by Sian Ceinwen
“I meant what I said,” Hayden told them. “If he pulls any of that kind of shit again, we should think about changing management.”
“I agree,” Gabriel said without hesitation. “I should’ve told him to fuck off years ago when he told me that I needed to dump Ariana.”
“He what?!” Heather exclaimed.
“Yeah, I heard him say it, too.” Ariana cringed. Everyone turned to look at her with stunned looks on their faces, even Gabriel. “I never said anything, but I overheard your conversation with him the day we…went sightseeing.”
“Why did you never say anything?” Gabriel asked her.
“I wasn’t exactly in a great place, mentally. It played right into all of my fears, so I just internalized that shit big time and added it to my list of reasons I should leave.”
Gabriel hugged Ariana tightly and kissed her head. He whispered something to her that Lita couldn’t hear, and she smiled at him.
“Harrison, thoughts on Cooper?” Hayden asked.
“Same. If he pulls any kind of shit again, we’re done. He’s not good enough at his job to get away with that. It’s not okay.”
Hayden looked at Sebastian, who nodded. “I think my position is pretty fucking obvious, considering I seem to constantly have to try and stop myself from punching him in the face.”
There was silence in the room, and it felt as though they’d come to an ominous decision.
“Hey, who knew you had more self-restraint than I did, darling?” Heather said to Sebastian with a grin on her face, and finally, the tension left the room as everyone laughed.
They ended up all staying at Harrison and Heather’s for the evening. By the end of the night, Heather slapping the reporter was a full-blown meme on the internet.
“Live on in infamy!” Heather announced, lifting a glass of whisky as a toast.
Eventually, Sebastian led an exhausted Lita down to the parking garage so that he could drive them home. It was strange to have no bodyguards with them and for him to be driving her again.
“How are you feeling?” he asked her once they were on their way.
“Tired,” she told him. “You? It got pretty tense with Cooper. He was going at you pretty hard about Heather.”
“He probably knows,” Sebastian shrugged. “He’s seen a lot, and he’s not dumb. I don’t think that he liked me telling the guys what he did, though, so he was trying to get back at me.”
“I feel bad; Heather was defending me.”
Sebastian smiled. “I was defending her when I almost hit a reporter once. Turnabout is fair play.”
“Do I have to hit a reporter to be a part of the cool crew?” Lita asked with a grin.
“You’ve told them off twice. You’re already part of the cool crew.” He was silent for a minute, and he sighed heavily before he spoke again. “I’m not sad that you’re in my life, Lita, but I am sad that you have to deal with all of this. Reporters, Cooper, fans, all of that. I know that this kind of drama is the last thing that you need right now.”
Lita sighed. Now that they were away from the drama with Heather and the reporter, she was reminded of her conversation with Heather earlier. She knew that she needed to have a serious conversation with him that she very much didn’t want to have.
“I need to talk to you, Sebastian.”
He glanced over at her before turning to look back at the road. “Uh oh, sounds serious, princess.”
“It kind of is. Heather and I were talking today, and I realized that I’ve been unfair to you,” Lita told him.
“Okay, you’ve got my attention, that’s for sure. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?”
Lita felt as though her heart was splintering into a thousand tiny pieces. She wanted to back out. She did not want to do this.
“It depends on how you look at it. I’ve been sending you mixed signals. I’ve told you over and over again that I don’t want us to be together, but then I’ve let you sleep with me and hold my hand and kiss me, and it’s not fair to you. It makes it seem like there’s some chance of a relationship for us, and there isn’t.”
Lita couldn’t bear to look in Sebastian’s direction, but she could feel him looking over at her as she stared intensely out of the windscreen.
“Where is this coming from, Lita?” Sebastian’s voice was surprisingly soft.
“Nowhere. It’s the truth. I knew from that day on the plane that I shouldn’t sleep with you anymore, but I’ve kept doing it, and it’s not fair. So, we can’t keep doing it, Seb. I have a firm new ground rule: no more sex or kisses, hugs, or handholding. We’re not a couple, and I need to stop acting like we are.”
Sebastian didn’t respond to Lita’s comment. She saw him reach across to the screen in the middle of the dashboard and press Heather’s name in his list of contacts.
Lita was horrified as she heard the ringing through the speakers. “What are you doing?”
There was no time for him to respond before Heather answered the call, sounding cheerful. “Hey, darling. What’s up?”
“Can you keep your fucking nose out of my business, please?” Sebastian asked in an angry tone.
“What is this about?” Heather sounded shocked.
“I’ve told you this before, but apparently you haven’t understood. I don’t fucking want you to involve yourself in my relationship with Lita. What we’re doing is nothing to do with you, do you get that?”
She heard Heather blow out a breath before she said, “Okay, so thanks for dumping me in it, Lita.”
“Don’t have a fucking go at her for what you did, Heather,” Sebastian growled.
“Right. Well, all I said was that she shouldn’t lead you on after she told me that you’d slept together a few days ago. I said it to her because she’s my friend, and it’s the same thing that I would say to any of my friends if I was watching them do this shit.
