ALEXANDRA looked over at Rita Sage as she stood at the head of the large conference table for the Artist & Repertoire team meeting. Today she looked the same. Powerful. Confident. No nonsense. Yet to Alexandra, something had changed and she didn’t seem as ominous.

Maybe it’s me.

Maybe I’ve changed.

“This album is dropping in three weeks, people,” Rita started. “What can we do to make Lexxi Rock a household name in time for that release?”

Suggestions flew from all directions. Alexandra sat there, bored, watching other people run the show. She wondered how come no one mentioned what had happened during her appearance on the Sammy P. Higgins Live show. It was quite the surprise that twelve hours could have passed by since she was on the show, and now no one here said a word?

“Exclusivity,” Rita shouted, getting Alexandra’s attention again. “Let’s ensure the subscription music apps and free streaming audio and video sites have no access to the content until a few weeks after the album drops. That’ll boost the first week sales. Everyone will be salivating to get a listen somehow.”

Her Director of Online Promotions added, “Also, once we get to the streaming sites, we push it forward with the ones willing to compensate best. Nobody likes free shit.”

“Nobody in business, that is,” Rita quipped, and only the two of them chuckled. Everyone else seemed to be their usual uptight and anxious selves.

Alexandra looked around at familiar faces she still couldn’t put names to, as well as a few new people. The turnover on the corporate side wasn’t too high, but high enough that she rarely took the time to get to know the incoming staff. An intern brought her a flute of champagne while she nibbled on sliced cucumbers from the catering trays of food. Right now her job was to sit and be present. She didn’t like that.

When this meeting ended, she would head over to the studio. That was what excited her today. She was dying to record the song she had started writing on her first day back in Los Angeles. There was an appointment with a photographer for an album shoot right after that. There was so much to do. She had barely been back home a couple of days, but Rick and the label made sure she hit the ground running.

The question of how come they didn’t mention the wig fiasco started to niggle at the corner of her mind now. She wanted to know.

Another employee slid his tablet across the table. It was lit up with several blog mockups. “Exposure, exposure, exposure! Lexxi needs to be on the cover of every popular print magazine and online blog that targets the same demographic we target.”

“I’m already on top of that!” another guy said.

“What about radio interviews?” someone suggested.

Rita snorted. “Radio is dead.”

Alexandra rolled her eyes. If that was the case, why did she still have a shitload of radio interviews lined up?

This meeting was trying her patience.

Someone else suggested, “Hit social media. Hard. We need Lexxi tweets, Instagram and Pinterest photos, Facebook posts. And those YouTube ads too. Not just her videos, but where we can layer over those ten-second sponsored video teasers.”

“Good,” Rita agreed. “What else are kids using these days?”

Alexandra didn’t need to be here. Social media was another area where she had a love-hate relationship. She loved connecting to her fans and hearing some of their ideas and stories, but it was impossible to keep up. What was worse was having to deal with the way the team Rita hired portrayed her with their planted tweets. She would be so much better off if they didn’t manage her account, but doing it herself would create a new avalanche of work.

Alexandra glanced at her smartphone when it buzzed with a message from Bash. It simply read, Missing you in this big old house. God she missed him too. Smiling down at the message, she put the phone on the table, and was about to send him a reply when Rita cleared her throat.

“Put that thing away, Lexxi. This next part is important.”

Uh oh.

She slid the purse off the table and into her bag. “Great. I’m listening.”

“All right, so let’s get to a few media management related issues. First, the little situation with bad press after your father became ill, Lexxi. That will likely work in your favor. It put you on the radar way before the release date, which will keep a steady buzz going. People might hate you, but as long as they buy you, it doesn’t matter.”

Alexandra blew out a breath. Rita called up someone from the PR team and whispered something in her ear. The young woman hurried out of the room. Alexandra eyes her as she walked out, wondering what that was about.

Rita continued. “Next, Lexxi, is that stunt you pulled on the Sammy P. Higgins Live show. What are we, twelve now? That whole walking on stage with the wig in your hand instead of on your head…all I can say is…bravo!”

She liked it?

Here I thought I was liberating myself and revealing the new me, and Rita thinks it was all fun and games for the album?

Go figure.

Rita then walked over to Alexandra, placed a hand on her shoulder as she looked down into her eyes. After a beat she said, “We have one more trick up our sleeves that will really get them talking. Send him in.”

She turned around when the conference room door opened. In walked Wilkes with an apologetic smile and his hands up in surrender. “Let the record show I had nothing to do with this.”

Awwww hell no.

“What’s going on?” Alexandra asked, sitting forward.

Rita smiled tightly and pointed at the display screen where graphics for Lexxi’s album pre-sales were still on display. Up popped a proposal labeled ‘Operation Wexxi’.

Operation what?

As Wilkes plopped down in a seat across from her, she got a crystal clear idea of what Rita and her team had in mind.

“Oh no. No no no no no no no. Absolutely not,” she protested, shaking her head with her eyes closed. “No way in hell, Rita. This is where I have to put my foot down.”

