Page 105 of Rock On

“All right.” I still felt horrible, but at least this meant I could be proactive. “Should I call her now so you guys can listen in?”

“If you want to.” Kellan nodded.

I pulled out my phone and dialed Freya, putting it on speaker. Unfortunately, it went to voice mail, and I decided to leave a message.

“Hey, Freya, it’s Harley. I wanted to talk to you about your new ad. When I saw you on Monday, you didn’t say a word about using an Onyx Knight song and I’m hurt that you would do something like this. Can you call me back?”

I disconnected and looked around. “I don’t know what else I can do. I feel awful about this.”

“In the future, you have to think about every word that comes out of your mouth with regard to the band,” Madeline said in a sharp voice. “You should know better.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I should know better. I honestly felt like these were my safe place people, from the wellness center. It never occurred to me any of them would do something like this.”

“It was probably just a consequence of opportunity,” Madeline said. “Since no one could have known you were going there—unless Aurora knows someone who works in admissions there—it was probably just a fucked-up coincidence. If Freya happened to mention meeting you, and she was already friends with Aurora, it gave her the opportunity to gain your trust. They both knew the NDA protected you when you were there, but the moment you got out, it was open season.”

“That’s why she met us for lunch when she normally didn’t bother,” I said with a groan. “God, I’m so stupid.”

“Just a little naïve,” Madeline said, her voice gentler now. “Anyway, there’s nothing we can do except keep moving forward. Re-record the songs so we can play them however and whenever you want and then make a formal statement about the situation once we’ve done it.”

“I actually have an idea,” Sasha said, since she’d joined us as well. “I have to run it past my mom, so I don’t want to say anything yet, but trust that I’m working on a plan.”

“Have I told you I love you yet today?” King asked her.

She laughed. “No, but I like hearing it.”

“All right, I’m signing off. I’m going to go over that NDA and reach out to Freya’s counsel to tell her that we’ll be suing them for using the song without our permission. We’re basically blowing smoke up their asses, but it gives me great pleasure to think I’ve given them even a moment of discomfiture.”

“And I’m going to call Kate the minute we hang up,” Dorian said. “Even if she can’t make it go away, she can help me write a better statement that will address some of the issues with the songs. I think we should go public with what’s going on. We can’t stop them from using the songs from those albums however they want in the future, but can control the narrative of why those songs are being used, and let the fans know we’re re-recording the masters, to keep an eye out for new versions of the albums, etc.”

“It can’t hurt,” Madeline said. “And at this point, it doesn’t matter if they know you’re going to re-record those albums. Fuck them. We’re not doing anything wrong.”

“And hopefully, I’ll have good news for you within a week or so,” Sasha said.

“Why won’t you tell us what it is?” Madeline complained.

“I don’t want to jinx anything and, like I said, I have to run this by my mom. I can’t pull this off without her.”

“Well, keep me posted. And don’t do anything without running it by me!” Madeline’s voice was stern. “We’ve had enough surprises this week.”

“Don’t worry—I’m on top of this.” Sasha grinned.

“We could also distract them with news of Tommy and Harley’s upcoming wedding,” Dorian said thoughtfully. “Everyone loves a wedding, and they’ll think Tommy and Harley getting back together is romantic and sweet.”

“That’s a great idea,” Devyn said, nodding.

“I like that,” Madeline said.

“Uh…” Tommy spoke up for the first time and there was a look on his face that made my heart sink. “Let’s hold off on making any announcements about that. We might be putting the wedding thing on hold for now.”

FORTY-ONE

Tommy

I hated the look of hurt and surprise on Harley’s face when I’d said the wedding was on hold, but what else could I do? How could I marry her with this hanging over us? We’d barely gotten back together, and she’d betrayed both me and the band. Even if it wasn’t intentional, she knew better. This wasn’t her first day in a relationship with someone in Onyx Knight. She’d been the wife of a rockstar for years, and now she was actually a business partner since she controlled Carter’s interests.

How could she have done something like this?

I was reeling, waging an internal war with myself over all the different emotions I was battling. Anger at her carelessness. Frustration that she’d blown things up within days of getting engaged. Hurt that she would do something like this. And guilt because I knew my reaction was hurting her as much as it hurt me.

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