Lucy’s head felt like it was full of broken glass. She’d never been so hungover. Ever.
And she wasn’t the only one. Robyn and Harper were moving as though they might shatter at any second and Toni was positively green. Even Iza groaned every time she moved her head too fast. They were in bad shape and they were also late for their first recording session.
The recording studio was gorgeous. A big white room lit by wide, high windows that filled the place with brilliant natural light. A sturdy man with short, curly hair that was more salt than pepper, and dark chocolate skin was bent over the mixing board in the booth, a chunky set of headphones clamped over his ears.
Lucy stared through the glass. Was that really … No, they couldn’t be that lucky.
“Hey, Ash,” she asked quietly as he pushed past her toward the booth. “That’s not Alexander Holister, is it?”
“YES, IT IS,” boomed a deep voice over the PA system. “And you are LATE!”
Ash turned to walk backward toward the booth, mouthing, Be careful, he can read lips, before he slipped inside.
Lucy ducked across the room to Harper, who was trying to comb out her hair and wincing every time the brush touched her skull.
“Alexander Holister is producing our album!” Lucy breathed, hangover forgotten.
“So?” Harper pressed a hand to her head. “Not so loud, Luce, I’m dying.”
“He’s only the most important producer, like, ever. He’s got more Grammys than anyone. He’s a legend. He —”
“I’m glad at least one of you knows what you’re getting into.”
Lucy spun to see Alexander Holister standing in the doorway of the booth.
“But apparently my reputation isn’t enough to inspire you to be on time.”
“We are s-so sorry, sir,” Lucy stammered. “We’re, um, having trouble with jet lag this morning. It won’t happen again.”
He studied them coldly, clearly not buying the jet lag excuse.
“Young ladies, you have been offered an opportunity that thousands of your peers would kill and die for. But for some reason, you choose to show up for it late and clearly not ready to work. You are wasting my precious time and your talent, though looking at you this morning, I have my doubts if you have that much to waste.”
He looked from Harper, who was leaning weakly against the stool behind her mic, to Toni, who looked as though the bass guitar she was half-heartedly tuning was too heavy for her bowed shoulders. “And, apparently, you are also wasting your brain cells. Lord, save me from little girls who think they’re rock and roll.”
He’s going to reject us, Lucy thought. The very best rock producer on the planet is going to refuse to produce our album all because we had to go to that stupid party so that Harper could find Rafe.
He shook his head and continued. “Pete swears you girls have real potential, so you have one hour. Get it together. And never show up in my studio anything less than ready to work your butts off again. Do you get me?”
“Yes, sir,” Robyn said.
“Sorry, Mr. Holister,” Toni added. Then a queasy look came over her face and she fled.
Alexander sighed and turned back into the booth.
“McDonald’s,” Robyn pronounced. “That’s what we need. There’s one just up the street. Who’s in?”
“Me,” Iza said. “I need a Coke to settle my stomach.”
“Ditto,” Harper sighed. “And a large helping of grease.”
“I’ll stay here, thanks,” Lucy said.
After the others cleared off, Lucy settled behind the drums and ran a few rolls, just tapping them out to give her head the chance to steady itself on her shoulders. She liked the feel of the kit — not really a surprise since it was better than anything she’d ever played on.
“Not bad.”
Lucy jumped half out of her skin. She’d been so focused she hadn’t noticed that Alexander Holister was standing right in front of her.
“Loosen it up some and you might be able to get more speed on the hi-hat at the end of the chorus there,” he said. “That was ‘I’ll Cross the World,’ right?”
“How could you tell from the booth? I wasn’t even really playing,” Lucy blurted. Then she remembered who she was talking to. “Sorry, that was a rude question. I didn’t mean to sound like I didn’t believe —” She cut herself off mid-babble when she realized he was struggling not to laugh. “I mean, yes, that was ‘I’ll Cross the World.’”
“Questions are always allowed, young lady,” he said. “It’s the not asking that’s rude.” He stared contemplatively at the drum kit and then added, “You might try starting the run on the snare, then rolling it up to the toms.”
“Yes, I will. Thank you,” said Lucy.
“You don’t want to try it now?” She thought she saw a flash of laughter in his black-brown eyes. “Or are you so good that you can rework a beat in your head?”
“No, I mean … Of course … I …” Shut up, Lucy, she thought. Just play the drums.
She ran the sequence as he suggested and, of course, it was better.
“I like it,” she said after the second pass. “Of course. But …”
“Spit it out, kid.”
