Read Online Rock Idol (Reality With a Twist Series) by Veronica Tower - Free Book Online

her.
    “Ember, you look fabulous!” Rick greeted her before
starting to kiss her on the cheek.
    “Watch
the makeup,” Ember warned him. “Hans will kill you if you make him touch it up
again.”
    Both
Zach and Rick laughed at her little joke, and both contented themselves with
shaking her hand.
    “I
didn’t think it was possible, but this photo shoot feels even more chaotic than
last time,” Zach said.
    Last
time they had done this they had the whole Rock Idol cast together. Now
they were five contestants smaller, but the frenzy of energy remained just as
great. “Nature of the beast,” Ember told him. “If it’s not high energy, it’s
not Hollywood.”
    Rick
shifted the conversation in a more personal direction. “How have you been?”
From the serious look in his eye, Ember figured he wanted to add I’ve been
worried about you but was trying to be discreet since Zach was with them.
    The notion appealed to her. She really liked the idea that
Rick had been thinking of her just like she’d been thinking of him. She
remembered touching herself in the bath again. Well, maybe he hadn’t been
thinking about her just like she’d been thinking of him.But…what
if he had?
    Suddenly feeling flustered, Ember tried to answer Rick’s
question and reassure him without letting Zach know that she and Fawn had a
fight before the last show. “I thought I was coming down with a bug last week,
but I was wrong. I feel good! Thanks for asking.”
    From
the way his eyes continued to scrutinize her face, Ember wasn’t certain that
Rick believed her, but his words pretended he did. “That’s good! We can’ t have
the best judge off her game. What would we do if all America
heard was Mitch Daniels’ derision and Fawn’s—whatever it is that Fawn says.”
    Zach
started to laugh, but a sudden unanticipated comment from Hillary Tempest cut
him off.
    “You’re
only saying that because Ember’s little tips on playing up to your teenybopper
fans are keeping you in the contest, Rick. Even Fawn can see you’re a
talentless hack now. Once Ember stops pretending you’ve got a chance, you’ll be
on the next flight back to New York City.”
    Ember
frowned. Try as she might, she couldn’t like this contestant and comments like
that didn’t help. Neither did the fact that Hillary was wearing the same old
torn up jeans and muscle tee she’d worn at the initial meet and greet. Even her
haircut was the same spiky mess it had been the very first show.
    “Hillary,
please don’t tell me that that is the best wardrobe could do for you?” Ember
asked her. She considered her words a gentle prodding, but could see from the
derisive flash of anger in the woman’s eyes that Hillary viewed them as a full
out assault.
    “Unlike some people, I am not going to sell out who I am just to try and buy a
few votes with some makeup and some cleavage.”
    Ember
wasn’t sure if Hillary was referring to her career as a teen idol or to the
other contestants, but Rick certainly was. His eyes flashed with anger as he
stepped between Ember and the other contestant. “Back off, Hillary! You have no
call to speak to Ember that way. She’s already accomplished everything we’re
setting out to do here and then some.”
    Hillary
snorted. “Maybe she’s done everything you’re setting out to do, Rick,
but I aspire to more than crashing and burning in a haze of sex and drugs.”
    Ember
felt a flash of rage and barely resisted lashing out at the woman. Zach took a
step back from the group, clearly shocked at what the woman had said.
    Rick,
however, was not going to stay quiet. “That’s enough! She’s one of the judges.
Show some respect or—”
    “Rick!”
Ember cut in. She had to step around him so that she could confront Hillary
without Rick’s body between them. She could only imagine how it must look to
the others to have Rick playing knight-in-shining-armor for her. “Please, stop.
There’s no need to make a scene.”
    Unfortunately,
it