Release: A Ransom Novel

by Rachel Schurig

  I can’t bring myself to grin back. The truth is, I’m not entirely sure how my girlfriend, Sienna—the aforementioned hot actress—is going to respond to my arrival at her Santa Monica beach house tomorrow morning. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, surprising her for Christmas. Back in November, when I’d booked the flight, we had just had a huge fight over her refusal to take a few days off to spend the holiday with my family.

  “You expect me to come to Ohio?” she had asked, completely disbelieving that I would even ask such a thing. “Are you serious right now?”

  I had ended up sulking for the rest of our weekend together, one of our limited chances to spend time in the same place, what with the demands of both of our careers. Instead of caving—instead of even being annoyed with me for my whining—she had instead ignored the entire situation, spending most of the time on her phone or reading her celebrity gossip magazines. It was worse than fighting back—she had completely checked out. Not for the first time, I wondered what it said about our relationship that she couldn’t even be bothered to get mad at me. What was that saying, about indifference being worse than hate?

  By the time I had rejoined my brothers in the studio the following Monday, I was feeling guilty about being so childish. Thus the purchase of the Christmas Eve flight ticket. I would arrive in California early on Christmas morning, just in time to surprise her.

  Whether she would be happy about that surprise or not, I’m still not quite sure.

  “And then your flight to Mexico is when—three days?”

  “Four.” Sienna had agreed to join my brothers and me, along with a large group of our friends, for our week of lazing around the tropical beaches before the drudgery of the tour started up again. Seven days of sunshine and warm ocean breezes. Seven days of drinking beer under the stars with nowhere to be and no one to answer to. Zero responsibilities. Zero interaction with record executives or press. All of it culminating in a New Year’s Eve bash on the beach. I couldn’t fucking wait.

  “Are you bringing anyone?” I ask Cash. “How ’bout that waitress—what’s her name? Miranda?”

  “Cassandra,” he corrects me. “Gorgeous Cassandra with the amazing rack.”

  I shake my head but I can’t keep from grinning. So typically Cash. “So, will Cassandra and her amazing rack be joining you, then?”

  “Nah, man, we just met. I’m not taking the chance she’s a nut job, you know?” I don’t comment on the fact that he had just been about to spend the evening with her, chances of her being a nut job notwithstanding. “Besides,” he continues, “I figure this way I’ll be free to find some lusty Caribbean beauty to keep me company.”

  There was a time when Cash’s description of lusty beauties would have intrigued me. When this whole thing started, I was every bit as much of a player as my brother. It was hard not to be, to be honest, what with the way the girls on tour threw themselves at us. I was only twenty-three when we left home, hardly an old man. I’d had my share of one-night stands on the bus and in the hotels, same as anyone else.

  But, unlike Cash, I got bored with it pretty quickly.

  I met Sienna Matthews at an MTV party before our first record hit. She was gorgeous and flirty and I couldn’t believe my luck when she spent most of the night talking to me. We were both on the cusp of our careers taking off and everything felt heightened to me, more exciting, more vivid. When she called me after the party, asking me to meet her for lunch, I was pretty sure I was already half in love.

  It feels like so long ago, now. Those first heady, exciting days of our dating. Even the separation felt exotic—flying out to L.A. to meet her for a long weekend, meeting up in Manhattan when our schedules aligned. Attending parties and award shows. Escorting her to appearances. Our pictures showing up in magazines and online. It felt like a different life to me—I was just some goof-off from Ohio whose band happened to win the lottery and hit it big. And I was dating a full-fledged movie star. Exciting was too small of a word to describe the whirlwind of dating Sienna.

  So when did that excitement go away?

  Nothing ever changes with us. Our relationship is in the exact same place it was in those early days. Flying out to meet up when we can. Accompanying each other to work events. Talking on the phone. For a long time, it was enough. Now it feels more like a chore than anything else. And I don’t know what to do about it.

  That’s why you’re going out there tonight, I remind myself. To show her that you’re willing to put more into it. To make the big effort, the grand gesture.

