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lied.
    “It was just dumb business stuff,” Kurt told her.   “Hey, I heard you did a kick ass job with the video.   I keep hearing things about it.   Impressive work.”
    “Thanks!” she said.   But still, even with his compliments, the piercing anxiety didn’t stop pulsating in her chest until she walked away from him and out of the hallway, back to the main stage area.
    As she got further from the troubled tour manager, she wondered just how such a successful tour could be in so much financial difficulty.   Maybe the guy was just exaggerating for effect.
    But somehow she didn’t think it was that simple.
     
    ***
     
    The concert was over before Raven knew it.   The whole thing just flew by, and she got to see everything from a bird’s eye view, right off stage.
    The fans were cheering so loud that her ears still rang from it all—thousands and thousands of people absolutely freaking out the moment that Jake hit the stage.
    Everything went perfectly, nobody would ever have known that there were all kinds of little issues with lights and sound in the rehearsal just a few hours ago.
    And then Jake was coming off stage, bathed in sweat after his final encore.  
    People were surrounding him, patting him on the back, asking him what he needed, while Raven stood nearby and took pictures.
    He broke free from his handlers and walked straight to Raven, surprising her.
    He looked at Raven, his expression tight with barely concealed emotion.   “In five minutes, you’re going to meet me in my dressing room.   I need to speak to you privately.”
    Her heart fluttered in her chest.   “Did I do something— “
    “You know damn well what you did,” he said.   And then walked away from her and once more was surrounded.
    She checked the time on her cell phone and then went and had a drink near the catering area, where everyone was in full-fledged party mode.   Courtney Taylor was even there, drinking champagne and looking flushed with success.
    Courtney saw Raven and her eyes narrowed.   “Hey, you’re that...you do that… What did you call yourself?”
    “Social media coordinator,” Raven said.
    “Yeah, that,” Courtney said, snapping her fingers, her words a tiny bit slurred.   “I can tell you like him, you know,” she continued, as if it wasn’t an odd thing to suggest.
    “You can tell I like who?” Raven asked innocently.
    “You like Jake,” Courtney said, grinning.   “I can’t blame you.   Everyone likes Jake.   But he’s got a really bad rep in the industry.   He’s a total womanizer.   Like, he fucks anything that walks.   Hires girls just to fuck them and then fires them the next day.”
    The cutesy blond singer had lost all her charm suddenly, and Raven was taken aback.   “I’m not sleeping with him,” Raven said, her voice guilty and defensive.
    “Not yet anyway.”
    “Obviously you were just pretending to like Jake,” Raven said.
    “I do like him,” Courtney said, totally seriously.   “But it’s different for me.   I’m on the same level as Jake, so he wouldn’t treat me like he’d treat you.”   She sipped her champagne.   “Just something to keep in mind.”
    “Yeah, thanks for the tip,” Raven said, then walked away from Courtney Taylor as fast as her legs would carry her.
    Raven thought about what Courtney had said about Jake.   Was any of it true?   Was he perhaps going to fire her already?
    Maybe he’d decided that enough was enough.   Maybe now that he was interested in Courtney, he would eject Raven from the tour so she couldn’t embarrass him in front of the girl he was chasing.
    Or perhaps he would fire her for going against his wishes and filming Courtney Taylor’s impromptu serenade of him backstage.
    There were plenty of reasons for him to get rid of her, and she knew that it was probably for the best.   She didn’t really belong on tour with Jake Novak.   She didn’t really belong anywhere near him.
    Courtney Taylor had made