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 assistant ever because the only thing I've been able to focus on for the last five days was how sexually 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 muffling 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 fuck him over, okay? You fuck with him and it messes with our music. I might not hit girls but I know chicks that'll beat your ass for me."
I guess he knew very little about the solo album 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.
A flush spreads down my body. I bring my coffee to my mouth, taking a giant sip. The hot liquid rushes down my throat and I rub my tongue back and forth between my teeth. "God, I wish I remembered that time."
"I plan on making you sit on making you sit perfectly still," he says, his hazel eyes gleaming with desire and power. "Dipping my fingers, my fruit, inside of your body. Tasting you. I've grown addicted to the way you taste, Red."
I feel the throb deep inside of me, and I shift in my seat. "And let me guess, you don't plan to do any of that until I say the word, right?"
"You're so fucking smart, Sienna."
Lucas is broody the entire jet ride to Georgia - which, really, is over before it even begins. He sits sideways, taking up two seats and writing in his notebook. Every once in a while he glances up at me, tilting his head to one side, reading me.
I want to know what he's writing - if it's about me or us. I want to know what thoughts creep through his mind every time his eyes settle on me. There's so much I want to know about Lucas Wolfe that it's dizzying and I'm left with a racing heart.
He finally acknowledges my presence when the jet lands, as we prepare to come off board. Towering over me, he cups my face with one hand, pushing hair away from my temple. I reach up and pull the tips of my fingers through his hair. He trails his lips down my face, pausing for a moment to claim my mouth. "This is going to be so hard."
"What?" I pant, as his finger - fingers - slide between my lips. He slides them back and forth, and I gently bare my teeth down the way he's taught me.
"Being around you, knowing you're so close to becoming mine, and not being able to fuck or taste or have you whenever I please because the next few days are so hectic."
"There's always our hotel," I say, stroking my hand against his erection.
He releases a muffled noise, grabbing my fingers away from his body and trapping them over my head. "Yes . . . there's always that."
A limousine - the first one I've ridden inside of since prom more than five years ago - carries Lucas and me to the hotel, the Four Seasons Atlanta. Even though I've been able to witness Lucas's fans reaction to him in Los Angeles and at The Beacon bar in Nashville, it's nothing like the reaction he gets in his hometown. The hotel has had to beef up security because some gossip column leaked that Lucas is in town.
Before I exit the car, he stops me, pulling me back down to straddle his hips. He pulls one of his oversized beanies over my head. Sliding a set of ridiculous hot pink shades over my face, he says gently, "Wouldn't want more gossip about you and us finding itself onto the web." He tucks my hair underneath the knit cap, making sure every red strand is hidden out of sight. The gesture is so intimate it makes my breath wobbly. "Do not talk to the press," he commands.
"Yes, Mr. Wolfe."
"Say my name one more time."
"Mr. Wolfe."
Then he kisses me with a hunger that makes me want to rip his clothes off right then and there. "God I could write songs about the way you say that."
"Just like you'll write songs about my ass?" I tease.
"Every part of you," he says in a voice that tugs at my heart. Squeezing my breast hard one final time, he taps on the window, indicating to the driver that he's ready to face his fans.
Almost as soon as we're settled into our hotel room, Lucas has to leave to take care of some last minute details. I don't mind his absence, at least not for a little while, because it gives me an opportunity to admire the view of Atlanta from our room. And it's stunning. We're staying in the Presidential Suite, on the top floor, and the room itself is decked out, with marble flooring and lush furnishings and a king size bed. I'd be lying if I didn't admit how anxious I am to test that bed out with Lucas.
After I take a long bath where I shave my legs and wash my hair, I spend my time making phone calls and answering emails, both his and mine.
When I call Gram, she sounds relieved to speak to me. "Are you doing alright?" she asks.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I . . ." I start, pausing when I hear her sniffling. "Gram, what's going on?"
"It's Rebecca," she says. I listen, stony-faced, as she tells me about how my mom had gotten into a fight in prison with several other inmates after stealing a pair of shoes. I feel that bitter feeling in the pit of my stomach, the shame, as she talks about Mom having to be sent to the county hospital for surgery. "I don't understand why she'd take someone's shoes, Sienna. I put money on her books. I give her as much as . . ."
I sink down on the floor, leaning my back to the side of the sofa. It looks like I won't have to confront Gram about my mother. She's revealed that she's been going to visit mom herself, but I wish with everything inside of me that I could be the one suffering instead of her.
My grandmother has stopped talking now. I hear her sobbing quietly on the other end and a creaking noise. She must be in bed. I ball my hands into fists, banging them into the couch.
"Gram, I can't yell at you about going to see her. I'm not going to argue with you or any of that because I've got no room to talk, but please, please, please stop letting her take advantage of you."
A few years ago, when Mom's whereabouts were discovered after she skipped town, the bounty hunters had caught up to her approximately two days after the $300 grand cash bond Gram paid was forfeited to the court. If my mother's worthless ass had been caught just 48 hours earlier, Gram would never have been in this situation.
But even after Mom screwed her over, tried to talk Seth who was just a teenager into taking the rap for her - even then Gram stood by her side.
My grandmother, with all of her kindness and humility, deserves so much better than my mom. Seth and I deserve so much better than our mother, and though I hate to admit it, more than our dad, too.
Because a phone call every other week and the occasional awkward visit on holidays was about the equivalent of a hello from the homeless man who trolls the coffee shop I go to for Tomas in Los Angeles each morning.
"I know," Gram says, her voice catching on a sob. "It's hard - what with the house and Rebecca. I don't know whether I'm coming or going anymore."
"Don't worry, I'll be home soon and we'll take care of everything. I swear it."
"It's hard," she says once more. "I-I've got to get to bed, sweetheart. I'm going to go back to the hospital for your mom tomorrow morning and I've got a doctor's appointment of my own. But baby, I love you so much."
"Love you too, Gram."
But when I hang up, my teeth are gritted together. Lucas finds me like this with my head buried in my hands, grinding my teeth furiously. "Don't gri - " Then he sucks in a mouthful of air, striding his way across the marble foyer and into the living room in a matter of seconds. "What the hell is going on?"
"I'm fine."
"Sienna," he says in a cautioning voice, and I glance up at him, revealing my tear-streaked face. He rolls his body down the side of the couch until he's right beside of me. It's almost comical, how absolutely helpless he looks when confronted with my tears, but he pulls me into his arms. Lucas Wolfe, the most commanding man I've ever met, lets me sob into the front of his white shirt, allows me to drip mascara all over him.
I sniffle. "My mom got beat up in prison."
Holding me by my shoulders, he pulls away from me slightly, placing just enough space between the two of us so that he can look into my eyes and feel me out. He frowns, rubbing his lips together. "I'm taking it you're not exactly sad about your mom getting an ass-whipping."
I laugh, in spite of the tears, and drag the backs of my hands across my face. "God, no. She's had it coming for years. It's" - I let out a small, strangled sound and he buries his head in my hair again, stroking the back of my neck, making me feel safe - "my grandma, you know. My mom's been so awful to her, and yet Gram keeps taking the kicks over and over again. It just hurts. It hurts so fucking bad."
Lucas murmurs that he understands, but I can't miss how his voice hitches. How it feels as if there is something left unsaid between the two of us.
But he listens to me sob, listens to every complaint I have about Mom. It's like a dam bursts and I tell him everything, breaking every dating rule in the book. When he firmly tells me to go to bed, tucking me into the king sized bed in the master bedroom, the unsaid words are clear to me simply by the way he looks down into my eyes.
What I had said to him earlier about Gram - about her taking the kicks repetitively - that person used to be me.