  Surely, she’ll see it that way, won’t she? She used to love when I would surprise her with flowers on set or have jewelry sent to her house. Surprising her for Christmas has to top that. Right?

  “Man, you’re a downer,” Cash mumbles, bumping his shoulder roughly into mine. “What’s your deal?”

  “I don’t have a deal.”

  “You’re at a party, bro. You’re just standing here, like an asshole. And you haven’t said a word in ten minutes. Plus you keep staring at Daisy. You look creepy.”

  I shake my head, trying to clear it. He probably has a point.

  “You’re just standing here, too,” I point out, forcing myself not to sound grumpy.

  He clinks his bottle against my glass again. “Good point. We are so not living up to the rock star standard tonight.”

  “So, what do you suggest we do instead?”

  He looks down at my nearly empty glass and grins. “We should get trashed.”

  I laugh. “That’s always your suggestion.”

  “And I’m always right.”

  My eyes flick to Daisy one last time. She’s laughing at something Daltrey is saying. I wonder what Sienna’s face will look like, when I show up tomorrow.

  “Oh, wait the hell,” I mutter. “It’s not like I have to drive anywhere. I can sleep it off on the plane.”

  “Now, that,” Cash says, pointing his beer bottle at me, “sounds like a rock star.”

  I’ve been in L.A. for less than twenty-four hours and Sienna is already pissed at me. Again.

  In fact, it feels like we’ve pretty much been fighting since I got here. She was annoyed when I wanted to stay in on Christmas morning, annoyed when I wanted to leave the club last night, annoyed when I suggested taking a back entrance to the restaurant in order to avoid the horde of paparazzi at lunch today. To top it off, she’s annoyed about the trip to Mexico.

  “I just don’t understand why we have to go for so long,” she says as we arrive home from an afternoon of shopping on Rodeo driveway. “A whole week, Reed? Is that seriously necessary?”

  “It’s a vacation, Sienna,” I argue, throwing my keys down on her sleek white marble counter. That move earns me another glare as she rubs her palm against the marble, making sure I didn’t scratch it with my carelessness. “The first vacation I’ve had in ages, by the way,” I continue, ignoring the glare. “I hardly think that a single fucking week is overdoing it.”

  She faces me across the breakfast bar, narrowing her eyes. “A week in Mexico.” Her voice is thin, irritated. The kind of tone that tells me she can’t understand why I don’t just shut up and give her whatever she wants.

  “Isn’t that kind of the point?” I cross my arms. “To be away.”

  She throws her arms up in the air in frustration. “Away, Reed, means away from everything. From civilization.”

  “Civilization? Are you shitting me? You’re pissed because you have to spend time away from—what? The city? Your hairstylist?”

  “I like the city,” she snaps, and I suddenly realize this is going to be a major fight. I feel tired already. But Sienna continues. “I like being close to amazing restaurants and some of the best shopping in the country. I like that I can pop in at my trainers whenever I need to. And yes, I like that my hairstylist is only ten minutes away. So, I’m some terrible person because I like having the things I care about nearby?”

  “It’s a five star resort.” I try to control my
voice. Part of me wants to laugh at her, shake my head at how clearly spoiled and shallow she’s being. And part of me wants to slam out of the beach house and leave her ass here.

  “It’s in Mexico.” She says the word like it’s dirty, unseemly. I do laugh then—which turns out to be the completely wrong response. Her eyes narrow to slits, her face tight.

  “I have a life here, Reed. Yes, I like going to nice restaurants and clubs and hitting the gym and getting my hair done. How long do you think I’d be able to survive in this industry if I didn’t do those things?” She turns away, her voice rising in pitch. “You have no idea what the pressure is like, how hard it is to be seen as perfect all the time, to always be on—”

  “Hey.” I cross the space between us in her mammoth kitchen, reaching for her shoulders. She jerks away and my hands freeze in the air. “I know you’re under a lot of pressure,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice kinder. “That’s why I want us to get away for a while.”

