by Vivian Lux
She grinned, getting the message. "I told you to wow Celia tonight," she spoke up, looking out over the green room. "And apparently you did," she went on, smiling at me and letting the double entendre hang in the air for just a little too long. I glared at her. "Because," she finally said. "She's ready to offer you a contract with Anthem."
Chapter Ten
Ewan
"Yesssss!" Jules shouted, pumping his fist just like the audience in the bar just now. The idiot had obviously been in the States way too long. "That's bloody fantastic!" Niall clapped his huge hands together, then came over and slapped me on the back as I laughed out loud.
"Wait!" CeCe yelled over the noise of our celebration. We quieted and looked at her. "I have conditions," she said.
Her voice was all business, and I knew I should shut my mouth, or maybe put on a damn shirt or something, but the way she was biting her lip right now pushed all rational thought out of my head. "You do?" I said, letting my eyes fall to her lips.
She shifted and stared at a spot directly over my shoulder. "Yes," she said primly, not meeting my eyes. "And I need you to consider them very seriously before you agree, because these are going to change things for you and they way you're working here."
I had to smile. She was working so damn hard not to look at my stomach. "Go ahead, love," I prompted her, teasing. "Tell us your conditions."
Her eyes blazed at me. "One," she said, lifting her chin. "You need to find a new lead singer."
I opened my mouth to agree with her, but August interrupted. "Done," she called from across the room. "I already have somebody in mind. We'll audition him early next week."
"We will?" Jules asked, bewildered.
"Next condition?" August asked, ignoring him.
"Two," CeCe went on, raising her voice a little louder. "You need a new band name. I cannot sign Twat Yacht and you cannot be Wrecked any more."
I was moving towards her without meaning to, drawn by the way she caught her pink lip in her pearly teeth. "We're not," I said with my eyes on that mouth of hers "We're the wreckage of Wrecked."
Her mouth parted slightly. I was close enough now that I caught a whiff of whatever perfume still clung to her skin at the end of a long night. It was the kind of private scent that sticks in your brain, calling up memories every time you smell it. I leaned in a little closer. Was it her shampoo? Her soap? Or was it just...her?
"What he means to say, love," Jules added, breaking in and ruining the moment. CeCe snapped her gaze away from me and looked at him instead and I had to suppress the urge to knock him flat. "It that's the band name. Wreckage."
CeCe's mouth formed a perfect 'O' of surprise. I waited as she took a deep breath, wondering why it meant so much to me that she be impressed, that she liked it. "That's actually..." She trailed off and then looked up at me with excitement in her eyes. "That's actually really fucking perfect."
I felt like leaping into the air. "Yeah we though so," I boasted, trying to keep casual about it. "Harks back to the history but still leaves room for the new, yeah? A nod to the old fans, letting them know they still matter while acknowledging that things have changed."
Jules snorted. "Stop trying to impress her, ya pompous twit."
Now I definitely wanted to deck him.
"Third thing," CeCe said with only a slight little squeak. "We need to work on your look."
"Our look?" Jules chuckled.
I whipped my head back to gape at her. "My look?" I echoed, feeling like she'd just sucker punched me in the gut she kept staring at. All these shy, meaningful glances? All the licking and biting her lips and now she wanted to tell me she didn't like my "look"?
Well that was a bunch of bullshit. I took a step back from her, angry at myself for misreading her signals while at the same time certain I hadn't. "What's wrong with my look?"
She regarded me coolly. "Come on now. This isn't your first time round the block. You know you need to project a cohesive image and right now?" She gestured to my faded, well-worn jeans and then swept her arm around to take in Jules' greasy curls and Niall's dumpy polo shirt. "Right now you all look like three dudes who wandered away from the bar and somehow ended up on stage."
I felt my lip curl. It was fucking Killian all over again, micromanaging us. "Maybe that's the look we're trying to project," I said, my words dripping with acid.
