Star-Crossed Scandal. Kimberley Troutte

Maybe he wants a change, too.”

      “Nicky, uh, Nicolas did ask me to join him for dinner. A business dinner. If I thought he’d be into me—”

      “You’d go for it?” Michele nudged her with her shoulder. “Do it!”

      Should Chloe put her spiritual quest on hold so she could live out a fantasy? “Maybe.”

      Michele rolled her eyes. “You Harpers are so darn stubborn. Just go with your passions, Chloe. Let yourself breathe.”

      Chloe grinned. Michele had used one of the mantras Chloe had become famous for when teaching yoga to the stars. “You’re a Harper now, too,” she told her sister-in-law.

      “And Jeff would tell you that I can be pretty stubborn myself. Use the strength you have and trust yourself.”

      Trust herself with a man she’d fantasized about her whole life? And at the same time not mess up the contract her dad wanted her to secure? Her family was depending on her to get this right.

      The whole situation sounded dangerous.

      But more than anything, she wanted to breathe.

      She kissed Michele’s cheek. “Thanks for the pep talk. See you at seven. Make sure everything is perfect for dinner.”

      “Nice. Thanks for stressing me out now,” Michele grumbled.

      Chloe just waved as she left to find the man of her dreams.

      * * *

      Nicolas finished up his fifth phone call in the last few hours. He took out his laptop and checked his emails. He pressed the ache between his eyes. There were 120 music videos from potential candidates waiting for him that had been sent to him by his assistant, who had already waded through thousands of applicants. Putting on his headphones, he sat on the bed and viewed five of them. One kid was a standout, but the others were not even close. He put those four into the Do Not Call Back folder. Only 115 more to wade through.

      This was a grueling process. He hated to shatter dreams, but only ten could be chosen for the show, and they had to be the best of the best. Rolling the tension out of his tight neck and shoulders, he stood and popped his spine. It had been a long day.

      He cast his gaze longingly at the guitar he’d brought with him just in case the music returned to him. Nothing. It sat silently challenging him to write and play something worthwhile. Instead he went to the full refrigerator in the kitchen, grabbed a beer, and went out onto his private patio for fresh air. The penthouse suite that Harper had put him in was full of amenities. He had everything he could ask for except a warm woman in his bed. He didn’t sleep alone very often, especially not in a hotel room. He’d have to rectify that situation.

      He sipped his beer and enjoyed the view from his balcony. The sinking sun had painted the sky in golden strokes. Warm breezes danced in the palm trees on the beach and lifted tiny white peaks on the Pacific. His gaze meandered back from the sea, up the grassy pastures and settled on a garden below his window.

      The last rays of the sun lit a figure moving in the garden. He’d recognize that blond braid anywhere.

      Chloe.

      She wore tight purple-and-white-floral pants and a white T-shirt. Her clothes accentuated her awe-inspiring figure.

      Was she dancing? He sipped his beer and watched. No, stretching. But nothing like the hamstring stretches he did before and after his runs. This was fluid, intense and beautiful. She was like a panther—flexible and strong. When she bent over and pressed her hands on the ground, her sweet ass pointed straight at him. The sight stirred him up.

      Exhausted to erect in twenty seconds. A new personal record.

      The only sound he could hear was a mocking bird, the waves and the whisper of the wind through the trees. Still, she moved to her own beat, her internal rhythm, and became the personification of a melody. Something deep inside him pulsed, too.

      Chloe lifted her long arms over her head and sat on an invisible chair. Nice, strong glutes. He doubted he would be able to hold a pose like that for so long. She rose up and went into a graceful lunge, one arm stretched in front, the other behind her. Straight lines like a warrior goddess. Bendy as a wet reed. She reached, squatted and arched her back. Even though she didn’t know he was watching, Chloe seemed to be a woman on a single mission to drive him wild.

      Every move and every hold was like a dance. Like sex. Who knew yoga could be so hot?

      Before that moment he hadn’t had the slightest interest in yoga because Tony Ricci, his former agent-turned-best-friend, had warned him against it. Tony’d had a bad experience with a yoga studio in LA. Supposedly the instructor was a man-eater.

      Tony would probably tell Nicolas to stay away from Chloe too and keep his head on the show and his hands to himself. Most likely Tony would pull up a clip of Lila dumping Nicolas on camera. Nicolas didn’t need any reminders.

      Lila had used him, like so many others had, as a ladder to her success. He’d thought for a while that she’d be the one to fill the missing piece in his life. Lila was gorgeous, fun, sexy and had a pretty nice singing voice, too. Not amazing, but nice. He’d pulled all the connections he had to get his girlfriend the singing contract she’d asked for. How had she repaid him? By breaking up with him in front of tabloid cameras.

      Lila didn’t love him, but she adored his former drummer, Billy See. The two were engaged to be married and chose national television as the way to break the news. His buddy and girlfriend were off making music together.

      And Nicolas was left alone, in silence.

      Merda.

      He watched Chloe reach for the sky.

      Maybe Chloe was the music he needed to feel whole for a night.