“But what if I double up on the thirteen at the end?”
He looked at her, head cocked, considering. “Maybe. Try it.”
She did the run again. It felt amazing — right in a way it hadn’t been before.
“Good instincts,” he said, nodding. Then he turned and walked back toward the booth.
She sighed. She had a million more questions to ask, but she couldn’t expect him to hang around chatting with her all day. He definitely had better things to do. But still, he had said not asking questions was rude. She didn’t want to be rude.
“Mr. Holister? There’s this moment on ‘Emotional Bloodbath’ that desperately needs a different cross-beat and I haven’t been able to sort out what to do. I …”
She trailed off as the door to the booth closed behind him. Of course. He didn’t want to talk beats with a “little girl who thought she was rock and roll.”
Maybe she’d just go meet Robyn and Iza at McDonald’s.
Then warm blues guitar poured out of the speakers around her. A sleek drumbeat ran under the melody, twisting and snaking through the notes like a living thing. It was beautiful.
A sharp rapping sound broke through the music. It was Mr. Holister, knocking on the glass between the booth and the studio. He waved, clearly indicating she should join him. She scrambled out from behind the kit and hurried to the door before he could change his mind.
When she stepped inside, he was already sliding another record out of its sleeve.
“You know the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, right? Think about the beats on ‘Voodoo.’ ‘Emotional Bloodbath’ needs something like that … with a little bit of an extra uptick.”
“I, um … Dirty Dozen Brass Band?” Lucy asked.
“You don’t know the Dirty Dozen?” Mr. Holister looked heartbroken for her, as if she’d just told him she was a starving orphan.
“No, I’m sorry, Mr. Holister,” she said.
“We’ll have to do something about that,” he snapped, dropping the needle on the record. “And don’t call me Mr. Holister. My name is Alexander.”
“Okay … Alexander,” she said. “And I’m Lucy.”
“I know. Short for Lucille,” he said with a smirk. “I, for one, came prepared today.”
Lucy’s feet were hardly touching the ground when Crush left the studio, hours later. While the others had been recovering from their hangovers, she’d spent nearly three-quarters of an hour listening to classic vinyl with Alexander. Then, when the rest of the band had finally been ready, they’d had a session that even he had admitted “wasn’t half bad for a first try.” Perhaps best of all, as they’d been packing up to go, Alexander had pulled her aside once more.
“You’ve got homework to do,” he’d said. Then he’d piled several books on drum theory and jazz, as well as a fully loaded iPod, into her arms.
“I’ll talk to Jason about scheduling some extra sessions with you. There aren’t many youngsters who are worth my time, Lucille, but if you’re willing to do the work, I think you might just be. Don’t prove me wrong.”
She’d never been so excited about doing homework in her whole life.
Lucy listened to the fascinating mix of classic rock, blues, jazz and tribal drumming Alexander had crammed into the tiny iPod as Ash wove the SUV through traffic. She couldn’t even bring herself to switch it off as she and her bandmates dutifully followed Ash into what looked like a grubby mechanic’s shop. Well, if the mechanics in question had a taste for hot pink, that was.
The sign above the door spelled out Garage in a pink neon scrawl, which made much more sense after they stepped inside the cavernous space. Instead of cars and oil cans, beauticians’ chairs lined the walls and manicure stations were scattered across the concrete floor. The place had been converted into a beauty salon. Only in LA, thought Lucy.
“Makeovers!” Harper crowed.
“They’d better not shave my head or anything,” Toni said. She pointed at one of the cameramen, who Lucy had nearly forgotten were tailing them. “You got that on record? No head-shaving.”
“If I want you to shave your head,” a sharp voice called from somewhere behind Lucy, “you will shave it. And you will thank me. Britney did.”
A tiny woman strode dramatically into the center of the room.
“I am Debra Zeeee!” she proclaimed. “And I am your stylist.”
She was hardly taller than Lucy’s five feet and so thin that Lucy thought she could see the ligaments moving under her shockingly pale skin.
The melodramatic little woman swept around to face them, playing to the camera.
“Alexander Holister may be in charge of your music, but I command your image. And believe me, in this business, your look is more important than your sound. I am not just your stylist — I am your fairy godmother. You bring me pumpkins and I give you Bentleys. You bring me rags, I give you ruby slippers. You bring me mice—” she waved a hand at Lucy— “and I give you princesses. Now, my ducklings, prepare to become swans!”
