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But silence had been his answer. She had so many unspoken words of rage rolling around in her mind.Jordan doesn’t care.He is ashamed of me.I’m not good enough.
As the car pulled up out the front of her house, Chloe climbed out. Her assistants were still prattling on, offering their sympathies, but her thoughts were elsewhere. Her sleeping muse had woken. The lyrics of a song were forming in her mind. She didn’t want to hear anything more from Marta or Gabriela, their words were just noise.
“Thanks for your support tonight, I appreciate it. I’m going to go to bed. I’m exhausted. I won’t need anything else tonight, so the two of you can both go home.”
Gabriela shifted on the seat and leaned out the car door. “Are you sure? My girlfriend is out of town this weekend, so it’s not a problem if you need someone to sleep over.”
“Thanks Gab, but I’m fine. Tonight was great. Three awards. And this dress made it to the top of all the best dressed lists. That’s another win for Stixxluv and his talent. I’ll see you girls tomorrow.”
In the privacy of her bedroom, Chloe quickly changed out of her daring outfit, and gently peeled the Hollywood tape from her breasts. After scraping all the heavy makeup from her face and brushing out her hair, she hit the shower. Standing under the hot water, her creative mind shifted into full flow.
At three am, she called and left a message on Kevin Smith’s voice mail. “Hi, Kevin. It’s Chloe. Do you remember how we said we were missing a killer track for the album? Well I think I might have found it a few weeks too late, but we could still release it as a single.”
He called her straight back. “If you can describe the song for me in a couple of words, I might be able to fit you in, baby gal.”
Chloe sucked in a deep breath. “How does a breakup, revenge song sound?”
“Get on a plane.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
Laguna Beach aka Jordan’s version of hell
Mid-August.
Five long weeks post break up
“And now for the song of the summer, the song which is on such high rotation at our radio station that we have stopped scheduling any other songs. Only kidding, folks. We thought the pop queen might have slipped with her latest album, but it turns out she was messing with us. And Zapp, wherever you are, bro, you picked the wrong woman to cross. So, here it is, Chloe’s, ‘Bitter Babe.’”
The opening strains of what was now a very familiar tune filled the cab of Jordan’s SUV. He’d only been back at Laguna Beach for two weeks, exposed once again to the outside world, and he’d heard this song more times than his broken heart could count.
Berlin was cold, but you heated my blood
I thought I knew what pain was
But you took it to a new level
Am I bitter, babe
What do you think?
On the hour—every fucking hour—he was treated to the joy of what the press were calling Chloe’s rogue revenge song. Rogue because it hadn’t been on the album. Revenge, because Zippo or whatever his damn name was, had apparently been a douche and broken her heart. The fact that Chloe’s rebound romance had been short-lived—barely three weeks—didn’t make it any easier on Jordan. While he’d been stuck in rehab, she’d been busy with a freaking rock star. A douche who was now her ex.
The song was pure torture. He knew damn well that Chloe wasn’t singing about the lead singer of Sibling Rivalry when she said he’d lied to her and stolen her happiness.
She was singing about him.
He flicked the dial in the SUV’s entertainment system to another radio station. “Bitter Babe”was just ending on that one. “Who knows? I might make it all the way back to the resort without having to hear it in full again.”
Then again, he might just start listening to theThis Date in Weather Podcast. Hearing the guy list all the insurance losses was far more soothing than having to endure Chloe tearing literal strips off him over the airwaves.
The August weather in Laguna Beach was mild, but for Jordan he was living in the center of a burning hell. His former secret ex had written a mega hit in which she’d told the entire world what a piece of work he was, and he couldn’t get away from it. All day every day, it found its way into his life. Whenever the song came on the radio in the office at the resort the staff turned it up. Jordan spent so much time gritting his teeth, that his jaw ached.
If the song had been the only issue in his life, he might have been able to handle it, but the resort launch was fast looking like it was going to be a billion-dollar failure. During his three week stay at the clinic in New Jersey, all the balls he’d been so desperately juggling had hit the ground. In his absence, Sheila had done all she could, but with his stay at the clinic a closely guarded secret, she’d had her work cut out for her.
I’ve been so focused on getting control of myself, that I’ve lost control of things here.
Once he arrived back at the resort, he parked his SUV and headed for the main office. He barely had time to throw his jacket over a chair and sit behind his desk before his new assistant manager Austin Brown appeared in the doorway and handed Jordan this afternoon’s shitlist.
