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Chapter Thirty-Six
Please, Emily, put on our video.
Nash wasn’t sure if she’d trust him this one last time, but it was crucial to her career that she did. If not, Emily would look like a cheap hack who’d been desperate for any means to get famous, even use and abuse her fans’ eager and gullible natures by making a mockery of love. She’d be worse than #LittleMissHarvestRanch. No, she’d be #LittleMissMiscreant, which was why she had to perform that song now!
It was providence that she’d written it, because it would save her.
Nash stepped closer to the Sugary Pops vendor tent, smelling the sweet smells of hotcakes permeate the air. It only made him sick. For not the first time since he’d tangled with Lynch, his appetite was gone. He used the nylon edges of the tent for his cover and pushed his ball cap further down against his forehead.
River finished his final song and left the stage. He was completely oblivious to what had happened to his sister, but Emily would know. Mia would set off the alarm backstage. Nash had no doubt that Lynch had sent one of his henchmen here tonight. How else had he known the exact moment to release the video? Lynch had timed its release to coincide perfectly with River’s performance and Emily’s curtain call, giving her little scramble time to fix this. Her whole show was sabotaged.
A silence descended over the fairgrounds, an unnatural sound as Nash watched formerly friendly faces glare up at the stage. Emily marched out from behind the curtain. She looked like a hick with an uptown twist in her black silky baby doll dress that she wore with those red cowboy boots that always drove him crazy.
He gulped in surprise. He’d expected her to come out with her brother or Mia, but she was by herself, and it was clear by the defiant set of her shoulders that she’d fought her brother and everyone else to go out there to face her “sins.”
Was she nervous? He couldn’t tell. Straightening his shoulders, he lifted his phone and pushed record. Everything hinged on what she did. Emily slid out the microphone. The normally smooth sound screeched through his ears like the diesel engine from his old truck.
His hands were actually sweating. He’d never felt anything like it. He was afraid of nothing, but when he watched that little girl on the stage above him, he realized that she meant everything to him, and… because of that, he knew what fear was. He’d change places with her in an instant, even go up there to hold her hand, but… he couldn’t put her in that kind of danger.
If he got her through this, the nightmare still wouldn’t be over for him.
Emily held that remote he’d given Liv in her hands. He let out a breath of relief. A part of him had wondered if going behind Emily’s back would work, and so far, it had. The curtains behind her opened to a screen, just like the production team had agreed on doing.
So far, Emily hadn’t said anything to the crowd. That was probably for the best. She’d be overpowered by a flood of boos and hisses. His shoulders felt tight with the tension as she fiddled with that remote in her hands. He’d given her that so that playing the video would be her decision. As much as it killed him, she might choose to ride through this scandal in her own way.
“Well.” She broke her silence as she looked over the crowd. It seemed as if she was seeking individual faces as she addressed them. “I bet you have a few questions.”
“I’ll be your pretend boyfriend!” her first heckler shouted out. More voices joined his to add to Emily’s humiliation.
She made a breathless sound as she bit her lip. “Uh, thanks, well, I’ve already got one of those… sorta. I hope this give you some answers.” She pointed the remote at the spot under the screen where he’d told Liv the sensor would be.
This was a true act of faith.
Immediately the screen came to life with the blackmail footage, and Emily’s laugh echoed through the fairgrounds. There the two of them were, sitting on that soft couch together, reliving Nash’s memories. Emily looked up at him. He noticed her long legs in those cute pajama shorts, like he had the night she’d worn them. Those red boots of hers were discarded over the carpet to the side of them.
“Why don’t you tell me how much you charge for your fake boyfriend services?” Emily asked him. “The world still needs to be tricked into believing that I’ve got what it takes to go big.”
He watched her with his heart in his eyes. How could anyone miss how much he’d fallen for her?“One fake boyfriend coming up,” he said.
His own lips burned as he watched himself kiss her. He’d been desperate to touch her that night, to feel her skin against his. No matter how much anyone tried to steal this moment from them, they’d never feel the softness of her kisses or taste those delectable lips. His steely determination simmered inside him—the feel of her precious heart thrashing against his racing one that night belonged to him alone.
The scene shifted from Nash and Emily canoodling on the couch to begin the montage of every stolen moment that the paparazzi had caught of them. Eva Trout had helped Nash cut the blackmail footage into more tantalizing vignettes, followed by a montage of every viral snippet on social media from these last few weeks to make a cheesy music video. If anyone was up to the challenge of making the “leaked” video seem like a shameless teaser for Emily’s debut album, it was Eva.
She was the TalkieTalk queen of social media, after all!
As the supposed music video played behind Emily, her band started the first strains of “Little Miss Small Town.”
They’d gotten the memo. Now it was up to Emily to carry this.
Could she do it?
Her hand looked fused to the microphone. She watched the video with almost as much interest as the concertgoers, but when it came to doing her part of the song, she swung around and growled out the beginning notes like a tigress.
“Oh woe is me, little ol’ Miss Small Town met the bad boy from Tennessee.
Now she’s little Miss Miscreant snuggled next to him in his pickup truck.”
His heart expanded with pride.
