After her father's tragic passing, Nora Davis is forced behind the scenes, nothing more than a stepping stone for others in their journey to stardom. When an opportunity presents itself, Nora, trapped under her stepmother's heel, takes it as her cha...
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Nora skipped dinner to catch the next bus from the palace back home. Even then, she ended up waiting at the bus stop, the chilled wind beating at her face for half an hour before the bus arrived.
She'd barely taken off her coat in the mudroom when Felicity appeared.
"Where have you been?"
Nora pulled off her scarf. "Does it matter?"
"I needed you here hours ago, and you weren't here. Is my career a joke to you?"
She tried to keep her voice flat as she responded, "I can assure you, "joke" is not what I consider your career."
"Then it better have been important," Felicity crossed her arms. "You weren't at Jostlin – their studios are closed over the weekend."
"The library's not," she pointed out in a way to cover herself.
Felicity snorted, "Only you would go to the library on the weekend. That's such a Scholar thing to do."
Briefly, she thought about pointing out that it was the studious thing to do and that people other than Scholars go to the library.
But she was tired, hungry, and really didn't feel like getting into it with her right now. "Let's just get this song together," Nora said. "I'll be down in the studio in five. Let me grab a bowl of cereal." She'd need something on her belly; otherwise, the recording would be crap and she'd be overly snappy.
"Whatever," Felicity said, then left.
Nora sighed and wished she was back at the palace with Eli, eating dinner with his family. Or listening to another song of his.
Having fun.
Although she loved music as much as she loved to breathe, it was these moments where it became a challenge – it was hard to enjoy something you were being told to do. Even harder to love something that you were being blackmailed into doing.
But as Nora went down to their home studio with her bowl of cereal and her laptop, she remembered her father, and the company, the legacy he left behind.
She would do anything for that legacy. She just wished sometimes it wasn't this difficult.
After almost three hours of rerecording and tweaking, Felicity's Daxton Cavenaugh contest entry was finally ready. Her laptop read 11:37pm when her phone buzzed.
Eli's name lit up on the screen, a goofy mug appearing with it. Her lip twitched when she saw it – he'd taken the playful picture when he'd saved his number on her phone.
