"Owen has co-written all his songs with Erin," Sarah was saying, "which would give the band a stronger leg to stand on if you had to sue him for the right to perform them."

This all would make such perfect sense if it were true that Quentin, head throbbing, was almost starting to believe it. "What if I promised that we'll finish the alb.u.m on time? Not that I'm trying to get rid of you. But we really don't like being watched. What if I gave you my word that everything's okay?"

"Your word?" she repeated. "Your word ? Quentin, everything is not okay. Martin's addicted to heroin. You overdosed on cocaine, you fired your manager, and Erin cheated on you with Owen, all in the s.p.a.ce of a month. And your alb.u.m is due in six days, Quentin, six days, and the Nationally Televised Holiday Concert Event in support of said nonexistent alb.u.m is three days after that."

"The tele-What?"

"Your Fourth of July concert at the statue of Vulcan."

"I'm sure it'll be fine," he said, stretching again. "We've recorded alb.u.ms before. We play concerts all the time."

"That's not good enough." She tucked her pink locks behind her ears and leaned toward him. "Let me explain something to you. Nine months ago, I volunteered for a job overseas. I thought that if I threw myself into it, I might finally get a promotion out of it. Instead, I botched it. Manhattan Music got Nine Lives' alb.u.m, but I lost Nine Lives for them. He's in prison.

"My supervisor at Stargazer told me there was talk of firing me over this. She thought if I took another job for Manhattan Music and did well this time, it might salvage my rep and save my job. You give me my alb.u.m, you have a nice Fourth of July concert, you make it look like you and Erin are on the mend, and I'll get my job security back. And then I'll be out of your hair."

Quentin closed his eyes. His head hurt.

"You do want Erin back, don't you?" she asked.

"Of course I do!" He was alarmed at the thought that she might suspect the deceit. He sure hoped his alarm sounded more like desperation. "I'm just not sure it's possible."

"The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior," Sarah said. "You and Erin belong together. You've shown that over the years. Naturally you'll make up. The only reason things are different this time is that the balance of power has changed. You always had your manager to run to when you and Erin broke up. Erin didn't have anybody. Now that you've fired your manager, you don't have anybody, and Erin has Owen. I know that makes your blood boil."

The thought of Erin and Owen together did make his blood boil, but not because he was jealous. He didn't want Owen taking advantage of Erin, and he didn't want a breakup fight between the two of them tearing the band apart. That's what Rule Two was for. He hoped again their playacting was as innocent as they claimed.

He had half a mind to tell Sarah all of this, to get rid of her. But he understood now she wouldn't go. Not until she got her alb.u.m and they played the concert. And he was terrified she would drive Martin to rehab before he was willing, breaking up the band in the process. For good.

If her price for staying quiet was getting him back together with Erin, he would pay it.

"Right." He sat up despite his headache. "What's the plan?"

"We should let Erin think that we slept together last night, and that we're continuing to sleep together while I'm here. You'll feel like you've gotten some of your usual power back. She'll get more jealous as time goes on. I'll bet once you've gotten through this rough patch, you'll make up and your relationship will be better than ever. But my concern is that the band is stabilized long enough to record your alb.u.m and play your concert. Stick with me until then. Can you do that?"

"I can do that."

He exchanged a long look with Sarah. After all that had transpired in the last hour, not to mention last night, she was as cool as ever, and as beautiful. Her hair was different now, glowing in the morning light and tousled in new directions. More blond than pink. With her face scrubbed clean of makeup, she looked younger, innocent, despite the crazy hair. Her soft brown eyes were the same.

He went to his dresser to pull out some clothes, then looked over his shoulder at her. She lay on her stomach on the bed with her elbows propped up and her chin in her hands, watching the show, one foot kicked up and swaying lazily in the air behind her.

"You had this planned all along," he said casually as he got dressed.

"Pretty much," he heard her say.

"Were you going to do me?" He hated to put it to her the way he put it to his friends, but he had to stay in character. He looked over his shoulder again for her reaction.

Even without his gla.s.ses, he could see well enough to tell that she didn't flinch. "I had a good idea you'd pa.s.s out," she said. "I have some experience with this."

