by Cassie Mae
“Take my car service,” I tell Paige as Carol makes her way over, an amused and confused look on her face that we’re basically in the back hallway of the place. I give Carol a handful of cash and let her know Paige will be taking all the food. Then I clear my throat and start rolling my sleeves back into place. My heart is still racing in my chest, my lungs struggling to breathe right. I push away the thought that I’m having an attack, that this girl has that strong of an effect on my body, even though she undeniably does. “Tomorrow, five o’clock again. Good?”
Paige’s brows bunch inward slightly, but after a second or two, she nods. I force myself to break my gaze from her and weave through the crowded diner. As soon as I’m outside, the night air sobers me completely, and I let out a shaky laugh at the ground.
“Bad idea,” I say to myself, and I hear the click of a camera somewhere down the street. Yeah… no more employee dinners. Losing my head and kissing Paige would be the least of my worries if it was caught on tape.
I straighten up and cross the road, doing what my father never did in his life—spend the night with my mother instead of working until I can’t keep my eyes open.
Ethan probably thinks I’m crazy, and I can’t blame him. I totally flew off my rocker in there. She does that to me. She’s not supposed to be here. I left New York to put as much distance between us as I possibly could, and the fact that she weaseled her way into my new city makes my blood boil.
I wish her and Kevin would get back on a plane and fly back to where they belong and leave me the hell alone. They’ve already taken everything from me, and I refuse to let them take the little I’ve been able to create here.
Rebecca already made me sneak out the back of the restaurant and completely ditch Ethan. Though, it seemed like he had better places to be anyway. It was just as well; being that close to him, feeling his breath against my skin, smelling that delicious masculine scent had me two seconds away from making a move on my boss.
The smell of buffalo wings causes my stomach to growl and knock me out of my thoughts. I glance out the window, grateful I’m almost home. Reg has been quiet for most of the ride, and though I feel guilty treating the guy like a chauffeur—even if he technically is one—I can’t bring myself to talk.
Reg pulls up to my building, and I thank him for the ride. I grab the bag of food that weighs more than me, wondering what exactly Ethan added to the order before he left. I walk up the six flights to my apartment and plop down on the sofa.
Flashes of the life I lost blink in and out of my mind. My two-bedroom apartment in the meat packing industry. My favorite pub around the corner that had the best Sunday brunch menu with all the mimosas you could drink. The happiness that I thought was so pure and real…
Now I look around my new home. The only thing that’s mine is this couch, and really, I’m just paying to sleep on it. When and if I ever leave, the couch stays. Unless I can replace it. So the only thing that is mine is the duffle bag I live out of and my music. Rebecca might have stolen my guise, but I’ll never let her take away the music.
I may not have much now compared to what I once did, but I’d rather be where I am today than living that fake life. Pretending to be this adorable pop star who hid beneath sunless tanner and too much makeup because that’s what I thought my audiences wanted. That’s what Kevin made me believe, and back then I was stupid enough to listen to everything he said because I thought he had my best interest at heart.
But because I listened to him, those people didn’t want to see the girl beneath the layers that made me who I really was. I was an act that people came to see at the local clubs in New York. In the beginning I loved it, the applause, the praise, but in the end I realized they weren’t coming to see me. They were coming to see the character I played.
I guess that’s why I’m so curious as to who the real Ethan is because I too once hid behind a costume. It’s not something I’m proud of, and maybe things would’ve been different if I put the real me out there, but it’s too late to go back and find out.
It’s not too late for him though. He has a chance to make a name for himself, but he can’t do that until he accepts who he really is. The problem is I don’t think he knows.
The door flies open with a bang, causing me to jump and look. I regret my actions immediately, wishing I already had my earbuds in.
Marcia stumbles through the door with a guy implanted on her face. They’re a mess of clothes and hands as they try to maneuver to her bedroom without coming up for air. Her shirt flies off and smacks me in the face.
I fold it and place it on top of the end table so she can find it later. I give her credit. The girl never has a problem finding someone to satisfy her needs.
“Oh baby. Take me!” she cries, and I can’t get my earbuds in fast enough. I wonder if Ethan knew how many guys she slept with just in a week’s time, and if he did if he still would have come home with her that night.
My music takes a second to load and moans violate my ears. With moans like that I don’t understand why she wastes her time doing condom commercials when she could probably make double doing pornos.
The music finally plays, and I settle into my sofa-slash-bed, letting the guitar riffs and the accent beats of the drum drown out the low budget porn down the hall.
***
Nora mumbles to herself while she works. In the beginning it didn’t bother me, but now that my head has shot up for the third time in the past twenty minutes, thinking she’s speaking to me, it’s driving me crazy. We both have been assigned to help build the label’s online digital presence.
It’s a fun task that has us reaching out to bloggers and coming up with great content to put on their social media sites.
“We need to set up an Instagram account,” I say to Nora.
“Why would we do that? We want people to hear the music and to buy it. What help is a picture?”
“Think about it. Every time an artist comes into the studio we post a picture, with their approval of course. We can start creating hype before the album is even finished. You can also post short snippets of video now. We can put little tasters out there to get people interested.”
