“I know,” she said around a sigh. “I can’t get it right now.”
I wasn’t close enough to make out what the officer was saying, which I appreciated, since if I couldn’t hear it, neither could the paparazzi, who were still circling like sharks, taking pictures of everything they could.
After a few minutes, the officer handed something to Van and told Amy to go upstairs and lock the door to Troy’s apartment. He waited for her to do that, probably to make sure she didn’t go back inside, and then he walked back to his car. As soon as he was gone, Van got to his feet and told me to come on. Marshall was shielding him, but the photographers were still capturing every second as the four of us got into Van’s truck and pulled away.
Marshall was driving, and Van’s head was against the window as we left the apartment complex. No one said anything for several minutes.
“Fuck, this was not what I needed today,” Van grumbled to no one in particular. Then he threw the paper the officer had given to him on the ground.
“Are you in trouble?” I asked him.
He sighed. “No. My fame saved my ass,” he said halfheartedly.
“What? What do you mean?”
“When the officer asked me what happened, I told him everything. I said Troy punched me out of nowhere, he accused me of sleeping with Amy, and he lost his shit. I was defending myself. He barely asked me any questions. He just took my word for it, and told me I might have to testify in court, but a guy like me shouldn’t have any problem getting a judge to see that I was the victim.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” I questioned, not sure why he sounded so upset.
“Yeah, it is, I suppose. It was cool until he asked me to send him an autographed picture for his niece. Apparently she’s a big fan of Westside. It feels kind of like he bought me off.”
“Who cares,” Marshall chimed in. “He could have easily let Troy go too, but because of who you were, he put the full blame on him – where it should be. You used your powers for good, man.”
He elbowed Van in the arm, and Van winced. “Not so hard, dude. Everything pretty much hurts at this point.”
“Yeah, I can imagine. That guy had at least thirty pounds on you.”
“I know. I felt it. Fuck, I’m going to be sore for days. And what sucks more is that I’m going to have to tell Damon what happened. I’m sure it’s only going to be a matter of time before this story hits the news. Fucking gawkers with their cell phones. Fucking paparazzi.”
“I tried to tell those people to go inside,” I told him, as a pit formed in my stomach.
If Van was going to tell Damon, if this story was going to get out, and it would, Katherine would find out. She would know I was there. I wondered if Van was thinking about that. I was afraid to say anything if he hadn’t yet realized it, but we were about to be found out.
“That shit never works,” he grumbled. “You know that. People don’t care about my privacy. They never have. They just care about having a cool story to tell their friends.”
“I’m sorry, Van,” Amy said softly.
“It’s not your fault,” he told her firmly.
“It is too. You didn’t have to help me out. I’m sorry Troy hurt you.”
Van lifted his head from where he’d rested it against the window and turned to look at her. “It’s not your fault,” he repeated. “It’s no one’s fault except Troy’s. That guy’s a psycho. You’d better stay away from him.”
“I will,” Amy promised. “What he did today was completely unforgivable.”
“I agree,” I said, reaching over to squeeze my sister’s hand.
By the time we got back to my apartment, the pit in my stomach had grown exponentially. Considering I was meeting with Katherine in a few hours to tell her what she was probably already going to know by the time we met, I felt like I might be sick.
I slid out of Van’s truck, but he didn’t move to get out of the front seat, so I stopped by his door as he rolled down his window.
“This is bad,” I told him around the lump in my throat.
“I know.”
“Katherine is going to find out about us before I can tell her.”
He nodded. “Probably.”
“Van, I’m sorry,” I said, taking in the blood on his face that he’d done a hasty job of wiping away.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, reaching for my hand. “I’ll be fine. I’m more worried about you at this point.”
“She’s going to be pissed.”
“Do you want me to go with you to meet with her? It might help.”
I shook my head. “You’re at the studio until five, so no. And I have to do this on my own anyway. I’ll just explain everything. I’ll be honest. I’m not sure what else I can do.”
“Do you think she’ll fire you?”
“I hope not, but I’m not really sure,” I said, feeling like I might be sick. We’d been so careful all along, so of course this had to happen.
“If she does, I’ll talk to her. I’ll explain my side of the story. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
I shook my head. “I lied to her, and I disobeyed her rules about dating a client. I did a lot of things wrong,” I reminded him.
He sighed. “This sucks. Call me after you meet with her, okay?”
I nodded. “I will.”
I pressed up on my toes to kiss him, figuring it wouldn’t do any good to hide that we were together now. The people who mattered were already going to find out.
* * *
“You know,” Katherine said when I walked into the coffee shop we’d picked for our meeting and slid into the seat across from her, “when I saw your name on my calendar so soon after we met on Tuesday, I assumed it was for a completely different reason.”
She knew. She absolutely knew everything.
“Katherine, I can explain,” I said quickly.
She held up her hand to stop me from continuing. “No, I’m not finished, Elisa. I assumed that you wanted to reconsider my offer. I assumed you decided to make the smart decision where your career was concerned, but that wasn’t the case at all was it?”
