Ice And Adoration – Karis Chan (1)

he shot back, his voice low and hard. “The whole world is watching Stella Hart have a perfect, brand-safe dinner with the hockey-playing caveman. Gotta make sure the sponsors are happy.” He picked up a breadstick and snapped it in half, the sound like a gunshot in the quiet room.

“This isn’t just about sponsors,” she said, her own anger rising to meet his. “This is about my life. My career.” And that’s when he delivered the blow. He looked her right in the eye, his gaze cold and dismissive, and dropped the incendiary remark that incinerated what little professional courtesy remained between them. “Right. Your career,” he said, with a cynical little twist of his lips. “Writing all those sad little songs about the guys who leave you.

Must be tough work, coming up with rhymes for ‘limousine’ and ‘broken dream.’ Real blue-collar stuff.” The air left Stella’s lungs. The insult was so precise, so cruel, it felt like he’d reached across the table and slapped her. He hadn’t just attacked her career; he’d belittled her art, the one part of her life that felt real and sacred. He’d reduced her entire body of work, the pain and joy and heartbreak she’d poured onto pages, into a cheap, calculated formula.

He made it sound pathetic. The ambient noise of the restaurant faded away. The golden light suddenly felt harsh and interrogating. All she could see was his face, his expression of casual contempt. The hurt was a sharp, physical pain in her chest, but it was quickly being consumed by a clarifying, white-hot rage. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, her voice dangerously quiet. “Don’t I?” he challenged, leaning forward now, too. “Looks to me like you’ve got it all figured out.

A new album needs a little buzz, so you find a new guy, write a few catchy tunes about how it all went wrong, and then you count the money. It’s a good business model. I’ll give you that.” The performance was over. The curtain had been torn down. This was no longer a PR stunt. It was a fight. Stella opened her mouth to retaliate, to unleash a torrent of words that would slice him to ribbons. She had a thousand scathing remarks queued up, a lifetime of practice in lyrical warfare ready to be deployed.

The carefully controlled public persona was gone, and the cornered, wounded songwriter was ready to draw blood. But before she could utter a single syllable, a shadow fell over their table. “Stella! Carter!

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except for brief quotations in book reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Published by Karis Chan First Edition: 2026 OceanofPDF.com Contents Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five OceanofPDF.com Chapter One The silence in the penthouse was heavy as stone, a heavy blanket woven from recycled air and the faint, high-pitched hum of technology that was never truly off.

It pressed on Stella Hart’s eardrums, a constant, sterile pressure that reminded her of the inside of an airplane cabin, always between places. From her white leather sofa, positioned with architectural precision in the center of the cavernous living room, she stared at a television screen the size of a small country. The remote, a sleek black wand of minimalist design, felt alien in her hand, cool and inert, lacking the familiar, worn-out comfort of a guitar pick. Click. A reality show about impossibly beautiful people selling impossibly expensive houses.

The women’s laughter sounded like shattered glass, sharp and bright and empty. She could almost smell the cloying perfume and hairspray through the screen. Click. A news anchor with perfect hair and a somber expression discussed geopolitical tensions. His voice was a smooth, measured drone, and the world he described—full of chaos and consequence—felt a million miles away, a different planet entirely.

Click. A vintage music documentary. A young, wild-eyed Joni Mitchell sat on a stool, her face raw with emotion as she cradled a guitar. There were no perfect graphics, no brand sentiment analysis, just a girl and her instrument, her fingers dancing across the strings as if they were extensions of her own nervous system. Joni sang of longing and regret, and her voice was a frayed, beautiful thing.

Stella felt a pang of something sharp and painful in her chest, a feeling so acute it was almost envy. Stella’s gaze drifted toward the open doorway of the songwriting room, where she could see the silhouettes of her guitars standing in their formation, waiting. The familiar worn spruce top of the Taylor Grand Auditorium was among them, a museum piece that could be observed but was no longer touched.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 3131f1c3d6bb2057
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,004,587 bytes (0.958 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 275
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 444.12 minutes
• Total Words: 88,824
• Total Characters: 510,660
• Average Words per Page: 323.0
• Average Characters per Page: 1856.95

Most Frequent Words

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