Page 1 of Heartbreaker

CHAPTER ONE

Royal

I fucking hate this shit.

The cameras. The lights. The vapid, plastic celebrities surrounding me on all sides.

It’s fake as shit.

Always.

“Smile,” Briar, my little sister in all but blood, orders from next to me. “The camera’s on you.”

“Fuck the cameras,” I mutter, but I do it from between gritted teeth that are exposed because I’ve forced my mouth into some semblance of a smile.

It feels rusty. Unused.

Because I haven’t had much to smile about over the last couple of years.

“Play the game and they go away,” she says, leaning close and speaking into my ear so that no TikTokkers can play Read Our Lips later today. “You know that I’m right.”

I do.

Hence the reason I’m fucking smiling.

Hence the reason I’m fuckingherein the first place.

A godawful way to spend an evening—sitting in uncomfortable chairs while listening to badly produced musical numbers, a host who’s desperate to be funny but is only cringeworthy, and people with far too much power getting thanked for doing nothing.

I grind my teeth together.

BecauseI’mthe one who’s doing nothing now.

Ever since the accident?—

“And the winner for Song of the Year is…”

“Here we go!” Briar says, taking my hand—my fuckinghand—and squeezing it.

Even as I process the touch—dulled, wrong—and fight down the urge to recoil from the contact, the presenter continues talking.

“...Forever in Rewindby Jade Cantrell!”

The crowd erupts into applause while Briar squeals and leans into me, “You did it!”

Surreptitiously, I pull my hand from hers, nod at the stage. “No.Shedid it.”

The tiny slip of a woman in a huge, sparkling ball gown who’s hugging someone next to her then standing. The beautiful female who’s somehow gracefully ascending the stairs that lead up to the stage despite the miles and miles of fabric that are practically dwarfing her petite frame.

Jade Cantrell.

A small-town country girl who was making a name for herself in Nashville?—

At least until the surprise genre-bending crossover hit (that I wrote) topped the Billboard charts and propelled her into worldwide stardom.

And Jade became the biggest musical act in the world right now.

Selling out stadiums.

---