Lucy had been petrified that Debra Z would actually shave Toni’s head, or try to put that awful chemical stuff on her own hair to straighten it or something, but their makeovers actually went quite well. Debra Z came off a bit more like the Wicked Witch of the West than a fairy godmother, but Lucy had to admit that she knew her craft. Lucy hadn’t expected to enjoy being dolled up like some kind of music video diva, but her perfectly tousled, carefully highlighted curls and her blunt, dark-green manicure suited her. Lucy still looked like herself, just a vastly prettier, vastly more interesting version of herself. Even the thick blue streak that ran through the very bottom layer of her hair was perfect.
“Rebellious,” Debra Z had said, “but without the need to show it off. Like any good drummer.”
She’d done just as well with the others. Iza’s shining pixie cut perfectly highlighted her big eyes and fantastic cheekbones and Toni’s thick bangs gave her just the right touch of sophistication. Harper’s blonde had been lightened to a platinum that made her blue eyes even brighter and her perfect skin glow, while Robyn’s rich red hair had been razor cut around her face into a long, shaggy bob that looked so perfectly undone that you’d never guess how carefully styled it was.
“Now, my darlings,” Debra Z proclaimed. “It’s time for a surprise. Ash, please take the girls to my studio. I will meet you there.”
“More?” Iza whispered excitedly to Lucy as they filed out of the salon, their camera team trailing behind them. “After all this? What else can there be?”
“Plastic surgery?” Lucy wondered, only half-joking.
Debra Z’s studio took up the entire fifteenth floor of a Beverly Hills high-rise that looked down on Rodeo Drive. When they arrived, they found rack after rack of brand-new clothes lined up and waiting — complete wardrobes for each of them, courtesy of Debra Z and Project Next.
The girls dug through their racks as Debra wandered between them, tweaking their outfit choices, or in Lucy’s case, completely vetoing each attempt and making her start again … and again and again and again. Debra seemed to think Lucy’s hopeless lack of fashion sense was charming, but unfortunately so did Ash and the cameramen. They stayed glued to Lucy and her fashion nightmare until Harper finally rescued her by dragging the camera team off to film the other girls learning to create a proper smoky eye from one of the makeup artists instead.
Lucy studied the skinny jeans, hot-pink tank top and oversized men’s tuxedo shirt she’d assembled. This outfit just might score her a nod of approval from Debra, she reckoned. She hoped. Then she noticed Robyn standing in front of her own rack, looking as though she was on the verge of tears.
“Robs?” Lucy said, crossing to her. “What’s wrong? Don’t you like your new gear?”
“No,” Robyn said. Then she cleared her throat, fighting back tears. “I mean yes, it’s all lovely … apart from the fact that most of it won’t fit.”
“What? That doesn’t make sense at all.” Lucy leaned in to check the labels. Sure enough, most of them were a US size two or four. Robyn was at least a US ten.
“Perhaps it’s a mix-up?” Lucy asked hopefully, though a look at the funky blend of hippy and hipster that lined the racks told her it wasn’t. These clothes were perfect for Robyn; they were just three sizes too small.
“No, they’re for me. This is just her way of telling me I’m an ugly, enormous cow who must lose weight before they can even be bothered to dress me. There are a few things that fit, but not enough for a whole summer. Not if we’re going to be playing shows and going to events and all that.”
Tears were running down Robyn’s face now, turning her splotchy.
Lucy shook her head. “We’ll speak to her. They’ve no right to wind you up like this. You’re gorgeous just as you are, Robyn. We’ll just tell her to find you the proper sizes.”
“We can’t do that!” Robyn moaned. “Imagine going on camera and announcing I’m too fat for my new wardrobe. I’ll die of shame.”
“Is something wrong, Robyn, dear?” Debra Z called across the studio.
She was deliberately making a scene, Lucy realized, her heart in her throat. Robyn was going to be humiliated.
“Is there a problem?” Debra continued loudly, when Robyn didn’t reply.
The nearest cameraman swung around at the word “problem,” zeroing in on Lucy and Robyn.
“Um, sort of,” Lucy said, trying to stay between Robyn and the cameras. “We’d really rather talk to you privately, Debra, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course, sweetie. I was actually just looking for Robyn. There’s someone I want her to meet,” Debra Z simpered. “Come along up to my office, darling,” she said, dragging Robyn forward into the camera shot with her tiny, steel cable arms. “Lucy, my dear, you stay here with the other girls. We’ll be back in a tick.”