"You wanted me to pa.s.s out," he accused her. "You suggested the shots."

She shrugged, refusing to deny it.

"What if I hadn't pa.s.sed out, and we'd been awake, locked in the sound booth together, all night long?"

"Look, I don't think it's a good idea for us to sleep together," she said sagely. "We agree on this now that we're sober, right? We are trying to get you back with Erin."

"Fair enough," he said, glad for this excuse not to have s.e.x with her. He couldn't explain Rule Three to her, that he couldn't have s.e.x with record company spies, because that might give away Rule Two, that band members didn't sleep together. And he couldn't give her that. Then all his leverage to protect Martin would be gone.

"But you like to sidestep my questions." He crossed the room, knelt in front of her, and looked into her soft brown eyes. "Were you going to do me?"

Her eyes turned hard. He saw strong desire there, and frustration.

She looked down and away as she said, "Don't be cute, Quentin. You can tell how I feel about you."

He wanted more than anything to lean in and kiss those soft lips, kiss them into a smile again. But if he started, he wouldn't be able to stop. He stood, pulled his gla.s.ses off the bedside table, and left the room in a hurry.

As he was closing the door behind him, she called, "Quentin, one more thing."

He looked around the door at her.

"About the c.o.ke."

He said without emotion, "I don't do c.o.ke."

"Seriously. You stay clean until after the concert."

"I will."

"Great." She smiled at him, friendly, nonjudgmental.

He paused in the hall to collect himself before going downstairs, running both hands back through his hair. Besides the intense headache, he felt off balance, with every atom of his world turned upside down. Like when he got out of the ICU last month. But he also felt lucky that he hadn't made love to her, so he wouldn't get kicked out of the band.

And so he didn't know what he was missing.

4.

Yes, if you'd had gambling losses, you could have expensed them, but only if the gambling had led to consummation. See the employee handbook, section 2, paragraph 6, "Copulation with the Stars of New Country."

And no, you should not have hinted to that nice c.o.ke addict that you might be pregnant. I don't care what he did to deserve it or how it advanced your position in your battle of wits with him. You're going to h.e.l.l.

Wendy Mann Senior Consultant Stargazer Public Relations It was difficult to close the e-mail on a cell phone really hard, but Sarah tried her best, giving the screen a jab with one long fingernail. Wendy was always funny and supportive right up until she wasn't anymore. And somewhere under the sarcasm, she was almost always right.

What irked Sarah most, besides the haunting tingle when Quentin took her in his strong arms and comforted his supposed one-night stand, was the idea that she'd turned him off to her. He'd been content enough to toy with her on the bed. But by the time they'd finished with each other, he was more agreeable with the plan not to have s.e.x than she would have liked.

There was no way she would get involved with a c.o.ke addict. It was for the best. But she didn't want him to think so.

That was her job, though. She'd suspected before that he'd been the one who made the call for help to Manhattan Music. Her suspicion was stronger now. He'd been right to do it, too. She could definitely keep the players in this band playing. She might get herself heartbroken in the process, but not if she had no heart left.

To distract herself from her desire for Quentin and from Wendy's opinion of her destination in the afterlife-with which she heartily agreed-she checked Quentin's story by googling banjo and c.o.x on her phone. Several articles popped up on Ernest and Velma c.o.x, honky-tonk musicians during the 1950s who later became studio artists and joined the regular band at the Grand Ole Opry. From the black-and-white photos posted of the couple, playing their instruments with their mouths wide open, singing their hearts out, it was clear to Sarah that part of their "showmanship," as Quentin called it, was dressing Velma up in a sequined leotard and fishnet stockings.

"Grandma!" she exclaimed.

There was also a story, with sketchy details because all the eyewitnesses remembered it differently, about Ernest and Velma shooting off a Civil War cannon to draw a crowd to their opening night at a bar in Eclectic, Alabama, and accidentally burning down the church next door.

Some of what Quentin had told her was true, then. The only question was, which part? In her eight years working for Stargazer Public Relations, she'd never had a celebrity tell her the truth when he promised her, "I'm not on cocaine." If the subject of cocaine came up, the star was on it.

