Chapter One - Sophia

Spending Christmas in the middle of a war zone wasn’t exactly at the top of my bucket list, but as the chartered plane touched down on a military airstrip just outside of Baghdad, a sense of relief flooded through me. Back home in New York, I was rapidly turning into The Grinch on amphetamines, twitching and snarling at street corner carolers, the Christmas music blaring from every set of speakers in the city, and the bright shining packages that lined the window displays of every single shop I passed.

Ba humbug indeed.

I’d escaped the city just in time. And had miraculously managed to make my getaway without assaulting a mall Santa. Three cheers for Sophia!

I didn’t always despise Christmas. In fact, up until last year, it was my favorite time of year. I was one of the wide-eyed, cheer-and merriment-spreading types rushing around the city, preparing for a picture-perfect holiday for my family and friends.

Not this year. This year, I’d be spending the holidays in the middle of the desert, likely sweating my ass off, and forcing a giant smile as I performed for the US troops stationed overseas. The show comprised of five musicians and two comedians who were in charge of brightening up the holidays for those serving their country and unable to go home for Christmas.

I wasn’t entirely sure I was qualified to cheer anyone up, given my current state of mind, but my spot in the tour had been booked for eighteen months and come hell, high water, or…one nasty, highly publicized divorce…I was going to be there—singing my heart out for America’s heroes.

“Sophia? Are you ready to go?”

I turned away from the window at the female’s voice and Jenna, one of the show’s producers, was waiting for me in the aisle. The holiday show was being broadcast back home on national prime time the week before Christmas, so in addition to the performers, there were a handful of producers, camera, lighting and sound specialists, and a duo to tackle hair and makeup. Jenna was the executive producer which made her the head cattle wrangler, aka my full-time babysitter for the next ten days.

I nodded at Jenna’s question, before taking one last look out the window at the city stretched out around the runway. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but it looked so calm and peaceful that it was hard to remember we were going to a war-torn country where a nasty war had been raging for years. Where we were going in Baghdad was a green zone now but that didn’t make it tame. There was still an edge of danger to being so close to the ongoing conflict, but before we left, we’d been assured that once we landed, we would be taken directly to the palace-turned-Army base where we’d be staying for the duration of the trip. At the time, I was relieved, but now, seeing the brightly lit city, I couldn’t help but want to go and explore.

“It’s so beautiful. Don’t you think?” I asked, turning my attention back to Jenna. She wasn’t looking. She was busy tapping something into the phone she clutched in one of her perfectly manicured hands. How she managed to look so polished and put together after the thirty-six hours of travel was beyond me. I was hopeless without the assistance of my hair and makeup team. I’d dressed for comfort on the flight which meant yoga pants, ballet flats, and an oversize sweater with a tank top underneath. My hair was tied up on top of my head and the scant amount of makeup I’d applied prior to leaving New York was now scrubbed away, the residue likely on my travel pillow.

Jenna made a small noise of agreement, her fingers flying faster over the keys of her phone, and with the final tap, she looked up at me. “Sorry? What did you say?”

“Nothing.” I pushed up from my seat and followed her off the plane.

Once we got off the plane, we piled into huge military-looking vans that were loaded with armor and soldiers in uniform. At first, it startled me to see them carrying weapons, but I ignored it, accepting it as my new normal for the next week and a half. As the caravan wound through the streets from the airstrip to the base, I strained to see the limited sights from my seat between a female solider and Jenna.

“You nervous? Don’t be, baby, I got you,” a slimy voice drawled in my ear.

I didn’t give the speaker even a flicker of a glance as I blindly swatted behind my head. “Shove it, Blake.”

Blake Powell, the lead singer of Spiral, a three-piece indie rock band, had been hounding me since our initial introduction at a planning meeting a few weeks before the trip. He’d been calling, texting, and had even sent a basket of cookies to my building, and while I’d rejected all of his efforts, that hadn’t stopped him from trying to slither into the seat next to me on the three flights we’d taken, flashing me increasingly obscene gestures, and generally annoying the crap out of me. After thirty-six hours in airports, in flight, and waiting in various security lines and checkpoints, I wasn’t going to play the nice girl anymore.

The others in the van tittered with laughter and I snapped a look behind me at Blake. I immediately sighed, finding him smirking like he was still winning some kind of game.

My best friend, Alissa, back in New York would probably tell me I was crazy. She happened to think the singer was some kind of rock star on the rise. Whatever. Not interested. I was done with people in the industry. Permanently.

