SPOTLIGHTS BLINDED FROM ABOVE, and a light sheen of sweat lifted on Shea’s heated skin. Her black dress glimmered with the sequins sown into it, covering it entirely, the fabric itchy where it was held in a strapless fashion above her breasts. High black heels adorned her feet, and she tried not to focus on the way they made her feel awkward and compromised, the sexy shoe completely exposed on one side by the slit in her dress that cut all the way up to her thigh.
She’d walked out onto the stage feeling like a blundering fool, although she’d been told she looked like a million bucks.
She had one song.
One song at the country awards show introducing her as Delaney Rhoads.
It was unheard of, she’d been told, coming on the scene that fast, being invited to play this way.
And she’d been told again she was just that good.
Yet somehow Shea felt like a fraud.
Still, the guitar in her hands and her mouth at the mic felt like the most natural thing in the world.
She let her thoughts go and paid no mind to those who filled the music theater in Nashville. It was crammed, the plush maroon seats filled to capacity.
Sold out.
Just like she had.
As if she was ever given any choice.
Today was her birthday.
Eighteen.
She had signed the contract. She’d sat in that big leather office chair with her insides quaking and her mother whispering in her ear, “This is it, baby. We made it. Everything we worked for all these years. We have it. You’re a star.”
Shea had scrawled her messy signature across the line, unable to still the shaking in her hand, because everything inside her had screamed she should not.
But tonight?
On this stage?
Shea sang. She let her fingers strum away the sadness, and her voice cover the sour taste on her tongue.
She knew her grandmother would be watching her on TV from her hospice bed. The woman she loved most in the world was too sick to be here.
The only thing Shea wanted was for her grandmother to understand that even though the circumstances might have been horrible, when Shea began to play, everything else floated away and she felt it in her heart.
Just like her grandmother had made her promise to do when she was just a little girl.
Shea wanted to make her proud.
Not of what she’d attained, or the money promised, or a life of fame. Shea wasn’t impressed with any of those things.
Shea just wanted her to know she was using the gift she’d been given, and when she sang, somewhere inside her, it still felt important.
Shea’s voice trailed off into silence before roaring applause broke through the air. It echoed through the enormous hall as people jumped to their feet to give her a standing ovation.
Tears sprang to Shea’s eyes.
Because she’d felt the beauty, too, the same thing that seemed to ride on the energy that filled the space.
It was what was waiting for her offstage that was vile.
Shea whispered a quiet, “Thank you,” into the mic before she exited the stage.
Her mother hovered behind the curtains. “There’s my shining star.” She made sure everyone heard.
Her mother’s creepy boyfriend Donny, who’d been tacked to her mother’s side since the second they’d rolled into Nashville, was nearly salivating where he stood behind Shea’s mother.
“Come here, sweetheart, there are people to meet,” her mother said.
Shea did her best to smile pleasantly as she shook hands with those who only wanted her for the things she didn’t want to give, like touching her skin gave them a taste of glory when she knew without a shadow of a doubt she’d sold her soul into sin.
No, it wasn’t because she desired any of it.
She’d simply been on this train for far too long and had no access to the brakes, the pressure and coercion too much to take, so she’d always given in. For so long she’d simply gone through the motions and never voiced her opinions or concerns because they were never heard anyway. Her mother was in full control and she couldn’t find the strength to fight her.
But now she wondered when it would be her who would break.
Warily, Shea looked up when she felt the eyes boring into her. A searing heat of predatory lust. She felt burned by it, and not in a desirous way, but like hell had found its way to her.
She shuddered.