She studied Quentin's bedroom in the daylight. What she was looking for besides dope, she wasn't sure. She would know it when she saw it. She'd felt last night that something was off about the band. She'd persuaded Quentin to tell her some secrets, but there were more. He'd told her what he'd told her very carefully. This was disconcerting. She'd been able to read Nine Lives like a book. Right up until the last few weeks in Rio, which she hadn't seen coming.

But there wasn't much to find in Quentin's room. As with the rest of the house, it looked like a rich bachelor had called an interior designer and said, "Furnish my house," with no further instructions. Each piece of furniture was expensive and elegant and modern and black or brown or tan.

Feeling guilty, and a.s.suring herself that she was just gathering information as part of her job, she opened every drawer in his room. Most of them were empty. A few contained clothes. She slid a hand down the sides and into the corners, searching for small vials or plastic bags of c.o.ke. Nothing.

The last drawer she opened was full of boxer shorts. She'd figured Quentin had worn his dog bone boxers because he was playing strip poker, but no. Here was an entire collection of joke boxers. Halloween boxers with ghosts and bats, football boxers, a pair covered in bottles of hot sauce. If he'd bought all these himself, it would be extremely odd. She wondered whether he had sisters who gave him funny underwear every birthday. She and Wendy had given quite a few joke neckties to Tom, their protege at work.

It did make sense, Sarah decided. Quentin was fun-loving. Liked to wear funny boxers. Liked to do a little cocaine at parties, thought he could handle it, until one day it turned sinister on him.

Straightening, she noticed six chessboards with games in play were positioned on top of the dresser and armoire. Odd. She knew Quentin liked games, but he didn't strike her as a chess man. He was talented, yes, but no intellectual. He was more of a checkers man, Chinese checkers at best. She was afraid that in chess, he'd forget which way the horse went. Otherwise, the room was empty of his signature.

She peeked into his closet. One suit and two shirts hung there, but the s.p.a.ce was mostly filled with large, stacked boxes marked Q, likely because he was always on tour and hadn't stayed home long enough to unpack in the two years since he'd bought the mansion.

The bathroom was tan marble, with nothing on the clean countertop. Nine Lives had kept his flask of vodka in the water-filled back of the toilet and his meth in a manicure kit in a bathroom drawer. So, again, Sarah forced herself to be nosy. She found nothing but Quentin's bottles of pills that were not on her list of prescriptions stars used to sneak a high. She puzzled over the bottles . . . but of course he would have these on hand to bolster his cover story about asthma and allergies. This was how rich and famous addicts worked.

Though, if he was using, it was strange he hadn't suggested to her last night that he pull out his secret stash for them to share.

No. She was making excuses for him now. That's what she got for falling for a star. She put the bottles back.

Luckily she'd packed her bag with fresh clothes and toiletries in case her luggage had been lost on the flight. After her shower, she clopped downstairs in her high heels and b.a.l.l.sy-b.i.t.c.h uniform.

Erin and Owen sat close together on the U-shaped sectional sofa. They watched a NASCAR race. Erin beamed at Sarah, a one-eighty from her look of alarm earlier. She said brightly, "Good morning," and then glanced at Quentin lying on the opposite side of the U. "For some of us."

Quentin had an IV stuck in his arm. The tubes were attached to the almost empty IV bag, which hung on a metal stand next to the sofa.

Sarah nearly sprinted from the room. She'd been sliced across the chin and treated in a Brazilian hospital recently. She wasn't too keen on needles. She managed to remark calmly, "After Rio, I never thought I'd say it, but this is a new one on me."

"It's just saline," Quentin said, lifting his head to gaze at her sleepily. "Rich man's hangover cure."

She gazed doubtfully at the contraption. "It's all very Michael Jackson."

Erin rounded the coffee table to Quentin and pulled the IV needle from his arm as if she knew what she was doing. "Do you want one, Sarah? I know Q's a lightweight."

"I'm not a hundred percent," Sarah admitted. "But that will just make it easier to do my job, which this morning is to lecture that publicist of yours some more."

