Under His Influence (Love Under Lockdown Book 27)

by Jamie Knight

  “Seth Black, from Autumn Corrosion.”

  “I see,” Stephanie said, looking pointedly at my T-shirt.

  “Yeah, that’s even more of a coincidence than it looks.”

  “Do tell.”

  I wanted to, but I was having trouble finding the words, and not just because of embarrassment on account of the sexcapades I’d embarked on with Seth.

  “Well, about two weeks ago, I got the opportunity to intern at the record label, and it was great for a while but then, things changed.”

  “Oh my God, he didn’t hurt you, did he? Are you still a virgin?”

  “No, but he didn’t hurt me. He is really great, or at least I thought he was. That’s where it gets confusing.”

  “Take your time, hon,” she said, taking my hand.

  “It was really cool at first. I shadowed him during his days at the studio for a week: listening to demos, going to shows, sitting in on recording sessions. I really learned a lot. He was never remotely inappropriate, going out of his way to not even touch me, even accidentally.”

  “Okay, I won’t murder him yet.”

  “Then the lockdown came, and he said he wanted to keep things going. He invited me stay at his house, so he could mentor me. I want to make it clear: I wanted to go. He is really sexy, and I’ve always had a thing for him. The fact that he might be even slightly interested in me made me giddy. Everything was normal the first day. The morning of the second day, after breakfast, he made a sort of proposal.”

  “Not a wedding proposal, I assume.”

  “No, but there was a jewelry box,” I said dreamily.

  “Did it have that in it?”

  Stephanie pointed to the collar, which was still around my neck. That was no doubt the same way that the crazy lady who had waltzed right into Seth’s house had known what was going on between us.

  “Yeah,” I admitted.

  “I think I’m starting to get the picture.”

  There was no judgement in her tone, just concern that I was alright. I hadn’t had time to really check.

  “What happened then?” she asked.

  “A few days of wonderful, mixing a continuation of the internship with, um, other activities, all consensual of course. Then this morning, he says we should take a break from what we’ve been doing,” I told her, hating this part. “He said too much can be overwhelming. I didn’t want to stop. I realize now that that was because I was too far into it, which was exactly what he was afraid of, so I can’t really fault him. Then, just after he gets done explaining that, and how he still likes doing this with me, this, um, woman comes storming in.”

  “His wife?”

  “I don’t think so, because I think I would have heard about if he’d gotten married. I thought maybe girlfriend.”

  “Girlfriend or no, it doesn’t sound like you should be seeing him anymore,” Stephanie said resolutely. “It’s not safe.”

  She was right, of course. I was beginning to love Seth, in more than a crush way, but I didn’t want to risk getting hurt, which only made it worse, somehow, because it might not even be his fault.

  There was every possibility that the woman was his girlfriend, enraged at his continued infidelity. Or she could be a jealous ex-girlfriend who couldn’t let go.

  But whatever she was, it was too much for me to deal with just then.

  I needed space and, as much as it hurt, like a fucking knife in my heart, I knew that Stephanie was absolutely right that I couldn’t see Seth again.

  Chapter Ten - Seth

  It had started out so well.

  We’d met through a friend of a friend, the usual story.

  I’d never really been a scene sort of boy. Not even during what some have termed ‘the party years.’

  Sure, I went to lots of parties, due to the music I was involved in, but I more tended to be on the stage than on the dance floor or at the bar. It was an arrangement that helped me develop my tea-totalism with a minimum of hassle.

  Not that there was no drinking on stage, Thom always having at least one can or bottle balanced on his keyboard, but that was to be expected from a band. Not from me, though. I stayed sober.

  I was also always the designated driver, which allowed the rest of the band to get plastered, if they wanted to. I was also the one who would drive some other folks home if it was a local gig. There were times in which I felt like that ‘bus driver’ should be added to my list of jobs in the many hats I wore.

  “There’s someone I want you to meet,” my friend Cam said, as we took down our set.

  “Is he cute?”

  “I mean for you, smart ass.”

  “Oh, is she cute?”

  “Naw, more like smokin’ hot.”

  “Goodie goodie gumdrops.”

  We were past the point of picking up on sarcasm. We had been friends too long, and more or less assumed most things had at least a tang of irony to them.

  We were from the tail-end of Gen X, after all. The fact of the matter was, in my experience, that being pretty brought problems. I had a feeling that Clara would be trouble, way back then, and I should have listened to my gut.

  “Clove?” she had asked, offering me a cigarette.

  “No thanks.”

  “Mormon?” she guessed, blowing out a puff.

  It was 1997 or thereabouts and smoking indoors was still legal in most states. As much as I hated it, I had to admit she did make it look sexy.

  “Nope. Just mortal,” I pointed out. “And planning to continue being that way for a long time.”

  “Interesting,” Clara said, actually seeming to ponder what I had said.

  The sparks were instant and the fire they lit burned bright for about a year. Right up until the ‘98 tour.