She seemed surprised. "You're pissed about this?" she challenged, talking tougher than I expected. "Tough shit. You guys are pros. Act like it."
"They will," August said, sounding way more confident in us than I was feeling right now. Jules looked a little green around the gills and Niall was steadily staring at a spot on the floor. I could almost hear the whirl of thoughts in their heads and I knew the second CeCe and August left, we were gonna start a row. I felt like breaking shit. It didn't fucking make sense how angry I was right now. Anxious rage clawed in my belly, twisting it around like a wrung out rag.
"Here's my card," CeCe said, slapping it down on the arm of the couch. "You call me when you make your decision. Looking forward to doing business with you, boys." She gave a breezy smile. "Or should I say, lads."
Watching her walk out that door made my stomach twist even more and suddenly I wasn't pissed, I was fucking confused as hell, and I didn't give a fuck how it looked to August or the rest of the band.
I ran after her.
"Oi!" I shouted, louder than necessary.
She stopped in the middle of the hallway, freezing in place but she didn't turn around.
But she didn't move away either. Not even when I got close enough to inhale that scent again. "Really lassie?" I breathed, letting my lips brush her hair before stepping in front of her. I reached out, catching her chin with my finger and tilting it up so she had to look me in the eye as I asked. "You really be wantin' me acting professional 'round you?"
Fucking hell, when she licked her lips like that it made my stomach drop like I was taking the lift to the top of the Empire State Building. I was close enough to feel the heat rising off her skin, just a millimeter of electrically charged ions dancing in the space between us. All I need to do was bend my head and I'd catch the corner of her mouth with my lips, suck on that lush lower lip and maybe bite it myself. It would be the easiest fucking thing in the world but...
"Yes," she hissed, forcing out the words in a rush of air. "Professional. This is a business relationship."
I swallowed and stepped back. With my head still bent and my hair falling into my face, she couldn't see the anger in my eyes. Then I took a deep breath and nodded. "Aye," I said slowly. "It is then. Pity though, don't you think?" I brushed my finger under her chin again, watching her eyes follow my hand back down to my side again. She pressed her lips tightly together as if to keep herself from licking them.
Ah, so it's this game then, is it? She wanted me just as much as I wanted her. Maybe not tonight. Maybe we'd keep the pretense of professionalism up for just a little longer.
"Have a good night then, love," I said bending closer to her.
She let out a soft sigh, turning her face to mine. Then she seemed to remember herself, because all at once her eyes went wide and she was rushing away.
Chapter Eleven
Celia
For the third time this morning, I clicked open the tab on my computer to send an email, and for the third time I closed it again because I couldn't focus long enough to even type in a subject line.
Every time I thought of last night's confrontation with Ewan, I felt like fireworks went up my spine. Every time I didn't think of last night's confrontation with Ewan, fireworks went up my spine anyway as if to remind me of how close we'd come to kissing.
It made no sense. I should have been pissed at him crossing the line like that. In fact I was pissed. At myself for not kissing him when I had the chance.
He'd laughed at me. That was the worst fucking part. His chuckle still echoed in my ears, audible even over the sound of my boots slapping the concrete floor as
I rushed away before I made the mistake of giving in to him.
No matter how badly I wanted to.
"Fuck," I hissed under my breath. The hum of my office was loud enough that I could chastise myself without anyone hearing. Or so I hoped. "Get it together."
I had to stop obsessing like this. There were already too many reasons for the people here in the Anthem offices to dismiss me. My young age, my famous last name, the truly nepotistic way I'd landed this job in the first place. If someone found out I had a crush on the talent...my God no one would ever take me seriously again.
I sat back up in my chair. Right. I just needed to dash off this email. That would be enough to jumpstart me and I could start drowning myself in work so I could ignore the faint pulse of desire that hummed deep in my belly.
GraniteWave Promotion Venue Change — FYI
I had no sooner typed out the subject line than my desk phone rang. Happy for the distraction, I grabbed the receiver. "Celia Gilbert!" I chirped into the phone.
