Even at the risk of losing my heart.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Day six begins in what can only be described as a manic frenzy. At 6:30 a.m., I receive a text on the phone Lucas has given me from Kylie.
Hey, babe, what email address did you send Luke’s confirmation for the flight to Atlanta to? Don’t see it in the regular email and was worried.
I should be irritated that she’s checking up behind me, but I’m more concerned with the fact I have no earthly idea what she’s talking about. I shoot her a quick text message back, asking her what’s going on. Fifteen seconds later, the phone vibrates in my hand.
“Okay, please tell me you’re just kidding me and you sent the confirmation to your personal inbox. You did, right?” Kylie pleads. She sounds half asleep. As if to confirm my suspicions, she yawns rudely into the receiver.
Tossing the warm blankets off of my body, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stretch my toes. “No, I didn’t. How was I supposed to know the reservations needed to be made in the first place?” Although, when I say it out loud, it seems like it would have been a good idea for me to check up on that sort of thing. I have to be the worst a.s.sistant ever because the only thing I’ve been able to focus on for the last five days was how s.e.xually drawn I am to my boss.
At some point, I’ve even lost sight of the objective that made me say yes to working for Lucas in the first place. Getting Gram’s house back.
Kylie releases a tiny yelp. I hear her headboard thud against the wall, and a low male voice murmurs something. “Go back to sleep,” Kylie whispers, doing a horrible job at m.u.f.fling the receiver. To me she says, “Sorry about that, errr—”
“Housekeeping?” I suggest, stifling a snort.
“Right, housekeeping. Sienna . . . this is bad. I could’ve sworn that I left instructions for you to make the reservation on the list of—”
“You didn’t.”
She groans as if she’s in despair, and I can imagine her raking her hands through her mess of black and blue hair. “I had an awful dream about this, you know? Like I woke up in a cold sweat and freaking out, it was that awful. What are we going to do?”
The solution seems simple, but after I start up my computer and pull up several tabs to search for available flights, I see why Kylie has contacted me on the verge of a major meltdown. This is one of those messed up instances where the universe is laughing at me because I discover there are absolutely no flights left for the day.
“I’ll have to drive him, then,” I say. There’s no other way around it. I cringe at the idea of making the five hour drive from Nashville to Atlanta with Lucas staring at me, making me nervous. He’ll probably do everything in his power to get me hot, wet, while I’m driving, which in his case, isn’t much.
She groans, and the sleepy guy—housekeeper—beside of her moans. The bed squeaks again, but I pretend like I don’t hear it.
“He’s not going to be happy,” she whispers. I hear her shuffling about and a moment later, the sound of a horn honking and sirens somewhere in the background. Then I hear her inhaling—she’s smoking. “I mean, after what happened with Sinjin yesterday . . .”
I swallow hard. Wyatt and Cal, Your Toxic Sequel’s lead guitarist, had come by late last night for drinks with Lucas. None of them seemed like they were in a drinking mood, but they took down shot after shot as if the world was coming to an end. I stayed out of their way, pretending to do work in the other room, until Lucas called for me to drive Wyatt and Cal to a strip club to meet up with some of their friends. But when I dropped them off, Wyatt had pulled me aside.
“The way Lucas looks at you . . . don’t f**k him over, okay? You f**k with him and it messes with our music. I might not hit girls but I know chicks that’ll beat your a.s.s for me.”
I guess he knew very little about the solo alb.u.m Lucas’s was planning to release or if he did, he didn’t say anything. I came as close as I could to smiling without breaking down.
“Really? You’re threatening to have some girl beat me up over something you’re imagining. You rockers are so sensitive.”
“And very protective of our careers,” he’d said, as he fished his ID out of his wallet and approached the door to the club. Turning on his heel for a second, he says, “Have fun in Atlanta.”
“Sienna? Hey, Sienna? Are you listening to a word I’m saying?” Kylie demands, drawing my attention back to the present.
“Yeah, I’m here. Hey, I’m going to make some calls directly to the airport. I’ll get back to you in a few, okay? Bye,” I say in one breath. I hang up before she has a chance to start fretting again.
But in the end, before Lucas is up two hours later, it’s Kylie who saves the day. She sends me the confirmation for a private jet she’s managed to charter to my personal email, CCing Lucas. When I see the cost of the flight, I’m left wheezing. It’s enough for Tori and I to pay all of our expenses for a good three or four months.
Lucas doesn’t seem fazed by the change of plans or the amount of money Kylie spent when he calls me in to eat breakfast with him. I sit across from him in the kitchen, drinking coffee. He eats fresh fruit, his eyes locked intensely on me. I slump down in my seat, touching my hand to my face.
“Why are you looking at me like that, Mr. Wolfe?”
He slides a chunk of cantaloupe between his lips, leaving them wet and sweet and sticky. I cross my long legs to try and squeeze the want away. “Remember that time I ate strawberries with you on them?” he asks.