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At that exact moment, there was a knock at the conference door, and then it opened to reveal Asher looking put-together and serene. He looked around the room, freezing up when he saw Jade. Her cheeks went rosy pink at the sight of him.
“What is this about?” Asher asked, folding his arms over his chest.
The dark-haired woman beside Jade stood up and cleared her throat.
“Ahem. I assume all parties are present now, yes?” she chirped.
Bruce nodded, and she went on. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Renee Coulson, and I work for a PR firm. Miss Haverland here is my client. I’ll be honest—when Jade came to me with this… little entanglement, I told her to keep it quiet. Pretend it never happened. Nobody is hurt, and no one’s the wiser. But she was very adamant that we call this meeting today.”
“What for?” questioned Blaze, his arm around Giselle’s shoulders protectively.
“To confess,” the pink-haired pop star blurted out. “Thanks, Renee. I can take it from here. Giselle, first of all, I just want to apologize. My actions over the past few months have been really out of character for me. I let my personal feelings cloud my judgement, and for that, I am so sorry.”
Giselle looked utterly lost. “Jade, we’ve only met once before, at that bar when I performed. What is there to say sorry for?”
Jade bit her lip. “Well, we may have only met once, but… I’ve been around.”
“What does that mean?” Asher prompted. “Jade, what did you do?”
She stared at him, eyes shining with contrite tears. “Look, I just misunderstood the whole situation. Asher, I had a massive crush on you the whole time we worked together on ‘Topanga Smile’ earlier this year. I don’t know if you knew.”
He nodded slowly. “I had a feeling.”
“Anyway, after the song came out and our contract ended, I was devastated. I thought maybe, just maybe, if you spent some more time with me, you’d feel the same way, too,” she murmured sadly. “And then I found out through the grapevine that you and Blaze Norton were going to be working with Tortured Hearts. Specifically, with you, Giselle.”
The pop star could hardly make eye contact with Giselle. Blaze held her tight.
“I had to meet you in person, size up the competition,” explained Jade. “I found out you were playing that bar that night.”
“I remember that,” Blaze interjected.
“I didn’t mean to distract the crowd from your performance when I showed up. I just… didn’t think it through,” she said. “I saw Asher there. And Blaze. Not only did you get to have Asher, but you had another hot guy hanging on your every word. I couldn’t stand it. I’ve never felt jealousy like that before. So when my arrival threw off your performance, it was an accident… but I liked it. It made me feel powerful to have sway over your audience. If you could steal Asher from me, I would steal your fans from you.”
“What? Jade, you have tons of adoring fans already,” Giselle pointed out.
She shrugged. “Maybe. But you have him. I know it makes me sound crazy, but that first taste of power went to my head. I became obsessed with sabotaging your career, Giselle. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I have to come clean.”
“What did you do?” Asher pressed her.
Jade fidgeted, averting her eyes. “I started watching you guys from afar. I followed you on social media. I already know where you live, Giselle—we go to the same coffee shop in Silver Lake. So when you all went together to that hiking trail out in the desert, I followed.”
“You slashed my tires?” Giselle asked, stunned.
“Yeah. It was way harder than it looks on TV,” she admitted. “But it didn’t work. You three kept hanging out together, and I was so jealous. I wanted to go to the beach. I wanted that romantic late-night dinner at the fancy restaurant. When I saw you all come out of the restaurant, my heart broke. I was so hurt, so angry. I snapped those photos of the three of you.”
“And sold it to a tabloid?” Asher demanded angrily.
She looked offended. “Sell it? No, I gave them the photos anonymously.”
“Just to screw up our lives?” Blaze growled. “To fuck with Giselle’s future? I suppose you were the one who caused all that traffic on our recording day, too?”
“Recording day?” she repeated, confused.
“Tenth of June,” said Asher.
Her eyes went wide as saucers. “Oh my god. That’s the day I filmed my music video in downtown LA. We blocked off, like, two major roads to put it together. That is until it started pouring down rain and all my backup dancers went running off. What a disaster.”
“That was you?” Asher asked.
