I can do it with a broken heart (Lando Norris)

Chapter Thirty Four

"Hello?" Hannah groaned, holding the phone up to her ear as she blinked sleepily trying to orientate herself to the time and place. Being on tour and constantly moving around was really confusing her body and brain again.

"Hi Hannah, sorry to disturb you I know you wanted to get some rest before the show. It's Alice." Came the slightly timid voice from the other end of the phone.

"What's up?" Hannah asked, glancing over at Lando who was still fast sleep beside her.

"We've got a problem." Alice sighed. "It's Cassie."

Hannah's heart felt like it was going to drop out of her stomach. "What's happened?"

"She's done an interview talking about working with you, her relationship with Joe, your relationship with Lando. She hasn't held back on anything." Alice said quietly. "I'm sorry, Hannah."

"Oh fucking hell." Hannah mumbled. "Can you send me a link to it?" She glanced over at Lando who was still sound asleep before climbing out of bed and going into the bathroom, closing the door behind her so she didn't disturb him.

"Yeah I will." Alice said. "Have a look at it and see what you want to do. I won't comment on it just yet."

"Thanks Alice, I'll call you back once I've read it." Hannah said, ending the call.

She opened up the text message Alice had sent her, clicking on the link and starting to read the article that accompanied the photo of Hannah and Cassie together at the tour movie premiere.

We have a tell all exclusive interview with Cassandra Rossi, who up until this year was Hannah Scott's manager from the beginning of her career. The two had worked incredibly closely together for close to a decade before the surprise split was announced on social media by Scott, in the midst of the drama surrounding her now rescheduled tour. At the time, Scott refused to comment on the reasoning behind the change of manager, but Cassie is now here with us to set the record straight.

Hannah's stomach flipped nervously. There was absolutely no way she was coming out of this in any kind of good light.

Cassie was keen to let us know she doesn't harbour any animosity towards Hannah for the way things ended, despite the fact by her own admission it's made her life and future career prospects rather uncertain. Instead, she's here to set the record straight in the hope it might help with all the speculation and help others realise what life in the industry is really like.

"When I first started working with Hannah, almost a decade ago, she was right at the beginning of her career. Freshly signed by the label I worked for, she had no idea what she was doing and her inexperience showed. She's always been talented, and over the years she's more than proven she can sing and write songs that people truly feel they can relate to. But while from the outside it perhaps always looked like the perfect life, a successful career, the massive world tour, a loving boyfriend, it wasn't necessarily the truth of what was happening behind the scenes.

I am ashamed to admit that I found myself in a relationship with Hannah's now ex partner, Joe, while the two of them were still together. We worked a lot of long hours together trying to keep Hannah's career on track, it was stressful and not made any easier by Hannah's issues. The two of them argued a lot and I was always caught in the middle. I was the only one he could talk to really and well, one thing led to another. It carried on for almost three years, and once he and Hannah broke off their relationship we continued to see each other although recently we have come to the mutual decision to end the relationship.

When Hannah found out she fired me, despite the fact her relationship with Joe was long since over. Do I think it was fair? Absolutely not, she didn't just fire me as her manager but she had me fired by the record label I'd worked for my entire career and left me with nothing.

I don't think people realise what's going on below the surface a lot of the time. You go to a show and you see a pretty young girl dancing around singing love songs, looking like she's having the time of her life. The reality of it is, when you work with that person day in and day out, you see behind the scenes and see what they're like as a real person rather than the persona on stage. That's when you find out that actually that happy, privileged performer is depressed and lounging around in bed the rest of the week, consuming their meals in the form of wine to try and allow themselves to sleep or just to get through the day.

I tried my absolute best to help her, as did Joe, but when someone doesn't want help there's only so much you can do. I guess maybe the resentment that I'd called her out on her issues and tried to encourage her to get help is why she didn't want to work with me? I don't know. Her and Joe weren't really together for a long time before it actually officially ended, and I know what we did wasn't right, but should it really have cost me my job?

I think in all honesty, Hannah is a very deeply troubled person, and while I'm glad it looks like she's doing a bit better and the tour has continued on I wouldn't be too surprised if she ends up cancelling or postponing more of the shows when she starts to struggle again."

Hannah stopped reading, throwing the phone across the bathroom as she muffled a sob with the back of her hand. There was a crash as the phone rebounded off the sink and hit the floor, screen smashed. She didn't move to pick it up, putting her head in her hands and letting the tears flow.

How could she?

After everything they'd been through together, after everything she'd trusted Cassie with, she'd sold it all to a website for a payday? As if everything with Joe hadn't been enough of a kick in the teeth.

"Hannah?" There was a knock on the bathroom door. "Are you in there?" Lando called.

"Yep." She cursed herself as her voice faltered.

"I'm coming in." He opened the door, relieved she hadn't locked it. "What's wrong?" He asked immediately, taking in the scene in front of him. He crouched down in front of where she was perched on the toilet seat, hands resting on her thighs.

Her whole body shook with another silent sob and she looked down at where his hands were slowly rubbing soothing circles on her thighs. Anything to avoid having to look him in the eye and admit that what Cassie was saying was right.

His eyes wandered to the smashed phone lying on the bathroom floor and he reached out and picked it up, eyes scanning over the article that was still on the screen.

"Why does she hate me so much?" Hannah whispered, still unable to meet his eyes. "I thought she was my friend."

He put the phone back down, wrapping his arms around Hannah and holding her tightly into his chest as she finally let the tears escape her. "It'll be okay, we'll sort it out." He soothed. "It's going to be okay."

"It's not going to be okay. She's not going to be happy until she's completely destroyed me, clearly." She cried. Her mind was racing through all the things Cassie might've seen or heard over the years. Because as upset as Lando may be about what Cassie had revealed in that article, Hannah was aware that it had the potential to be so much worse. The fact Joe had cheated on her was nothing compared to some of the things she could've chosen to share.

"We'll talk to Alice and a lawyer and see if we can get them to take it down." He suggested, willing his brain to start working and come up with some better suggestions. He'd been fast asleep until the crash of her phone hitting the floor had woken him and it was taking a minute for his mind to catch up with his body.

"I can't... how's that going to look if I get her fired from her job and then sue her?" Hannah protested. "I don't want to aggravate her anymore in case she decides to start sharing even more of my secrets."

"Okay, well let's just have a think about it first shall we?" He suggested. "We will sort it, one way or another."

She was quiet for a moment before she extracted herself from his embrace. "I need to get moving. I don't want to be late for the show." Her voice was flat and devoid of all the earlier emotion as she got to her feet, stripping out of her clothes on autopilot.