Oh, but she’d have to see him sooner or later. She couldn’t stay away from work forever, and he was plenty pissed for the giant blowout argument that was sure to come. Their tempers had rubbed each other wrong for years, and this time was probably not going to be any different.
He just wished it didn’t have to be over his baby, his pet. His music.
“Mother, what are we supposed to do now?” Theresa Chambers paced her mother’s lavish office and scowled at the floor. Her coloring was similar to her twin’s, but her features held none of the warmth that Bryna had.
Clarissa studied her daughter, her pride and joy, and wondered how her child would like the new course of plans that she’d laid out after their first plan had failed. If she was anything like her mother, Clarissa decided, then Theresa would jump at the opportunity. After all, it was a much bigger prize that awaited them at the end of this one.
She had always kept her eyes on the prize at the end of every avenue she’d ever pursued in her life, and whatever she wanted, Clarissa Chambers-Caine always got it. She’d been a single mother of five-year-old twins when she’d met Ian Caine, and, even though she’d been a mess because of the stress of raising children, she’d seen the gift horse. Marrying Ian Caine had been the best, and most profitable, decision she’d ever made, and, twenty years later, she was still reaping the benefits of it. Ian may have died of an accidental drug overdose that she would never admit to inducing, and his daughter may have been enslaved for as long as Clarissa had been entertained, but, in the end, she had their money. Not to mention the brains, skills, and sharp eyes that had gotten her to the powerful office in which she now sat.
“Just because Brian Littrell is off the market, Theresa, does not mean that there aren’t other fish in the ocean.” Clarissa waited until her daughter turned to face her.
“What are you talking about?”
Clarissa smiled, and, if Theresa had had a metaphoric turn of mind at that moment, she would have said that the smile was reminiscent of a barracuda who’d found its prey. “Who is, at this moment, at the top of the food chain that Brian has now pushed his company into, Theresa? Who is sitting at the head of one of the most powerful recording companies that this country can boast?”
“I…” Theresa trailed off as it hit her. Her smile matched her mother’s now. “That’s beautiful, Mother. Really beautiful. He’s got more wealth than I would know what to do with, and he’s single.”
“Voted People’s Hottest Bachelor,” Clarissa agreed. “Which means you’d get the money and something very pretty to go with it.”
Though her mother had taught her to be ladylike and behave gracefully at all times, a small part of Theresa felt the need to squeal like a fifteen year old girl who’d been asked out by her crush. She was twenty-five, though, and knew the squealing would not do. Certainly not if she was going to marry James Apollus.
“So,” she began, moving to her mother’s side. “When do we start?”
Kristin shook her head and tried not to get too angry. Anytime she thought of her step-aunt, she was filled with fury. She couldn’t live and breathe with that fury pulsing through her, so she tried to get past it.
“Kris? Baby, you okay?” Kevin looked up from the proofs of album art and promotional pictures he’d been poring over to see his wife staring at the wall, steam practically pouring out of her ears. If there was one thing Kevin Richardson knew about his wife, it was that she was not the woman you wanted to be around when she was seriously angry. Which she appeared to be at the moment.
She blinked then looked back at him. “Yes. No. I’m contemplating murder, Kevin.”
“Uh, why don’t you do that while you eat?” he suggested, pushing her sandwich over to her. “And you can tell me how that artist you and AJ signed last week is doing.”
Kristin stared at the sandwich in front of her and sighed. Well, if she was going to kill, it may as well be on a full stomach. “Matthew Davis,” she muttered, biting into her lunch. “He’s doing well. I think AJ’s going to have him hook up with Nick and work on some initial tracks. Demo, so we can see how he’s doing. What his style is. I think he’ll probably stick to the R&B he auditioned with, and I’m pretty sure Nick has Bryna working on that project.” She tried not to think of Bryna’s mother and focused on the woman, her stepcousin, instead.
“How are Bryna and Nick dealing with each other?” Kevin asked, knowing that Nick Carter and Bryna Chambers had always mixed about as well as oil and water.
