I’d also be playing on the album. Various instruments as needed, including guitar. The Players had been searching for a second guitarist ever since the four of them hooked up, and Ashley had told me that he wanted a second lead. But so far, they hadn’t found anyone to fit the bill. This was a bonus for me. I didn’t always play on the albums I produced, so that was something I was also looking forward to.
It’d been a while since I’d contributed like that, and I knew it would take a lot out of me.
Maybe that’s what I was looking forward to the most. Burying myself so deep in a project that everything else ceased to exist for me. I wouldn’t say it was my happy place, but it was the place I wanted to be more than anywhere else, which was saying something. I really didn’t want much these days.
But I was optimistic—hungry, even—to see what we could all stir up together.
I actually hadn’t felt this excited about a new project in a long time, and it was kind of putting me on edge. On edge was a dangerous place for me. A terrifying place. I needed to keep calm and in control.
I didn’t do well with out of control.
So, I took control.
As part of our deal, I’d given the Players a space at my recording studio over in Mount Pleasant, Little Black Hole. My staff would take care of them there while they wrote and recorded the album. I’d be working from my home studio, and my staff would facilitate that, too. Virtually.
The members of the Players already knew my… situation. And Xander knew me well. Which meant there would be no need to have to try to explain it to them.
They wouldn’t be pressuring me to come down to the studio in person or any of that shit.
I’d work remotely, technology would connect us, and we could focus on what was important—like the music, rather than the “logistical issues and undue stress” caused by my “eccentricities.”
The Static Ice Divas had been pretty vocal about those. Half the reason the album took so goddamn long. I’d never worked with a group of musicians who whined more about me not joining them in the studio, in person. But I wasn’t exactly the only producer who worked this way. And the Divas lived in fucking Ohio, anyway. They didn’t even want to fly up here to Vancouver to record at Little Black Hole. What was I gonna do, fly to Akron so I could hold their hands, show them how to play their fucking instruments?
That was a bunch of bullshit, and a bunch of “logistical issues and undue stress” that I didn’t need.
I didn’t do “in person.”
At least, I usually didn’t.
If people could play by my rules, though… they had a hell of a lot better chance of getting in a room with me.
Out. In.
We pulled up to the mansion in West Vancouver just before eight-thirty. Right on time.
The house stood at the end of a private, gated driveway on an estate lot, on a street in the British Properties where the price tag on each home was a minimum fifteen million. Vancouver was not a cheap place to live. It wasn’t even an affordable place to live, by most accounts. But there was wealthy… and then there was wealthy.
Every driveway along this road was gated and led to an ostentatious mansion. Made the coming and going of expensive cars virtually unnoticeable, so this particular ostentatious mansion didn’t exactly stand out. Not until you were actually inside the house.
Or more specifically, in one of the private rooms.
Many of the homes up here were so large that, gated or not, they were visible from the street. All the better to flaunt one’s wealth, I supposed. But the Bliss mansion, as it was known in certain circles, was less an actual home than a private club.
The house was rendered completely private by a well-placed wall of groomed trees. The lot featured manicured lawns and gardens, a walking path, a pond and a large pool in back. The driveway ended in a loop in front of the house, with a fountain in the middle.
A couple of luxury cars were parked at the side of the loop, but as usual, no one was in the front yard.
Liam drove us around the loop and pulled off onto the small lane that ran alongside the house. We rolled right up to a door, one of