standing next to me, still holding the icepack over his eye.

“I don’t like having unsatisfied business partners. It’s a bad look, and it hinders me from having those big guys signing deals without a second thought, because Mr. Nelson
always takes care of them
. In other words,
you
take care of them. Therefore, when you’re doing dumb shit like this instead of ‘taking care’, it’s
fucking with my money
. And if I’m not breaking big deals, how do you expect to live like this?” he asked, his hand waving at the Hummer limo, indicating luxury. “So, you know what, unless it’s your time of the month, none of you are allowed to skip nights at the club without permission. Have a problem with that? Then hop on a plane and head back to wherever the fuck you came from.”

None of them seemed to have a problem with that. From where I stood, they appeared terrified at the thought of going back to … wherever they were from.

Trevillo made a shooing gesture with his hand, and the girls quickly shuffled into the limo and left. Turning, he made Mark the subject of his glare. “You’re banned from the club for a month. You lure my girls out of the club again, I’m done with you. I pay you to work, so you should fucking
work
.”

Mark nodded in acceptance, but gave me a side-long glance and complained, “You blackened my eye and broke my little brother’s nose for something we’re not guilty of, and you’re not even gonna say you’re sorry?”

Trevillo’s shoulders jerked with a shrug. “Consider that black-eye a punishment. But give Carlos my apologies.”

Marked peevishly muttered something under his breath, then turned and narrowed his gaze at me. “You know, KK, you could’ve told us you are with this fucker. Because then I would’ve taken precautions in keeping you as far away from my house as possible.”

“I didn’t even know you two were acquainted, Mark!” I defended.

“Bull,” Mark spat, shooting me one last accusing glare before whirling and stomping back into the house.

Looking irritable, Trevillo nodded for me to come along with him, as if I didn’t just watch him berate a string of flawless women, called them
his
girls, and talked about some club I didn’t know about. What the goddamn hell?