Lucy tried to follow Debra, but the lead makeup artist, Paulina, turned out to be something of an octopus and manhandled Lucy into a makeup chair before she could escape.
It didn’t really matter, Lucy told herself. Robyn would manage. It wasn’t as though Lucy would be much help anyway. She wasn’t like Harper. She hadn’t even had the guts to stand up to Debra for her own sake; why did she think she could help Robyn? Robyn would be just fine on her own, once she was off camera. Wouldn’t she?
Robyn dutifully followed Debra Z to her sleek, ultra- modern office. A pale boy about her age with hair so blond it was nearly white was sprawled on the sleek gray sofa, playing some sort of game on his iPhone.
“Tomas, darling,” Debra Z called. “This is the lovely young lady I wanted you to meet.”
Tomas’s phone mooed as he finished his game. He took his time closing the program then locking the screen before languidly transferring his attention to Robyn.
His gray eyes were nearly as pale as his skin and hair. Dressed in white linen and soft, flesh-toned leather boat shoes, he was unsettlingly monochromatic.
There was something quite creepy about him, but Robyn couldn’t decide if that was due to his eerie appearance or the look in his pale eyes. He was studying her so closely, she could almost feel his gaze, like light fingers running over her skin.
She stuck out her hand. “Robyn Miller. Nice to meet you. Your name is Tomas, right? I …”
Her greeting trailed off as Tomas took her hand and, instead of shaking it, raised it to his lips to kiss. Her stomach did a hard flip. Her brain couldn’t decide if it was turned on or terrified. Who was this boy?
In a light Swedish accent that flowed like warm milk he said, “Tomas Angerman. It’s awesome to meet you, Robyn.”
“Robyn, darling,” Debra Z continued, “Tomas here is a friend of my daughter’s from Beverly Hills High. He’s about your age, actually, but he’s simply my favorite person to introduce to clients who need a little help … pharmaceutically speaking. So discreet. And he has the very best diet pills in town. His mother brings them home from business trips in Korea, doesn’t she, dear?”
Diet pills? Of course. Robyn had almost forgotten why she was there.
Debra Z must have noticed Robyn’s falling face because she threw an arm around her and gave her a squeeze. “No, no. Don’t take it that way, dear. You’re gorgeous. I’m simply helping you attain your full potential. Isn’t she lovely, Tomas?”
“Beautiful.” He almost purred the word. “That hair. That skin. You’re quite right, Debra, a little CZ92 and she’ll be irresistible.”
Debra Z pulled a roll of cash from a desk drawer and began to count out bills. “CZ92 is the most amazing stuff, Robyn. You’ll see. Of course they’re not available here, only in Asia, which is why we get them from Tomas. You’ll figure out how much she needs?”
Tomas nodded, and with a flurry of air kisses, Debra was gone.
“I meant it, you know,” the pale boy said, smiling at her.
For a moment, Robyn seriously considered running away. Was she really going to take dodgy diet pills from Asia?
“You’re going to be something extraordinary,” he continued, scooping up the cash Debra had left behind. Then he pulled a bottle of pills from his coat pocket and held it out to her. “Especially after you’re done with these.”
Robyn looked at the bottle for a long time. Debra Z thought they were safe, obviously, or she wouldn’t suggest them. She didn’t want Debra to think she wasn’t willing to do what it took to make Crush a success.
“You do want to be extraordinary, don’t you?” Tomas asked gently, clearly sensing her hesitation. “You can’t be afraid to be your best self, Robyn.”
He was right. She’d never been able to lose weight on her own, and she didn’t want everyone to think of her as the sad, chubby girl who held the band back. She needed help, and if they were going to win Project Next, she needed it now. Before she could think better of it, Robyn reached out and took the bottle.
“How many do I take at a time?”
“One pill, four times daily,” he said, reaching out to massage her shoulder. “You’ll see, they’re perfectly safe and they work. It’s just like magic.”
It was too good to be true, Robyn was sure, but it was also too good a chance to pass up.
“No time like the present,” she said. She shook a pill into her hand and gulped it down.
“See,” Tomas said, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “That wasn’t hard at all.”
Jason Darrow stepped through the brushed steel doors of the elevator in Debra Z’s Beverly Hills high-rise and jabbed the button marked Fifteen in cursive letters. He was reaching out to press the Door Close button when Ash burst into the lobby.
