Extremely Famous (5 page)

I hop out of the cab on West 37
th
Street in front of the building that houses Allen Deconstruction. I haven’t been here in a while and not at all since everyone here found out about my famous parents and my relationship with ‘Andrew Forrester, movie star’.

I’m not looking forward to it, but I have to see the fabric samples in person and there’s too many to have messengered to my loft. Plus, several sample furniture pieces have been shipped for me to see and I can’t exactly have couches brought to me for approval.

I hear the cab door behind me slam shut and cringe. Evan is joining me on this little adventure today, which promises to make it even more embarrassing than it would have been if it were just me traipsing through the office.

Drew had Bruce drive him to his
early meeting in Brooklyn this morning, not realizing that I was planning on coming to the office today. He only accepted the fact that I was safe taking a taxi after I promised to bring one of the guys with me. That was one conversation I was glad to have on the phone with him and not in person, that way he couldn’t see all of the eye rolling that was going on while he ranted about needing Bruce to drive me everywhere.

We enter the cool office building, a welcome change to the oppressive August heat and head for the elevators. When we exit on the 5
th
floor, I greet Kimberly with a hug. She’s been the receptionist here for as long as I can remember and is one of the few people that knew who I was these last few years.

“Bethany is waiting for you in the back storeroom. The new shipments are back there,” she says with a big smile.

“Thanks Kimberly. How’s your mom been?” Her mom has been pretty sick the last couple of years, in and out of the hospital with emphysema. Knowing the tough times she’s been through makes my problems with the paparazzi seem so trivial.

“She
’s doing really well right now. My brother has been helping by hiring a housekeeper for her so she’s in heaven.”

I sm
ile at her mom’s idea of heaven. “I’m glad she’s home.”

“Thanks Sydney
.” I see her eyes flick over my shoulder and her grin fades.

Evan.

“Sorry. Kimberly, this is Evan. He’s my uh, protection,” I say in an irritated voice. I look back and see that Evan is standing there with his giant, tattooed arms crossed and his usual menacing look on his face.

“Hi,” she whispers meekly.

I shake my head and walk through the office area and toward the storage room, Evan trailing close behind. We cross a room containing six large desks staffed by various assistants. Every person turns to stare and every conversation stops.

Well, this isn’t awkward or anything.

I duck my head and walk faster, anything to get away as quickly as possible from the curious eyes and low whispers. When we reach the hallway lined with offices I turn to face Evan. “You can wait in reception you know. There aren’t exactly threats hanging out in here. Are you expecting an internal attack?”

Evan tries to maintain his serious countenance but can’t help himself.
A smile flickers across his face before he goes back to his menacing grimace. “Mr. Forrester told me to stay with you ma’am. So I’m staying with you.”

“Jesus,” I mutter under my breath. I storm past the designers’ offices, ignoring the
gawking employees who stop to watch the freak show.

Damn Drew and his ridiculous over-protective crap!

Reaching the storage room, I go inside and ask Evan to close the door behind him. We don’t need curious co-workers peeking in on us.

“Sydney!” A short blonde girl just a few years older than me rushes over to greet me. She looks
warily at Evan, who is standing by the door as unmoving as a statue.

“Hey Bethany!” I say, giving her a hug.

Bethany Williams is another one of the very few people at the firm who knew who I was before the whole ‘coming out on national TV’ incident. She was essential in helping me remodel Verve here in New York. She’s been promoted from assistant to designer and I couldn’t be happier for her.

“What do you think?”
She sweeps her arm towards the sample pieces that are set up around the room.

“Oh my God! They’re even better than I thought!” I throw down my bag and hurry over to a large, curved Cabriole-style couch.
Sitting down, I lean back and rub the soft fabric with my hands. “It’s unbelievable!”

Bethany flops down next to me and
pats the cushion between us. “I know, it’s to die for.” She moans as she touches the velvety material.

We rush around, giggling like ridiculous school-girls, and test out every single piece of furniture. When we’re done, Bethany shows me all of the potential fabric choices that are in
four massive books on the huge design table at one end of the room.

It takes forever to sort through the samples, but we have a great time doing it. Evan doesn’t budge even one inch the entire time, except for when an intern pokes his head in to ask Bethany a question. He takes one look at Evan’s scary expression and bolts before he can finish his thought.

“Great,” Bethany says. “It took me forever to train that boy to be exactly how I want him and now he’s been scarred. He’ll probably quit.” This sends us into another round of giggles, much to our delight.

We’re almost done when Evan appears next to me out of nowhere,
just about giving me a heart attack. “Jeez! Give a girl some warning! You scared the crap out of me Evan!” I clutch my chest as my heart races.

“Mr. Forrester would like to speak to you,” he says, holding his phone out in front of me.

I scowl at my bodyguard. Can’t I have one afternoon without being checked on? I snatch the phone out of his hand and put it to my ear.

“Yes?” I say as politely as possible. What could be so important? He
knows I’m working this afternoon.

“Syd?” Drew s
ounds upset.

“What’s going on?” I ask, suddenly afraid. I hear the motor of the Mercedes SUV roaring in the background. “Are you okay? It sounds like Bruce is driving awfully fast.”

“Go with Evan directly to my brownstone. Don’t leave his sight Sydney.”

I bristle at the
unexplained directive. “No, I’m working Drew. I can’t just drop everything. Why your place?”

“Sydney, this isn’t a
fucking request! Go now! I’ll explain when I get home!” I see Bethany flinch out of the corner of my eye and know that she’s heard Angry Drew yell through the phone.
Wonderful.

“You’ll have to give me more than that
, Drew.”

“Goddammit Sydney, just go to my fuckin’ house okay? I’m on my way!”