Luckily, the ride to the base was short, and as soon as we piled out of the vans, I hurried to stay close to Jenna. She was distracted as always, but even she stopped long enough to consider our surroundings when we were led into the heart of the base. My eyes went wide as they adjusted to the lights and could fully take in the beautiful building. In another life, it served as a palace for one of the area’s wealthy government officials. One that lived like royalty before the world went sideways. The ceilings were painted with breathtaking murals, everything was plated in gold, only made more opulent against the cobalt blue accents of the tile work on the floors under our feet.

Our rooms were just as nice, rivaling five-star accommodations around the world. Most of the production team were paired up and shared rooms, but the talent all received their own rooms. My room had a four-poster bed, a writing desk, and series of bookshelves that were all made from the same dark wood. I traced my fingers along the top of the desk as the soldier who’d accompanied me to the room dropped the bags off. “You need anything else, ma’am?”

I swirled around at his question, offering him a small smile. He looked barely over eighteen. How had he ended up here? A twinge went through my chest as I thought of his family, all likely worried sick for him, and missing him in what was probably his first Christmas away from home. “I have everything I need. Thank you very much.”

He gave me a nod, seemingly suppressing a smile. He took two steps back to the door and then stopped, fidgeting for a moment.

“Was there something you needed?” I asked, raising a brow.

He squeezed his hands together. “Well…my sister’s a really big fan of your music. Would it be okay if we took a selfie? For her?”

I laughed. “Of course.”

He snagged a cell phone from the deep pocket of his fatigues and raced over toward me. He awkwardly wrapped an arm around my shoulders before flipping the camera up to take a selfie. When he’d taken two pictures in rapid fire, he released me, glanced at the screen, and pocketed the phone again. “Thanks. She’ll love it. And be really jealous…” A twinkle of mischief sparked in his green eyes.

I grinned. “Tell you what, bring me a copy and I’ll sign it for you.”

“Really?”

“Sure!”

He scampered away, promising to bring a copy of the photo later that night when he would be back to show the team to the mess hall for dinner. He pulled the door closed behind him, sealing me in the quiet of the large room.

“Great…all alone again,” I said, sighing to myself as I went to retrieve my suitcase from where the soldier had left it by the door. I hoisted it up onto the bed and began unpacking the clothes, setting aside the outfits that would need a little attention from the travel iron stowed away in the bottom of my luggage. Luckily, as a singer-songwriter style artist, I didn’t have much need for crazy costumes when I performed.

Once I finished unpacking the suitcase, I went to work on the garment bag that contained three more outfits. I needed the busywork to keep my mind occupied in the silence of the room. I hummed to myself as I plucked out my favorite performance number, a long red dress, that hugged my curves in all the right places, making me look about ten pounds lighter and always photographed well. A familiar sting ricocheted through my heart as I traced my fingers over the silky soft fabric, remembering that last time I’d worn it.

“It’s still my favorite,” I insisted stubbornly to myself, setting it aside to be steamed.

A soft knock interrupted my thoughts before I could fully nosedive into reminiscing. I smiled to myself, figuring the soldier had raced back to get his autograph. I didn’t think it was close to dinner time, but in all the travel I’d completely lost track of time, or at least what time it was back home, the schedule my body was still stuck on. I pulled the door open and found Jenna, her camera crew, and a guy with a sound boom in his hands, ready to go.

Jenna smiled. “Ready to start filming?” She didn’t wait for me to answer before sweeping into the room.

I whirled around, watching as Jenna and her team snapped into action. “Now? I thought we were starting tomorrow?”

Jenna glanced up from her phone, a frown creasing her nearly wrinkle-free face. “We got word from Dale. The studio wants more personal content with the stars. And since you’re our biggest name, we thought we’d give you the first crack. We’ll get some of these questions out of the way and wrap before dinner and after that, I promise we’ll leave you alone so you can get some real sleep.”

I wanted to argue that I was exhausted but figured the shortest route to getting into the large bed in front of me, was to play along.

With a sigh, I nodded. “Right...Well, can I at least change and run a comb through my hair?”

“No need, the hair and makeup crew are on the way!” Jenna frowned down at her phone, as though just realizing they should have already arrived. She turned to one of the assistants in her wake. “Find them.”

The assistant nodded and hurried back out of the room, her steps echoed down the wide hallway.

Jenna, unruffled, started ordering her crew to get into place. “As you know, most of the TV special is going to be the actual concert, but Dale wants us to add an extra eight minutes of interviews with the stars.”

“And the soldiers?” I asked, shucking off my sweater to reveal the tank top below. It was too tight to wear on camera, but would pair well with my merlot-colored cardigan that I’d just unpacked.

Before I could find the button-up, the bedroom door flew open wide again and the hair and makeup team raced into the room with the now-frazzled looking assistant on their heels. Jenna stashed her phone and instructed the team, “Just a natural look. We don’t have a lot of time before dinner…”

I took the seat indicated, and the duo sprang into action, barely waiting for me to get seated at the desk before pallets of makeup, brushes, and cans of product were scattered over the top of the desk, obscuring the gorgeous wood.

