She took the bag. Unrolling the top, she looked inside, and there, lying at the bottom of the bag—not even in a velvet box—was a pair of diamond chandelier earrings, each one as long as her index finger, false nail included. “Holy sugar,” Ruthanna said.
“I know. I already googled them,” Maya said. “Price available upon request.”
Ruthanna held them up so that they caught the light brilliantly and flung rainbows onto her desk. She owned plenty of diamonds, but these were spectacular. “They look like earrings you’d buy a trophy wife,” she said.
“Correction,” said Maya. “They look like earrings you’d buy a woman who made you millions as she clawed her way to the top of her industry and into the hearts of a vast majority of the world’s population.”
The office line rang, and Ruthanna put the earrings back into the bag without trying them on. She gestured to Maya to answer it.
“Ryder residence,” Maya said, and then put on her listening face. After a while she nodded. “Yes, Jack, I’ll pass that information along.”
“He couldn’t keep his little secret after all, could he?” Ruthanna asked when her assistant hung up.
“He says they want to give you some big giant honor at the Country Music Awards—but you’d actually have to go,” Maya said. “And he’d like me to tell you that you really shouldn’t pass up such a perfect opportunity to wear those earrings.”
Ruthanna laughed. Jack really was something else. “That man can buy me diamonds until hell turns into a honky-tonk,” she said. “I’m out of the business.”
Chapter
4
Ethan Blake’s aging F-150 coughed and belched as he pulled through the wrought-iron gates of Ruthanna’s sprawling compound in Belle Meade. It was a good thing the security cameras didn’t record audio, because the Ford sounded downright embarrassing. It needed a new exhaust system plus half a dozen other repairs. But until he had more than a few grand in his bank account, vehicular maintenance was on the back burner.
Ethan pulled up under the shade of a massive oak and looked at his watch. When he saw that it was 11:02, he jumped out of the cab so fast he was halfway to the door before he realized he’d forgotten his guitar. By the time he was on the stoop outside the kitchen door, it was four minutes after the hour, and he was sweating through his white T-shirt.
He gave the knob a tug, but it was locked. Then, as the seconds ticked by, he started banging on the glass. There was no response. He fired a volley of curses into the ivy creeping up the sides of the Greek Revival mansion that Ruthanna jokingly called the Castle, and then he went around to the front and began stabbing madly at the doorbell. Ruthanna was going to kill him.
Maya finally opened the door. “May I help you?” she asked. She looked him up and down like he was a stranger trying to sell her a set of encyclopedias.
“Maya,” Ethan said, exasperated. “I’m here to record.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said. But she didn’t step aside to let him in.
“I’m late,” he said. “I know, I’m sorry. I couldn’t get Gladys started.”
Maya’s dark eyes widened. “I sure don’t want to hear about that!” she exclaimed.
Ethan blushed right down to his neck. “Gladys is my truck.”
Maya laughed at her joke, and then her face grew serious again. “Well, you know where you’re going, and I guess you’d better get yourself there quick. You-know-who’s waiting.”
He ducked his head in thanks, nerves jangling, and hurried through the marble-floored foyer, passing the magnificent living room on his left. Ruthanna probably called it the parlor or the salon or something fancy like that, because it looked like one of those roped-off period rooms in a museum. There were leaded-glass windows; massive, glittering chandeliers; and walls hand-painted with tumbling English roses. It was ten times bigger than his entire apartment.
He’d never gotten a tour of the mansion, since all Ruthanna cared about was that he knew where the basement recording studio was, but the house had to be nine thousand square feet at least. He’d even gotten lost in the halls once. But now he took a deep breath—he could just feel Ruthanna waiting on him, simmering with impatience—and then he practically ran down the basement stairs.
Though it seemed as though the majority of music these days was recorded and mixed using little but a MacBook and Pro Tools, Ruthanna was old-school. She had an old tube mixing board she’d saved from some legendary Nashville studio or another, and she liked all her musicians playing together rather than overdubbing for days. She said she loved the raw, natural way the songs came out sounding when people actually played their parts at the same time.