The Comeback (BWWM Interracial Romance Book 7) (3 page)

Brenton turned off the ignition and closed his eyes for just a moment before he reached for the door release. For Felicity’s sake, for Kelsey’s sake, he had to get through the interaction with her parents as painlessly as possible. He opened the door and stepped out of the car.

Felicity’s grandparents, the Montrose’s, had lived in the same house for all of Kelsey’s life. Howard Montrose, the family patriarch, had grown up in the house, and he’d spent a fortune keeping it up. Out in the suburbs outside of Houston, it was a huge place—the yard was constantly attended to by a whole crew of landscapers, the back yard with a pool and gardens was always immaculately maintained. Inside, Howard and Betty Montrose lived in subdued suburban splendor—antiques, a huge leather couch, expensive hardwood floors. They’d built a nursery and play area for Felicity as soon as she had been born, taking over a guest bedroom on the first floor and having it completely redecorated for the little girl, stuffed full of toys and games.

It was everything that a young child could possibly want—a private chef who came in daily to make snacks, plenty of things to play with, and doting grandparents to indulge every whim she might have. Brenton knew he should be happier that his in-laws were capable of giving his daughter so much—but every time he had to interact with them, the bile rose up in his throat.

“Daddy! Daddy!” Felicity ran to the door the moment it was open, rushing forward on legs that were still slightly unsteady, her hair streaming out behind her. Brenton crouched down, opening his arms and capturing the onrushing toddler in a tight hug. He swung her up as he stood, looking at his mother- and father-in-law. Betty had the stiff smile on her face that she always wore around Brenton—the one he had seen the first time he had come to take Kelsey on a date, that she had worn straight through the wedding, that she had kept on her face at the birth of her granddaughter.

“How was your date?” Betty asked, the undercurrent in her voice unpleasant. “It must be a relief to know that we’re always happy to take care of Felicity while you’re chasing famous women.”

Brenton took a deep breath and counted slowly to ten. “It was very nice to catch up with an old friend,” he said, looking at Howard.

The older man nodded silently, looking at Brenton as if he were a leper holding his granddaughter instead of the girl’s father. “Felicity will need pre-school soon,” Howard said, clearing his throat slightly. “Will you be able to afford it, or should we start looking for a school for her?”

Brenton clenched his teeth. “I’ll find one,” he said tightly. Felicity was beginning to squirm in his arms. “You ready to go home, honey-lamb?”

Felicity kissed his cheek. “Gotta clean the nursery,” she told him. “Down, please.”

Brenton reluctantly deposited his daughter on her feet and watched her run away to the nursery play room, to straighten up her things. The silence hung between himself and his in-laws for a long moment.

“So,” Betty said, her jaw working slightly. Brenton steeled himself. “Do you think Amber Solomon of all people is a decent person for you to be seen with?”

Brenton counted to five. “She’s a very decent person. She’s a hard working woman, with a great deal of talent.”

“She’s a walking scandal,” Betty countered. “Always in the tabloids. And now you’re going to be in the tabloids with her.”

“It was lunch with a friend from high school,” Brenton said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I doubt the tabloids will be even remotely interested, and even if I did want to date her, it really wouldn’t be very much of your business.” Brenton felt his face starting to warm up as his anger started to burn through him. He took a deep breath.

“If you’re going to date someone who’s going to be a bad influence on our grandchild, then yes, it is our business,” Howard said.

Brenton took another deep breath. “I am a perfectly fit parent. I take very good care of Felicity, and I wouldn’t bring anyone around her who wasn’t a good influence—and I consider Amber Solomon a very good influence.” He paused and took another deep breath. “Felicity! Come on, sweetie—let’s get to the store and get your snacks for the week!” Felicity came running out of the playroom, and Brenton scooped her up quickly.

“She can stay here this week, you know,” Betty said. “Wouldn’t you like that, Felicity?” Felicity shook her head.

“Uh-uh. I wanna go to work with Daddy and see Miss Katie!” Brenton gave his in-laws a triumphant look and wished them a brief goodbye, barely maintaining his ability to be courteous as he headed to the door and out to his car.

Amber took a deep breath as she pulled into a parking spot at the rear of an almost-anonymous building. It wasn’t SugarHill studios, but it was “neutral ground,” a rehearsal space on the outskirts of Houston proper. She had agreed to meet David Underhill, one of the names on the list of producers that she had given the label and her management to work with. Amber grabbed her bag and turned off the ignition. She was nervous; after weeks of recording demos at SugarHill, showing them to producers, to the record label, she wasn’t sure whether her new material would get any better a reception than the old. If David didn’t like the new material, then Amber wasn’t sure what she would do.

She brushed her hands over her clothes, straightening them. Amber smiled to herself wryly; Brenton had called her a few days after their lunch together, just to tell her how happy he had been to see her again. She was surprised to find herself agreeing. She had been happy to see him—happier than she would have ever thought she would be. She had called Cara afterwards to ask about their mutual friend. “I’m honestly pretty happy that you met him for lunch,” Cara had said. “He’s been so serious ever since Kelsey died.”

