Mabel Clarens sat opposite Nate in the conference room at Derek’s studio. The short, curvy PR manager that had accosted him outside Starbucks, was younger than her name suggested and just as feisty as the day he met her. Her brown hair was pulled back in a sensible ponytail and her pale grey eyes regarded Nate shrewdly. Beside her sat Wade Vincent, the man Lily Ames had recommended to be Nate’s manager, dirty blonde hair and blue eyes and a hunger that Nate recognized. These two seemed perfect for the team he was building for himself. The only problem was, they hated each other.

“I really don’t see why you need both of us,” Mabel said. “I’m more than capable enough to handle your management as well as your PR.”

Wade scoffed but didn’t say anything.

“I’m sure you are, Mabel,” Nate said with a sigh, “but I’ve already spent five years in this business being under-represented and it’s cost me. I want that to change. I need people on my side, working for my best interests. Are you telling me you can’t work with Wade?”

She turned her head to regard the man sitting beside her. “I can work with him,” she said through gritted teeth, “I just don’t see why I should have to.”

They regarded each other coldly and Nate shook his head.

“The thing is, Mabel, if you want to work for me, that means working with Wade. Take it or leave it.”

Her eyes snapped back to Nate and narrowed. “Fine, it’s your dime.”

“Excellent,” Nate said with a grin. “So what have you got for me?”

“Social media,” she snapped out. “You have no presence on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.”

“I don’t have time for—”

“Bullshit,” she said. “You don’t need a lot of time and, if you choose Instagram as your ‘go-to’ platform, it will automatically post to the other sites.”

“Do people really want to see pictures of my breakfast?”

She shook her head in disgust. “Nate, people want to see anything and everything about you. The fans want to get inside your life and feel like they know you and social media is how you make that happen.”

“She’s right,” Wade said.

“Ooh, say that again.”

“What?”

“Tell me I’m right. I never get tired of hearing that.”

Wade smirked at her and she just grinned. Nate thought it was the first time he’d seen her smile and it transformed her face. She had dimples, of all things. She was like one of those Kewpie dolls that you used to get at the fair…until she opened her mouth.

“Whatever,” Wade said, turning away from her. “You’ve been a bit like a Prince in an ivory castle and kept your fans at an arm’s length. That’s not how it works anymore. Fans want their rock stars more attainable, relatable. That’s why I’ve booked you to play The Summer Festival.”

“What?” Nate almost stood to his feet in outrage. He was a goddamned rock star, he didn’t need to play festivals. He waited for Mabel to call Wade out but she was looking at him with a calculating eye.

“I agree,” she finally said and Nate wondered if he’d made a mistake in hiring them.

“You can’t say it, can you?” Wade looked at her, a gleam in his eye.

“Say what?”

“That I’m right.”

“Pfft,” she said turning away. “You just got lucky.”

“Stop it,” Nate said. “I’m already sick of your bickering. Now tell me what the hell you mean by booking me at a festival.”

Wade sighed. “You think you’re too good to play a festival.” It wasn’t a question but a statement.

“I—” What could he say? It was true.

Mabel sighed. “You’re not the megastar you were three years ago Nate,” she said. “Your third album disappointed your long term fans and your fourth album alienated them. You need to make amends and win them back. Cutting a track with Stevie Jacks will only get you so far. Lots of your fans aren’t going to trust you and will hold off buying your record until they can believe in you again. Doing the festival will help ease their consciences about you.”

“What about my time in the studio? Won’t doing a festival waste that time?”

“The festival is late summer, towards the end of Stevie’s tour. The recording should be done by then and you will be just about ready to release. It’s the perfect timing,” Wade explained.

“You both think I should do this?”

They both nodded, staring Nate down.

“Fine,” he said with a sigh.

He had never really given much thought to the fact that he would have to win fans back. He knew that they hadn’t been happy with his last album. He’d read the hate mail and the reviews, but he had just expected them to still be there, ready to lap up whatever he put out next. Even in the early days, he hadn’t had to win them over. He and Stevie had had a pretty good fan base before Gina had ‘discovered’ him and they had eagerly bought his first album, although a few had been miffed that he’d gone solo.

Going with Rocksteady had insulated him from what it really meant to be a recording artist and he hadn’t even known it. The last couple of weeks had been eye-opening for him as he worked with Stevie and her band and now with his management team. He still had to find his own lawyer and he dreaded what the guy (or woman) would find in his contract. He had been no more than a puppet for Rocksteady and for the first time in his career he wanted to take charge. All this time he thought he was steering the ship, only to realize that he hadn’t even taken the wheel. It was time for that to change and if that meant doing a festival in the boonies, he would.

Mabel had set him up with an Instagram account and showed him how to use it. He still wasn’t a hundred percent sure that he was doing the right thing, but he needed to trust her. Things couldn’t get much worse than they already were. He’d finally had a ‘come to Jesus’ moment and realized just how much he had damaged his ‘brand’ by letting Rocksteady dictate to him. Yeah, he was learning all the lingo now and Mabel was constantly on his case about upping his social media presence. She’d even written him a schedule of photos to take and post each day and if he didn’t keep to it, she was on his case. He’d thought it was a load of crap to start with, but everyday his phone exploded with fans liking his posts and new fans following him, so he had to admit that Mabel had been right.

“I never get tired of hearing it,” she said with a grin, her dimples winking at him.

Her gruff manner was growing on him and they were building a cautious friendship to go along with their professional relationship. He was pretty sure Derek had a crush on her and more often than not he took her side whenever she and Nate argued. He was surprised the two of them hadn’t met before, but Nashville was a big town.

They had finally gotten into the studio and laid down the tracks for the song he would sing with Stevie and her band. Jace had been almost unbearably persnickety about every little detail that Nate was just about to pull his hair out in frustration until he heard the uncut version. That had shut him up. The song itself was good, but Jace had turned it into something great. He had to give the guy credit, he was a freaking genius.