“I don’t think so,” I say sharply and end the call.

What a jerk!

I hand the phone back to Evan and it rings as he takes it.

Glaring, I snap at Evan.
“Don’t bother trying to give me that phone. I’m unavailable.”

Evan makes a face and walks back to his
spot by the door, speaking softly on the phone so I can’t hear him. Whatever, Drew can yell at Evan. I’m not being ordered around on his whim like another one of his employees.

Bethany and I finish up with cataloguing the fabrics that we like and bundl
e them up for her intern to enter into the computer system. We chat a little about her boyfriend and I tell her how ridiculous Jeff Talley was in London. She knows him and doesn’t doubt that he was an obnoxious ass.

I stand up and retrieve my bag from the floor and pull out my phone, steeling myself to see just how
pissed off Drew is that I hung up on him. I’m about to unlock the screen when I hear muffled shouts from outside the storage room.

“Evan?” I say nervously as the shouts get louder and closer.

Shit! Is someone actually coming here to attack me?

My mouth drops open in shock as Evan
casually steps aside and the door is shoved open so hard that it crashes into the wall behind it.

Fuck.

Very Angry Drew is standing in the doorway. At my work. Embarrassing me.

He storms over and I can see the curious onlookers behind
him, including Kimberly, who looks like she’s on the verge of a panic attack. I wave her on, letting her know that I’m okay.

“Evan!” barks Drew. Evan motions to Bethany who scurries out the door and they both exit, closing it behind them.

Traitors!

“What the fuck
Sydney! You think I’m joking heah?” He makes a poor attempt to keep his voice low. As if it matters how loud he is now that he’s acted like a total ass at my place of business.

I pale under his threatening gaze, then my cheeks heat up with anger. “You can’t come in here and make a scene! This is my job! My business
, Drew! These people aren’t required to sign a confidentiality agreement. Any one of them could videotape this on their phone and sell it to TMZ if they want to!” I hiss, meeting his unwavering stare.

“Jesus Christ
, Sydney!” He paces in front of me, dragging his hands through his hair, tugging on it wildly. “I don’t care about the mothahfuckin’ people heah! Can we please discuss this in the cah? We need to go, now!”

“What the hell is the deal?” I ask, my voice getting louder than I want it to.

“There’s been a fuckin’ death threat against you! Okay? I want to get the fuck outta heah!” he bellows, going toe to toe with me, towing over me in a cloud of fury.

“What?” I whisper, my mouth suddenly so parched that my tongue can barely move.

Taking advantage of my speechlessness, he grabs my hand and yanks me toward the door. I stumble behind him, numb. My brain feels like it’s disintegrating into dust. I can’t process what he said. The only person who wants me dead has been sitting in jail awaiting trial, right?

“Who?” I croak as he grabs the doorknob.

“In the cah, Sydney,” he warns in a low voice.

We exit and find Evan right in front of us, keeping a group of stunned people away from the door. I hear a commotion down the hall and see Steve barreling towards us, employees scampering out of the way of his intimidating presence in the cramped hallway.

“All clear,” Steve says as he turns around, leading us out of the hallway and back through the main office. In my peripheral vision I see people holding up their phones, eager to film A-list actor Andrew Forrester surrounded by bodyguards as he weaves between the desks, pulling a stumbling Sydney Tannen behind him.

I catch Kimberly’s concerned look as we pass her desk in reception, but Drew moves too fast for me to say anything. Thankfully, the
elevator comes quickly and we’re leaving the building and piling into the SUV within minutes.

S
tressed out and silent, I sit squashed between Drew and Steve on the back seat as we speed through the city streets toward Drew’s Chelsea brownstone. I attempt to control my rapid breathing as I feel a panic attack coming, bubbling like poison in my gut, ready to overflow at any second. My lungs aren’t working right and they begin to burn from the lack of oxygen. The whooshing sound of my heartbeat in my ears is all I can hear.

“Sydney, breathe baby,” Drew says softly as he wraps an arm around my shoulders. My heart is thumping so hard that I think I must be dying. “Drive f
astah!” he yells at Bruce.

Somewhere in the back of my fracturing mind I can rationalize that I’m not really dying, but my body is betraying me. My hands start to shake uncontrollably and I collapse forward, hanging by the seatbelt. Hunched over
, I try to breathe, but the air won’t go deep enough. I start to feel lightheaded.

“Sydney! What tha
fuck is goin’ on? Steve, do something!” I vaguely recognize that Drew is freaking out and somehow it’s my fault, but I can’t do anything to help him.

****

“Come on Bennett, we get this shit all the time. What makes you think this is such a big deal?” Daddy is talking to his publicist, Bennett Woodrow, in his big, fancy office in a high-rise in downtown Los Angeles. “Hell, I get at least three a week, Eva gets the same, sometimes more.”

Daddy promised me that he would only have to be here for a minute, but we’ve been here forever and they’re still talking. Bennett’s secretary already took me to the employee kitchen and got me a drink, showed me around the office, and introduced me to a few of the people who work here. Now I’m bored out of my mind.

“Daddy, are we going soon? I really want to ride the teacups,” I whine. Daddy promised me that we would go to Disneyland for my tenth birthday but he was in Europe filming. He finally told me we could go today, but in the car his publicist called and we had to come straight here. Some big emergency, Daddy said.

“In a minute Syd,” Daddy says, not even looking up from whatever Bennett is showing him.

“I really think we should call the authorities on this one Reid,” Bennett says.

Daddy looks tired and sad again. He looks like that a lot lately. I try to flip through the gossip magazines that Bennett’s secretary gave me, but I’m too ants
y to read them. I just want to go.