Chasing the Dream: Dream Series, Book 3 (15 page)

“Chase. This is my job. My career hasn’t even started and with an industry like this, it won’t be difficult for anyone to say I got to where I got because of you. I want to succeed on my own merit. Or the other thing that could happen is that anyone in any other business will think I’m open season for their phony romancing. And furthermore, I think I’m just a game for you. I’m not. I’m not a toy.”

“Hey, hey, hey…Shhh…” he cooed, cupping my face. “There you go again getting all worked up over nothing. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry,” I scoffed, pushing his hands off me and scooting to the far side of the seats and turning myself to face him.

“I am. I’m sorry you think your career will suffer. I’m sorry you think people will think bad things about you.” He slid toward me and his hands crept onto my lap and he took hold of my hand. “But I am not sorry about the kiss this time.”

I didn’t know what kind of game he was playing, but I had to get out of the car. I had to get away from this guy who was trying to charm the pants off me…and succeeding. “Driver, how much longer until we’re at Chase’s?” I had to drop him off then get home. I needed to get to bed and get my head on straight. I needed distance. I considered making the driver stop and taking a cab home and not finishing my babysitting duty of getting Playboy Chase to his hotel.

“Two blocks, Miss Fairchild,” he replied from the front seat.

Two blocks. I could make it two blocks.

I
had to kiss her again. That first kiss in her apartment was perfect. I’ve kissed a lot of girls and women. A lot. And I’ve never had a kiss that shoot through my body like that before. It was on my mind the entire shoot. I actually blew a few dialogue cues because I’d catch sight of Phoebe sitting over by the production crew and my mind was instantly back in her apartment. The TwitterStorm, well, that was unplanned. I wish it didn’t bother her so much. I’ve gotten used to it. Perhaps she will too.

This second kiss was just as rewarding. When she ran her fingers through my hair, it was a whole new experience. My scalp was still tingling as much as my lips. Next time—and there would be a next time—I wasn’t letting anything stop me. Not a knock at the door, or a Twitter tweet.

I
woke up the next morning around nine and was happy to have the late start to the day, but was unsure about meeting up with Chase again. Last night in the car was too much. How was I going to keep putting him off? I knew he was just playing me, but his talented hands and lips… I was sure to lose my internship if I let things continue. Either I’d be fired for being involved, or he’d drive me to quit like his last PA.

I showered and got dressed for the day. I was going “badass” with a pair of black jeans and my favorite black ‘ruched’ button-down shirt, which gave a great slimming effect, and cap sleeves. I finished off the look with my red cowboy boots for a punch of color. I pulled my hair into a messy bun on top of my head. I couldn’t risk my hair down. Chase liked it down. I had to keep him in line and not throw away this whole internship by letting him kiss me again. Those dreamy eyes, soft lips, and his intoxicating scent… those skillful fingers…
No!
I couldn’t let those get to me again. Professional.

While I ate a bowl of cereal for breakfast, I flipped through the clipboard with Chase’s schedule today. Today we would be shooting in northern New Jersey starting at one o’clock. The driver said last night that he’d be picking me up at eleven-thirty, and we’d pick up Chase then head over. I marveled at the incredible opportunity I was lucky enough to land, especially for someone my age, without much experience…

Jade and Erin’s little comments came to the front of mind, the one that had been whispering from the back of my mind that Jack Steven’s got me the job, not just the interview. Was I so young and naïve that I thought I got this job on my own? It was rather remarkable, I was an un-established communications student. And the other interns, I had learned at the Yankee’s game, were all over twenty-one. I glanced at the clock and decided I’d make a quick stop by Jack Stevens’ office and talk to him about this internship. I didn’t have his phone number, but I looked up his company and mapped it on my phone. His office wasn’t very far from my apartment. I had to figure out if my spot was based on my interview or strings he pulled. Not that I wasn’t grateful, but it would be nice to know how much I had to prove myself.

Arriving at the building for JSS Models, Inc., I went to the tenth floor. The last time I’d been here, in April with my mom, Jack had given me a tour of the impressive offices. He’d told me that his door was always open for me.

Ms. Campbell wasn’t at her desk, and not giving it a second thought, I breezed past her desk and headed for Jack’s office. Outside of the double doors of his office, I ran through my carefully worded question:
Hi Mr. Stevens. I wanted to thank you for your help in getting me the internship at NBC. I’m working with their Public Relations division. I’m having a great time, and learning a lot, and I’m incredibly grateful, but I was curious to know how much you had to do with me getting the position.

I knocked twice, and not hearing anything, wondered if he was even in the office since Ms. Campbell wasn’t at her desk either. I turned the handle, and pushed the door open. What I saw set me back on my heels. Papers strewn on the floor, woman with bare legs bent over a large desk, and a man, presumably Jack Stevens, standing behind her—presumably fucking her. The woman groaned and turned her head, but she didn’t see me because her eyes were clenched tightly. “Ohmigod!” I shrieked, and quickly stepped back into the hallway processing what I’d just seen.

Using the wall to keep myself standing, I gasped for air. I wanted to run down the hallway I’d just come down and throw myself back into the elevator. I felt like I was going to puke, and I tried to remember which direction was the bathroom.

