“Again?” Tyler asked, barely hiding a wince.

“I’m just going through it one more time,” I said nervously. “You don’t have to stay, I might be doing this for a while.”

“A while? For one more time?”

I cast him a helpless look, and he backed off with a grin.

“I’ll go…check on the caterers, I guess.”

“Yes! Good idea.”

I felt bad for getting rid of him, but I needed to be focused just then. My tour manager Henry was going to be at my place in a couple of hours, along with Jude and a producer whose name I couldn’t seem to remember, along with their dates. They were coming to listen to my album, which had yet to go through the various checks and approvals. Jude seemed to think that raw was the way to go, and that my previous albums had been too polished.

That terrified me. If this album went out on the air in this condition, it would be all me. One-hundred-percent nothing but me. If that was the case, its success or failure would be my responsibility entirely. Well, mostly. The production and promotion would be up to Jude and Henry. The music, however… With an aggravated sigh, I pushed play on the first song, “Empty Corridors.”

Listening so hard my ears went hot, I watched the sheet music roll, looking for any mistake, any note that wasn’t as good as it could possibly be. The first time I did this, I changed dozens of things. Tiny things. I knew Tyler couldn’t tell the difference, though he had tried very hard to be encouraging. He made a good cheerleader, but a terrible assistant.

The second time through, I changed a dozen more. Third, I found just eight things I could change. Now I was on my umpteenth run-through, and I hadn’t changed anything the last time around. That made me anxious. I didn’t feel like I had perfected it; I still felt like I had missed something. So I sat there for an hour and a half, eyes and ears burning, searching for the something that wasn’t quite right. There was something, I knew there was.

“Wait!” I shouted, pausing the music.

Pulling back on the play bar, I listened to the snippet again. This heartbreaking wail. If the violin went just half a step higher… There. Tear-jerking perfection.

Pleased and relieved, I listened to the rest of the album and found no mistakes. It was solid. Better than solid. All of the raw emotion from my first single mingled with years of experience. This could very well be my masterpiece, but I wasn’t going to designate it as such. If I did, it would make it that much harder for me to create something better later.

“Darlin’, sorry to interrupt, but they’re gonna be here in a few minutes and…” He looked me up and down pointedly as he strode back into the room.

“What? Oh, crap!” I’d been up working since before the crack of dawn and hadn’t yet bothered to get dressed. I was sitting there wearing nothing but one of Tyler’s T-shirts and my underwear.

“Yeah, I was gonna say something when the caterers showed up, but you seemed like you were on a roll,” he said apologetically.

“No, no, it’s fine. How long do I have?” I slid off the bench, casting a reluctant look over my shoulder.

“Fifteen minutes, unless they like to show up places early.”

Oh God. Henry was the type who was late if he wasn’t ten minutes early. I darted past Tyler and made for the stairs, startling a caterer so she nearly dropped her tray.

“Sorry!” I called over my shoulder as I took the stairs two at a time.

Fifteen minutes. No time for a shower. I brushed out my hair and it rebelled, frizzing out on one side and settling into uneven curls on the other. Cursing, I twisted it up on the back of my head and secured it with a big, toothy clip encrusted with costume jewels in virtually unmatchable colors. It was the most frustrating accessory I’d ever owned, but it was the only one I had ever found that was big enough to handle all of my hair.

“Casual dinner party, they said. No such thing, Jude, no such thing.”

I frantically flipped through my dresses, hoping it wasn’t obvious that I hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. A dubious glance down my leg had me spinning to the other side of the closet, looking through my pantsuits. Everything looked terrible through the panic filter. Finally settling on thin turquoise leggings beneath a short white halter dress, I threw the rest of my outfit together in record time.

Henry’s car pulled into the driveway just as I sat down to put on my makeup.

“Breathe,” I ordered myself. It wouldn’t do me any favors to come down looking like a clown.

The doorbell rang and I heard Tyler answer it. He had grown more comfortable in my house over the last few weeks, and had slipped seamlessly into the role of host.

“He’ll keep him occupied,” I told myself firmly.

Calmer now, I applied a sheer, modest look in smoky nudes. The only pop was at my lips; coral, to match the vaguely retro look I had managed to pull together. A chunky bracelet and matching necklace later, I was as ready as I would ever be to eat with the dictators of my life and livelihood. My white satin ballet flats nearly slid off the first step, making my entrance far more dramatic than I wanted it to be.

Breathe, damn it, I told myself.

I made my way down the stairs as gracefully as I could without killing myself. At the bottom, I followed the masculine laughter into the drawing room, which had been decked out with discreet tables topped with drinks and appetizers. This caterer was golden. I made a mental note to ask Tyler how he found them, because I certainly hadn’t had time to do it.

Henry had his arm hooked around a gorgeous woman’s waist, and was talking animatedly to Tyler. I didn’t have to know what they were saying to pick up on the friendly chemistry, and I grinned. Henry was one of my favorite people, and it pleased me to see that he got along so well with my absolute favorite person. Henry saw me before Tyler did, and his smile widened.

“There she is! Woman of the hour. Good to see you, sweetheart. How’ve you been?” Henry abandoned his date to clasp my hands and kiss my cheeks, gestures which I returned enthusiastically.

“Oh, you know, completely out of my mind,” I said lightly.

He saw the truth of my statement in my eyes and chuckled softly. “Nearly there, love. Before you know it, your album will be winning awards and your world tour will be a happy, hectic memory. I’d like you to meet my date, Desiree.”

“W-world tour?” I asked in a small voice, sparing a weak smile for Henry’s wholesomely gorgeous girlfriend.

