Sing Your Pleasure

Before Charlene could say another word, they were facing the computerized jukebox, pressing buttons that allowed the display of songs to change quickly. After about four screen changes, Rachel pointed to a song and proclaimed, “That one.”

Reading the selection, Charlene couldn’t help but smile. It had been one of her favorite songs in high school.

So without further hesitation she’d selected the song and headed up to the stage while Rachel hurried back to her seat. It was Friday night, a little after ten, and the bar was just starting to pick up more customers. Karaoke night was huge here and the hot wings and beer weren’t bad either. So as she adjusted the microphone to fit her height—the man with the huge belly had been taller by a few inches—she experienced a slight case of the butterflies after noticing the amount of people sitting at tables waiting for her performance.

Crowds bothered Charlene only to the extent that she didn’t like people staring at her. As for performing, once she began singing she was often so lost in the music and the lyrics that all else ceased to exist. So her fingers trembled slightly when she lifted her enclosed fist to cover her mouth, clearing her throat.

Applause had already begun from a few of the customers sitting right up front.

“Sing, baby! Sing!” A partially inebriated man with a cigarette stuck to his lower lip yelled. How did he keep that thing on his lip? she wondered absently. Then she nodded to the older lady operating the karaoke machine.

She didn’t need the words that appeared on the prompter, she knew the song by heart. The already dim room grew just a tad darker until there was only a spotlight on her. She couldn’t see the faces of the people in the audience but could make out the outline of their heads. The first chords of music started and she felt that familiar stirring inside.

It began in the pit of her stomach, swirling around until warmth filled her entire body. That’s what happened when she sang, her entire soul was filled.

Then right on cue, with her eyes staring out into the darkness, she began to sing the lyrics to Mariah Carey’s “Hero.”

“There’s a hero, if you look inside your heart. You don’t have to be afraid of what you are.” This had been her theme song all throughout high school. Of course it had been out for a while by that time, but it didn’t matter. She loved the lyrics, loved what they meant and how empowered they made her feel.

Loved them so much that they were all she could focus on while singing and she didn’t see the tall, slender man watching her from a table in the far corner of the room.

Ten minutes and a roomful of applause later, Charlene had stepped down from the stage, only to be stopped just as she approached the table where Rachel was still clapping gleefully.

“Jason Burton from Playascape Records. And you are?”

For a second she’d only stared at him, not even acknowledging the business card he held out to her with one hand or his charming smile. Had he said he was from a record company?

Then Rachel was by her side. “She’s Charlene Quinn and I’m Rachel Wellesley from Limelight Entertainment Agency. How can we help you, Mr. Burton?”

The conversation had gone on from that moment but Charlene was so flabbergasted at the actual thought of this man thinking she’d sounded good enough to record that she barely remembered it all.

The next day Charlene and Sofia were in downtown Los Angeles riding the elevator to the executive offices of Sahari Davenport, CEO of Empire Music, the music conglomerate that distributed Playascape Records. Charlene had officially been signed as a Limelight client and with Sofia’s smooth expertise had left that office two hours later with her first record deal.

And now, as if she hadn’t been on a fast enough roller coaster of emotions, she was heading out to Miami to work with superproducer Akil Hutton, the man who was going to make all her secret dreams come true.

Something was wrong.

It just couldn’t be, Akil Hutton thought for the millionth time since he’d received the package from Jason early yesterday morning.

“She’s gonna be the next Whitney Houston, Ace. I’m tellin’ you, wait till you meet her.”

Jason had called him Ace since their early days interning at Empire. Over the last ten years he and Jason had worked their butts off to build this company into the hip-hop and R&B powerhouse it was today. They’d both started out as interns for Empire Music, knowing that one day they wanted a piece of that pie for themselves. Since Jason was a people person with a distinct ear for what was hot and what was not, he’d been a shoo-in for the A&R spot, “Artists and Repertoire” was like his middle name.

And since Akil had been more of a beats-and-lyrics man himself, he’d taken his seat in the studio, working alongside the engineers and the artists to get the perfect sound for each recording.

Nineteen number-one hits, seven platinum CDs, three gold, five Grammy Awards ranging from R&B Single to Producer of the Year and millions of dollars later, Akil and Jason were still hanging tight. Akil could say that Jason was the closest thing to a friend he had in this world.

And that was a sorry shame.

But back to this latest dilemma.

In one hand Akil held a picture, an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven glossy print of a pretty woman, with butter-toned skin and root-beer brown eyes. Her smile was fun, touching the soft dimples in each cheek and the edges of her eyes. Her dark hair was pulled away from her face in some sort of updo that didn’t really flatter her other features. But that was the least of his worries.

Although her face had captured him, sent a little tinge to his chest, the rest of her made him pause. She wasn’t a rail-thin woman—after being in the business for years he knew this was the look, slim and trim, almost emaciated—on the contrary; she was full-figured with more curves than the law should possibly allow. Her clothes, however, left a lot to be desired. She wore slacks, nice enough, in a navy blue color and a button-down blouse, high heels and light makeup. An outfit that didn’t scream “sexy” and barely whispered “diva.”

It yelled “average, nondescript, forgettable” from the business standpoint. On the personal, well, he didn’t even want to think about that.

All those words were deadly in his line of work.

