"Gotcha," I said, triumphantly showing my hand.

Finn sighed and threw down his cards. "Again?"

I gave him my sweetest smile. "Told you I was good. Now, what would you like to take off next?"

Finn had already lost his shirt and both his socks, and if the stakes hadn't been this high, I might have been distracted by the way firelight from the stove was dancing across his bare skin, casting shadows along every ridge of muscle, making his already insanely-cut abs look even more defined. All he was missing was a glistening sheen of oil.

Anticipation shivered through me. What would he lose next? His belt?

Finn's eyes dropped down as if he was thinking the same thing.

"I choose secret instead of strip," he said.

Goddamnit, I'd forgotten about that rule. It had seemed like a good idea at the time – I wanted to know more about Finn as much as I wanted to get him out of his clothes – but now I wanted to punch myself in the face.

"How does this work?" I said, realising that I hadn't put much thought into it. "Do I get to ask about something or do you have to volunteer a secret?"

Finn rubbed his palm across his chin, thinking. He hadn't shaved this morning and the faint sound of bristles scraping against his skin made something twitch between my legs.

"You can ask, but if it's a question I don't like, I'm not answering it," he said.

There was so much I could ask, but I didn't want to push too far with my first question.

"What happened with you and Penny Lang? For nearly two years, you were the golden couple of the pop music scene, and then suddenly you weren't," I said.

Finn was silent for a moment, his eyes boring into me. "Are you planning on working this into your interview?"

Stung, I replied, "I'm not asking as a journalist. I'm asking as a friend."

Quiet fell. The fire crackled in the background.

"Did you know I was dating someone when I auditioned for Starfinder?" Finn said.

I shook my head.

"Her name was Gillian. We went to school together and we'd been a couple for about five months. She was so excited when she found out I'd landed a spot on the show." Finn's jaw worked. "When the Starfinder producers put Momentum together, they thought we'd be more appealing to the teen girl market if we were all single. They considered Gillian a distraction. So they removed her."

"What do you mean?"

"They pressured me into breaking up with her."

"Can they do that?" I said.

Finn shrugged. "It's not illegal, is it?"

"No, but it's pretty fucking unethical."

He gave a harsh laugh. "Tash, by now I'd think you'd understand that a huge part of the music industry is pretty fucking unethical."

I didn't know what to say to that.

"Gillian deserved better, but I was sixteen and being offered the world, so I did as I was told. Credit to her, she didn't run to any tabloids once I'd dumped her. As far as I know, she's never said a bad word about me." His mouth made a bitter shape. "Not publicly anyway, but I'm sure her friends have heard her call me every name under the sun."

"Do you miss her?" I asked.

His eyebrows shot up. "What? No. That was years ago, I was a kid."

"But you still feel bad about what happened?" I guessed.

"I treated her like crap and I shouldn't have done." Finn rubbed his leather bracelet.

"Like you said though, you were sixteen and under a lot of pressure from a big, powerful company. Don't blame yourself." I chewed my lip. "I don't get what this has to do with Penny Lang though."

"Do you remember me telling you that one thing I hated about Momentum was that we were supposed to date the girls that management picked for us?" Finn said.

"Yeah – oh."

"Exactly. Penny and I didn't start dating because we liked each other. We were pushed together by our respective managers."

"Why though? If they wanted you to be single during Starfinder, why pair you with a girlfriend afterwards?"

"Publicity." Finn said the word as if it tasted bad. "We weren't allowed to date normal girls, they had to be actresses or singers or models. Being seen with another famous person helped cement our own celebrity and bring in more fans, but none of it was ever meant to last. A new girlfriend, a public breakup, unconfirmed rumours with a string of other famous girls, until finally the cycle completes with another new girlfriend – it was all about generating public interest. People are weirdly invested in the lives of celebrities."

"Yeah, I've never understood that."

"Me either."

"If none of these relationships were meant to last, why were you and Penny together for so long?" I asked.

Finn's mouth twisted again. "Because, like you said, we were the golden couple. We were photogenic and adorable, and once our managers realised there was a whole fanbase building around Pinn, they realised it was better for us to stay together. And that worked for us because we actually liked each other by then, but the public interest in us was creepy as fuck. It was bad enough that so many people our own age were so invested in our relationship, but how the fuck were so many grown-arse adults obsessing over what a couple of fucking teenagers did?"

"I think fans forget that celebrities are real people too," I said.

"You're not fucking wrong."

"Getting back to my original question, why did you and Penny break up?"

"Because even though I did grow to like her, I couldn't forget that our relationship was as manufactured as Momentum itself. We were under huge pressure to always present the relationship as perfect, and what teenager has a perfect fucking relationship? The whole thing was a constant performance, and in the end I couldn't take it anymore. I guess the relationship wouldn't have lasted anyway, though. We were kids."

"That's not the point," I said.

"No, I guess not."

We stared at each other across the table. I'd expected a short, glib answer to my question, and not this spilling of raw honesty.

Finn gathered up the cards and shuffled them. "Let's see what I can get you to share," he said.

"Nothing because I'm going to keep kicking your ass," I told him.

He chuckled.

I smiled too, but my mind was churning with everything Finn had told me. Through Jude and Camden, I knew more about the darker side of fame that I had before, but the realisation that powerful record companies had used kids as their personal puppets made my stomach knot.

How had no one realised how messed-up that was?

"Did your family know that any of this was happening?" I asked.

Finn focused on the cards. "No."

"Why not?"

"Uh-uh." Finn wagged a finger at me, and light winked off his skull ring. "You've had your question. If you want another, you have to win another game."