"Rachel," Quentin said firmly.

"Rachel," Sarah agreed, eyeing him. She felt herself flush under his intense gaze. The green camo T-shirt he wore, a marker of supreme hickdom for the boys in her high school, also highlighted his green eyes behind his gla.s.ses.

It was so unfair for him to give her that s.e.xy, piercing gaze when he wasn't acting remotely like they'd slept together. This would never do. He was going to give them away to Erin.

Sarah leaned over the back of the sofa to ask him, "What's with the att.i.tude? Was it no good for you?"

Feeling Erin's and Owen's eyes on her, she tried to ignore them and focus on Quentin. Slowly Owen went back to watching TV, Erin to taking down the IV bag.

Pressing his fingers to the wound on his arm, Quentin sat up to face Sarah. "Rachel is a friend of ours," he explained gently. "She's put up with a lot." He grinned as he stood. "It was okay for me."

Still unsatisfied, Sarah followed the three of them across the open room to the kitchen and slid onto a stool on the opposite end of the bar from Owen. They watched Erin cook breakfast, with Quentin helping. Sarah was even more deeply disappointed at this. Erin was a floozy, and a fantastic musician, and was able to hold her own around all the testosterone in the band. She had watched as her naked bandmates paraded in front of her on the cover of a.s.s Backwards. She had thrown back everything the men dished out last night. Sarah had thought Erin had more fire in her than to serve the men bacon for breakfast in addition to the wet T-shirt at night.

Then Quentin appeared from inside the pantry, supporting a tall stack of ingredients with his hands and balancing it with his chin. By stages Sarah realized that Erin was just handing utensils, a.s.sisting the surgeon. Quentin was the one cooking. Cooking like a chef, chopping onion quickly and evenly, cracking eggs with one hand. He'd obviously worked in a kitchen before he was able to make a living with the Cheatin' Hearts.

"May I help?" Sarah asked, because she wanted to keep up the facade that she and Quentin were lovers. Not because Quentin watched Erin's a.s.s as she bent to retrieve a bowl under the counter.

Quentin made a shooing motion to Erin, who rounded the counter to sit beside Owen at the bar. Sarah took Erin's place in the kitchen and suppressed the urge to stick out her tongue at Erin.

Quentin snapped his fingers as if he'd forgotten something. "More flour," he said, taking Sarah by the shoulders and pointing her back toward the pantry without so much as a surrept.i.tious pat on the bottom.

Sarah stood inside the pantry and stared at the boxes and bottles. This was the pantry of a cook, with all the basics, plus jars and boxes with colorful labels in foreign languages. It was a far cry from her own pantry: granola bars and ramen noodles. She found the flour and turned.

Inside the pantry door, a handwritten note was taped: Gate code 7712.

Use the force DUMBa.s.s.

Now she could come and go from the mansion as she pleased, and if they misbehaved, she could catch them in the act.

Keeping her poker face would be difficult after a scoop like that. To hide the expression in her eyes, she obediently slid the flour onto the counter next to Quentin, then searched for some kind of cooking activity to busy herself with. Quentin tended the sizzling pans on the stove. It seemed he'd forgotten to close the lid on the waffle iron with four circles of dough-batter?-in the center, so she made herself useful.

Quentin turned at the deafening hiss and gave her a look through his glinting gla.s.ses. "You close the lid on waffles," he told her. "With the little squares. These are pancakes."

"Oh."

He patted her head as if she were a misguided child rather than a s.e.xy diva who couldn't cook. "Go sit down," he ordered her. Opening the smoking griddle, he muttered, "Crpes."

She took her place at the bar beside Erin, who was trying and failing to suppress a self-righteous smile.

Quentin slid a mug of coffee across the bar to Sarah. He asked her dryly, "Black?"

Sarah preferred lots of cream and sugar. He was right, though: Natsuko would take hers black. She sipped the rich, expensive coffee he handed her, which without sweetener tasted like rich, expensive nail polish remover.

Quentin transferred omelets and bacon onto several plates and wrapped them in foil. He said to Owen, "Call the Timberlanes' butler, would you?"