Sing Your Pleasure

Sing Your Pleasure
A.C. Arthur

Charlene Quinn can't believe her luck when she lands a major contract with L. A. 's hottest record label.Even more thrilling, she'll be laying down tracks with none other than Akil Hutton in his private Miami recording studio. Despite Akil's gruff, take-no-prisoners attitude, Charlene is powerfully attracted to the driven music producer. She never dreams the feeling's mutual. . . until the night she ends up singing a song of passion in Akil's arms. . . .His shy, innocent new client isn't Akil's usual type. Until he hears her sing. With her celestial voice and voluptuous body, Akil knows Charlene is headed straight for stardom—and his heart. But the powerhouse producer's holding tight to secrets from his past—ones that may drive his new protégée away. What will it take to keep the angelic singer in his arms forever. . . long after the last sweet, sensual note fades away?

Sing Your Pleasure

A.C. Arthur

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/)

About the Author

ARTIST C. ARTHUR was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, where she currently resides with her husband and three children. An active imagination and a love for reading encouraged her to begin writing in high school and she hasn’t stopped since.

Determined to bring a new edge to romance, she continues to develop intriguing plots, racy characters and fresh dialogue—thus keeping readers on their toes! Visit her Web site at www.acarthur.net.

Books by A.C. Arthur

Kimani Romance

Love Me Like No Other

A Cinderella Affair

Guarding His Body

Second Chance, Baby

Defying Desire

Full House Seduction

Summer Heat

Sing Your Pleasure

To Julian Hawkins—

for having the strength to just be you.

Dear Reader,

I fell in love with the title of this book from the very start. So in writing this story I knew that Charlene and Akil’s love for music would set the stage for the love that would ultimately save them both. I listened to so many CDs while writing this: Trey Songz’s Ready and Alicia Keys’ The Element of Freedom were both at the top of the list. I think I wore out both CDs, lol.

But each disc seemed to capture the exact mood for this story—from Akil’s volatile sexuality to Charlene’s endurance and positivity. These were two people who really belonged together, whether or not they knew it or wanted to accept it. I am so glad I had the opportunity to share this story with you and hope you fall in love with Akil and Charlene, and, of course, the music.

Happy reading,

Chapter One

Moving from her closet to the bed where her suitcase was opened wide, Charlene Quinn sang the lyrics to “Finally” while folding and carefully packing clothes for her trip to Miami. The song was an oldie but goodie in her mind. The classic single by CeCe Peniston, released in 1991, hitting the number-one spot on music’s Billboard charts, was a great dance tune that didn’t quite give CeCe the credit her vocal abilities deserved.

Charlene couldn’t stop playing the song. She had been since receiving the phone call two days ago from her agent, Sofia Wellesley of Limelight Entertainment. And while CeCe was actually singing about finally finding Mr. Right and falling in love, Charlene’s rendition of the lyrics was something else entirely.

She definitely wasn’t looking for love. Granted, she wasn’t running from it either, like some people she knew, but it wasn’t high up on her list of priorities. For Charlene, working as a vocal coach at the local community college was both challenging and rewarding because everybody who thought they could sing couldn’t.

Her parents hadn’t seemed thrilled with her career choice. They wanted her to be more like her older sister. Candis Quinn’s illustrious career began with her debut as a Dainty Diaper Baby at the tender age of one. From that moment on, Candis had been in front of a camera, gracing the pages of magazines and then finally graduating to commercials in her high school years. Candis was three years Charlene’s senior, and it was expected that Charlene would follow in Candis’s footsteps.

It was usually around age three to four that most babies dropped the baby fat due to their increased mobility. Charlene’s stuck like old gum to a shoe sole. While there were some ads that especially requested plump child models, the ones that wanted the cute, perfect look clearly outnumbered them. So Candis was the child star of the family.

Her father, Randall Quinn, had been the executive producer of over twenty hit sitcoms in the last thirty years. That made him the adult star of the family. Her mother, Marjorie, was the perfect wife, mother and overall female in Charlene’s life. She supported her husband, went to all the photo shoots and commercial callbacks with Candis and tried her damnedest to make Charlene into something she just couldn’t possibly be.