There was a pause. "Your sister told me you were using a pseudonym."
I sagged back in my chair. "Daddy," I hissed, looking around wildly. "What are you doing calling me at work?"
"Don't worry my love, I'll make sure your boss doesn't dock you for taking personal calls," he chuckled as I turned beet red.
"Daddy."
"I'm sorry C, but you're being ridiculous," my father boomed. I could picture him in the high rise uptown, his massive oaken desk taking up half of his corner office suite. He probably was sitting with his feet up on it, barefoot of course, his suit pants hiked up to reveal his legs tanned from his recent trip to Bali. "I'm trying not to be hurt over here," he said, using the same cajoling, wheedling voice I'd heard him use countless times before. My Dad could always get you on his side. "About how my little girl doesn't want to be associated with the likes of her dear old Dad."
"Daddy, come on," I sighed. "Were you and Dell gossiping about me or something?"
"I was not gossiping. I was asking about the health and wellbeing of my beloved youngest daughter who never calls."
I felt myself softening. "I'm sorry."
His voice softened too. "How are you C?" he asked gently. "Is the new position working out?"
"It is," I relented. "Though I haven't signed a band yet."
"These things take time."
"But I'm close."
"Atta girl," he encouraged. "I knew you had what it took. It was high time you started working for me, Celia. I've needed your talents."
"Daddy, I haven't done anything yet."
"But you will," he said, blithely dismissing any possibility that I might not be good at this. "And when you do, they're gonna start calling me Celia Silver's father."
I grinned. That was the magic of my Dad and why he was so hard to resist. You had to stay far away from him, keep him at arms length, or else he'd have you believing his own pie-in-the-sky version of his fantasy world. It was only when you walked away, squirmed out from under his thumb that you realized he'd been selling you a line the whole time.
But he sold it with such love, "I don't think Mom would let that happen," I joked. "Because she doesn't want anyone to know she's a mother."
"That's not true and you know it," my father chided, ever loyal to my eternally youthful, exquisitely beautiful mother. "She just enjoys it when she's mistaken for your sister."
"She enjoys it a little too much, Dad. I think the word for it is 'gloating.'"
"You'll understand it better when you're our age, kid." My father was having a hard time with the fact that he was turning sixty this year, and my mother had refused to acknowledge her birthday for the past eight years running, staying perpetually forty-two in the eyes of the clearly unobservant press. "Youth is wasted on the young."
"Says the guy who was quoted in Rolling Stone saying he hoped he died before he turned thirty-five," I teased.
"See this is why you're going to go far at Anthem, CeCe," my Dad declared. "You pick up on every detail and you don't miss a trick. That band you're scouting has got it made."
My mind flashed back to last night in the hallway backstage and another firework exploded in my body. "Um, yeah," I said, feeling my cheeks heat up. I needed to get my Dad off the phone before he picked up on how I really felt about the band I was scouting. "Well right now I don't know if they'd agree with you. I told them they needed to make some changes and the guitarist got pretty pissed at me."
"Sweetheart, that's the business. Musicians are fickle and hot-tempered and they don't like being told they're not God's gift to the world. It's your job to nudge them in the right direction while making them believe it was their idea all along."
I blinked. My brute force approach had clearly set Ewan off. Maybe that was the wrong approach all together? "That's...solid advice, Dad."
He laughed. "Yeah well, I've been in the business long enough to have picked up a thing or two," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "If you came by the office once in a while, maybe I could share them with you."
A hot claw of shame closed around my throat. "Yeah sure Dad," I choked. "Sounds good." Gently, I replaced the receiver without saying goodbye, rationalizing that he never said goodbye either.
"Parents, huh?" Some PR guy I'd seen a few times in the break room was leaning over the edge of my cubicle wall. "Mine does that all the time too, calling me when I'm at work and chewing my ear off."