“Spilling the beans without me, Henry?” Jude’s booming voice filled the room.

I turned to greet him. He had a blonde on his arm who was half his age at best, soft of mouth and shrewd of eye. Behind them, two androgynously dressed people—who I assumed were the producer and their date—followed. I then realized with a cold wave of panic that I didn’t know if the producer was a man or a woman.

“Hey, dollface. Nice digs,” Jude said with a leering grin. He looked me up and down appraisingly, and I suppressed that familiar feeling of being a cow on an auction block. “Paisley Abbott, this is my date, Stephanie.”

“Tiffany,” she corrected pertly.

“Yes, Paisley this is Tiffany.”

I greeted her warmly, apologizing for Jude with my eyes. She accepted in kind, shrugging it off. We both knew why she was there. As long as he remembered her name when she convinced him to sign her, she would have won.

“And this is the producer I was talking to you about, Dana Jade Shuffle.” He brought one of the androgynous couple forward.

Jade… Green, like his…her? Their hair.

“Pleasure to meet you, Dana,” I said warmly, accepting their hand.

“Pleasure’s all mine, sugar. This is my partner, Sky.” Dana ushered Sky forward, and I grinned as I registered that Sky’s hair was blue. Color-coded couples; now there was an idea.

“I’m a huge fan, Ms. Abbott,” Sky said in a sultry tone, and the earnest compliment filled me with warmth, easing my nerves.

I introduced Tyler to the whole group, and he was greeted in varying degrees of warmth and disinterest. I cringed when Jude’s date barely looked at him, her eyes glazing over when his name didn’t ring any famous bells.

Tyler seemed to take it in good humor, winking at me conspiratorially.

“Not to be judgmental or nothin’, but I think half these people need a stickectomy.”

I snorted a laugh, earning myself a scandalized look from Jude’s date. Stephanie? No, Bethany. Damn it, why did he always date the same type? Oh, whatever. If she couldn’t be bothered to learn Tyler’s name, I wasn’t going to kick myself for not learning hers.

After a lot of greetings and small talk, we moved to the dining room where the first of three courses had just been served.

I took the head of the table, and Tyler took the foot, happily greeting Henry at his left and Henry’s date on his right, the three of them immediately diving back into the animated conversation they’d started in the other room.

The table was small enough for easy conversation in every direction, but large enough to give everyone ample room to eat. The various couples were all seated across from each other, which kept conversation flowing. Eventually talk worked its way back around to me and my album, which killed my appetite mid-bite of crab puff.

“So, I guess Henry already told you about the world tour, that backstabbing glory pirate,” Jude said, softening his words with a friendly grin in said pirate’s direction.

“Nothing beyond those two words,” I told him. “What’s the plan with that?”

“Starts with you, as usual,” Jude told me. “I hope you put together something brilliant, because this whole plan revolves around what you’ve got to play for us tonight.”

My stomach rolled over and I swallowed hard. It wasn’t that good, it was actually terrible, I should run back in there right now and scrap the whole thing, tell him it was a technical glitch… Tyler caught my eye from across the table and winked at me, grinning broadly. Relaxing ever so slightly, I allowed myself a deep, steadying breath.

“All right, brilliant album. Next?”

“After that, obviously, Dana and I go to work on it. It won’t be like the others. We won’t change your arrangements at all. Dana’s job is simply to pull out the natural beauty of your songs. Polishing the stone with water rather than wax, so to speak. Dana will also be choosing the specific artists to play the other instruments; the right artist will add depth without detracting or distracting from the whole.”

“Sounds pretty standard so far,” I said, a bit puzzled. “What’s the rest of it?”

“That’s where we get into Henry’s territory, and mine as well, of course,” Jude said, leaning back and lacing his hands over his belly. “I’ll be sending samples of your best songs to my global contacts, putting out feelers for a tour. Sky—social media guru—will be running polls and… What did you say you were doing? Crawling?”

“Close enough,” Sky said with a shrug. “Basically, I’m just going to keep an eye on your trends, Paisley. You already have a following in the UK, Germany and Australia. It won’t take much of a push to get you trending in New Zealand and the rest of Europe.”

“Oh,” I said weakly. “So you’re going to do pre-release samples, and then…?”

“Interviews! Video calls, mostly. Henry, Sky, and I will root out the best outlets. You’re looking at about a dozen interviews before your tour.”

I nodded, my brain working quickly. “Softening, building hype, connecting…then the tour?”

“A huge tour,” Jude said, grinning like a shark. “You’ll circle the globe, playing shows in every country.”

I felt faint.

“Not every country,” Henry corrected quickly. “There’s no way I could arrange that, and you’d be forty before that tour finished. We’re going to hit the big cities, and the ones with the most hype per capita. You’re looking at three months on the road, tops.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and shot Henry a grateful look. I met Tyler’s eyes, and he smiled at me. Did he have any idea what that would mean? Three months of nothing but travel? Jet lag, not enough sleep, high-energy performances every night… He would barely recognize me by the end of it.

“Trial by fire,” I murmured under my breath.

“What’s that?” Jude asked.

“‘Trial by Fire,’” I repeated out loud. “Last song on the album. I think it’ll be the biggest single on there.”

I didn’t, but you never know. Once in a while, a song would break the mold and become an instant classic. Not that I was putting myself up there with the greats or anything. This was no Bohemian Pie or American Rhapsody… I shook my head in frustration. I always got scrambled under stress.

Oh, God. I would have to do interviews. The ultimate scramblers. I sought Tyler’s eyes and found them steady. His gaze anchored me, balanced me. Just keep looking at me like that, I asked him silently. Do that, and we’ll get through this whole.