Evan tries to maintain his serious countenance but can’t help himself. A smile flickers across his face before he goes back to his menacing grimace. “Mr. Forrester told me to stay with you ma’am. So I’m staying with you.”
“Jesus,” I mutter under my breath. I storm past the designers’ offices, ignoring the gawking employees who stop to watch the freak show.
Damn Drew and his ridiculous over-protective crap!
Reaching the storage room, I go inside and ask Evan to close the door behind him. We don’t need curious co-workers peeking in on us.
“Sydney!” A short blonde girl just a few years older than me rushes over to greet me. She looks warily at Evan, who is standing by the door as unmoving as a statue.
“Hey Bethany!” I say, giving her a hug.
Bethany Williams is another one of the very few people at the firm who knew who I was before the whole ‘coming out on national TV’ incident. She was essential in helping me remodel Verve here in New York. She’s been promoted from assistant to designer and I couldn’t be happier for her.
“What do you think?” She sweeps her arm towards the sample pieces that are set up around the room.
“Oh my God! They’re even better than I thought!” I throw down my bag and hurry over to a large, curved Cabriole-style couch. Sitting down, I lean back and rub the soft fabric with my hands. “It’s unbelievable!”
Bethany flops down next to me and pats the cushion between us. “I know, it’s to die for.” She moans as she touches the velvety material.
We rush around, giggling like ridiculous school-girls, and test out every single piece of furniture. When we’re done, Bethany shows me all of the potential fabric choices that are in four massive books on the huge design table at one end of the room.
It takes forever to sort through the samples, but we have a great time doing it. Evan doesn’t budge even one inch the entire time, except for when an intern pokes his head in to ask Bethany a question. He takes one look at Evan’s scary expression and bolts before he can finish his thought.
“Great,” Bethany says. “It took me forever to train that boy to be exactly how I want him and now he’s been scarred. He’ll probably quit.” This sends us into another round of giggles, much to our delight.
We’re almost done when Evan appears next to me out of nowhere, just about giving me a heart attack. “Jeez! Give a girl some warning! You scared the crap out of me Evan!” I clutch my chest as my heart races.
“Mr. Forrester would like to speak to you,” he says, holding his phone out in front of me.
I scowl at my bodyguard. Can’t I have one afternoon without being checked on? I snatch the phone out of his hand and put it to my ear.
“Yes?” I say as politely as possible. What could be so important? He knows I’m working this afternoon.
“Syd?” Drew sounds upset.
“What’s going on?” I ask, suddenly afraid. I hear the motor of the Mercedes SUV roaring in the background. “Are you okay? It sounds like Bruce is driving awfully fast.”
“Go with Evan directly to my brownstone. Don’t leave his sight Sydney.”
I bristle at the unexplained directive. “No, I’m working Drew. I can’t just drop everything. Why your place?”
“Sydney, this isn’t a fucking request! Go now! I’ll explain when I get home!” I see Bethany flinch out of the corner of my eye and know that she’s heard Angry Drew yell through the phone. Wonderful.
“You’ll have to give me more than that, Drew.”
“Goddammit Sydney, just go to my fuckin’ house okay? I’m on my way!”
“I don’t think so,” I say sharply and end the call.
What a jerk!
I hand the phone back to Evan and it rings as he takes it.
Glaring, I snap at Evan. “Don’t bother trying to give me that phone. I’m unavailable.”
Evan makes a face and walks back to his spot by the door, speaking softly on the phone so I can’t hear him. Whatever, Drew can yell at Evan. I’m not being ordered around on his whim like another one of his employees.
Bethany and I finish up with cataloguing the fabrics that we like and bundle them up for her intern to enter into the computer system. We chat a little about her boyfriend and I tell her how ridiculous Jeff Talley was in London. She knows him and doesn’t doubt that he was an obnoxious ass.
I stand up and retrieve my bag from the floor and pull out my phone, steeling myself to see just how pissed off Drew is that I hung up on him. I’m about to unlock the screen when I hear muffled shouts from outside the storage room.
