The Princess and the Porn Star Read Free Page A

hot!”
    “Can’t wait to work with him,” I muttered.
    A knock at the door turned both our heads.
    Rich opened the door and leaned in. “You ready?”
    “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
    He tapped his watch. “Ten minutes.”
    “I’m on my way.”
    “I’ll be there in a minute.” Quinn held up his phone. “After I make your appointment.”
    “Thank you, sweetheart.” I started toward the door, still wobbling a little on those ridiculous shoes. “I think I’m going to need it.”
    “The way you’re walking?” He snorted. “Honey, I’d better get the paramedics on standby.”
    “Oh, shut up. I can walk.”
    “Uh-huh.” He snickered. “Have fun with Buck Harder, darling.”
    “Shut. Up. ”
    By the time I was out in the hallway outside my dressing room, I was mostly balanced on the shoes. I’d walked in higher, skinnier heels before, and they just took a few minutes to get used to.
    All the way to the room where we were rehearsing, I was still sure I’d need that cortisone shot later, but no longer afraid of breaking my neck. Or re-breaking my ankle. All I had to do now was get through this rehearsal, a day or two of shooting and hope the press didn’t go psycho on me for being on-camera with a porn star.
    The thought made me roll my eyes. The media was already going to have a collective conniption when the video finally dropped, because right now, no one knew a thing. My comeback album was a closely guarded secret, and everyone involved, myself included, had signed ironclad nondisclosure agreements. One of those “go ahead, tell the media; we’ll sue you for anything they paid you and then some, and don’t think we won’t find out it was you” things.
    The secret would be out soon, though. The release was coming up fast, and the video we were shooting tomorrow would drop within a couple of days of the album. The marketing twits said they were aiming for “shock and awe” by breaking out a brand-new Olivia Taylor album and video without any kind of lead-in hype.
    “You’ve been off the radar for three years,” one of the suits had said. Gesturing wildly like marketing guys always did, he’d added, “Now you’re going to explode back onto the scene.”
    My gut told me they just didn’t want to promote anything until they were absolutely sure the album would happen. An artist who was a way better gamble than me had fizzled out midway through recording a highly anticipated third album. She went to rehab—didn’t we all?—and the album never happened, so the record label wasn’t even giving me the chance to embarrass them like that. Not a word to the public until every track was cut and the video was in the can. Even then, total silence until the minute the album dropped.
    Probably so they still had a chance to pull it if I did something “outrageously and typically Olivia” and wound up the laughingstock of the tabloids. Again. Which, the bigwigs had reminded me a hundred times over, would be in violation of the ominous morality clause they’d hammered into my contract when they re-signed me this year.
    “Fuck up,” it said in not so many words, “and you’re not only dropped, you’re never signing with Risen Star again as long as you fucking live.”
    This from the people pairing me up with a porn star.
    I rolled my eyes again.
    For all the business bullshit and the constant reminders that I’d screwed up before, I was still walking on cloud nine. In stripper heels, maybe, but even that couldn’t put a damper on my excitement about being back in the game. Every step of this album—writing it, recording it, and now this—had been like a dream, taking me back into a world I thought I’d never be a part of again, and I could not wait to get back onstage.
    That thought made me shiver. The stage. Nothing beat the feeling of singing on a stage.
    Yeah, I may not have been thrilled about some aspects of my current situation, and I was worried sick about it all getting yanked out from