“Also, you can’t dictate to me who I can and can’t be friends with, Sebastian Fox. If Lita doesn’t want my advice, I won’t give it to her, but that’s her call to make. Just because you don’t want to discuss shit with me, doesn’t mean that she doesn’t.”
There was silence for a few moments, and Lita dared a glance at Sebastian, who was glaring at the road in front of them, looking more furious than she’d ever seen him look. When he spoke, there was an intensity to his words that alarmed Lita.
“Lita is telling me that I basically can’t touch her anymore. The times that we’ve had sex, I’ve been the one who initiated it, not her. It’s not even the sex that I care about, though. Do you know when I’ve been touching her the most? When we’re at doctor’s appointments. On the way to them, or during them, or after them, when she’s crying and terrified for our child.
“What’s unfair is not Lita having sex with me, but the fact that we’re going through this shit at all. I don’t expect you to understand what we’re going through—nobody does unless they’ve been through it—but you need to step back, Heather. Our shit is complicated enough as it is without you making it worse.”
“Fuck. I’m sorry. I didn’t think about that.” Heather sighed.
“No, clearly, you didn’t. You’re so busy worrying about Lita apparently ‘leading me on’ that you didn’t even consider that I'm a 'grown-ass adult,' as you put it, and I know what I'm doing. So, let me reiterate: my relationship with Lita is between nobody but us.
“You’re right that I can’t stop you from being friends with her. I like that you’re friends with Lita; both of you mean the world to me, so it’s great that you get along. I just need you to stop getting involved because you’re not helping anyone right now.”
Sebastian’s angry tone and demeanor had gone, now he just looked broken, and Lita felt exactly like he looked. She hated everything about this situation.
“Noted. I’m sorry, guys. I’ll stay out of it in the future.”
“Thank you. That’s all I’m asking.” Sebastian hung up the call.
There was silence in the car. N
either of them spoke as they drove for a few minutes. When they stopped at a set of lights, Sebastian looked over at Lita.
“So, the new ground rules. I need to know when they do and don’t apply. I know you said that they’re firm, but what about our appointments with Eric?”
Lita thought about it. On the one hand, what he’d said to Heather was true, and they probably both needed that connection in those moments. At the same time, despite what he’d said on the phone call, what Heather had said was also true. Those small moments of connection often led to larger moments outside of them.
“I don’t know,” Lita answered honestly.
“Well, when you figure it out, let me know, princess.”
33
LEVEL 25.2 – Fashion Distraction
Your baby is the size of Thor’s hammer.
By now, you may be experiencing carpal tunnel syndrome. This is caused by the increased blood volume in your body, which causes swelling and puts pressure on the nerves in the wrists, leaving them numb and tingly.
Don’t have that? Great! What about symphysis pubis dysfunction? It’s fondly referred to as SPD, because that’s a mouthful! It’s pain felt in the pelvic area and is caused by the relaxed and stretchy ligaments that normally keep your pelvic joins aligned. Have you been doing your Kegels? You should have been doing your Kegels. Try not to look glassy-eyed when you finally remember to do them during family dinner, and you won’t have to explain to everyone what you’re doing. Or do tell them. Good pelvic muscles benefit everybody!
Sebastian smiled at Lita as they drove toward Serenity in the black SUV. “Are you okay, princess?”
“Yeah. It feels like I’m just waiting for the sword of Damocles to drop, though.”
They’d just left Dr. Floyd’s office where they’d had another appointment. Every appointment felt like it would be the one where he would confirm a date for surgery because the tumor was still growing, and it was now definitely a matter of when she would have surgery, and not if she would have it.
Things had been strained between Lita and Sebastian after she’d set her new ground rules in place. She still let him put his hands on her bump sometimes, but those were the only times that they had touched since that day. He’d gone out with Hayden both Friday and Saturday nights last weekend, and Lita felt as though he was distancing himself from her.
“No point in thinking about it until Friday,” Sebastian said with a tight smile.
“Easier said than done.” Lita sighed.
Sebastian nodded but didn’t say anything more. When they arrived at Serenity, there was a large crowd of paparazzi out the front.
“I guess they’re here to hassle Heather some more about that reporter,” Sebastian said darkly.
“I would’ve thought that it would be dying down by now.” Lita pursed her lips.
“I don’t think it will ever die down; there’s always some reason for them to want to come after us.”
Daryl opened the door to the SUV with a frown on his face. “Are you guys ready for this?”
“Sure, let’s go,” Sebastian told him.
Ben and Daryl escorted them toward the building, and it wasn’t long before they were having questions yelled at them. First about their baby, then about Heather.
“Do you think Heather will go to jail?” someone asked.
“Are you going to tell us what’s wrong with your baby?”
“Is there an engagement in your future?”
Lita was grateful when they made it inside without incident and with none of the reporters coming too close for comfort. She waved to Callum, who was sitting in a chair in the reception area, and their own bodyguards went over to talk to him. Sebastian ignored Callum, as well as Heather’s receptionist, and strode down the hallway to her office, opening it without knocking, only to see that it was empty.