Kristin swallowed and smiled mischievously, her initial anger abating at the switch in topics to something that was fun. “You know how they are,” she told him. “Always spitting and clawing at each other. Half the time, Nick doesn’t have a clue why she screamed at him, so he just sits there all confused and cute-looking. Bryna’s so in love with him, and he can’t even see it.”
“What?” Kevin dragged his attention away from his work again to stare, disbelieving, at his wife. “What? You can’t be serious.”
“Serious about what?” Howie Dorough entered Kevin’s office and joined the couple at the table with his own lunch. “What are we talking about?”
“How Bryna’s in love with a clueless Nick,” Kristin replied.
“Oh, yeah. That.” Howie waved it off. “Everyone knows about that. Except for Nick.” He glanced up at Kevin. “Okay, and maybe Kevin.”
“I’m so out of the loop,” Kevin muttered. “So I’m just gonna stay that way and get back to my work.”
Kristin rolled her eyes at Howie. “Babe, try to stay with us for once. You’re always working through lunch, and we want you to relax sometimes.”
“We’re at work, Kris. And I’ve got a crapload of it, too. See this?” He held up a page of proofs. “They’re blurry. All of them. That’s a whole day of staging and photography gone down the drain. You know how that costs Apollo, don’t you, Howie?”
Howie swallowed his forkful of pasta and took the sheet from Kevin. As the Chief Financial Officer for Apollo Records, he was in charge of knowing the costs of everything. Just like he knew it was a waste of money retaining a photographer who couldn’t do his job right. “Thirty thousand,” he replied. “For all the equipment, crew, and the photog. Who doesn’t have a stellar record with us at the moment,” he added.
Before Kevin could reply, Kristin slapped a hand over his mouth. “No. Don’t even answer. We are not talking about work, right now. We’re talking about anything but work. For example, I could tell you about how my darling step-aunt is planning on selling her shares of Starlight to one of the Paramount execs, which makes me want to kick some serious ass. My parents are furious as hell because they’ve always hated the dried up bitch, but they can’t stop her. Uncle Ian left them to her and Laurel, but Laurel disappeared years ago, which leaves that hateful woman in charge of it all. But, no, I refuse to listen to talk about work,” she finished with a warning glare for both men.
“Clarissa’s trying to sell out to Paramount?” Howie frowned, intrigued by Kristin’s news. “What good is that going to do her? The woman’s a money hound, and selling her shares isn’t going to rake in any money in the long-run.”
Kristin held up a finger. “Uh-uh. I never said all of her shares, Howard. She’s keeping a quarter, and that’s going to bring her six to ten million a year for however long the company stays under our control.”
“Which won’t be long,” Kevin spoke quietly, understanding how much this hurt his wife. “Especially because, once Paramount’s got a hold of part of the stock, they’re going to want all of one of the most moneymaking production companies in the world.”
“She’s ruining us, Kevin.” Kristin fought to hold back the tears. “That company was built by my mother and Uncle Ian, and I’d hate to think of what he’d say if he saw it now.”
Kevin scooted her close to him, so she could lean her head against his shoulder. “Baby, he would’ve kicked her fucking sorry ass out the window faster than she could’ve said his name.”
It was just too bad that Ian Caine had been dead for the last twenty years.
The day off had been a welcome relief from the laborious job of cleaning windows, Laurel decided, dragging her cart of supplies towards the building she’d been assigned to that day. She’d been able to relax, eat ice cream, and talk smack about men with Bryna. Not that she knew that much about men, but she’d always lived vicariously through Bryna’s affairs. The only good thing to come out of her father’s marriage to Clarissa had been Bryna. And Jason, she remembered suddenly. What had happened to Jason, Clarissa’s only son?