“Evan?” I say nervously as the shouts get louder and closer.
Shit! Is someone actually coming here to attack me?
My mouth drops open in shock as Evan casually steps aside and the door is shoved open so hard that it crashes into the wall behind it.
Fuck.
Very Angry Drew is standing in the doorway. At my work. Embarrassing me.
He storms over and I can see the curious onlookers behind him, including Kimberly, who looks like she’s on the verge of a panic attack. I wave her on, letting her know that I’m okay.
“Evan!” barks Drew. Evan motions to Bethany who scurries out the door and they both exit, closing it behind them.
Traitors!
“What the fuck Sydney! You think I’m joking heah?” He makes a poor attempt to keep his voice low. As if it matters how loud he is now that he’s acted like a total ass at my place of business.
I pale under his threatening gaze, then my cheeks heat up with anger. “You can’t come in here and make a scene! This is my job! My business, Drew! These people aren’t required to sign a confidentiality agreement. Any one of them could videotape this on their phone and sell it to TMZ if they want to!” I hiss, meeting his unwavering stare.
“Jesus Christ, Sydney!” He paces in front of me, dragging his hands through his hair, tugging on it wildly. “I don’t care about the mothahfuckin’ people heah! Can we please discuss this in the cah? We need to go, now!”
“What the hell is the deal?” I ask, my voice getting louder than I want it to.
“There’s been a fuckin’ death threat against you! Okay? I want to get the fuck outta heah!” he bellows, going toe to toe with me, towing over me in a cloud of fury.
“What?” I whisper, my mouth suddenly so parched that my tongue can barely move.
Taking advantage of my speechlessness, he grabs my hand and yanks me toward the door. I stumble behind him, numb. My brain feels like it’s disintegrating into dust. I can’t process what he said. The only person who wants me dead has been sitting in jail awaiting trial, right?
“Who?” I croak as he grabs the doorknob.
“In the cah, Sydney,” he warns in a low voice.
We exit and find Evan right in front of us, keeping a group of stunned people away from the door. I hear a commotion down the hall and see Steve barreling towards us, employees scampering out of the way of his intimidating presence in the cramped hallway.
“All clear,” Steve says as he turns around, leading us out of the hallway and back through the main office. In my peripheral vision I see people holding up their phones, eager to film A-list actor Andrew Forrester surrounded by bodyguards as he weaves between the desks, pulling a stumbling Sydney Tannen behind him.
I catch Kimberly’s concerned look as we pass her desk in reception, but Drew moves too fast for me to say anything. Thankfully, the elevator comes quickly and we’re leaving the building and piling into the SUV within minutes.
Stressed out and silent, I sit squashed between Drew and Steve on the back seat as we speed through the city streets toward Drew’s Chelsea brownstone. I attempt to control my rapid breathing as I feel a panic attack coming, bubbling like poison in my gut, ready to overflow at any second. My lungs aren’t working right and they begin to burn from the lack of oxygen. The whooshing sound of my heartbeat in my ears is all I can hear.
“Sydney, breathe baby,” Drew
says softly as he wraps an arm around my shoulders. My heart is thumping so hard that I think I must be dying. “Drive fastah!” he yells at Bruce.
Somewhere in the back of my fracturing mind I can rationalize that I’m not really dying, but my body is betraying me. My hands start to shake uncontrollably and I collapse forward, hanging by the seatbelt. Hunched over, I try to breathe, but the air won’t go deep enough. I start to feel lightheaded.
“Sydney! What tha fuck is goin’ on? Steve, do something!” I vaguely recognize that Drew is freaking out and somehow it’s my fault, but I can’t do anything to help him.
****
“Come on Bennett, we get this shit all the time. What makes you think this is such a big deal?” Daddy is talking to his publicist, Bennett Woodrow, in his big, fancy office in a high-rise in downtown Los Angeles. “Hell, I get at least three a week, Eva gets the same, sometimes more.”
