After He Cheated, I Revealed My True Identity

Chapter 3

Ian's words sent shock waves crashing through the room.

Everyone present was part of the music industry, and every single one of them knew exactly what he meant.

For a singer to have a judge call their singing mediocre in front of a whole crowd? That was nothing short of public execution.

Calum's mouth moved like he wanted to speak, but no words came out at all.

Meryl rushed to smooth things over. "Mr. Grant, you must have misunderstood. Calum poured so much time and effort into this song, he—"

"I don't care how much effort he put in," Ian cut her off coolly, his gaze locking onto me once again. "All I know is he didn't capture the soul of this song."

My heart skipped a beat.

'Could he have picked up on the true meaning hidden in the track?'

Back when we were recording the demo, Calum had been in a bad state and couldn't hit the high notes no matter how hard he tried.

I'd walked him through every line, one by one, and even recorded a full female vocal demo myself for him to use as a reference.

He'd claimed he accidentally deleted that audio file later on.

Looking back now, it almost certainly wasn't an accident at all.

"Mr. Grant," Calum finally found his voice, forcing a stiff smile onto his face, "you must be joking. I wrote both the lyrics and the melody of this song entirely on my own. How could I possibly not—"

"Is that so?" Ian raised an eyebrow. "Funny enough, I've got something pretty interesting right here."

He pulled a USB drive out of his pocket and handed it to the staff member next to him. "Could you play this for everyone, please?"

Seconds later, a familiar melody drifted through the venue.

It was the Starlit Basement.

But the singer was a woman with a clear, powerfully moving voice...

It was me.

That was the very demo he'd "accidentally deleted."

Calum and Meryl's faces twisted into ugly, ashen expressions instantly.

I stared right at the two of them.

So they'd been working together this whole time, stealing every last bit of my hard work.

As the music played, I felt like I was right back in that tiny, cramped basement.

I walked Calum through each line of pronunciation, tweaking his pitch over and over.

He'd been holding his guitar, looking up at me with nothing but pure adoration in his eyes.

"Thalia, you're a total genius. Without you, I'm nothing."

Now, he was using all the work I'd put in to pave a glittering path to stardom for himself and that other woman.

The last note faded away. The whole venue fell completely, eerily silent.

Every single eye in the room was fixed on the three of us.

Simon Ronan's face had turned so dark it looked like storm clouds were brewing right on his features. He shot Meryl with a sharp, furious glare.

"Calum," Ian spoke, his voice cold enough to freeze the whole room, "are you still going to stand there and claim you wrote and composed this song entirely on your own?"

Cold sweat beaded all over Calum's forehead, his lips quivering so bad he could barely force any sound out.

He looked over at me, his eyes swimming with desperate pleading. "Thalia..."

I stared right back at him, not saying a single word.

After all the dirt just got dragged into the open, he really thought I'd still lie to save his skin?

"T-this is a misunderstanding!" Meryl blurted out all of a sudden. "Thalia just sang that for fun. She can barely carry a tune. There's no way she could write a song this good!"

She clung to that flimsy excuse like it was her only lifeline, pointing a shaking, hysterical finger right at me.

"It's her. She's jealous of me. She wants to ruin Calum, and she wants to ruin me too!"

That total, backwards garbage was so ridiculous even Ian couldn't stomach another word.

He scoffed, loud and sharp. "Are you questioning the professional judgment of our entire judging panel? Someone who can barely carry a tune could record a demo that sounds this good? Or are you saying every single person in this room is deaf?"