As they worked on pulling me back together—no small feat after spending twelve plus combined hours in airplane air—Jenna took a seat on the loveseat and started rattling off questions. “This is going to be really easy, Sophia. I promise. We’re just going to talk about Christmas-y things. Your favorite memories, childhood traditions, and then we’ll wrap with you giving your best wishes to your family and friends at home. Let’s see here—” She tapped her finger down the front of her electronic tablet.

“This way, Sophia,” Gail, the makeup artist said, tapping gently on my chin.

Normally I kept an eagle eye on new makeup and hair crews, but I was too damned tired to care. My eyes drifted to the four-poster bed and I wished that I could bury under the covers and sleep for a week. “Can you open that top drawer and get the cardigan?” I asked Jenna, trying not to move my mouth too much as eyeliner was applied.

“Don’t worry about wardrobe,” Jenna said, tossing her tablet aside. She leaned forward and clasped her hands together. “I think that’s enough, guys,” she said, tossing a look at each of the two people working on me.

With a final coat of hair spray and a dusting with a clean brush under my eyes to remove any stray sprinklings of eyeshadow, they backed away. I grabbed for the mirror on the desk and looked. “Impressive. I almost look alive,” I muttered.

In reality? The story was a little bit different. The whole ugly, deplorable truth?

I was heartbroken.

It was the first holiday season since my nasty divorce and drowning myself in spiked eggnog wasn’t taking the edge off anymore. Especially not when I had to keep going back to the grocery store to get more, and was faced with the splashy, Christmas-card-perfect images of my ex-husband and his new fling, pop star Jackie—that’s right, just Jackie—ripped straight from her new calendar.

Barf.

In Iraq, I was thousands of miles away from the glossy pages of the rag mags that haunted me, but in the blink of an eye the images could come swimming to the surface with no warning.

“Here you go,” the assistant at Jenna’s side raced forward to hand me a large, cable knit sweater that buttoned up the front and was bedecked with tacky Christmas images. A reindeer, large candy cane, and a few shiny ornaments that were made up of sequence.

“Dale thought it would be fun to do some kind of ugly sweater thing,” Jenna explained with a wry smile as my eyes darted to her.

“Fun? Not sure that’s the right word…” I mumbled, shrugging into the two-sizes-too-big sweater. At least it covered up my overflowing cleavage…

“All right, let’s get the lighting—there, that’s better. Okay! We’re ready! You good, Sophia?”

I nodded, dropping my hands from pulling at the abomination of a sweater.

“Sophia Rossi, Christmas interview, take one.”

Jenna smiled widely, although she wasn’t in frame for the shot, and started her questions, “Tell us about what Christmas means to you, Sophia.”

I smiled, slipping into the public persona that I’d carefully crafted since my first album was released, nearly ten years ago, when I was only fifteen years old. It was as easy as putting on a raincoat after so many years of practice. “Christmas, to me, means spending time with my family and friends. My life, as a touring musician, can get a little hectic, with time on the road and living out of a suitcase. Most years, Christmas is the one time that I have some down time and go home to see my parents, my two brothers, and all my friends.”

Jenna held up her fingers, making an “OK” signal.

I softened my smile. “I wanted to come this year, to perform for the troops, because I know how much Christmas time means to me, and I wanted to do something to give back to them and bring a little holiday cheer into a time when I’m sure most of them are missing home and their own families and friends.”

Jenna and the team behind her beamed at me. She licked her lips and leaned forward again, preparing her next question, “Can you tell us about an important Christmas memory, Sophia.”

My smile widened only to completely crumble as suddenly the image from the Christmas the year before came flooding back to the front of my mind. Roberto, my ex-husband, and me gathered in the living room with our two dogs, a pot of spiced coffee brewing in the background, and the way he’d smiled when he presented me with a small, delicately wrapped gift box. It had contained a sparkling band of emeralds—my birth stone—to go beside my wedding band.

We’d had the perfect Christmas tree, a mound of immaculately wrapped presents, and a savory dinner to share with our house full of guests later that night. It was the perfect day. I’d had no idea that it would be our last Christmas together.

I didn’t even realize I was crying until a tear fell, splashing against the back of my hands that were folded in my lap. With a shake, I tossed aside the beaded tear and hurried to brush off the others that were threatening to spill.

“Sophia?” Jenna’s eyebrows were knit together. “Are you—”

I hopped up from the stool at the desk and raced from the room, barely getting into the hallway before the dam burst and the rest of the tears charged down my face.