Page 138 of Love U Down II

I blinked at him. He collapsed back into his seat.

“Hm.” Chamari took a seat and the men with her remained standing while I sat as well.

“Nice of you to join us.” I placed a smile on my face. “I know we’ve been talking over email but I wanted to open the floor for any questions or concerns you had before we moved forward with signing an agreement.”

“Yeah. Everything in the email is fine.” She waved us off. “I was actually hoping we could discuss other business matters while we’re together.” She batted her eyelashes and smiled at Berlin, whose hand went back to my knee.

I tried to remind myself that she was a living legend.

“Well, what can we––”

She cut me off. “I was actually hoping that Drix––”

This time I cut her off. “I gave you a pass with that handshake shit but I’m not going to let you cut me off and ignore me for my husband too many more times before I swing on you,” I warned.

One of the men with her glanced at me.

Drix leaned forward, pulled his gun from the back of his pants, set it on the table, and leaned back in his seat.

“I’m heading this meeting, which means your questions should be directed to me,” I offered.

“I love that.” Chamari’s eyes flicked up and down over me and she grinned. “So you’re the person in charge here, huh? Cute. I love to see women dominating in this industry.”

“Thank you.” I didn’t return her smile.

She exhaled.

“Look, Jameer owed me one. So he pitched me for this event so I could meet Drix and talk about working with his label.”

“In what capacity?”

“I want to release an album and I think this label would be perfect to be signed to.”

“Our little start up label that hasn’t even been open a year?”

“That’s right.”

“So let’s hear it then. What’s your pitch?” I sat back in my seat and crossed my arms.

“Don’t labels usually pitch to artists?”

“When that artist is being scouted and recruited but you were neither. You’re trying to prove your value to us. It isn’t the other way around.”

Honestly, I would sign Chamari in a heartbeat but her coming to us meant she wasn’t confident about her product and didn’t want to take the risk. That was making alarm bells go off in my head. Did I think she could sell an album? Yes. I was sure she could sell at least one. People would buy it just to see if she addressed things like her addiction and going radio silent.

If it was good, she’d be fine.

If she wasn’t, she’d be called a flop and accused of trying to work while out of her prime. People would start trying to encourage her to retire while she was still good.

“Okay.” Chamari cleared her throat and looked around the room. “Give us a minute.” She waved the two men off. We patiently waited for them to leave and she adjusted how she was sitting. “Look, I haven’t put out an album in a while and––”

“You think because we’re a new label we’ll put it all on the line to have a name as big as yours on our roster?” I guessed.

“Actually, I wanted to work something out with your label specifically because I’ve heard great things about the way you handle negotiations and that you actually care about your artists.”

“Okay. Well let’s start by having you tell us what your ideal partnership with Trill Loyalty would look like.”

“A fifteen song album. The label would handle distribution and marketing and own fifty percent for the first three years.”