  Things cooled significantly then, with Clara getting paranoid that I was cheating on her, that I had a girl in every town, or at least that I was fucking groupies on the regular. Never mind the fact that most of our fans were guys. Plus, I was faithful, although she seemed convinced otherwise.

  If anyone was hooking up with anyone else on the road, it was Cam, who was happily unattached. Even if I’d had the opportunity, I wouldn’t take it, obviously because I was with Clara, but also, even if I was single, I just wouldn’t have the time. I spent most nights on tour or at the hotel, working on new lyrics or practicing my basslines with headphones on.

  And yet she still never believed me. Her constant paranoia and jealousy just got to be too much, and I ended it. Or, so at least I’d thought.

  It was uncanny, really.

  Just when I thought I’d really moved on, as in, literally moving to a different end of town, meeting a new girl, focusing on the label following the implosion of the band, Clara had appeared again.

  I had been dating a nice girl named Luna. Maybe we didn’t have a future together but it was good for the time being. But Clara had come back and ruined all of that.

  Just like she had come back now. Strolling back into my house like she owned the place and into my life as if she belonged there. When she totally didn’t.

  “See?” Clara asked, after Jonna ran out. “They will always leave you. It’s always fuck and run with those sluts, but I’m the only one who loves you.”

  “You might not want to be quoting Liz Phair lyrics while making a declaration of love,” I told her. “It just doesn’t sound right. Particularly after what you did to Luna. I know she didn’t just leave me voluntarily, and you know that, too. In fact, you’re the one who caused her demise.”

  “Oh, come now, lover. You know that was an accident.”

  “Freud said there are no accidents.”

  “Freud is a lying prick who made things up after coming to unsettling conclusions about the daughters of rich assholes,” she spat back. “The truth of the matter is, I didn’t know Luna was allergic to shellfish. Just that she didn’t like them. I was trying to annoy her and maybe make her a little sick, not kill her.”r />
  “It doesn’t make her any less dead.”

  “I know, and I think about it every day.”

  Just for a moment, the facade finally dropped, and I saw Clara for how she really was. She was certainly the type to lie about an accident, but I really didn’t think she had, at first. Clara had been clingy and vindictive, and I could see her pulling a prank, making Luna feel ill.

  I didn’t think she was a killer. And here she was proving me wrong once again.

  “We aren’t getting back together,” I said now, firmly.

  “I think you might change your mind.”

  “Oh, and why is that?”

  “Because if you don’t, I’ll tell everyone about the little tart who just ran out,” she threatened me. “She was an intern, right? Some bright young thing wanting to learn about the industry, open to some new experiences?”

  It stung how right she was.

  Not entirely, of course.

  There was more to it than that.

  I wanted Jonna in the carnal sense, but I also had feelings for her that I’d never experienced for anyone else. When I first proposed that we work together from my house, I thought it could be a fun fling, just to get her out of my system.

  I knew I wanted her, knew I would take her and claim her body— her very essence— as I made her my pet. But I didn’t know she would claim my heart. Things had very much not gone according to plan.

  “Not exactly,” is all I said to Clara.

  “Well, let me give you some exactitude,” she mocked. “It is most definitely a forbidden relationship. So, forget about her and come back to me, or I’ll go to HR at your label, and then the media. Presidents have been impeached over flings with interns.”

  I didn’t want to lose the label; I’d spent decades building it up and running things had become such a major part of my life.

  What else could I do, without it? Launch a solo career? Not likely. There was only one path to take here.

  My brain knew that.

  But my heart had a mind of its own and was determined to follow a different path— the treacherous, unpredictable, but potentially more fulfilling one.

  “No, Clara, fuck off,” I told her. “I could never forget about Jonna. You’re wrong that she’s just a fling. In fact, I think I’m falling for her, for real. And I don’t care if you try to mess that up, like you did with Luna. I won’t let you anywhere near Jonna.”

  “Okay, have fun losing your career,” Clara snarked, heading for the door.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh,” she asked turning on her heel, “why is that?”

  “Because I know something you don’t know, that rather damages your credibility when it comes to me.”

  “Oh, and what’s that?”

  “Well, I know two things, actually. The first is that I have a standing restraining order against, which you have already walked right through.”

  “And second?”

  “Three, two, one.”

  The infuriating beep filled the house, as Clara’s ankle bracelet started going off, alerting the police to her location.

  “I would have heard if you lived around here. It’s quite a bit out of town, you know. Well outside any possible range of ankle bracelet.”

  “But I had to come here to see you,” she protested. “I need you. I love you.”

  “Well, as you can see, the feeling isn’t fucking mutual. Sit down and have a drink while we wait for the cops.”

  Clara flopped onto the couch like a petulant teenager, and I got her mineral water from the kitchen.

  It was all true, as much as anything could ever be said to be true. Clara was right that my relationship with Jonna was forbidden.

  I was resolutely moral in what I did with Jonna, but moral and ethical were still two different things. Despite the fact we were both consenting adults, I could get in trouble with the company, even though I owned it. And I would also be in a lot of trouble in the court of public opinion, if not the court of law.

  None of which mattered at all to me in terms of the greater Truth, though. Despite myself, I loved Jonna, and I couldn’t imagine my life without her.