Nora, not one to acknowledge a great idea unless it is her own, smiles. She actually smiles while tugging at the diamond stud in her ear. “I like it,” she says. “I’ll run it by Alex so he can get the okay from Mr. Davis.”
“I’ll talk to Mr. Davis directly,” I say, and Nora’s perfectly plucked eyebrows curve up at me.
“I’m working on another project with him. It puts us in the same room from time to time. It’d be easier to just cut out the middle man.”
Nora eyes me up and down, and suddenly I’m worried she thinks that my other project is code for sleeping with him. While I would never admit that I have fantasized about that very thing—I’ve seen his forearms and those long fingers. I’m sure he could work a girl over with only a few strokes. I shake my head to completely rid myself of the thought. Long fingers or not, I have to stop letting the line blur and remember he is my boss. This internship means too much to me to throw it away over a pretty face that offers me car service and orders me enough takeout food to last a week. I’ve pushed the boundaries enough with him as it is.
“Whatever you’re thinking. Don’t. It’s not like that.”
“If you say so,” she says and continues to click away on her keyboard.
Alex walks into the room, and I glance up, catching his eye while Nora doesn’t even bother to look. He’s in a white polo shirt today, navy blue dress pants with a light brown leather belt that matches his shoes.
“Paige, perfect,” he says, pointing at me. “Mr. Davis’s assistant is out sick today, and we need someone to cover.”
“Absolutely,” I say, jumping up from my chair. Filling in where you are needed is part of any internship, but filling in for the CEO is a massive deal. Filling in for the guy that works for Ethan might just be an added bonus.
Nora lets out an ann
oyed puff of air. She probably thinks Ethan requested me because of the crazy notion she most likely has in her head. The truth is that I’m the one who looked up first. Or maybe Ethan really did request me.
The thought warms my stomach, and then I curse myself for being so naïve. The reason I’m in California and not New York is because of that. I’m smarter now. I’ve experienced too much to let some guy fog my judgment.
I grab my iced coffee—that is mostly water at this point—and follow Alex out the door. He points me in the direction of Ethan’s office, but I already know how to get there. I bypass the elevator that never seems to appear and take the stairs.
The phone on Jerome’s desk is ringing out of control, so I place my coffee down and answer from the other side of the desk. I transfer the call, and then knock on Ethan’s door.
“Come in,” he growls, and I push the door open.
His hair is back in its crazy mess, and his sleeves are pushed up to his elbows, giving me the perfect view of those forearms. I ignore my earlier inappropriate thoughts and wait for him to look up.
He runs his hand through his dirty blond hair with natural light and dark highlights, tugging at the strands as his gaze swings back to his computer. I lean forward and see the sad excuse for a PowerPoint presentation on his screen. Seriously, my almost four-year-old niece could do better than the disaster he has going on there. All the information is there, but it’s slopped together in a rush to get it done.
The phone rings, and he slams his hand down. “Can someone get that damn phone?”
I step out of the office, answer and transfer the call. Without knocking, I reenter Ethan’s office and go to his desk, knowing if I wait for him to acknowledge me, we’ll already be into tomorrow.
“Rough day?” I ask.
His gaze roams up my body, sliding over my breasts until they lock with my eyes. “I’m busy.”
I stick my hand under his nose and scoop up the stack of papers on his desk. “I know. That’s why I’m here.”
“Paige,” he says my name like it’s a curse. “Give them to me.”
“I’m filling in for Jerome, so why don’t you give me this… this… and this.” I pick up more papers that are fanned out across his desk. “And let me put the PowerPoint together.”
His gray eyes darken like a storm moving in. “No. It’s for the board meeting in an hour. It needs to be done right.”
I meet his gaze with the same amount of determination and annoyance. “Which is exactly why I’m going to do it.”
“It’s confidential,” he says, but the fight from earlier is gone.
“Don’t worry. I won’t try to sell the information on the black market. You can trust me, you know?”
His expression is unreadable as I head to the door.
“Paige?”
I turn back to him, taking in that pretty face and day-old stubble lining his strong jaw.
“Yes?” The one word comes out breathier than I want it to.
“Don’t mess it up.”
For someone with such a pretty face he sure is an asshole. “With that much confidence in me, how can I?” Before I walk out the door, I add, “I’ll be right outside, Mr. Davis.” He flinches at the formal use of his name, but Ethan is suddenly too personal, too dangerous. I flash him a smile, hoping to give him some calm to the anger in his gaze. “Let me know if you need anything else,” I say before closing the door behind me.
I clutch at my chest, the pounding of my heart sending me into a seemingly perpetual state of paranoia. Is this how it started? The last phone call I had from my father plays on a loop in my head. He showed no signs; as far as I knew, he ate right, exercised, yet I can hear him over the line as his voice cut off on that haunting voicemail. The last word he ever spoke to me was, help.
Sweat coats the insides of my palms, and a nauseating wave flushes through my body. I reach out to the doorframe of my office, bracing myself against it, and hope it keeps me upright. A long, shaky breath rushes from my slightly parted, dry lips. He was talking about the grand piano that sits in the sitting room. He wanted me to play for him. I almost deleted the voicemail before he finished, like I had countless times before. Thinking about tickling the ivories made my stomach churn in resentment. Of course, I’d thought as I listened to that voicemail, the beach party still going on in the background, it’s about music again.
