Otherwise God only knew what would I would be doing to survive. After the first week in the youth hostel I'd been relying on extra crackers and a cup of soup to make it through most days. Things had been dire to say the least.
I'd known coming to America was a risk. But as a singer, I'd been irresistibly drawn to Nashville. The center of the music industry. There was a reason they called it 'Music City U.S.A.'.
Not that I sang country. Not exactly. My style was a bit edgier, a bit more rock and roll. But my voice blended beautifully in the country style. And since I'd known my share of heartbreak, I could sing country with the best of them.
Life may have been hard but the music had always been there for me.
Born to a single mom in a poor as dirt part of the Irish countryside, I had grown up hard and fast. The former mining town had one restaurant, owned by my mother's brother, Uncle Dave. If it hadn't been for Uncle Dave, my mother and I wouldn't have been able to eat, let alone live. As it was, my mum was a waitress slash cook slash cleaning lady. I had worked alongside her since I could walk.
Good old fashioned childcare my mother had called it, with a wry wink. For no matter how hard life had gotten, my beautiful mother had never stopped smiling. Or singing while she worked. My mother's voice was one of the prettiest I'd ever heard.
I was still trying to live up to my mother's example. I did my best not to complain, work hard and to make the best of the cards I'd been dealt. And when I made it big, my mother would never have to work again. I would buy her a big house, with a maid and a cook. And she could live anywhere she wanted in the whole world.
Hopefully somewhere near me. The French Countryside... or Los Angeles... or even here in Nashville. In one of those big fancy houses that lined to roads around the country club.
Anything was possible as my mother liked to say. I believed it too. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here, risking my meager savings on a plane ticket and a dream.
I just had to get heard by the right people and it would happen. I knew it. With my voice and drive, I knew it was only a matter of time.
Looking like a blow up doll didn't hurt either.
Huge green eyes and dark hair marked me as Irish for anyone who looked. And plenty did. My skin was pale as milk and unmarred, other than a tattoo high on my right hip. My long dark hair and plentiful curves meant that I was forever fighting off the unwanted advances of men.
As if I had time for the opposite sex.
They could bend over backwards for me for all I cared. It wouldn't make a bit of difference. I'd never been tempted to take anyone up on their offers of a soft and cushy life as a rich man's arm candy.
I could care less what I looked like, as long as it helped me on the road to stardom.
Someday I'd be a guest at places like this place instead of the help, I thought as I swept up the broken china.
Someday.
Chapter Two
Jake
I pulled on my borrowed tie and swilled another gulp of the watered down bourbon. I stared balefully around the Gold Room at the country club my father and brothers belonged to. All the Delancey men had belonged here in fact, going back three generations.
All except me.
God, I hated this place.
Not only was it filled with ostentatious, rich, privileged old bastards but, even worse, the food sucked. It did have decent bourbon though. If only I could get someone to give it to me straight.
Someone must have warned them about the youngest Delancey brother.
Everybody around here knew who I was. I had a reputation for being bad. Not that I gave a shit what any of these rich fucks thought of me.
It's not that I wasn't allowed at the club. I just wasn't allowed without supervision. Not since the last time. I'd only been twelve years old at the time, but that was old enough to sneak behind the bar and steal a bottle of booze. I'd drank the whole damn thing with my brothers Daniel and Jackson.
We'd all gotten too drunk to walk straight but I'd been the one who drove the golf cart straight through the front window of the pro shop. I'd been the one who caused Daniel to break his arm in the crash. And I'd been the one who was shipped off to military school.
What a laugh. That place taught you discipline sure, but only by learning how to take a beating. Or worse. Thankfully I'd been more than ready and willing to fight back. I'd left almost the instant I turned eighteen-the day of graduation. And that was only because my mother had begged me to finish.
Even I couldn't turn down a woman who was dying.
I snapped back to the present with a jolt
My brother Daniel was asking me something. I tore my eyes away from the girl I'd been watching since we walked in. It wasn't easy to do.
'Beautiful' didn't even start to do her justice. The girl was brimming with energy and magnetism. She knew it too.
I could tell that from just from looking at her.
"What?"
"I said, are you back to stay? We could really use the help now that Dad's-"
"Shut up Daniel."