  Clara was out of the picture, forever. All that as left to do was try and convince Jonna she could trust me again.

  The cops came and got Clara and thanked me for alerting them that she had violated the restraining order. She begged and screamed for me to be with her, not Jonna, but I ignored her and waved sweetly at her as I locked up my house while she was being put into the cop car.

  The motorcycle rumbled under me as I drove into town. Once I arrived at the studio, it took me a while to find Jonna’s address in the employee files in HR’s office. It wasn’t the most honest thing I’d ever done, but desperate times and all of that.

  It also wasn’t like I’d had to hack into her account. It was information she had freely volunteered to the company when she applied for the internship.

  I could have looked her up in the phone book, but the risk of imprecision was far too high. The last thing one wanted when trying to do a romantic overture was to show up at the wrong house. So, I had been forced to get her address from her employee file.

  There was still no guarantee that my plan to get her back would work, but I tried to cover all the bases I could. I was determined to do everything I could to claim her again as my own, forever, and not let her go this time.

  When I arrived at the apartment complex that had been listed as Jonna’s address in her file at work, I saw that the occupants were listed by their last names first. I scanned the list until I got to “M” and once I found hers— Morris— I entered the corresponding numbers in the call box hastily.

  The buzzer rang out as into the void, with only my ears there to hear it. I still wasn’t sure what I was going to say. It was something of a new situation, and I was still trying to find my footing, but that didn’t stop me from marching steadfastly ahead in my plan— or at least as much as my plan as I’d managed to come up with.

  I usually planned everything, but I hadn’t planned this last part.

  The part in which I say the right thing to get Jonna back.

  I had to be convinced that the right words would come as soon as I heard her voice again.

  Chapter Eleven - Jonna

  The space had run out, even if the same could not quite be said for the time, the floor coming up to meet me like an old friend.

  “Ow.”

  With an assist from the coffee table, which I dearly hoped was as strong as it looked, I rose again, embraced by the dark.

  “Rolled off the couch again?” Stephanie asked me.

  “Yeah.”

  “I keep telling you, sleep on your side, and then you’ll just roll onto your front.”

  Stephanie really knew a lot about couches. She’d spent a good amount of time couch-surfing after college. Right up until an awesome job more or less fell into her lap.

  Sometimes I thought she had inherited all the grace and decision-making skills she needed to get ahead easily in life. Or it could just be pure, blind luck that Stephanie ended up being such a Mycroft to my Sherlock.

  “Ah, get it away,” I cried, as she threw open the curtains, letting the daylight in.

  “Come on Vampirella, time to get you home,” she pressed.

  “Can I eat first?” I asked her.

  “Are you sure you just don’t like my cooking better than the food that’s at your own place?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Well, I suppose there’s something to be said for honesty,” she said, laughing.

  As a final mercy for the sake of family ties, Stephanie did a fry up before sending me on my way. My job, or any hope of one in my beloved industry, had basically ended when I left Seth’s house. I had some skills, but the question was how to use them, in a professional capacity.

  Research was an option. It was possible that someone would hire me for it
if I was very creative with my resume. Seth might even help me out with a recommendation letter. He was a lot of things, but he never struck me as vindictive.

  “Any plans for what you’ll do now?” Stephanie asked me.

  “A few,” I said with a sigh.

  “Good, though if you need some direction, I hear our second store is looking for staff,” she told me. “You would have to wait after the lockdown to start working, though.”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  I sighed.

  “Please do.”

  With breakfast eaten and the dishes done, we went out to her car.

  “Are you sure you have time?” I asked her.

  “Always. Besides, I have the week off of work for a ‘family emergency.’ And I’m only supposed to be working remotely, anyway.”

  “Okay. Thanks again for all your help,” I told her gratefully.

  “No problem. That’s what sisters are for.”

  Getting our masks on, we ducked into the car and drove directly to my building, sticking to the back roads to avoid police attention.

  And once we got to my building, we were greeted with a surprise that made my heart beat faster and my stomach lurch, both at the same time.

  “Oh shit,” is all I could manage to get out.

  “Who the hell is he?” Stephanie demanded to know.

  “That would be Seth Black.”

  It was like watching a lioness leap on a gazelle. Stephanie stormed up to Seth with all the rage of the Furies burning in her eyes.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here? There’s a lockdown on, you know, or do you think that doesn’t apply to you?” she yelled. “I know, I know, I’m here, but I’m here bringing my sister home after what you did to her, so don’t you dare try and bring that up. We don’t know what you're playing at, but she doesn’t deserve to be jerked around.”

  “No argument there,” Seth said, with a shrug.

  “What?” Stephanie asked.

  “Really?” I inquired.

  “Yes. I broke lockdown because I needed to see… because well, I need to see you, Jonna, in a more general sense,” Seth explained. “I should have made things clearer before, particularly about Clara. She’s my ex. She has been since, like, the last millennium. She wants to get back together and she refuses to get the fucking message that I don’t. Especially after what happened to Luna.”