“What do you think?” Stevie asked, flopping into the chair beside him as he listened to the playback.

Derek had gone to tend to some crisis in another studio and it was just him and Stevie in the control room.

“It’s fucking amazing,” he said in awe. “Jace has got that special touch.”

She smiled and he was struck again by her beauty. It seemed such a clichéd thing to think, but he couldn’t help it. Why had he never seen it before now?

“I told you it was worth the pain,” she said with a laugh.

He let his eyes roam over her, cataloguing the small differences that he noticed. When they’d parted ways, she still had something of the ‘little girl’ about her, but that was long gone and the person sitting beside him was all woman. Disturbingly so. He wanted to do very grown up things to her, things that he would never had thought of doing with her when they had been partners before. Like fucking her against the wall of the studio.

“You hungry?” he blurted.

She turned to look at him and smiled. “Sure, I could eat.”

They left the studio and climbed into his Porsche. It was just about dusk and warm enough to leave the top down as they drove towards the lights of the city. He parked outside his favorite restaurant and she followed him in. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a small family owned Italian restaurant, but he loved the food and the atmosphere. Mario, the owner, greeted them as they walked in with a big smile and a back slapping hug. The man didn’t care for Nate’s music, but they had developed a friendship over the years of Nate coming here. Mario led them to a secluded table and left them with menus while he went to get them some wine.

“You come here a lot?” Stevie asked as she looked over the simple menu.

“Yeah,” he said with a blush. “Mario’s wife makes the most amazing tomato and basil sauce—”

She giggled and he stopped to watch her, his breath caught in his chest. “What?” he managed to ask past the tightening of his throat.

She shook her head, smiling at him. “You always had a knack for finding the best places to eat,” she said, her voice soft.

“What can I say,” he said with a shrug, “I like food.”

Mario came back with a bottle of red and poured them each a glass. He watched as she lifted hers and took a drink, wanting to lean forward and run his tongue across her lips, tasting the wine that was left there.

“It’s been really great working with you again,” she said.

He closed his eyes and swallowed. “God, Stevie, I should never have walked away from us. I was such an idiot.” He felt her hand cover his and opened his eyes, looking back at her. He wove his fingers through hers, getting lost in her eyes.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” she said. “It’s in the past and we’ve both moved on. Maybe it happened for a reason, even if it wasn’t exactly how we’d planned things to go.”

“You’ve changed,” he said, slowly circling his thumb on the soft skin of her hand.

“For the best, I hope,” she said with a shy smile.

Their waiter broke the spell that had been weaving itself around them and he let go of her hand to lift his menu and order. There was a comfortable silence left behind when the waiter retreated and he wasn’t in any rush to disturb it. Sitting here in the softly lit restaurant with Stevie was exactly where he wanted to be.

“So, you’re happy with the song?” she asked, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Yeah,” he replied, reaching for her hand again. “It’s better than I’d hoped. You guys have a really good sound together.”

She shrugged. “We’ve been working together for a long time now.”

“I met Lily Ames the other day. She loves you and the others.”

“Lily is great. I can’t wait to go on tour with her,” Stevie said.

They talked about the tour and the places they would play. Nate shared some of the stories from his own tours and for the first time in so long, he felt relaxed and completely at ease with himself and with her. They’d had such a solid friendship before he went and ruined it and he felt they were getting a little bit of it back.

The food came and it was delicious, as it always was, and as they finished the bottle of wine and laughed over stories of friends, Nate began to feel something he had never felt before. He didn’t want the evening with Stevie to end. It wasn’t because he wanted to get her into bed (although there was that), it was because she filled a part of him that had felt hollow for far too long. By the end of the meal he knew that he wanted more than just a friendship with her, but he had no idea if she felt the same.

They held hands as they walked to the car and on the drive back to the studio so she could get her car. He opened her door for her and walked with her to her car and he knew that if he didn’t do something to broach what he sensed was growing between them, then he would regret it.

She unlocked her car door and turned to say good night to him. He stood close to her, resting his hands on the roof of her car, caging her in. She looked up at him, her pupils dilated, the pulse point in her throat fluttering and her pink tongue slid across her bottom lip. He watched it and then leant forward and traced the same path with his own tongue. When she gasped, he captured her lips in a gentle kiss, taking his time to relish in their softness. Her hands came up to his chest and he thought for a moment she was going to push him away, but she clutched his shirt and pulled him closer until their bodies were aligned and they touched from shoulder to hip.

He deepened the kiss, threading his hands through her silky hair and angling her head so he could devour her. A small mewl escaped from her mouth as he dragged his lips from hers to trace the line of her jawed down her neck. She arched her back, pressing her breasts into his chest and he settled his mouth over that pulsing point in her neck and sucked gently, careful not to mark her unblemished skin.

“Nate,” she breathed, her hands smoothing up his chest and over his shoulders before burying themselves in his hair at the nape of his neck.

He lifted his head and looked into her eyes, seeing all sorts of emotions flit through them. He knew she was seeing the same in him and fear suddenly took hold. He could lose himself in her, he knew it with sudden clarity, and that frightened him more than he was prepared to admit.

He dipped his head and sipped from her lips, needing one more taste of her before he let her go. And he knew he had to let her go. They couldn’t do this…whatever this was. She was just starting her career and he was trying to get his back on its feet. Neither of them had time to explore what was developing between them, even if the rock hard erection in his pants begged to differ.

He lifted his head away from the lips that he could kiss endlessly and smoothed a stray lock of hair from her face. He saw the confusion in her face and smiled sadly.

“Good night Stevie,” he whispered, dropping a kiss on her forehead before making himself walk away while he still could.