Marjorie had finally had enough of Charlene’s diet failures when she turned sixteen. She took her daughter to a doctor, who quickly diagnosed Charlene with hypothyroidism, a condition described as a lack of functioning thyroid tissue and thyroid hormone. Early symptoms of this condition included fatigue, weight gain and water retention, all things that had plagued Charlene since she was a little girl. The strange thing was that this condition usually hit women during the first year after they’d given birth. Charlene’s was a unique case, the doctor had said.

His diagnosis hadn’t changed the stigma of growing up in Beverly Hills among models and actresses and a sister who was a goddess at five feet nine inches, boasting a teeny-tiny waist and sizable breasts. Even now, holding her own bit of height at five feet five and a half inches with a buttery complexion and slightly slanted brown eyes, Charlene felt a little uneasy about her looks. She was better than she had been but still the memory of being constantly ridiculed in school stuck with her. That’s where her best friend Rachel had entered the picture.

Only three weeks ago Rachel Wellesley, the younger sister of Charlene’s agent, Sofia, had been dealt a heavy blow. One of the things both she and Charlene feared had happened—Rachel had found herself in the limelight of the tabloids. Charlene met Rachel when they were both in the third grade attending the Beverly Vista School. It was there in the cafeteria, over a carton of warm chocolate milk and sticky, tasteless mac ’n’ cheese, that a true friendship had been forged.

Like Charlene, Rachel came from a famous family—the Wellesleys, known for their budding new agency Limelight Entertainment. That, coupled with living in Beverly Hills, California, put the two girls in a position they dreaded. Paparazzi and reporters were always abuzz either around their homes or the school yard. Everybody wanted a glance into their personal lives, or at the time, the personal lives of their famous families. It was sickening and both girls swore they’d keep a low profile in their adult lives, which for Charlene wasn’t going to be a problem since she didn’t fit the profile of your average Beverly Hills female.

But the night she’d dragged Rachel to the karaoke bar in an effort to cheer her best friend up, Charlene’s plans had changed.

“Why don’t you sing something?” Rachel had said after the man with the beer belly and nappy-looking beard had shuffled off the stage. He’d attempted to sing “Flying Without Wings” by Ruben Studdard, but his rendition had been more than bad. Horrendous probably said it best.

“Oh, no,” Charlene had answered quickly, taking a sip of her water with lemon slices. “You’re the one on hiatus, you get up there. It’ll do you good to get the whole situation with Ethan and the show off your mind.”

Rachel was already shaking her head. “Now you know I can’t hold a tune any better than I can hold hot coals in my hand. And the last thing I want to do is give the press any more ammunition against me.”

Feeling the wave of sadness emanating from her friend made Charlene frown. She hated seeing the normally vibrant and cheerful Rachel this way. Reaching a hand across the table, she covered Rachel’s. “It’ll die down. You know those vultures find new targets every fifteen minutes. Besides, Ethan’s love life is really old news.”

Shrugging, Rachel tried for a smile. Unfortunately, the act was dismal and the smile never reached her eyes. “C’mon, Rach, I’m trying to cheer you up here. If you keep looking like that I’m going to get a complex. Being stuck with me can’t really be that bad.”

“You know what would really cheer me up?”

Rachel asked, this time her smile seeming a bit more enthusiastic.

Feeling the twinges of dread, Charlene responded, “What?”

“If you’d get up there and sing.”

Her lips had been about to form the answer “no.” Of all people in the world, Rachel knew how much Charlene loved to sing. She also knew all the insecurities Charlene kept from everybody else.

It was no secret that Charlene’s passion was singing. She’d been singing any and every song she heard since she was four years old. It had been the only thing she was good at that Candis couldn’t do. The best part about it was that Charlene could really sing. But once she had graduated from high school and went on to study music at The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts, furthering her musical knowledge, Charlene’s focus had turned to training other people with musical talent.

But tonight wasn’t about her, it was about the friend who’d been there for her through all her trials and tribulations. After all, that’s what friends were for.

“If I do this, you’d better smile for the rest of the night. No more sulking, no more regretting, nothing. Deal?”

Rachel, knowing she’d won this not-so-small battle, smiled happily, turning her hand over to grip Charlene’s. “I promise. C’mon, let’s look through the catalog to see what songs they have.”