Page 158 of Songbird: Black Kite
The fans. The money.
The infamy.
I had loved it.Neededit.
So, rather than face what life would be like outside of being a rock star, I’d followed Castor’s lead.
Every decision I’d made, every direction I’d taken, had been, in some way, guided by him.
Him or his pit viper of a daughter.
Looking at him now—so comfortable in his wealth and position—I couldn’t even drum up an ounce of sympathy for what I was about to do.
“I just don’t know what you were thinking, Hawk,” Cornelius said, his brow furrowed in displeasure as he glared at us from across the table. The guys sat on the same side as me, with Mick to my right and Alex and Gavin to my left. All of us lined up shoulder to shoulder, creating a united front.
Because we were gonna fuckin’ need it.
“Flouncing around in some backwater garbage dump of a town, having verbal confrontations with the locals.” He shook his head, staring at me like a disappointed father. “Do you have any idea how influential the McQueen family is in that part of the country? That woman’s father owns a sizable portion of the remaining manufacturing plants in the mid-west, not to mention his real estate holdings. And there you were, getting aggressive with his daughter and her husband like it was one of your trashy parties.”
By the end of his speech Castor’s voice had risen to that haughty tone that I was more than familiar with; he’d used it on us guys more than once when he’d felt we’d fucked up somehow.
Typically, I let that tone convince me that I was in the wrong, shaming me into apologizing for whatever imagined slight he was pissed about.
This time, I wasn’t going to let it get to me.
“I didn’t get aggressive with anyone, Cornelius,” I replied, my tone neutral.
“Well, there are a handful of videos flying around the internet that make it look like that’s exactly what you did.”
I’d seen the videos he was talking about, and I wasn’t nearly as concerned as he was.
It had been all over the internet by the time the sun had risen the morning after our botched date in Grand Rapids. A video of the encounter with Wren’s childhood nemesis and her idiot husband, taken by one of the few other patrons in the restaurant. It showed me scowling down at Denise while her husband stood by, slack-jawed and bumbling. The sound was terrible—whoever had taken it had been too near the noisy kitchen to actually catch the words we’d said—but words weren’t needed. It was enough that my angry face was front and center as I glared at the pair of them before I leaned down and kissed Wren.
It wasn’t much, but for the world of celebrity gossip, it had been enough. Blogs and Instagram pages had blown up with speculation about who I’d kissed and what it could mean. Who was the mystery woman that Hawk Jameson was willing to fight for? Was she the reasonBlack Kitehad broken up?
It also hadn’t taken them long to reveal exactly who Wren was and tear her life apart.
I tried to be mad about that part, but it was the reason she was currently at my house, hopefully still lying naked in my bed where I’d left her just over an hour ago. I smiled at the thought before realizing I probably looked a little manic, and schooled my expression before replying to Castor.
“Those videos don’t mean shit and you know it.”
“Well, excuse me, but evidence of you accosting an innocent woman in a public space isn’t exactly great for your brand, considering your history and all.”
“Considering my history, accosting peopleismy brand.” I drawled, and Mick cleared his throat beside me.
Gritting my teeth, I swallowed down the rest of what I wanted to say, even though I practically choked on it.
The closer we got to the end, the harder it was to hold back my anger.
“Those videos are circumstantial at best,” Mick said, ever the diplomat. “Hawk was in public when he was approached. It’s hardly his fault that the woman got her feelings hurt. He’s under no obligation to engage with the public on his private time.”
“Alright,” sniffed Cornelius, carelessly waving away Mick’s words. “We get the idea, Hawk. They interrupted your little date. That’s really not the biggest issue here.”
Fuck, I hated him so much.
He really did feel that he was more important than everyone else. It blew my mind that he had taken the stable of incredibly talented artists under his label, people with more talent and drive than I could imagine, completely wasted their potential, and this prick still felt that he was better than all of them simply by virtue of his supposed wealth.
Well, he was about to get a massive wake up call.