Daddy promised me that he would only have to be here for a minute, but we’ve been here forever and they’re still talking. Bennett’s secretary already took me to the employee kitchen and got me a drink, showed me around the office, and introduced me to a few of the people who work here. Now I’m bored out of my mind.
“Daddy, are we going soon? I really want to ride the teacups,” I whine. Daddy promised me that we would go to Disneyland for my tenth birthday but he was in Europe filming. He finally told me we could go today, but in the car his publicist called and we had to come straight here. Some big emergency, Daddy said.
“In a minute Syd,” Daddy says, not even looking up from whatever Bennett is showing him.
“I really think we should call the authorities on this one Reid,” Bennett says.
Daddy looks tired and sad again. He looks like that a lot lately. I try to flip through the gossip magazines that Bennett’s secretary gave me, but I’m too antsy to read them. I just want to go.
Daddy rubs his hands down his face and sits back in his chair. “Fine. Call them. I’ll take Sydney home and you can talk to the police. Update me later.” He stands up to leave.
“What?” I jump off of the couch. “I don’t want to go home! You promised me Disneyland Daddy!” I cry, throwing the magazines on the ground.
Daddy comes over to me and kneels down so he can see me better. “Sydney, we’ll talk in the car. We have to go home. I’ll explain to you later,” he says calmly.
“But you promised!” I yell, tears flowing down my face.
“Syd, what’s the rule?”
“No tantrums in public.” I sadly quote my parents’ golden rule about how to act when people can see you. ‘If they can see you, they can film you Sydney’ they say to me. They don’t want me turning up in magazines acting bratty, that wouldn’t look right.
I give my Dad the silent treatment the entire ride home. We pull up to the gate and there’s a huge crowd of reporters waiting for us.
“Shit,” Daddy says as we try to get through the mass of people.
They stick their huge cameras up to the windows of the car and I’m grateful that the side windows have extra dark tint. The windshield doesn’t, however, so they know that it’s just me and Daddy in here and they try to stand in front of the car to get their shots.
“Reid! Can you comment on the death threats levied against your daughter?”
“Sydney, are you scared?”
“Reid, is this the first death threat your daughter has received?”
“What can you tell us about the person issuing the threat?”
“Daddy?” I ask, cowering back in my seat. “Someone wants to kill me?”
“Sydney, let’s wait until we’re in the house baby. No one is going to get you,” he says in an even voice, but I can see that he’s losing it by the way his hands are holding the wheel.
A figure starts banging on my window and I scream. It’s just a guy with a video camera trying to get a shot.
“Fuck!” Daddy lets a really bad word slip out and he presses the gas, inching forward and forcing the people to get out of the way. Finally, we’re free and he speeds up the driveway, leaving the mass of people behind.
****
I wake up in Drew’s bedroom, sprawled out on the bed fully clothed and damp with sweat. Sitting up, I don’t see him anywhere. I get up and use the bathroom then stand at the sink, splashing cold water on my face.
“Sydney?” Drew’s panicked voice comes from the bedroom.
“In here.”
Drew comes flying into the bathroom and stops suddenly, almost knocking me down. It would be comical to see if it were any other day but today. “Are you okay?” he asks, afraid to get too close to me, as if he’s scared to set off another panic attack.
“I’m fine, can we go downstairs and talk? I’m starving.”
“Of course, babe.” Drew takes my hand. “Let’s go.”
I sit at the giant granite island while Drew makes me a plate of chicken Alfredo. I know he’s distressed because he doesn’t bother with his normal discussion of whether the ingredients are free range or organic. His behavior is positively depressing.
I also notice Sal, Evan, and Steve scattered around the main floor. Drew doesn’t know that I saw the extra protection standing outside the front door as well. And I didn’t miss the giant horde of reporters and paparazzi on the sidewalk. Drew has beefed up security around here.
