Page 68 of Reverb

Sienna blushed harder. “Please.”

So I did it.

I had to get off the bed and on my knees on the floor. But I was willing to make the sacrifice.

TWENTY-SIX

Sienna

The office wasn’t quite finished. The reception desk was empty and had boxes stacked next to it. There were no employees and there was no way, it seemed, to make an appointment to see Will Hale. So I walked right in.

I saw no one in the corridor, but the double doors to Hale’s office were ajar. I was too mad to bother knocking. I walked in there, too.

Will Hale, the thirty-one-year-old multimillionaire who had bankrolled the Road Kings’ last tour and had now invested in both the new album and the new studio, was sitting behind the desk with a laptop open in front of him. He was texting on his phone. He looked up at me, startled.

I took a second to peruse his face. I’d never seen him in person, only in the few photos I’d found on the internet. He was good-looking, I realized, with even features and dark blond hair. He’d worn his hair longer in older photos, but he’d cut it short now, and he was clean shaven. He wore slim-cut jeans and a casual long-sleeved shirt. A baseball cap was tossed onto a nearby chair along with a light jacket. All of his clothes were expensive, right down to his sneakers.

He looked, on the surface, like a tech billionaire you’d see coming and going from the Google offices. Nerdy, rich, probably an asshole if you spent too much time with him. The kind of guy who owned at least three cars and had a remote system overseeing every aspect of his brand-new mansion.

I took another step into the office, studying him more closely.

“Can I help you?” he asked when I didn’t speak.

“I’m Sienna Maplethorpe,” I said.

His expression gave away that he recognized my name.

“That’s right,” I said. “I’m the journalist. The one who tried to track you down in New York but got turned away at your office. The one who came to the door of your brownstone and left a note. The one you tried to get to quit on the tour.”

Hale nodded. “Yeah, I remember the name.”

“What’s this?” I motioned around me. “Your New York office is closed, but I tracked down your old assistant and she gave me this address, where she’s forwarding your mail. You’re relocating to Portland?”

He put his phone down and leaned back in his chair, though he still looked tense. “I already did. Relocate, I mean. I never liked New York, and I didn’t want to be there anymore. I’d rather be here. I like the music business. So here I am.”

“You moved across the country,” I said, “because you like the music business.”

“Yes,” he replied.

“That’s the only reason.”

He shrugged. “Yes. Is this an interview?”

I couldn’t mask my anger. “No, this isn’t an interview, you idiot.”

Hale looked surprised, and then he frowned. His brows drew down and I felt dizzy for a second. I took another step toward his desk.

“How tall are you?” I asked him.

“What?”

“How. Tall. Are. You.”

I likely seemed like a crazy woman, my hostility completely out of line. But he answered, “Six two.”

“So.” I leaned over his desk, putting my weight on my palms and staring into his face. “Close, but not quite.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

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