  “Well, sue me if I don’t think bumming around Mexico with your brothers is the ideal get away,” she snaps, still not turning to me. “God, when you said you wanted to go away for New Year’s I thought you meant something like Cannes.”

  My brief moment of empathy evaporates. “Why are you so opposed to spending time with my brothers?”

  She turns back to me, her face incredulous. “Oh, yeah, Reed. Sitting around talking about classic rock and drinking beers while Cash hits on anything with tits. That sounds like so much fun.”

  “How is it any different than sitting around in clubs with your friends?” I shoot back. “They hardly have scintillating conversations, you know.”

  She just shakes her head at me, unwilling to say what we both know she’s thinking. Sienna likes things to be sophisticated. Trendy. She likes fancy colored cosmos and white leather club chairs. My brothers, though they currently make up one of the most famous, sought after bands in the country, do not fit into her strict definition of cool.

  Suddenly, I feel exhausted. I slump my elbows onto the counter, running my hands through my hair. This feels like every fight we’ve had for the last six months. Coming out here clearly hasn’t helped. Getting away for the week apparently wasn’t going to help either. She has no interest in changing the order of her life to make room for me in it, has no interest in trying to fit herself into my life either.

  So, what in the hell am I doing here?

  “This isn’t working,” I mutter, rubbing my temple. I can feel a tension headache building.

  “What?”

  Her voice is icy and sharp and I’m almost afraid to look up at her. I take a deep breath and meet her gaze. Her eyes are narrowed to slits, cold. It seems so obvious, now, what I should do. How had I been in denial for so long?

  “This. You and me. It’s not working Sienna.”

  “Are you—you are not breaking up with me.”

  I shake my head, wondering what on earth I’d been thinking, putting so much time and effort into someone who appeared to have little desire to reciprocate. “Are you happy with me, Sienna? Seriously—is this working for you?”

  “It’s working fine,” she says, waving her hands as if to dismiss my concerns. She crosses to the fridge and swings open the door, peering inside. “I’m going to make a salad, do you want anything?”

  I gape at the back of her neck, the only bit of her I can see. Is she actually going to pretend that nothing just happened? Does she think she can just move on to a new topic and all will be forgotten?

  “I don’t want any fucking salad.” I’m struggling to keep my voice level, to not start yelling. “I want to talk to you. We never talk.”

  She pulls a glass container from the fridge and balances a bottle of some incomprehensibly expensive water on top of the lid as she makes her way to the breakfast bar. “We are talking.” Her tone is light now, sweet almost. As if all her earlier annoyance and anger has been swept away. “Will you hand me a fork?”

  “Sienna.”

  She freezes in the act of settling on a white suede barstool, staring at me. Her gaze sweeps across my face as if reading it. Suddenly, so fast I barely have time to duck, she hurls the glass container of salad greens at me.

  “What the hell!” I yelp, jumping aside as the glass thuds off the cabinet behind me, showering my shoulders, and the kitchen floor, with bits of spinach and kale.

  “You are not breaking up with me, Reed Ransome!” she snarls. Her fists are balled up at her sides, her face a rigid mask of fury. “Do you hear me?”

  “Are you insane?” I yell back, brushing salad from my shoulders. “What in the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Do you have any idea how lucky you are to be with me?” She faces me across the kitchen, splaying her hands across the marble breakfast bar. “Guys would kill to be in your shoes—I was on the Maxim Hot 100 list, you asshole!”

  “I don’t recall you telling Maxim about your propensity for throwing food at your boyfriend. Maybe they would have ranked you lower.”

  “Oh, give me a break, it didn’t hurt you.”

  I decide to try to reason with her, though my instinct is to run the hell away from the furious lettuce-wielding nut job. “Sienna, look at us. We fight all the time. We like different things, different people. You’re constantly annoyed by me. You can’t tell me that you’re dying for this to continue.”