“You don’t like the blend of Lexxi and Wilkes, right? I know, it’s terrible, but we tried ‘Wilexxi’ and ‘Lewi’ and a combination of other tie-ins. None of them work.”

“No! It’s not the hybridized name that bothers me. It’s the very idea!” she said in vain.

Rita chortled and others joined in with her laughter. “Don’t be childish, Lexxi. This is marketing. It will be great for both of your careers. The two of you already had a very public, very amorous relationship, then you split unexpectedly, leaving your fans heartbroken. Wilkes has an album coming out soon, just like you do. What better way to ring in the new music season than with some fireworks? All you have to do is play up the idea that you two hooked back up. A few strategic appearances together should do the trick.”

Alexandra’s eyebrows clashed together, and her eyes narrowed. “That’s dishonest. I’m not doing it.” The rebuttal sucked, and did sound quite infantile, but it was the best she could come up with under the circumstances. They couldn’t have given her a heads up about this, because they probably knew she’d never have shown up for the meeting.

She glanced over at Wilkes. After the talk they had, he was sitting back looking equally out of his element. Still, he didn’t seem to be taking things as hard as she was. In fact, she would hazard a guess he was liking the whole situation.

Damn him.

It was the music industry. She knew folks in the business who did this kind of thing all the time, but she scowled thinking about being an even bigger fake, this time in her public relationship. It would be so unfair to Bash. If anyone should have been at her side now it was Bash.

This idea of Wilkes and Lexxi faking it for a few extra sales stank like five-day old summer socks. She couldn’t stand doing it. Not to mention she would be obligated to show up to functions and other places with Wilkes. Sure, they had patched things up somewhat, but that didn’t mean they were on good terms. For all Rita knew, Alexandra still wanted to smash his face in. Their pseudo-reconciliation was private. This craziness just showed it didn’t matter what was real or fake in show business.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” She threw her hands up, aggravated.

“Wait. Wait, now. Hold up, Lexxi. I can see the benefits here. Can’t you?” Wilkes asked.

Of course he’d see the benefits. Wilkes had an album he’d been trying to finish and get out for nearly a year, and the label hadn’t shown much faith in him. He had one big hit single around the time they first started dating, but Wilkes was a pretty face and a nice voice. He didn’t seem ready to connect to his love for the music, and without that, he lacked staying power.

This whole thing seems messed up.

Why would Blaze want to align us?

What’s really going on here?

Could it be they think the only way to get their ROI from signing Wilkes is to have him ride on my coattails?

This is bullshit!

“Did you put them up to this, Wilkes?” she asked, deeply suspicious now.

“No! I didn’t do anything,” Wilkes said, vehemently denying it. “Baby, I told you when I came in here I had nothing to do with this, but listening to their pitch, I can see the benefits. Hey, we’re friends now. No hard feelings about the past. Nobody’s asking us to run around making out. We just need to be seen on a few red carpets together, and get some candid photos taken. How hard is that?”

Rita chimed in. “Look at other power couples. One celebrity is gold, but when you combine two hot celebrities, it’s platinum!”

The PR woman beside her nodded her head ecstatically. She was gushing, and the truth was they were right. It had been done time and time again.

Not this time.

For the first time in—well, since her talk with Dad—it occurred to Alexandra that she didn’t have to do this.

Yeah. I don’t have to do any of this.

This Rita chick has crossed the damned line.

Thanks to her father’s guidance and her head for finances, she could get his help to figure this out and walk away from this contract. Dad, her accountant, and Dad’s corporate lawyer, Hirsch, were the only people who knew her real net worth.

Suddenly she remembered her dream about being a puppet with Rita pulling the strings, before Alexandra ran away and became the one with Rita under her control.

I could buy Blaze.

I could run this hellhole.

Hell, I think I’m going to do this!

Running a corporation wasn’t something she had considered taking on, but this was one way of running the ship and taking back control. She entered the music industry out of a love for making music. What she enjoyed was connecting with the people who truly loved her songs, singing to people who found their inspiration in her lyrics, or just related to what she had been through.

It was never supposed to be like this, and it was clear she had lost sight of her passion at some point. Like most good things, that passion was corrupted by other people’s greed. Maybe her own greed too, in the past. She also profited from letting them control her up until now, but this was a new day, and she was ready to grab it by the balls to have her say.

Getting to her feet, she faced off with Rita and her team of Yes Women and Yes Men, including Wilkes. “Let’s get something straight, Rita and everyone else in this room. I. Am. Not. Doing. This. And here’s something else. I’ll preface it by saying, this isn’t an ultimatum. This is a promise.”

“You’ll do what I tell you to do,” Rita countered.

Alexandra smiled. She was going to enjoy this part. “Here’s the thing, Rita. There are ways around and ways out of contracts. If you think you can wave my contract over my head as leverage, you’ve seriously got me mixed up with someone else. I never wanted to have to play hardball with the label, but you’re leaving me no choice now. I don’t know if you have some kind of personal problem with me or what your issue is, but where do you get off coming in here and trying to dictate what I do with my personal life? From now on, Lexxi Rock makes her own decisions. This label needs me, not the other way around.”