When they’d first become a family, Jason and Bryna had been Laurel’s best friends. Jason had been a few years older than her and Bryna a few years younger, but they’d banded together to terrorize the hell out of Theresa with the help of their cousin, Kristin. Once her father died, though, Clarissa had banished Laurel to working with the maids in her own home. Her education had been completed at a public school, rather than the elite private school she’d once attended. Leaving that school and basically disappearing from sight had cut her off from all of her old friends, and she could barely recall them now.
Jason and Bryna had made everything easier on her, though. They’d snuck her presents on Christmas and her birthday, taken her shopping and out to dinners with them without Clarissa’s knowledge, and threatened Theresa if she ever tried to rat them out.
Eventually, on Laurel’s eighteenth birthday, Clarissa had handed her a check for twenty thousand and sent her on her way out the door. Unsure of what to do with the money and knowing that Clarissa was still keeping track of her, Laurel had found a cheap apartment in Brooklyn and had worked three different jobs to keep herself fed for the first two years. Then, she’d begun saving everything and cut down to just two jobs when she realized Clarissa no longer had people reporting about her status. On her twenty-sixth birthday, two years ago, she’d picked the window-washing job. It paid well, and she needed just a few thousand more to be able to put herself through college.
College was her biggest dream. She’d always been gifted with science and history and had dreamt of being an anthropologist since she was four. Her father had read to her from different history books about the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and the civilizations in the Indus Valley of India. It had cultivated her thirst for more, so she’d borrowed Jason’s books. Unfortunately, Jason had a falling out with his mother and, once in college, he never came home again.
So Clarissa robbed her of another of her meager store of treasures, Laurel thought, hooking up her cart to the pulleys on the side of the building. She hoped Jason was well wherever he was, and perhaps she’d run into him again some time.
She adjusted her safety goggles and sighed as she studied the tall expanse of building. She rummaged through her supplies to begin mixing cleaners together and frowned when one appeared to be missing. Kneeling down to search through the bottom shelf of her cart, she found it beneath her protective apron. She pulled out both, stood, and turned.
“Jesus Christ! Watch where you’re going!”
An irate man watched her, annoyed, as he gathered the things he’d dropped when they’d collided. His gray eyes were darkened with irritation and glared at her from beneath the dark hair he swiped out of his eyes.
“You should watch where you’re going,” Laurel shot back. “Or did you miss the giant cart standing here?” She gestured to her supplies before returning his glare. “The nerve of some people,” she muttered.
He stood and huffed out a breath. “Well, excuse me, but I was studying an important document. You shouldn’t leave your things in the middle of where people walk.” He lifted a brow and waited for her reply.
The retort had died on her lips, though, when he’d stood because she’d realized who he was. Her deep green eyes widened behind the protective eyewear before they dropped to look at the ground. “I’m sorry. You’re right. Of course.”
“What?” James was confused. “Just like that? No more snide remarks?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Apollus. I’ll be sure to watch where I’m going next time.”
“Okay.” Thoroughly confused, he nodded and turned to walk away. “Have a nice day,” he called over his shoulder.
Laurel watched him go and smacked herself. She’d just yelled at the scion of a huge corporation. She’d recognized him from the cover of last month’s People magazine and wanted to smack herself. It wasn’t that she was low on the self-esteem scale. She was simply in awe of the man because he was heading a large, well-to-do company and had bewitched the entertainment world, too. He’d been to the best schools for business, and she’d envied him when she’d read the article.
Now, she’d run into him and yelled at him. She’d kick herself in private, she decided.
She watched him walk over to the fountain in the business complex’s plaza and sit on one of the benches. He looked down at his watch then up at the street. After a few minutes, a dark sedan pulled up and deposited another man with dark blonde hair onto the sidewalk. She studied them as the two dark-suited men exchanged what she’d termed “man slapping hugs”. She could hear the blonde one’s voice and detected a soft southern accent.
For a moment, just a moment, something struck her. It jiggled in her memory, and she tried to figure out what her mind was trying to recall. Then, she heard James’ voice and the feeling passed.
Shrugging, Laurel turned back to her cart.
“Back to work. Business as usual,” she murmured with a small sigh.