  Her face falls, the sudden vulnerability making my heart constrict slightly. She so rarely lets anyone see her weak. “But... no one has ever dumped me,” she says, her voice soft.

  “I’m not dumping you.” Eyes peeled for more food she might throw at me, I approach the breakfast bar, leaning in to the opposite side of the counter so I can look at her face. “I’m just saying that neither of us is happy and we should figure out what we want. Both of us. It should be mutual, Sienna.”

  “That’s not how the press will see it,” she says, that same vulnerable tone in her voice. I want to point out that her concern over the press’s reaction is pretty telling. It should be a damn big red flag to her that her first thought was of the media rather than, you know, that she might miss me. But I bite my tongue—I understand the pressure of living in the public eye. I can’t blame her for worrying about what people will say.

  “We don’t have to tell anyone, not yet—” I begin, but she cuts me off with a sneer.

  “My show starts filming in three weeks. You think they won’t notice if my so-called boyfriend never makes an appearance?”

  Ah, yes. The show. The stupid reality show that I had somehow been talked into participating in. The record label has been really excited about it, calling it the best free publicity we could ever hope to get. The cameras were supposed to follow me on tour occasionally, getting shots of the two of us making our relationship work in spite of the distance. It’s laughable, really.

  “Do you love me?”

  She stares at me across the counter, her face as bewildered as if I’ve just burst out in a foreign language. “What?”

  “Do you love me, Sienna? It’s a pretty simple question.”

  When she doesn’t answer I nod, straightening. “That’s what I thought.”

  “Don’t you dare walk away from me.” Her voice is a low hiss. It actually scares me, a fact I promise myself to never share with my brothers.

  “I think it’s better if we spend some time apart,” I say, knowing that no amount of time will change my mind. “You don’t want to come to Mexico anyhow. I’ll go spend some time with my brothers and you can stay here, think about what you want—”

  “What I want is for you to not fuck everything up!” she yells. “We have, like, three joint appearances in the next three months, Reed. Including the premiere for Hellbent—you know, the one for which your band wrote the freaking soundtrack? You expect me to go by myself because you’re suddenly feeling insecure about how much I love you? You expect me to make excuses for you to the producers of my show? You have got to be kidding me.”

  “I�
�m sorry, Sienna.” And part of me is. I don’t want to make things more difficult for her, don’t want to be the cause for stress about her career. I know what a big deal the reality show is to her, know how much she has resting on the premiere of Hellbent in the spring—it’s a big deal for the band, too. But, I also know that there’s no way I can participate in this sham of a relationship for a minute more.

  It was always a sham, I realize; the thought so out of left field that I have to grimace. I had allowed myself to fall for the glamour and the excitement of the life she promised. For the beauty of her face. For the shallow excitement of dating someone so beautiful and famous. I had convinced myself those feelings could grow into something more, something worth fighting for. But I was wrong.

  You’ve been lying to yourself for a year, man.

  I turn from her, suddenly eager as hell to get out of this kitchen. “Reed!” she shouts, but I don’t stop. There’s nothing she can say that will make me change my mind.

  “You’re pathetic, you know that?” she cries. “And I’ve been cheating on you for months. So, fuck you, Reed.”

  I pause at the door to the kitchen. A part of me wants to engage, to demand who and when and where. To feel indignant and wounded and angry. What’s the point? I wonder wearily. It won’t change anything.

  “See you around, Sienna.”

  “Reed!”

  But there’s nothing left to say. I walk through the door and out of her life.

  Chapter Three

  Paige

  I’m pretty sure I’m going to go nuts trying to sit still on the plane.

  My ADHD makes me prone to distraction under the most mundane of circumstances. Put me on a plane—first class, no less—on my way to an exotic and luxurious vacation with several famous celebrities and there really is no hope for me. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the ride—first class is a totally new experience. The complimentary pillows and blankets, the touch screens embedded in seats in front of us, with an array of entertainment options to choose from, fascinates me. When the flight attendant comes around to offer us free booze, I can’t help the little squeal that escapes. First class is totally cool.