A SONG FOR MAISEY

Welcome to A Song For Maisey — Book One of The Rosewood Stories. This is a story about love, music, and the unassuming wisdom of children who never stopped believing. I hope it finds you at exactly the right moment. — Gee Gee Masson She packed one suitcase. Three children. One heart. Zero regrets. They said LA was all sun and stardust, but that morning, it felt cold — bone-deep and bitter. Maisey didn't cry when she closed the front door to the house they'd bought together in the early glow of his fame. It had once felt like promise incarnate — an airy Bel Air mansion with a pool the kids could paddle in and a music room he swore would be hers too, if she ever wanted to write again. But promises had faded faster than platinum records. The children were already buckled into the taxi. Quiet. Unsure. Tilly clutched her bunny like a lifeline. Archie blinked up at her, thumb hovering near his mouth the way it had when he was barely two. Alfie just looked at the house — like he knew he'd never see it again. Maisey didn't cry when she passed the hallway lined with gold records. Nor when she stepped over the parcel Timmy had sent last week: a sleek designer dress, tagged with a mocking note — "Maybe now you'll dress the part." That had been the last straw. Not the gossip blogs. Not the stick-thin women who drifted through their living room, laughing too loudly and wearing too little. Not even the silence — the horrible, yawning silence from the man she loved. It was the total erosion of respect. Of peace. Of dignity. Timmy, Rex's agent and self-appointed emperor of all things branding, had turned their home into a rotating circus. He paraded stylists, producers, influencers — people who tripped over the children's toys and raised their brows at the Lego piles, as if kids had no place in the palace of a pop god. It was as if their living room had become the Oval Office and Timmy thought he was President of the United States. And Rex? Rex said nothing. Believing — wrongly — that success required sacrifice. That Timmy knew best. She'd tried to tell him once, weeks before. "Rex, they don't respect me. They don't respect this family." He'd looked at her like a deer caught in stage lights. "Maisey, they're just doing their job. Don't take it so personally." She had laughed, but there was no humour in it. "Of course you'd say that. They worship you. I'm just the inconvenient wife who gets in the way of the brand." Still, she had stayed. For the children. For him. Until she couldn't. No tantrums. No plate-throwing dramatics. Just a suitcase, her passport, and a one-way flight to Gibraltar — where Evelyn, her mother, was waiting with tea, silence, and unconditional love. Rex had been on tour. Filming. Shooting. Something. She didn't leave a note. And he didn't ask where she'd gone. Not then. As the taxi rolled past Sunset Boulevard, she looked back once at the hills that had never held her heart. Then forward again. "Mummy?" came Tilly's voice, soft and half-asleep. "Will Daddy come find us?" Maisey stroked her daughter's curls. Her voice didn't break. "One day, darling. But we're not waiting." Next part: We meet Rex — alone in a Manhattan penthouse suite, fifteen floors above a city that knows his name but not his heart.