Amber had pried—she had, in spite of feeling slightly guilty, asked about Kelsey, about the circumstances of Brenton’s wife’s death. “She’d been sick for a while,” Cara told her. “No one in the group is really completely sure what she was sick with—she started losing her health about six months after Felicity was born.” Cara had paused. “We all knew she was sick, but she was fighting it. Apparently, Brent couldn’t really get leave, or anything like that—you know how the military is. Anyway, Kelsey was sick for about six months when she was involved in a really just awful car accident. Died at the scene.”

“Oh God, no wonder Brent is so haunted,” Amber had said, thinking about the situation from her friend’s perspective; he would blame himself, she had no doubt. Working all the time, unable to get leave to take care of his new daughter and help his wife possibly get back to health, and then she died—Amber knew she would blame herself.

“That’s not even the half of it,” Cara had told her. “The worst part is that his in-laws hate him.”

“What? They don’t blame him—”

“Oh they totally do. It doesn’t help that they already didn’t like him or think he was nearly good enough for their precious daughter before she died. Now they’re fighting him constantly, and the word on the street is that they’re talking to lawyers to try and get custody of Felicity.”

The idea of it was shocking to Amber—that the girl’s grandparents would try and steal their granddaughter from her father, when he was a perfectly good man. “Sounds like bitter, hurt, angry folks,” Amber had observed.

Cara had agreed. “They’re keeping things mostly civil, but everyone knows they constantly give him a hard time. He’s getting along with them as best as he can, but it’s really only a matter of time.”

The lunch with Brenton, and the conversation with Cara had stewed in Amber’s mind for days. She had sat down to her keyboard one morning after a night of troubled good-and-bad dreams, and started to press the keys in a slow, wandering melody. She wasn’t a great musician, but Amber had learned how to play a little piano over the years—it was a good tool for composing new songs. She couldn’t necessarily accompany herself live, but she could put together enough to record a very rough demo.

Amber walked towards the unmarked door to the building where David Underhill waited inside, trying not to fidget as she got closer. Four different producers had rejected the work she had come up with since she had had her spectacular break with Kobe. The new material that she was bringing for the producer to listen to was different—but would it be any better than what she had already put forth? Amber didn’t know. Anymore she wondered if she would ever find success again.
I put everything to the side to help Kobe get to where he is now, and not only did I lose him, but I have nothing to show for years of work.
The thought that she had lost her career and her love both haunted Amber.

The temperature in the building was easily ten or fifteen degrees cooler than the warm, humid Houston air. Amber stepped through the entryway and followed the hall around, her eyes adjusting to the dimmer light as she moved forward. There was a faint dusty, musty smell to the air—maybe an old air conditioner, or long-term dust in the carpet. Far away, Amber heard music playing over high quality speakers—the sound was muffled by distance and walls, but otherwise clear in the way that only studio-quality equipment could provide. She knew that if she followed the music, she would find the man.

At the end of a long, lonely hallway, Amber came to a door; closed, but the music was unquestionably on the other side of it. She took a deep breath and knocked on the thick slab of wood hard enough to hurt her knuckles. The music stopped short. “Come on in,” someone called from inside. Amber licked her lips and turned the doorknob.

Inside the room, David Underhill was seated at a table, along with Amber’s manager, Carl, an A&R person from the label by the name of Rebecka, and one or two other people she didn’t recognize. “I hope I’m not late,” Amber said, smiling brightly in spite of her nervousness.

“Come on in and sit down, Amber,” David said, gesturing to the empty seat near him. Amber had never met David—but she knew him by reputation. He wore the same outfit every day: a pair of G-star jeans, a black shirt from Express Men, a small gold chain around his neck, and wingtip shoes. Whenever he was working, that was the man’s uniform. Amber took him in for a moment as she moved to the spot he’d indicated at the table; tall and thin, he had tawny brown skin and green-hazel eyes, the product of mixed racial heritage out of the Caribbean. Tightly curled hair snarled around his lean skull in inky black coils.

“I have a new song I wanted to bring to the table,” Amber said, reaching into her purse as she sat down. David nodded.

“I’ve been listening to some of the stuff you’ve been working on. I was talking to Rebecka and Carl about it; it’s good, but I think you can do better.” Amber nodded, taking a deep breath as surreptitiously as she could. She had heard “you can do better” more than a few times in the past several months; it hadn’t quite lost its sting, but she could appreciate the fact that if four producers—now five—thought that was the case, it must be.

“This new material I’m working on is a little bit different,” she said, taking the flash drive out of her purse. She handed it over to David, who held her gaze for a moment as he took it. He took the cap off of the USB key and plugged it smoothly into the console in front of him, giving it a moment to be recognized by the machine.

“I don’t think you should completely abandon what you were working on before,” David said, glancing around the room before focusing back on Amber. “There’s a lot of raw power in what you were writing at first—and I’d hate to see you lose that. But I think you need to focus on telling a coherent story.”

Amber nodded slowly. “I’d sort of been just… writing as it came to me,” she admitted.

“I can get you songwriters to work with, Amber—just say who you want, and I’ll start the negotiations,” Carl told her.

Amber shrugged. She had worked with songwriters before; she had respect for their skills. But she wanted to try and do things—as much as possible—her own way.