Then he closed his eyes, shut out the visual and simply listened to the voice bellowing from the speakers in his home studio just outside of Miami.

The throaty, rich sound of a mezzo-soprano voice filtered throughout the room. He’d listened to this demo CD more than a dozen times in twenty-four hours, had become addicted to the smooth, melodious notes. There was no doubt she had a voice, a good strong one at that, just right for singing R&B ballads and dance tunes. Ten minutes into the first listen he’d known Jason had picked a winning voice.

As for the rest, the whole package, which was what he was responsible for, that was going to be a problem.

She just didn’t fit the bill. This Charlene Quinn did not look like a “diva.” Hell, she didn’t even look like a nightclub singer. She looked like what she was, a voice instructor at the local college. Now he did have a little more information on her, she was the daughter of a television-and-movie producer and best friends with one of the owners of Limelight Entertainment Agency. That told him two things. One, she was rich and privileged and probably thought the world was supposed to treat her exactly that way. And two, she had high connections. Limelight was a contender in the business, representing a lot of the heavy hitters in the movie as well as music industries. Still, Akil focused on the talent; connections and money meant nothing to him if his artist had no talent to work with.

On the demo she’d recorded three tracks. The first was an old Tina Turner hit, “Shake a Tail Feather,” that had him bopping his head and feeling the emotional energy that up until now, only Tina had been able to infuse into her songs. The next was the song Jason heard her sing in the karaoke bar, “Hero” by Mariah Carey. Again, a tune that is probably not advised to be tried by another vocalist, but Charlene had done it amazingly well. Her vocal range was outstanding as she hit the higher notes just as easily as she rocked the lower ones.

The last tune was an unknown, the beat was slow, jazzlike, and the lyrics were sultry. More suited to the Billie Holiday and Lena Horne types. Charlene had begun with a slow steady intro that immediately caught his attention. “The first time we made love,” were the lyrics and from the way she belted them out you’d think she was experiencing her first time all over again. From the verse to the chorus to the bridge, which could have been instrumentally arranged better, to the killer climax of the ballad, Akil had been transfixed, pulled into the very heart of the song and the soul of the singer.

The contradiction between her look and her sound was astounding.

Akil was a music producer and as such he was responsible for all stages of the audio development, working with the artist, studio musicians, engineers and related staff. That’s what his generic duties were. But Akil hadn’t risen to the spot of being one of the most sought-after producers of the decade by being generic. When he took on a new artist, he took on every aspect, from the audio to the performance to the overall image that was presented to the public. His goal was to give the listeners what they wanted, to produce the best music, to give the best images. That’s what made him unique in this business, it’s what made him better than most of the rest. He was known as a perfectionist, a slave driver, some had said. But in the end it was all for the best; ninety-five percent of his songs debuted in the top five on Billboard. Eleven of the twelve entertainers he’d been responsible for introducing to the world were top charters and now multimillionaires sought after for performances on the Grammys, the BET Awards, the MTV Awards and so on. The twelfth didn’t fall into that category only because Nichelle Dante had decided after her first R&B album that she wanted to sing gospel instead. Akil had hooked her up with a great producer at Footprints Gospel Records and she was now topping the charts there.

He had an impressive record, a great reputation and money in the bank to back it up. That all started with a confidence and heartfelt belief in his artist.

Looking down into the smiling face on the picture once more, he shook his head, not sure he felt that way about Charlene Quinn.

Chapter Two

Some men went for breasts, others big booties. Akil was a thigh man, through and through. So it was no wonder that when Charlene Quinn walked into his studio, where he was seated at the mixing console, and he’d turned around in the swivel chair and was face-to-thigh with her, his pulse quickened.

He’d seen her before, her photo and in person the day they’d met at the offices of Empire Music. So he wasn’t totally shocked at how pretty she actually was up close. Still, the effect of those voluptuous thighs wrapped so succulently in soft denim slacks made the rise to his feet a little slower than he’d anticipated.

A smile a mile long—no kidding, she had a beautiful, wide smile that made her eyes twinkle slightly, if one was looking at such things. Anyway, she smiled when he extended his hand and he felt the frown before he knew better to stop it.

“Ms. Quinn, I’m glad you made it safely,” he said. Shaking hands was customary in business. Feeling tugs of something indescribable when his flesh touched hers was not. So he pulled away quickly and acted as if the mixing console needed more of his attention than she did.

“Ah, yes, I did get here safely. The private jet you sent helped a lot.”

Her voice was deeper than he remembered, throatier, kind of like when she sang. And whatever fragrance she was wearing was playing with his senses. Luckily Akil was a big boy, he knew how to handle his urges. He also knew that urges in the direction of one of his artists was a no-no. Besides, this was Charlene Quinn, the woman who was supposed to be Playascape’s next diva. He would have his hands full with this transformation without adding the sticky strings of sex to the mix.

“So, I’ve got a few songs from a great writer I’ve worked with before. I’d like you to read over them tonight, get a feel for the flow, then we’ll get started first thing tomorrow morning.”

He was sitting again, not really looking at her but knowing she was there.

“I thought we were having dinner tonight,” she said, then cleared her throat. “I mean, Jason said I’d meet the team tonight at dinner. Doesn’t that include you?”