I looked up at him, confused. "I'm sorry, what?"
He pointed at my phone. "Your Dad called, right?" he chuckled. "Yammering on and on when you have work to do?"
I flushed, feeling a protective surge in my chest. "He wasn't yammering," I said, biting off my words. "He was...giving me advice."
The PR guy rolled his eyes. "Oh no, that's even worse! Like he has any idea how to do your job."
"Actually," I started to say, then caught myself. As far as this office knew, I was Celia Gilbert, recent college grad and A&R trainee. My father, my connection to this company, had never come up. In fact, I so strenuously emphasized my nobody-special status that at this point, claiming to be Ricky Silver's daughter out of the blue would make me look like a crazy person. "Never mind," I said instead. "Yeah, you're right." I faked a laugh. "Family, right?"
"The worst," he agreed, and mercifully wandered off, leaving me, for the very first time, feeling like the worst kind of traitor.
Chapter Twelve
Ewan
The invading wasps in my dream slowly resolved themselves into the buzzing of my phone on my nightstand.
Rubbing my eyes, I first rolled over and squinted at the alarm clock I hadn't set once since I'd moved into this place. "Are you fucking kidding me?" I mumbled when I saw the time. 10:08 AM? Who the fuck was calling me so bloody early?
It buzzed again. In a rage, I grabbed it off the polished surface and considered throwing it against the wall but that would have been the fifth phone I'd broken this year and the lads were starting to give me shit. So I stabbed my finger on the answer button instead.
"Someone better be fucking dying," I snarled in greeting.
"Mr. Boyd?" an unfamiliar female voice said into my ear.
"Not to be rude, love," I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose with my fingers. "But who the fuck are you and how did you get this number?"
"Your manager gave it to me," she replied crisply.
"Oh." I was going to murder August.
"My name is Scarlett Sawyer and I'm with Auteur magazine?" she went on. "I'm doing a story on the rise and fall of Killian Ness..."
"Not interested," I snapped. "Far as I'm concerned that wanker can rot in jail forever."
"Off the record sir? I agree."
I sat up in bed. "Sorry, love, what did you say your name was again?"
"Scarlett Sawyer, Mr. Boyd. And I'm not interested in getting your opinion of Killian Ness as I'm not trying to write any sort of redemption piece on him." Her voice was clipped and efficient. "I'm not in the business of writ
ing apologies for abusers. No, the reason I called was that I wanted to find out what's happening next. Is it true you're putting the band back together?"
There was a piece of white cardboard on my bedside table that wasn't there before. I turned it over and my eyes nearly bugged out of my head to see that it was Celia's business card.
I pressed my finger to my forehead just over my right eye, but it was no use, the headache was already setting in. How much had I had to drink last night after CeCe left? Was I celebrating getting signed by Anthem or was I mourning how close I got to kissing her before I pussied out? At some point in the night, one emotion had slipped over into the other and I'd lost track of what I was drinking for. "Mr. Boyd, are you there?"
I snatched my hand away from the card as if I'd been caught with my hand in the candy dish. "Sorry. Scarlett you said your name was?"
"Yes, Mr. Boyd," she said, clearly patient, and clearly poised and ready for whenever I got my mind wrapped around her question.
"And you said that August called you to tell you this?"
"Yes, Mr. Boyd," she repeated. "Well not me per se. She left a message on the general voicemail box for the whole department."
I tried to suppress my laugh by jamming my lips together, but it leaked out of the side of my mouth anyway. "She's very...forceful," I said, aiming for tact and missing slightly.
"Normally we don't even listen to blind tips like that," Scarlett said. "But with the drama surrounding the court case..."
"Look," I interrupted. "You need your quote from me, right? Here it is." I paused for a second, licking my lips. It was one thing to talk about this amongst ourselves, it was quite another to have a reporter commit it to print. "We are putting a few things in motion," I said, picking my words carefully. "And we'll have more to share pretty soon."