"That shouldn't be too hard."

***

Another game later and I was smugly laying down another winning hand. "Strip or secret?" I said.

"Secret." Finn held up a finger. "But I don't want to talk about relationships anymore."

"Okay." I thought back to our failed first interview. "Can you tell me anything about the fourth album?"

Finn sipped his cocktail and I was briefly mesmerised by the way he licked his lips, his tongue-stud flickering into view and out again.

"I'm getting a bit of déjà vu from these questions," he said.

"Maybe you should have answered them properly the first time," I said sweetly.

He gave a quick grin. "Maybe I should. What do you want to know?"

"When's it coming out?"

"No idea."

I waited for him to elaborate.

Finn sighed and swirled the ice in his glass. "The truth is I'm stuck. Nothing's working. I can't find the words or the melody or fucking anything. My third album was so successful, but it looks like that was a fluke."

"I don't believe that," I said.

"You're familiar with my first two albums? Then you know how crap they are."

I put down my cards. "I don't see them that way. I'm not going to pretend they're as good as your third one because that would be a lie, but I view them as an interesting experimental stage. You were still trying to find your sound then."

"I rushed them out before they were ready because I was a cocky little shite and thought everyone would fall over themselves to buy anything I put out," Finn said.

"Then you learned better, and started taking real pride in your work. That hasn't gone away, has it?" I said.

Finn looked away. "I don't know."

I covered Finn's hand with mine. "Well, I do. Maybe you're having trouble now, but that doesn't mean it'll last. Jude struggled like crazy with his third album, and look how successful that's turned out to be. He's planning a world tour."

"I know. He asked me to join him," Finn muttered.

"Will you?"

He shrugged.

"Maybe touring with Jude will help get the creative juices flowing again," I suggested, and waggled my eyebrows at him. "At the very least, all those groupies can help you de-stress."

Finn pulled back from the table. "I'm really not a fan of groupies."

"You're not?"

His expression cooled. "Why does that surprise you?" There was an edge to his voice that hadn't been there before.

"Two reasons. One, I think most single guys would be happy to have women falling at their feet. Two, over the years I've seen you with a string of beautiful women on your arm. None of them were groupies?"

Finn snagged my empty glass and walked over to the kitchen to mix us another drink each. I waited quietly until he returned.

"Okay," he said, kneeling on the other side of the coffee table. "I was eighteen when I broke up with Penny. Momentum had conquered the world by then, everyone knew my name, I was rolling in money, and suddenly I was available to every girl who wanted me. You can guess how much I took advantage of that."

"A lot," I agreed.

"More than I can remember." His face hardened. "But soon enough I realised that none of them were really interested in me. They all saw me as a trophy, something they could brag about, and I didn't care much at the time because I was a just-turned eighteen-year-old getting hit on twenty-four-seven. But when I look back now I realise how much it was chipping away at my fucking humanity."

Finn tipped back his glass, ice clinking against his teeth.

"So now I have a certain level of contempt for some groupies – not all, because some of them really do believe that their crushes are real – but the ones who just wanted a famous notch on their bedpost? Fuck 'em." He pulled a rueful face. "Although whatever contempt I feel for groupies doesn't begin to match Cole's."

"Cole's notorious for the number of women he's screwed. How can he possibly hate groupies?" I asked.

"You'd have to ask Cole that."

We played another game, and this time I took pity on Finn and let him win. Or maybe I didn't pity him. Maybe I just wanted an excuse to undress in front of him. Whatever. The cocktails had already gone to my head, making me feel warm and uninhibited.

"I choose strip," I announced, and lifted the hem of my T-shirt.

"Wait," Finn said.

I paused.

His gaze was fixed on the narrow slice of bare stomach that I'd revealed, and his mouth was pulled into a hard line.

"I want you to tell me a secret," he said.

"That's not how this game is played. Loser still gets to choose." I kept my tone light, though my heart was starting to pound.

Didn't Finn want to see me with my shirt off?

"Tell me something you've never told anyone," Finn said. His eyes lifted to my face, dark and intense, pinning me in place.

"Cake is overrated."

Finn's expression didn't change.

I sighed and tipped my head back, thinking. "I don't like oral sex."

That got a reaction.

Finn's eyes widened and his lips slightly parted. "What?"

"Did I stutter?"

"But . . ."

I crunched an ice cube between my teeth. "Finn Donovan, have I rendered you speechless at last?"

Finn shoved his hand through his hair. "I don't believe you."

"Hey, I've never admitted that to anyone before," I said, stung.

"You misunderstand. I believe you think you don't like it, but I don't believe you actually don't."

I scrunched up my face. "Huh?"

Finn licked his lips, drawing my attention to his mouth. "You think you don't like it because no one's ever done it properly."

"How the hell did you reach that conclusion?"

"Because," Finn said, sounding genuinely frustrated, "if someone had done it right, you'd like it."

"Okay, I think we're going in circles."

Finn jumped to his feet and grabbed my hand. His palm was cool from his glass.

"What are you doing?" I said as he propelled me to the sofa.

"Proving it."

"Proving what?" My cocktail-fuzzed brain struggled to catch up.

My legs hit the sofa and Finn pushed me down, until I was sitting, staring up at him.

"What are you doing?" I whispered, my throat turning to dust.

Eyes sparking, Finn sank to his knees in front of me. "We both think we're right, so the only way forward is for me to show you."

"You-you're not serious," I said.

Finn hooked his thumbs in the waistband of my shorts and started to pull them down.