I felt my face get hot. I hated being reprimanded and treated like I was a child, but this was Katherine’s specialty. I’d never been on the receiving end of it until now, but I’d seen her do it to other people enough times that I knew she didn’t hold back. When she was pissed, you knew it. I knew I’d be lucky if I had a job when it was all said and done.
“Katherine, I’m so sorry,” I told her, figuring it was the best thing I could say.
“You know, I typically don’t give people the chance to retract their answer when I offer them a job and they say no, but I was willing to do it in your case. I even rescheduled this meeting for a Saturday. Do you know when the last time was that I met with an employee on a weekend? I usually reserve that privilege for clients only, but I made an exception in this case. I made an exception, because I thought you were different, Elisa. I thought you were driven and serious, and career-minded, but now I know that’s not true. Tell me why I know that’s not true?”
God, she was such a bitch.
“Because if I was focused on my career, I wouldn’t have started dating a client,” I mumbled, not agreeing with her at all but knowing it was what she wanted to hear.
“Exactly,” she said, her voice like ice. “At least now I know why you turned down my offer the other day.”
Even though I felt about two inches tall, and my inclination was to keep my eyes glued to the tabletop, I forced myself to look up and meet her gaze.
“I wanted that job,” I said firmly, so she’d know how serious I was. “I wanted it more than anything.”
“Why? So you could be around your boyfriend?”
“No. Because I care about Westside and their success. I care about their reputation, and I wanted to be a part of where they go from here.”
“How long have you been involved with Van Salvatore?”
“We’ve been
friends for a while, and this week it turned into more. That’s why I scheduled the meeting with you. I wanted you to know. I wanted to be honest.”
“That’s interesting, considering what transpired this morning. You know, it’s bad enough when one of your clients gets into a fight and that fight is not only caught on video but goes viral on the Internet within an hour, but to find out that one of your publicists was also there, that she let it happen, that’s something you don’t really expect. And in this case, it’s unfathomable, because that publicist told you she wasn't even friends with this particular client, so she’s pretty much the last person you expected to be there. Do you not realize what I’ve been dealing with over the past week after what Phillip did, Elisa? And now I not only have to defend why Van was fighting, but I also have to answer the questions about the girls he was with, especially because one of them works for me. Elisa, this is bad – not only for Westside but for the reputation of this company.”
“I know it’s bad, but Katherine, Van didn’t do anything wrong. He was trying to do a nice thing in helping my sister out. He’s known her for years, and they’ve always gotten along well. He cares about her. Her ex-boyfriend is crazy, and we were trying to get her things out of his apartment. I never would have intentionally put Van in that situation had I known it would turn out the way it did. I care too much about his reputation for that. Trust me when I tell you we had no idea Amy’s ex would be home.”
Katherine fixed her gaze on me for several seconds, but she didn’t say anything. I’d seen that look before and knew it was one of her intimidation tactics. She might have looked like she was processing what I was saying, but I knew she’d already moved on. She couldn’t have cared less about my reasoning. She was just trying to make me nervous before she delivered the kill shot. I knew that if I had any chance of rectifying things, I had to do it quickly before everything blew up in my face.
“Katherine, this thing between Van and me, it’s new,” I told her. “Hardly anyone knows, and aside from me being there with him today, no one knows that we’re more than friends. I know in your eyes it looks bad, but we dated before, so the probability of us being friends isn’t out of the realm of possibility.”
“Who else knows?” she demanded.
“Cam, Dillon, and Phillip. And my dad. That’s it.”
Katherine sighed. “Elisa, did you lie to me when I asked you if anything was going on between you and Van Salvatore two months ago?”
“No, I didn’t. Nothing was going on then. He was flirting with me, but he’d done that since the start of the tour, even when I didn’t want him to. He was interested in me, but I didn’t want anything to do with him. I told you we weren’t friends back then, and I wasn’t lying.”
It was a small lie, but with the way she was looking at me, I knew it was worth it. My job was balancing on a tightrope, and I’d be lucky if she let me stay employed with her in any capacity. A little fudging of the truth would only save me at this point.
“But you’re with him now?” she deduced.
I nodded. “Yes, and I wanted to tell you before anything started, when I realized I had feelings for Van, but we weren’t able to get together yesterday. I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”
Katherine shook her head in frustration. “I should have known this was going to happen. I should have realized it would be a mistake bringing you onto this team and that your history with Van was going to interfere with your job. I can’t believe I was right. I expected so much more from you, Elisa.”
“Katherine, trust me when I tell you I didn’t plan on this happening. Van and I hadn’t spoken in years, and I pretty much hated him. I planned to keep things strictly professional during the tour, but then I realized he’d changed, and the feelings I once had for him had never really faded. I know this goes against everything I promised you, and I know the timing is horrible, but we can’t help how we feel about each other. I didn’t want to go behind your back. I wanted to be honest and up front.”