It’s not her,
I told myself.
Short pixie cuts are in style. Lots of women have that hair cut. It wasn’t her. It couldn’t be.
I thought I’d picked up on
something
when I was here over Spring Break, but I’ve always had a “fertile imagination,” according to the very woman I thought I’d just seen. The woman under Mr. Stevens. The woman
groaning
under Mr. Stevens.

Suddenly, Mr. Stevens’ office door flew open and I was face-to-face with my mother!

“Phoebe, honey. Are you okay?” she asked. It sounded so far away…? “I’ve been meaning to talk to you….”

“Mom?” I asked, my voice shaky and thin. I sounded just like I did after I walked in on the bimbos and Dickwad…. I shook my head.
DON’T GO THERE!
I shouted to myself.

I watched her take a deep breath and blow it out moving her bangs. It seemed comical. A laugh exploded from my chest. What the fuck was going on with me?

“BeeBee,” she said softly, using the nickname I’d banned my family from using when I was fourteen.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, the urge to throw up mounting. I dropped my head between my knees.
I was sitting? When did that happen?
I started to panic. I was right back in that hallway. The dorm hallway. After
he
was such a dickwad. Of course, I’d only seen people having sex, then… and now. My mother was under Jack Stevens.

She took my hands and started to rub her smooth hands over mine. This I knew. This calming method of hers was good. “Phoebe, honey. Are you okay? I don’t like this. Look at me,” she pleaded. The one voice I knew. The one voice I trusted above all others. I forced my eyes to hers and I found calm in her big brown eyes. I blew out a big breath.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“You’re sorry?” I asked. None of this made sense. “I’m gonna puke,” I heard myself say. I clamped my hand over my mouth and my mother helped me up off the floor and down the hall in the nick of time. She rubbed my back as my breakfast was hurled into the toilet.

After I was cleaned up, and chewing on some gum that Mr. Stevens offered me, I sat in his office on a chair across from a sofa where my mother and Mr. Stevens sat—holding hands. My mother was talking, but I wasn’t really hearing what she was saying. Mostly I watched Mr. Stevens sit there quietly observing my mom and me. The
desk
was behind me, but I could still see it clearly in my mind. And my
mother!!
I had to get that memory erased from my mind or I was going to puke again.

In a far off voice, I heard my mom say, “…and I just didn’t know how to start the conversation. With your internship just getting started, I didn’t want you to be distracted. How do you tell your daughter that her mom and dad are divorcing?”
Divorcing!? After twenty-some-odd years? Why now?
Wait… Thinking about it, that wasn’t so bad. Hell, on more than a dozen occasions, I’d wondered why they were even ‘together,’ but truth-be-told they were never ‘together.’ Sure, in the same house, but Dad did his thing, Mom did things with me, Bradley, and Carter. “Everything should be final in two weeks,” my mother said.
Two weeks?

“How long has this been going on?” I asked.

“This? Your dad and me? Or this, Jack and I?”

“Um, both?”

“Your dad and I have really not had much between us for years. Jack and I have been together since…” she took a deep breath. This was hard for her. But it was also hard for me. And has to be hard for Dad. He was devastated when I talked to him before I visited Mom last month. I thought about that visit. She and Mr. Stevens—Jack—did seem quite comfortable in each other’s presence. And you don’t just go loaning drivers and limos to a casual friend’s kid. They’ve been… How long had this been going on? And what was my mother doing having sex in his office with him? That was something so out of character for my uptight mother. Or maybe this was what she was getting at with her cryptic talk last month of marriage-and-knowing-who-you-are.

“You were with Mr. Stevens when I was here in April, weren’t you?” I asked. The question came out more as an accusation than I had intended.

“It’s not that easy, Phoebe,” Mr. Stevens inserted. I looked at him and I wanted to hate him, but the look on his face was caring, and soft. He didn’t look like a monster. And to see my mother’s face as she looked at him, I don’t think I’d seen my mother ever look at my dad that way.

“Do you…Do you love her?” I asked him. His face broke out into the most impossible smile. Hell, I fell in love with him and that smile.

“More than you could possibly know,” he said warmly, an arm draping over my mom’s shoulders and pulling her in close. The look on her face was one of utter…contentment? And peace? And love?

“This is going to take me a while,” I said.

“I understand, honey. But please understand that Jack didn’t do this to your dad and me. Dad and I have had our problems for years. I gave Dad more chances than there are cabs in New York City. And I truly believe that I was forever meant to be with Jack, we just happened to meet later in life.” Jack rubbed his hand over my mom’s, gently thumbing the infinity ring.

“So, I’m guessing that you didn’t come here to talk to your mother about us,” Mr. Stevens said.

“Oh! Um…” I muttered, trying to remember exactly why I had come here in the first place.
Great communicating, Phoebe!
I struggled to replay my morning and remember why indeed I had come here. Finally I remembered and, apparently tact having left my mannerisms, I blurted, “Mr. Stevens, did I get the internship on my merits, or did you call in special favors?”

Mr. Stevens laughed. “If I had that kind of power, I’d be a powerful man indeed. No, Phoebe, you got the position all on your own. No one tells Alex what to do. He still has to answer to his higher ups, Burke, Epstein, Greenblat and a dozen or so other executives. He wouldn’t bring anyone on that would jeopardize his position. I simply got you the interview, along with hundreds or even thousands of other candidates. I didn’t call in any favors whatsoever to get you the internship.”

I sat back and felt somewhat better hearing that. But I still couldn’t wrap my head around Mr. Stevens and my mom as an item.