“Tell me what’s going on.” I watch him put together the ingredients for the sauce, waiting for him to answer. Drew’s back tenses up and he remains silent, whisking the cream on the stove. “Drew, I want to know what the hell is happening.”
His shoulders slump and he places the spoon on the countertop, turning to face me. “Rhys and Quentin were notified by the FBI that there was a threat made.”
“Threat, you already told me that. I want specifics.” Is he going to make me drag this out of him?
“They don’t know who, but they’re looking into it.”
Okay, more vague answers. “Drew, just tell me what they said. I have a right to know!” I’m beginning to get angry at his protective bullshit. “I’m not a child.”
His face pulls into a scowl. “Fine. They have enough evidence to believe that someone wants to harm you. They don’t know when or how.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Drew turns back to the food in a huff and resumes cooking. “I never said it made sense, Syd.” Without warning, he slams down the spoon again and whirls back to me, his face twisted with anger. “Did it make sense that some fucking psycho followed you his whole life and attacked you with a knife? You can’t rationalize crazy, Sydney!” A vein in his neck looks ready to burst from the stress of his yelling.
“You don’t think I know that!” I yell right back. “People threatened my parents all the time. Hell, I got death threats as a kid too! You probably get them all the time and just aren’t told!”
“The FBI thinks this specific one may be real,” Drew growls as he plates the pasta and slides the chicken on top. He places it in front of me and hands me a glass of wine.
“So what’s the plan then?” I ask as I eat. I notice that he doesn’t make a plate for himself. “Aren’t you having any?”
“I’m not exactly hungry right now, Sydney. I seem to have lost my appetite somewhere between my finding out someone wants to kill my fiancée, her arguing with me about her safety, and her losing consciousness in the car from a fucking panic attack!”
“I passed out?” How did I not realize this?
“Yes. You hyperventilated Sydney. We couldn’t calm you down enough to help, and when you couldn’t breathe right, you passed out from lack of oxygen. Being unconscious relaxed you enough to breathe normally again.” His gorgeous mouth twists into a grimace at the memory. “I carried you upstairs so you could rest.” Drew reaches out and tenderly tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“You don’t have to thank me Sydney.” He closes his eyes for a moment, as if shaking off an errant
thought. “You scared the shit out of me in the car.”
“I’m sorry.” I glance over to make sure the guys aren’t listening. They’re watching some baseball game on Drew’s massive television in the sitting area on the far side of the kitchen. Well, they’re pretending to watch it. Even my inexperienced eye can tell that they’re periodically scoping out the room and they’re certainly close enough to hear us yelling.
“You don’t have to be sorry for freaking out either.” Drew pushes off of the island and turns to place my empty plate in the sink. “Why wouldn’t you just leave work when I asked you to Sydney?”
He really wants to go there right now?
I feel the hot rush of blood to my face before I feel the irritation at his question. “Because you didn’t ask, Drew. You demanded, and you wouldn’t tell me why,” I snap at him. I hop down from the barstool and head up two flights of stairs to the master bedroom, too furious to say anything else.
Not one to back down, I hear Drew pounding up the stairs behind me. Pretending that I don’t know he’s following me, I cross the master bedroom and enter the enormous bathroom.
“Sydney,” he calls out, trailing just a few steps back.
I turn on the shower and flick the switch that activates the fifteen custom body jets that line the walls. Ignoring his overpowering presence in the space, I begin to remove my clothes, one piece at a time.
The choking sound that he makes as I rid myself of my bra and panties gives me satisfaction, but I don’t let it show on my face. Instead, I step into the giant glass enclosure and let the hot jets relax my tense muscles. I grab the soap, rub my hands together and begin running the foam all over my body, perfectly aware of what it will do to Drew who is standing still, pinned in place with his eyes wide.
I’m dragging my hands up my thighs when I turn and finally acknowledge him. “Did you need something?” I ask innocently.
He swallows hard, powerless to stop staring at me as I caress my skin with my soapy hands, brushing them over my tight nipples.
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