Page 72 of Serving the Maestro

“Physically?” Cam sighed. “No. But there’s nothing but a blank spot between the time she had the drink he probably spiked with a date-rape drug and when she woke up at his place. She’s kind of a mess right now. Trent, I don’t know if you’re aware, but she fell for you. I know that’s not the sort of relationship either of you planned, but she was happy with you—the kind of happy she hasn’t ever been. Then you were gone, and I pushed her into saying yes to this asshole, and he...” Her voice cracked. “I’m going to kill him, but that’s another topic altogether. If you care about her, you should be here.”

Her words hit me like a fist—several fists. One was a blow straight to my heart, already bruised from walking away, leaving the only woman I’d ever cared for. The other was straight to my gut, knocking the breath out of me as I tried to process what Cam was saying.

Jazz had feelings for me.

And all that fucking paled under the news Cam had given me.

Some bastard had drugged and raped her.

“Trent?”

“I’m here.” My voice sounded raw and gritty like I’d sucked in a bucket of sand.

“Can you come?”

“Fuck.” I shoved a hand through my hair and spun away from the window to look at the piano, the notes I had spread on the table near the far wall, the project board hanging above it. “I was just contracted to do a movie soundtrack. I’m literally supposed to be meeting my agent and the movie director in a couple of hours.”

“I see.” Cam drew in a breath and blew it out. “Well, okay, then. I’ll take care of her. Bye, Trent.”

“Cam, wait. It’s not that I don’t want to be there. But I signed a fucking contract. I...fuck.”

“You gotta do what you gotta do, Trent,” she said, voice soft, sympathetic even. “I’ll take care of Jazz. The two of us have been holding each other up for a long time now. Good-bye.”

* * *

“I can’t fuckin’ believe it.” The words exploded from Joe Hook, Jr for what had to be the third time since we had been seated in a semi-private nook in a new Beverly Hills restaurant Joe had sworn was worth dying for.

So far, I wasn’t impressed by anything, from him to the wine list to the appetizers that had been brought out, but then, my mind was almost three thousand miles away. They could serve me deep-fried sawdust, and I probably wouldn’t notice.

“You boys are way too calm about this. Don’t you know what a problem this is?” Joe leaned forward, his elbow bumping into the glass of bourbon—filled almost to the brim he’d poured from the bottle he had brought to the table.

Some of it splashed out, and he swore, grabbing a napkin and blotting at it as if the liquor had jumped out of the glass to attack his white linen shirt.

“Fucking service around here,” he muttered. “Open a month, and it’s already going downhill.”

“Maybe if you didn’t fill it to the brim or bash things with your elbows,” I muttered.

Under the table, Stephen kicked me.

Hook narrowed his eyes and leaned back.

I returned his stare.

“Guess we’re all on edge about the news that we can’t start as early as hoped.”

Considering I’d just signed on the fucking dotted line, I hadn’t expected to start working for several weeks—or longer. I’d much rather be on a plane flying to New York City.

I didn’t point that out, though. I gave a humorless smile. “What are you going to do?”

“Fuckin’ A.” Hook grabbed his bourbon and tossed half of it back. Making a face, he hit his chest with a closed fist. “Yeah, that’s the stuff.”

The server reappeared at that moment and served our entrees. Hook, fortunately, decided not to be an ass, and we were left alone in under two minutes.

“Okay.” Hook gave me a sidelong glance, talking around a mouth full of food. “Here’s what I think we should do. Sure, our leading lady is holding shit up—nobody has a work ethic these days. But we’ve got others ready to go, and I think we should get started on rehearsals. We can have somebody do Divinity’s lines, and that way, Trent, you can get a better feel for the movie from the get-go.”

“If that’s how you want to go, I’ll give it a try.” Staring into my glass, swirling it, so the amber liquid sloshed around, I wondered how Jazz was. Had Cam stayed with her? Was she alone? Fuck, my head was a mess.

“Great to see how enthusiastic you are, Dixson,” Hook said, the words thick with sarcasm.

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