I wasn’t sure she’d understand what I was trying to articulate. Katherine was sensible. She was also single, and in all the years I’d known her, she’d never really dated. If she had, it hadn’t been serious. She was married to her work, and I didn’t think she’d ever been in love. Because of that, I wasn’t sure she’d even understand what I was feeling and why I was willing to put my career on the line for a guy, but I wasn’t sure how else to say it.
“Elisa, as much as I appreciate your intention of being honest, you weren’t, and that’s a problem for me.”
“I know. I understand,” I said, feeling like the final blow was about to come. She was going to tell me I was done.
“No, I don’t think you do. We’re in the middle of a world tour with one of the hottest bands in the country, with sold out shows in almost every city. You realize that, don’t you?” she said icily.
I nodded. “Yes. Of course I do.”
“Well, it’s good that you know that, because you’re right about one thing. Your timing couldn’t be worse.”
God, she was so pissed at me.
“Katherine, Van and I talked about staying friends through the end of the tour and then being together afterward, but neither of us wanted to do that.”
As I said the words, I realized how utterly childish they sounded. Was I really telling my boss that I couldn’t be a professional until my commitment to the tour was over in four months? Apparently I was. I’d just said it. And I knew I meant it, because it was exactly what I’d been thinking this whole time; it was why I was sitting before Katherine, potentially committing career suicide.
I knew the mature thing would have been to never have gotten involved with Van in the first place, to have stayed friends until we could be together, but I also knew I never could have done that. I’d caved so ridiculously easy when I’d been given the opportunity to be with him again. I also knew that I loved him enough that I would have been fearful to carry that love around and not tell him. What if he had found someone else? I would have never forgiven myself. But telling any of that to Katherine just seemed fruitless.
“Yes, well, sometimes in life we can’t always get what we want,” she said crisply, essentially telling me what she thought of my justification for my actions.
I wondered if she wanted me to crumble. It definitely felt like that. Did she want me to break down and admit I’d failed her, to tell her that she never should have given me the job in the first place, that I was too young to handle so much responsibility? Probably, but I wasn’t going to do that. I was going to hold firm that anything that was going on with Van and me wouldn’t have any bearing on my job. Aside from the fluke that today had been, I took my commitments to the clients I represented seriously, and I’d never put the band or Van’s reputation on the line. She needed to know that.
“And sometimes we have to make hard decisions between our work and personal lives,” I told her, standing my ground.
She cocked her head to the side, appraising me with an all too confident look on her face. “Not if we want to get ahead in life, we don’t.”
I blinked a few times, realizing that she’d pretty much just verbally leveled me. But I wasn’t going to back down. If she wanted me gone, she needed to tell me.
“Okay, so where do we go from here?” I asked, figuring it was better to know her endgame than ride out the pain she was intent on inflicting on me. I didn’t have to do that.
“I’m not sure,” she said haughtily, knowing she had the upper hand and probably loving it.
“Well, I know this is ultimately your decision,” I told her, trying to sound as mature and poised as I could while I was freaking out on the inside, “but please understand that working for Westside and finishing out this tour is what I want to do more than anything. I care about the band, but aside from that, I’ve never broken a commitment before. I don’t plan to do it now.”
“Yes, well, you probably should have thought of that before you decided to date
a client.”
Had she reached across the table and slapped me, it probably wouldn’t have felt much different. Her words sliced through me, making me feel smaller than I ever had. I knew in that moment that getting what I wanted wasn’t going to happen. And because of that, I figured I had nothing left to lose.
“I did think about that, and I knew that regardless of my feelings for Van, my complete effort and attention has been and will continue to be on Westside. I can separate the two. I’ve been close friends with Sydney for years, and it’s never interfered with my ability to do a great job for her.”
“This is different,” Katherine said coolly.
“How?”
“Because when you’re intimately involved with someone you’re working for, it tends to not only distract you, but it also tends to cloud your judgement. There is no way you can fairly represent someone when you have a bias toward them.”
“That makes no sense,” I countered. “I would think a person would work ten times harder to protect the reputation of someone they care about.”
Katherine leaned back and appraised me, a small smile on her face. She reminded me of a cobra about to strike.
“Elisa, if I remember correctly, you and Van ended things the first time because he got drunk, slept with a stripper and let her friend record it. When that happened, you were devastated, and I, as the publicist for a member of Westside who had completely ignored the morality clause he’d signed two years earlier, had to figure out how to make the whole thing go away. I had to go with Westside’s attorney to meet with the stripper and her attorney, I had to help negotiate the terms of a settlement, and I had to ensure I remained completely committed to my client the whole time, regardless of what I thought of his actions. Let me ask you, if Van does something like that again, as his publicist, could you represent him fairly and without emotion?”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” I fired back at her, hating the imagery she’d slammed into my brain.
I tried not to think about that night and what Van had done. She’d graphically made me go back there again, and now the image of what that stripper had looked like was all I could see. Her and Van, together. Regardless of whether I’d forgiven him or not, I still hated that image.
Westside Series Box Set Page 74