“Wait!” his assistant called. Jason’s finger hovered over the button for just a moment before relenting and pressing the Door Open button instead. He couldn’t avoid being alone with his assistant forever. He knew Ash would take the opportunity to ask for a promotion. He’d been assuming that he was about to make junior manager very loudly to anyone who would listen, so of course it had got back to Jason. Discretion was high on the list of things Ash still needed to practice before he would be ready to stop answering phones and buying coffee.
“Sorry!” his over-styled assistant gasped, slipping into the elevator beside him. He brandished a large paper bag brimming with tubs of frozen yogurt. “I went to get snacks for the girls, but Debra Z said pastries have too many carbs, so I had to run out to Pinkberry instead.”
“Great,” Jason said, pulling out his iPhone. Maybe if he looked busy, Ash would take the hint and not start a conversation that was only going to end in humiliation.
No such luck.
“I’m glad I caught you, actually,” Ash said, too casually. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about.”
Jason sighed, just a little too loudly.
“It’s not a big thing,” Ash assured him. “I just would love to be more involved with Crush, that’s all. Like, I could set some gigs for them and stuff. I mean I’ve been with you eleven months, and it wouldn’t have to be an official promotion or anything. I just feel like I’ve learned so much —”
“Everything you need to know to nurture a band?” Jason snorted. “In eleven months? Unlikely.”
“What?” Ash said, clearly jaw-dropped. “I mean … you … I thought I was doing a good job.”
The kid looked both shocked and hurt at the idea that he wasn’t ready to build an international hit band after less than a year of answering Jason’s phone. Jason sighed. He should have known better than to hire a Hollywood dynasty brat. Not that he could really have said no when Sir Peter asked him to mentor a friend’s son.
“Look,” Jason said. “Do you know how long I was Sir Peter’s assistant before I got promoted?”
“No,” Ash said.
“Well, you should,” Jason said. “First of all, a good manager does his homework on anyone he deals with. Always. And second of all, I was his assistant for three years. I only got promoted because I discovered Electric in a rest-stop dive bar on the way to Las Vegas. You want to get promoted? You’ve got to show me why you deserve it. You want to do that by getting more involved in Crush, then great — but that doesn’t mean you’re not still going to be the guy picking up the Pinkberry order. You read me?”
The doors slid open onto a massive room that looked, at the moment, like a teenage girl’s closet on steroids. Clothes, makeup and shoes that looked more like they belonged in an art installation than on someone’s feet were everywhere.
“Jason —” Ash began.
“Hey, boys,” a bright, feminine voice cut in. “Check it out!”
Jason turned to find Toni walking toward them. Or at least, he thought it was Toni. She was almost unrecognizable as the pretty but overly made-up teenage girl he’d met the day before. Heavy, blunt-cut bangs and just the right hint of makeup had transformed her into an unspeakably gorgeous young woman.
“Not bad, huh?” she said, eyes dancing.
“Toni,” Ash said, “Jason and I were just —”
“Bringing Crush some frozen yogurt,” Jason said. “Now, I left a bunch of hungover teenage girls here a couple hours ago, and they seem to have been replaced by supermodels. You have any ideas what happened to my band?”
Toni giggled, tossing her long hair over her shoulder into an exaggerated swimsuit model pose. “What can I say? Debra Z does good work.”
“I’ll say,” Jason said, shaking his head. Maybe he’d underestimated Toni. They’d have to make sure the episode producers paid special attention to her. She was going to be a star.
“I still need to talk to you,” Ash objected.
“No,” Jason said, firmly. He didn’t mind a little ambition, but Ash had to know when enough was enough. “You don’t. You need to deliver these yogurts before they melt.”
He could tell Toni was clocking the barbed exchange. Covering, he turned a bright smile on her. “So, Toni, what do you think of all of this? Do you feel like Cinderella yet?”
She broke into a blinding, unrehearsed grin. “It’s brilliant!”
Jesus, she was pretty.
“This isn’t even my best outfit,” she added with a saucy smirk, daring him to play along.
Shake it off, Jason, he warned himself. She’s only seventeen, even if Debra Z can doll her up to look twenty-five.
But he didn’t seem to be in the mood to listen to his own good advice.
“Hmmm.” He shook his head, trying to contain the echo of her infectious smile that was tugging at his lips. “I think you’re wrong. You couldn’t possibly get prettier.”
“That’s what you think!” she said, and darted away back into the racks.
“She’s gorgeous,” Ash said with the same over-emphasized casualness that he’d attempted to ask for his promotion. “Isn’t she?”
