Shauna turned around. She didn’t want to keep staring at her awards, painful reminders of a life she used to have, about a person she used to be.
“I’m going to sing.” The statement made her blink. She’d thought about it during her time away but never verbally expressed her desires. Then again, what else did she have left to use?
“Good girl.” Craig beamed, a smile spreading from ear to ear.
“But I haven’t sung in a while.” She cleared her throat. “I’m not ready.”
She hadn’t sung a note since finding out her mother had passed away. She didn’t know if she could get up in front of a crowd of people and sing like she used to as a former diamond-selling artist. She had to bring that old Shauna Stellar back and make her bigger than ever.
“I figured you would say that.” Craig rifled through some papers on his desk as she approached him.
“So if I have no money, if everything I own is gone, what do I do now? Where do I go?” Shauna reclaimed her seat. This time she pushed her hat back and stared at Craig.
“Since you have no more houses or apartments, you will stay with me and Delores. She’s missed the kids since they’ve gone off to college and gotten lives of their own. You’ll be good for her. She can lay off me for a change.” Craig laughed. “And your cousins are in and out of the house all the time.”
Shauna fell back in her seat. Even though she loved Delores’s home cooking, and her cousins made great substitutes for a brother and sister she never had, she really wanted to branch out on her own once she came out of Peaceful Acres.
Craig clasped his hands together and sat them on his desk. With a grin as big as the Atlantic Ocean, he made an announcement. “You, my dear, are going to get back into the music biz by producing.”
Shauna furrowed her eyebrows, which she knew needed a good waxing. “Producing what?”
“Music. You know. That thing you know about so well.” He smiled.
Shauna couldn’t help but to grin with him. That same reassuring expression got her through her first on-stage performance by herself. He’d given her that same radiant look when he convinced her that she would win her first Grammy the night she did. He’d smiled at her the day he’d dropped her off at the rehabilitation center and told her she would be fine. However, she didn’t understand this new plan.
“Oh, no. I’m not about to help someone else jumpstart their career while I’m struggling to revive my own. Besides, who will want me to produce them? You’ve called me crazy. Don’t you think other artists out there think the same thing? I want to work, Craig, but I don’t think even my opinions will matter to anyone.” She wiped her eyes to stop any impending tears.
Craig shook his head. “I don’t want to hear that negative talk from you anymore. I’ve known you since you were fifteen.” He held his hand about three feet above the floor like her five-foot-nine stature could have ever been that height at fifteen.
“Besides, it’s all you have left.” He plopped a file in front of her with Charisma Music in iridescent lettering across the top. The folder nearly knocked over his nameplate.
“This was my mother’s studio.” Shauna kept her stare on the words.
“The smartest thing your mother did before she died, besides raising a wonderful daughter, was to will this place over to you once you turned twenty-five. I didn’t want to tell you this before because of everything that was going on with you. I mean with your mom and—”
She raised her hand to stop him. She didn’t want to hear a replay of the last few months before she took her much-needed rest, especially not about Raheem, one of the reasons she couldn’t handle being in the real world anymore.
Craig straightened his tie. “The studio is yours. The IRS didn’t take it.”
“So? If Universe dropped me, doesn’t that mean my production deal with them is out, too?” Shauna didn’t see the possibilities like Craig. From the way he flashed his megawatt smile, she knew he had something in mind.
“Universe dropped you. But they haven’t said anything about their affiliation with Charisma. I plan on making a personal visit and selling them on retaining the studio so that you still have a distribution deal at least.” Craig smiled like he knew his plan would work. “So, you do what I said. You produce. Get your name back out there. Then eventually when you’re up to it, you’ll sing again.”
“I’m up to it now.” Yeah, and if she repeated that enough, she would convince herself. “I want my music to have meaning.” For her, that meant writing her own songs, which she had never done either. “I have nothing to sing about. The Princess of Love Ballads is dead.”
At one time she hated that media nickname. As an R&B singer, she’d sung more than just ballads. The slow love songs did put her over the top as a multi-platinum artist. What did she have to show for it now except for some memories and awards bought at a yard sale?
“She doesn’t have to be.”
“Yes, she does. I need to come back doing something way different than before. If I come back still singing the same stuff, I’ll just capture some of my old fans. But I come back doing hip hop or pop or something, I’ll rake in new fans.”
He flashed her a quizzical look.
“It’ll work.” She nodded. “But I still don’t see how having a studio is a good thing except for recording my next album. What artist is going to want me to produce them?”
“The one artist your mother signed before she died. He’s all we have left.” Craig looped his thumbs around his black suspenders. His normally rounded belly appeared flatter. Shauna knew his new physique didn’t come from exercise but rather an adjusted new diet that excluded the rich foods he’d enjoyed when money had rolled in steadily.
Craig continued. “Your mother gave him and his band a two-record deal and we have the funds in the operating budget to produce one album.”
“Why not drop him and use the money for me?”
Shauna had to think about her career, not someone else’s. She needed to work. She didn’t care if she had to walk all over someone to reach her goal. Raheem had done it to her. Bastard.
Craig held up one finger. “One word, my dear. Lawsuit. We don’t have the money to fight him, and he would definitely win.”
“No loophole?” If nothing else, she knew that every contract had its loophole. Then again, had she been such an expert on contracts, her accountant and attorney wouldn’t have stolen all her money.
Craig continued, interrupting her thoughts. “No loophole. Go in the studio with him and make sure he has some hits.” He hunched his shoulders. “Sorry, baby girl. I hadn’t expected you to get out so soon. I was hoping the money generated from this guy’s album would bankroll your comeback album.”
“So who is he?” Shauna tried to keep her inquiry sounding nonchalant. With her gaze fixed on the folder and a hand on her lap keeping her bouncing knee restrained, she knew her cover had been blown.
Craig pointed down to the folder. “Look inside.”
She flapped open the cover and caught an eight-by-ten glossy colored picture of a white man in a cowboy hat, jeans, cowboy boots, and white button-down shirt opened to mid-chest. In the shot, the man with a goatee leaned against a wooden fence with a lasso in one hand and the reins of a horse in the other. The stereotypical country photo made Shauna laugh.
“You’re kidding, right?” Shauna kept her gaze on the singing cowboy’s mesmerizing brown eyes. She rubbed her stomach when she felt a tickling feeling crawling over it.
“Does it look like I’m laughing?” Craig’s face had gone stone-cold serious.
“Please tell me he’s