Rita looked amused. “That was a cute speech. Now, back to what we were discussing.”

Angry now, Alexandra walked back to her seat and picked up her oversized bag. Fishing out her purse, she glared at Rita. The woman crossed her arms, and her eyebrows quirked as the call Alexandra made connected to the other end over her speakerphone.

“Hirsch Mason and Associates,” the person on the other end answered.

“Hi. Alexandra here. Is Hirsch around?”

“One moment please.”

The receptionist put her on hold for less than ten seconds. Hirsch had always told her she was an important client, and today it showed. When he answered, she told him, “Hirsch. I want to go ahead and make a move on acquiring Blaze Records.”

Hirsch had no idea what she was talking about, but he was a professional. He replied with, “It’s a publicly traded company, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll get the ball rolling and report back in three hours.”

“Thanks. The faster the better, Hirsch,” she said in closing.

Stunned silence filled the room. After Alexandra hung up, she studied Rita, who looked like the rug was pulled out from right under her.

Not so self-assured now, huh?

Rita gathered herself in a quick beat, and made a silly stammered suggestion that Lexxi Rock couldn’t possibly afford to buy Blaze Records. If she was blind enough to wonder if Alexandra could do it, she was setting herself up for a bigger surprise when Hirsch moved on it. The man and his team of over seventy-five Mergers and Acquisition practitioners made things happen—fast. He even had a small group who understood how to work within the Williams Act and dealt with the SEC with ease. She could rely on him to navigate everything from making the public offer, to negotiating with major shareholders, to targeting brokers who would buy up any available shares if it came down to making a dawn raid to pick up the majority stake. Alexandra had the collateral to make it happen.

She chuckled, but not in humor.

Rita has no idea.

Her head will spin when this deal happens in days, not weeks or months.

Leaning over the conference table, she looked each person in the eye one by one, pausing for an extra beat on Wilkes. “There are about to be some changes around here. We can do it the easy way or the hard way. I’d hate to make this seem like a hostile takeover, but I have no problem making it exactly that, if it has to be.”

Rita grabbed her tablet. “This meeting is over. Everyone out!”

The room cleared in what seemed like a blink, leaving the two of them to square off. Rita’s heels clicked against the marble floor as she sauntered from her end of the table to where Alexandra stood. “What on earth are you doing, Lexxi?” she purred softly, smiling uncertainly.

“What does it look like? I’m taking control of my career. My life! My answer to your proposed takeover of my life is no. No, I’m not going to fake a relationship with someone on your whim. No, I’m not going to let others control how I look, how I sound, what I put out and who I am. Not anymore.”

“You have no experience handling a company of this size. You only see one side of the business and let me tell you, it’s multi-faceted. Besides, the major shareholders will never sell. You’re delusional.”

Alexandra grinned. “Rita Sage, when you’re in my position, hiring someone to get the job done isn’t a problem.”

“What position is that? Running to Daddy to buy you the pony you want? You’re a spoiled celebrity, Lexxi Rock.”

“You’ll see spoiled when you’re out on the bread line. And you better believe money talks, even if I have to make an offer of double the share price to get controlling interest, even if I have to secure fifty-one percent of this label. Don’t even think I won’t start my own label in direct opposition to Blaze if I can’t acquire it. Bottom line is, you just lost your top artist…and your job.”

Alexandra heard the catty, downright tyrannical tone in her own voice, but she had been pushed up against a wall for far too long.

Rita lost her shit just then. “Oh, yeah?” she screamed. “You won’t last a year at the helm of Blaze. I’ve been here four years, and even with degrees in business, I’ve had a hard time with the music industry, with what it is. What makes you so special? You’re just a girl with a guitar who started off singing in coffee shops.”

“Started in coffee shops and now I’m here, the top artist at your label. You may want to do yourself a favor and stop getting your artist history from Wikipedia. You see, Rita, I have degrees in business and finance, too.” Rita’s eyes bulged. “Oh, you didn’t know that? Hmm, learn something new every day. Also, I do actually have the money to make this acquisition happen. I don’t need to run to anyone for it, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about that. So, I guess I’d like to thank you, boss. You took away enough of my time, enough of my choices and enough of my life for me to finally get fed up enough to take it all back!”

Rita trembled with rage. She couldn’t call Alexandra’s bluff, and it put her in the awkward position of having to bite her tongue. Alexandra turned away and walked to the door, phone in hand. She put it to her ear with a half-smile as behind her, Rita Sage became a blurred speck in her past.

“Hello, Rick?” she said when he answered.

“Hi doll. What’s up?”

“I love you, dear. I do. You’ll always be family to me. But, as my manager, you’re fired.”

“What?” he shouted in disbelief.

She had bigger plans for Rick. With his savvy and contacts, he could get a call in to all the board members and get Rita out—if needed—by the end of the week. Rick would be happy when she told him the big picture and how he fit into her long-term plans for Blaze Records.

“You heard me, Rick, but, don’t get too worried. I still have some things for you to do. Can you meet in person now? I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.”