I lean my forehead against the back of the hand that’s holding me up, closing my eyes and trying to calm my heart rate. Your father was overworked, Mom said after his heart attack. He was stressed, never took a break, always searching for the next big thing. Her voice was bitter and guarded, as if she wanted to put his death on him instead of her, but I’ve been able to read Mom’s voice since I was in Boy Scouts. The depression that set in for the both of them after the divorce played a part in her guilt over the heart attack, and she often wondered if she should’ve stayed with him, if only to provide him with company in his last moments.
The speedy tempo of my heart starts to make a terrifying rhythm in my temples. If this is my last moment, I’m alone, too. Not physically—I’m aware of Paige at Jerome’s desk just steps away—but my life is pretty damn empty. For as much effort as I’ve put into not becoming my father, I sure found myself in his shoes anyway.
“Uh… Mr. Davis?” I hear, the voice muffled behind an increasing thumpthumpthump in my ears. “Ethan.”
I force my heavy eyelids open, turning my head to connect eyes with Paige. She’s halfway out of her chair, arms out as if she’s readying for an emergency vomit bucket. I shake my head at her, silently letting her know that I’m good.
“Are you all right?” she asks. “Your face is… kinda green.”
I let out a breathless laugh, watching her fingertips graze the desk. I imagine them on my necktie once again; it does not help my heart rate.
“Order some food,” I say, passing off my panic attack as something stomach related. “Make sure it’s here in thirty.”
“Should I order some Pepto-Bismol while I’m at it?” she says, her words a joke, but her eyes tell me she’s more concerned than she’d like to admit.
I smirk and shove up from the doorframe, smoothing my tie down. She watches me with careful eyes as I cross the office hallway and mash the button to my elevator. Once I’ve convinced myself that I’m not having a heart attack, I step inside and press the studio floor button. All I can hope for is that I don’t have another one of these episodes in front of the artist waiting for me.
There is no time for composure because Matt, one of our studio runners, is there to greet me the second the elevator opens.
“She’s in studio eleven,” he says as I fall in line with him down the hallway. “For such a new artist, her rider is ridiculous. I’m almost to the point of telling her where she can shove those bowls of only purple Skittles.”
He gets a small smile out of me before I put it away. “How’s her voice, though?”
“Off. Got a bit of auto-tuning to do if it keeps going this way.”
We turn the corner, and I try not to let the comment get to me. I offered quite a bit of the label’s money to steal the Internet sensation Ruby Foxx from her vanity label, and if I have to rely on auto-tune to make her marketable, then there will be more than my reputation at stake.
He opens the door to the sound booth for me, and I hide my shaking hands in my pockets. It’s quiet right now with the speaker turned off as Ruby speaks with her manager Kevin in the recording studio. They’re very close for business partners, and I sense something else going on between them as she leans in and flirtatiously laughs at something he’s said. The beast inside of me relaxes a bit, unexpected relief washing over me because he won’t be chasing after a certain ex. Not that it would matter if he did. No… it shouldn’t matter.
But I can’t help the grin on my face.
Despite the fact that we’re only recording her voice today, Ruby’s dressed the part of a pop star, which isn’t necessary, but
a plus. Maybe I can make her marketable after all.
Matt leans over and presses the intercom. “Ruby, Mr. Davis is here.”
She straightens, her flirting expression turning eager as she smiles up at me and waves. I give her a nod and wait for Kevin to join Matt and me in the sound booth.
“Ethan,” he says, taking my hand in a firm shake.
I gesture to Ruby. “How’s it going so far?”
“We’ve had a change of plans,” Kevin says, overconfidence making him a bit more outspoken than he had been in our last meeting.
“Which is…?” I raise an eyebrow to Ruby, who’s toying with the bottom of her sheer, sparkly top.
“I really think the single should be Caged in You, not Something ‘Bout Life.”
“A ballad?” I say, shaking my head and moving my eyes to Kevin. “We need to open with an up-tempo number. Party song to match the image she’s already made for herself.”
“We’re pretty firm on the idea of Caged being her first with Broken Records.”
“I can’t deliver the numbers we’re hoping for with a ballad. Second song, perhaps, but not with Ruby’s debut on the label.”
“I’m not recording Life without you at least listening to Caged,” Ruby breaks in, crossing her arms in a stubborn stance. Clenching my teeth together, I snap off the intercom and turn to Matt.
“How long do they have?” I ask.
He lets out a long, frustrated breath and takes his seat behind the soundboard.
“We’ve got an hour, Davis,” he says, adjusting his dreads back into a bun. “I’d let her do one run of this ballad and then get us back on track.”
“The ballad’s good,” Kevin cuts in. “Better than the party song. The lyrics really get to ya.”
“Just run it,” I say, then press the intercom. “’Kay, Ruby. You get one chance to change my mind. If you can’t, we’re not fighting about it anymore.”
She opens her mouth, eyes narrowed in preparation for a rebuttal, but I quickly interject.