He shrugged and turned to make his way to the main floor, with Lita following behind him. He paused when he was in the big room and then looked around to see Heather talking to a woman near the pregnant mannequin.
“Heather!” Sebastian called across the room, and Lita felt as though every person there stopped what they had been doing to look at him. “Why do the reporters outside think you’re going to jail?”
“Haven’t you heard, Sebastian? I’m a dangerous criminal,” Heather called back to him.
Lita followed him over to where Heather was standing with the woman, and she hovered nervously as their conversation played out.
“You’ve had charges laid against you? I thought Cooper handled it with the reporter’s station.” Sebastian asked.
“Yes, it happened about an hour ago. The Attorney General’s Office announced that they’re charging me with assault and battery. It turns out that even without the guy pressing charges, you can’t be filmed slapping someone and not have the State press charges anyway.”
“What the fuck are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with a lawyer or something?” he frowned as he said it.
“I’ve been on the phone with both Cooper and the lawyer. The lawyer is going to fight it, argue that I was concerned for Lita’s safety, which is true.”
“That’s a lie,” Lita frowned. “You slapped him because he was a dick, not because you were worried about my safety.”
“Yes, but short of the guy saying that he agreed to me slapping him, which probably wouldn’t hold up since he’s also on video saying he’ll get me charged, it’s the best defense we’ve got.” Heather shrugged.
“You’re incredibly calm for someone who might go to jail,” Sebastian told her.
“What am I going to do? Cry in a heap about it? I don’t feel proud of assaulting someone, and if the lawyer can’t get me off the charge, I deserve whatever I get. In the meantime, I’ve got work to do.”
The woman who had been standing next to Heather the whole time said, “I’ll go back to that design and leave you to it, Heather.”
“Yes, Rachel. Sorry about the rude interruption; we can continue our discussion later. Heaven knows that Sebastian Fox waits for no man…or woman.” Heather rolled her eyes, and Rachel was grinning as she walked away. “Way to embarrass me in front of my employees, Seb.”
“As if they don’t know about it anyway.”
“You didn’t,” Heather raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, well, we’ve been at the hospital, haven’t we?” Sebastian said in a clipped tone.
That comment brought a strained look to Heather’s face as she looked at Lita and asked, “How was it? Any news?”
“No news. Same old, same old. Definitely surgery, go back Friday.” Lita sighed.
“Sorry, darling. I wish it were better news.”
“Me too. At this point, I just want the surgery over and done with, now that I know it has to happen. At the same time, I know that the longer we wait, the better our chances are.”
“Well, how about we focus on something fun in the meantime?” Heather smiled at Lita. “I’ve got some pretty clothes for you. Want to give us a fashion show? It’ll distract us both from our worries.”
Despite her concerns, Lita chuckled, and it was nice to laugh. “Sure, as long as you haven’t made me a tent.”
“Definitely no tents here!” Heather confirmed.
She took them over to a table where there were several piles of clothes, in many different styles and colors, carefully laid out in front of them. When she got closer, Lita could see that they all seemed to be made from soft, stretchy materials. Some were flowing dresses, others were shirts and pants, or skirts.
“How many clothes did you make, Heather?” Lita gasped.
“I might have been a bit stressed over the last week.” Heather cringed. “I tend to design and make clothes when I’m stressed. It keeps me nicely distracted.”
“There are enough clothes here for my entire pregnancy and then some.”
“Yeah, well, I thought that I might do an offshoot of Serenity for maternity clothes. Those clothes in the stores were mostly awfu
l. I figured that I could try out lots of different styles and see what looks good, what feels comfortable, and what works. Some of these might not be great, so I was hoping that you’d be willing to give me feedback on them.”
Lita shook her head in amazement. “Of course, Heather. I’m more than happy to do that.”
“I wish we’d started earlier in your pregnancy, when your bump was smaller, so I could design for the whole pregnancy. I think that some styles will work better toward the end, but if you’re willing to keep trying out different styles for me, I’d appreciate it.”
“Would I like to wear a Heather Fletcher original design every day of my pregnancy? Um, fuck yes,” Lita laughed.
“Well, go try them on, then.” Heather smiled at Lita.
Lita took some of the clothes and went to a small changing room that was at the side of the big room. The first thing she tried on was a green dress made of soft, stretchy material. It had elbow-length sleeves and stopped about an inch above Lita’s knees. It hugged her curves and showed off her bump, looking far more attractive than anything she’d tried on the day of their fateful shopping trip.
Lita walked out of the changing room, and Heather clapped with excitement when she saw her. “You look amazing! This is much more like what I envisioned you wearing.”
“Clearly, since you made it for her,” Sebastian said in a dry tone, but he wasn’t looking at Heather; his eyes were glued to Lita. “You look amazing.”
“See? That’s the reaction you want. You’d never get that from him if you were wearing a tent.” Heather indicated to Sebastian as he stared at Lita.
He shrugged, but still didn’t look away. “Lita could be wearing a sack, and she’d look just as good.”
“You haven’t seen her wearing a maternity tent,” Heather laughed.