“I think that for this record it should be as much Amber as possible,” David was saying as he turned his attention to the console. His gaze flicked over the screen, his hands busy. “That’s what got her where she was in the first place, that’s what will win her fan base back to her.”

Amber exhaled, feeling relief flood through her. David, at least, understood what she wanted. “I want to connect to my fans on a personal level,” Amber said. “I’m just… I’ve been away from them for so long; it’s easy for them to forget about me. I don’t want something that’s polished and shiny. I want something that’s raw and real.”

David looked up from his console and smiled at her. “If you want raw and real, you’re going to have to sing differently. You’re going to have to write differently.”

Amber shrugged. “I can sing. I have a voice—you know that about me or you wouldn’t have even agreed to meet with us.”

“You do. You can. But everything you’ve put out over the last two years or so has been a baby voice; a teenager’s voice. You need to show everyone you’re a grown woman.”

Amber took a deep breath. She thought about what David was telling her. Part of her mind—the part that had built up her ego over the course of years of fame—rebelled against what he was saying. She knew she was a damned good singer. But another part whispered that he was right. She’d let herself be steered into more commercial waters. She’d let herself be guided by people who told her that they knew what they were talking about.

And then, of course, she’d devoted herself to furthering Kobe’s career, and done little more than record featured spots in his songs. She’d done what made other people happy, instead of consulting herself. “Just listen to the new song,” she said, suddenly wanting to prove David Underhill wrong. He smiled slightly and his hands moved on the console.

Her slightly faltering piano line came on first. Amber knew that she wasn’t an amazing pianist—but the melody she’d had in her mind had been irresistible. She had to get it down, words and all. Hearing about Kelsey, about Brenton’s dashed hopes, seeing him again after everything she’d been through, had brought back something of the magic she’d enjoyed when she was just a teenager, writing songs for herself, dreams of fame in her mind. Her voice came in—not as smooth as usual, not as polished as her albums, but really
her
, and Amber smiled to herself, her fingers mutely tapping out the rhythm on the tabletop. She knew it was a damned good song; she knew it in her bones. Whether David Underhill thought so or not was irrelevant. If he didn’t like it, she would find someone who did. It was going on her next album even if she had to get herself out of her contract and record it independently.

Everyone in the room went silent, and held their silence as the song died out, looking at each other. “This,” David said, after Amber had started to feel uncomfortable with the long lapse, “is something we can base a record off of. This is something we can work with.”

Amber smiled.

“I agree,” Rebecka said. “This is something we can package, something we can market. Heartbreak—it’s the classic subject.” Amber didn’t care about that; she was only happy that for once she wasn’t being told that her voice sounded too shrill, or that her lyrics were all over the place, that she was failing.

“Is that the direction you want to go with?” Carl folded his dark hands in front of him.

Amber shrugged. “I’m still working out my direction,” she said. “I don’t know for sure where I’m going. Last month I was angry and pissed off.”

Rebecka laughed.

“Well,” David said. “I think there’s room for angry and pissed off and heartbroken to coexist.”

Amber smiled slightly.

David called up her previous efforts on the console and played them through; for once, Amber found herself vindicated. “I think you can polish this up just a little bit,” he said of one of the tracks. “This one I think you start off right, but you go and take it somewhere it doesn’t need to be. Keep the chorus, but start over on the verses.” He gave her notes on everything she had been working on, and then circled around to the track she had brought with her once more.

“I really like this as the foundation of an album,” Rebecka said. “I’d say go back, rework the songs the way that David’s suggested, and move forward from this new position.”

Amber glanced at Carl.

“I’m inclined to agree. You need to reconnect to your fans; this will help you do that. If the label thinks it’s good, then we have a path forward.” Amber felt more and more relieved. She was glad to have finally hit on something that everyone loved—something that everyone could get behind. “What’s the inspiration for this sudden change?” Carl gave her a shrewd look. Amber shrugged.

“Well, I’m getting mature. I’m beyond being angry. Might as well give into other feelings.” The rest of the people in the room laughed, and Amber let herself smile. She wouldn’t tell them—couldn’t tell them—what had caused her change in view. It would be her secret, especially if she could keep it up. Amber was determined that her inspiration—that her re-connection with Brenton, even if it was just as friends—was not going to be sullied by being all over the entertainment magazines. She wasn’t going to use her friends to sell records.

The meeting gradually broke up, with Rebecka excusing herself to talk to the label, Carl saying he needed to make a few calls. Amber lingered a few moments with David. “I’m excited to work with you on this,” he said, holding her gaze. “I think you’ve been through a bunch of shit, and you’re coming on the other side. It’s good to see, and it’ll be even better to hear what you come up with.” Amber thanked him for taking on the project, and after a few more comments and compliments, David shook her hand and she stood, leaving the conference room and heading back out to her car.

Almost the moment she started the engine, Amber’s phone rang. She frowned. For a moment she thought it might be the label, or maybe Carl—someone bringing her bad news. But she reached into her purse anyway and took her phone out. Instead of one of her “minders,” Amber saw Brenton’s name and number flashing on the screen.