“I’ll say.” Jason reached for one of the tubs of Pinkberry that Ash had dumped on a side table.
“Almost as pretty as your wife is,” Ash continued.
Jason dipped a spoon into the frozen yogurt and ate, keeping a firm grip on his poker face.
“Why don’t you make sure the girls get their yogurt, Ash?” he said coolly. Then he turned to follow Toni toward the cameras. He was clearly going to have to cut his assistant down to size, but this situation was just as much his fault as it was Ash’s. What was wrong with him? He was flirting like an idiot teenager, with an idiot teenager, right in front of the person who talked to his wife more than he did some days. He was clearly losing his mind.
Across the studio, Lucy finished applying blush for the third time and stared at the results in the mirror. She looked more like a little girl playing with her mum’s makeup than a pop star.
“Almost there!” Paulina the makeup artist wheezed through her smoker’s cough. “But do you see how Izabella has highlighted the cheekbones? You don’t quite have the angle right. Can you show her how you did it, Izabella?”
“Huh?” Iza looked up from her phone, which she’d been staring at for the last ten minutes. “Sorry. What am I showing her?”
“Your blusher. Why don’t you just do mine, so I can see how it’s done?” Lucy asked. Paulina nodded and fluttered over to Robyn, who was chattering at hyperspeed as she attempted to apply liquid eyeliner. She seemed happy, thought Lucy. Her conversation with Debra must have gone well.
“Sorry,” Iza said, taking the big makeup brush from Lucy. “I got distracted.”
“I saw.” Lucy grinned. “Important text, hmm?”
“Remember that guy from last night? Luke?”
“He texted already?” Lucy said as Iza swirled the brush across Lucy’s cheekbones. “That’s great!”
“I know! But I don’t know what to write back,” Iza moaned.
“Ladies of Crush!” They spun to find Jason standing behind them with the camera crew. “I see that Debra Z has worked her usual magic. You all look like superstars.”
Toni curtsied, making Jason chuckle and give her knee-high boots, miniskirt and bustier an approving once-over. Toni shot him a twinkling smile back.
Lucy stared in amazement. They couldn’t be … No, Jason had to be almost thirty, even if he didn’t look it. Toni must just be flirting on autopilot, as she did with every guy.
“I’ve also listened to your morning session,” he continued, “and I had an interesting conversation with your producer.”
Robyn groaned noisily. Then she clamped a hand over her mouth and giggled when she realized she’d done it out loud. Lucy shot her a covert glance. It wasn’t like Robyn to be so nutty on camera. Had Debra Z given her a drink up there? Or three?
“Exactly, Robyn,” Jason said. “We can’t have a repeat performance of that. Alexander is a genius and we’re lucky to have him, but he’s not a patient man. I don’t mind the partying — I’ll even insist on it as we develop your publicity — but no matter what you’ve done the night before, you need to show up at the studio ready to work. Also, remember you’re all underage, so no getting caught buying drinks in any clubs and ending up with your mug shots on TMZ,” Jason continued. “If you want to go out, make sure you have a legal adult with you — like Ash. In fact, he’ll be going out with you tonight. You’ve got a table for four booked at The Ivy — and that was hard to get, ladies, so enjoy it — and after that, Ash has the password to Basement. There will be photographers at both doors, so look your best.”
“Reservations for four?” asked Harper. “If Ash is coming along, wouldn’t there be six of us?”
Jason nodded. “There would be, but Lucy isn’t going.”
Oh no, Lucy thought. Her parents had somehow managed to get her kicked off the show. They were about to walk in and drag her off in a dramatic on-camera confrontation. She just knew it. She’d known all along this was too good to be true.
But then Jason shot her a brilliant grin and said, “Alexander was impressed with you, Lucy. So much so that he has suggested we take you with us to the Long Road benefit tonight at the Nokia. It’s Sir Peter’s annual fundraiser for throat cancer. It’s a really big deal for Sir Peter and we’ll be with him in his personal box. You can, of course, pick a friend to accompany you.”
Lucy couldn’t believe it. She turned to look at the other girls.
Me! Toni mouthed. Please!
“Toni? Will you come with us?” Lucy asked.
“Sure, I guess,” Toni said, doing a bad job of faking casual.
“Excellent,” Jason said.
Was Lucy imagining the fact that he looked pleased with her choice as well? She had to be. Jason Darrow had better things to do than flirt with some seventeen-year-old. Didn’t he?
“Let’s get a move on, ladies. We’ve got a big night ahead of us.”