The Comeback (BWWM Interracial Romance Book 7) Read Online Free PDF

dusty, musty smell to the air—maybe an old air conditioner, or long-term dust in the carpet. Far away, Amber heard music playing over high quality speakers—the sound was muffled by distance and walls, but otherwise clear in the way that only studio-quality equipment could provide. She knew that if she followed the music, she would find the man.
    At the end of a long, lonely hallway, Amber came to a door; closed, but the music was unquestionably on the other side of it. She took a deep breath and knocked on the thick slab of wood hard enough to hurt her knuckles. The music stopped short. “Come on in,” someone called from inside. Amber licked her lips and turned the doorknob.
    Inside the room, David Underhill was seated at a table, along with Amber’s manager, Carl, an A&R person from the label by the name of Rebecka, and one or two other people she didn’t recognize. “I hope I’m not late,” Amber said, smiling brightly in spite of her nervousness.
    “Come on in and sit down, Amber,” David said, gesturing to the empty seat near him. Amber had never met David—but she knew him by reputation. He wore the same outfit every day: a pair of G-star jeans, a black shirt from Express Men, a small gold chain around his neck, and wingtip shoes. Whenever he was working, that was the man’s uniform. Amber took him in for a moment as she moved to the spot he’d indicated at the table; tall and thin, he had tawny brown skin and green-hazel eyes, the product of mixed racial heritage out of the Caribbean. Tightly curled hair snarled around his lean skull in inky black coils.
    “I have a new song I wanted to bring to the table,” Amber said, reaching into her purse as she sat down. David nodded.
    “I’ve been listening to some of the stuff you’ve been working on. I was talking to Rebecka and Carl about it; it’s good, but I think you can do better.” Amber nodded, taking a deep breath as surreptitiously as she could. She had heard “you can do better” more than a few times in the past several months; it hadn’t quite lost its sting, but she could appreciate the fact that if four producers—now five—thought that was the case, it must be.
    “This new material I’m working on is a little bit different,” she said, taking the flash drive out of her purse. She handed it over to David, who held her gaze for a moment as he took it. He took the cap off of the USB key and plugged it smoothly into the console in front of him, giving it a moment to be recognized by the machine.
    “I don’t think you should completely abandon what you were working on before,” David said, glancing around the room before focusing back on Amber. “There’s a lot of raw power in what you were writing at first—and I’d hate to see you lose that. But I think you need to focus on telling a coherent story.”
    Amber nodded slowly. “I’d sort of been just… writing as it came to me,” she admitted.
    “I can get you songwriters to work with, Amber—just say who you want, and I’ll start the negotiations,” Carl told her.
    Amber shrugged. She had worked with songwriters before; she had respect for their skills. But she wanted to try and do things—as much as possible—her own way.
    “I think that for this record it should be as much Amber as possible,” David was saying as he turned his attention to the console. His gaze flicked over the screen, his hands busy. “That’s what got her where she was in the first place, that’s what will win her fan base back to her.”
    Amber exhaled, feeling relief flood through her. David, at least, understood what she wanted. “I want to connect to my fans on a personal level,” Amber said. “I’m just… I’ve been away from them for so long; it’s easy for them to forget about me. I don’t want something that’s polished and shiny. I want something that’s raw and real.”
    David looked up from his console and smiled at her. “If you want raw and real, you’re going to have