Forever Rockers (5 page)

As I left the office, I found Peterson waiting by the entrance. He was my shadow these days, whereas in the past he’d only been in the background, there when I needed him. Since the first attack on Shane’s tour bus, Peterson had started sticking to me like glue. I had no privacy when I left the house. Without the quiet—and I suspected, deadly—guard, I knew Shane wouldn’t let me out of the house.

Outside, Peterson opened the back of the blacked-out SUV that was already waiting. Theo, or T-Rex as Emmie and Natalie had taken to calling him because he was as big as one, was behind the wheel and keeping the engine idling. I climbed into the back seat and Peterson shut the door before taking the front seat.

“Work?” Theo asked with a raise of his brow.

“Might as well,” I muttered and leaned my head back against the headrest.

We’d only been back in SoCal for a few days and I needed to catch up on the stacks of work piling up on my desk at the office. I’d handled most things from the bus over the summer via email, messenger, and Skype when I’d needed to attend any meetings as well as having things overnighted to me regularly. My personal assistant had also dealt with a good bit of all my responsibilities. None of that made up for being at the office in person and I had eighteen weeks of such things sitting on my desk.

Eighteen weeks. I shook my head at the time that had passed from the beginning of the Demon’s Wings and OtherWorld summer tour. It was supposed to only last fourteen, but when Gabriella Moreitti had been shot saving Mia, we’d all stayed in Northern California until she was ready to be released from the hospital. Sticking around and making sure the woman, who had selflessly risked her life to save my little niece, was going to live to breathe another day was the least that we could have done.

My boss, Rex, hadn’t minded. I’d been able to give him the story as it unfolded and he’d been more than happy to let me stay as long as I needed to.
Rock America
was one of the few magazines that had an exclusive insight into what was really happening. Just like he’d done when I’d married Shane, he’d raked in a fortune in sales not just on our weekly edition, but on our online daily as well.

It was a short trip to the office. Peterson got out of the passenger seat as soon as Theo pulled to a stop outside the huge building where
Rock America
was housed. Theo would park the vehicle and then camp out somewhere in the building so that he was within running distance in case Peterson needed him. Meanwhile Peterson would stand outside my office door, scaring most of the people who approached my office door.

I wasn’t happy about this new arrangement at work. It was hard to do the things I needed to do with him standing out there interrupting my day. Normally people would come to me when they needed something. Now, I had to go to them, and that meant putting my own work on hold until it got sorted. I’d started to feel sorry for poor Peterson standing out there all day so I’d put a chair just outside the door, but he refused to sit in it. He took his job very seriously. Sometimes I wished he would just take a chill pill and get the broom handle out of his ass.

Taking the elevator up to my office floor, I smiled at some of my co-workers, as they shared the small space with us, to try and ease their tension when they kept eyeballing my bodyguard. As the elevator stopped and we stepped off, my phone started buzzing. I glanced down at it in my hand as I walked past the receptionist on my floor.

“Morning, Harper.”

“Morning,” I called distractedly as I walked toward my office and put my phone to my ear. “Hi.”

“Bambach’s nurse just called to remind me you needed to fill your prescription today,” my husband’s voice growled in my ear. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to see him today?”

I grimaced. “I didn’t want you to worry,” I told him as I unlocked my office and stepped in, closing the door behind me—so I wouldn’t have to see Peterson all day, just as much to keep anyone from actually overhearing my conversation.

No one knew about me continuing to see Dr. Bambach. Well, no one except for Emmie. I’d decided after that initial appointment with the fertility specialist that we would keep the possible hope of getting pregnant to ourselves. Emmie knew because…well, she was Emmie. She knew everything, and even if she hadn’t, I was sure Shane would have lost his mind not having her know. It was maddening at times, having her know every little thing that went on in our lives, but I understood why. Still, I’d kept the news to myself and hadn’t even told Dallas or Linc, the two people I told everything to.

He blew out a frustrated breath and I could imagine him pacing in our living room or even Emmie’s office. “You not telling me worries me more than me actually going to see the damn doctor, beautiful. We’re a team in this, Harper. We do this together. I don’t like you going by yourself even once.”

I sat down behind my desk and closed my eyes as I ran my free hand through my hair. “I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad. I just… You’ve been so tense lately. I didn’t want to put this on you too.”

There was a long pause and I pictured him raking his hands through his hair in frustration. “No matter what I have on my plate, I want to do this with you. Okay?”

“Okay,” I whispered.

“So, what did the old dude have to say?”

I sank my teeth into my bottom lip as I recalled the visit with the fertility specialist. “He thinks the stress of the summer has affected my hormone levels. He switched my dosages again.” I heard him grunt and so I quickly went on. “I told him this was the last time. That I’m done after this. He asked me to continue until Christmas and I agreed, but after that I’m through with it, I promise.”

He was quiet for a long while before he let out another breath, this one sounding relieved. “Thank you.”

“After Christmas…” I clenched my eyes shut and swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. “…I’d really like to look at the paperwork to start the adoption process.” It was time I stopped being so selfish. Time I faced the truth. I was probably never going to get my one wish, and I needed to start planning the rest of my future with the man I loved.

“I think that would be a great way to start the new year, beautiful.” His voice was so tender, it brought tears to my eyes.

“Yes. I think so too.”

I was going over possible covers for the week’s edition of
Rock America
when there was a single, firm tap on my door. I had barely lifted my head when the door opened and my personal assistant stepped into the office.

Sean Caldwell was a thirty-one-year-old man with a slightly receding hairline, but he was still good-looking enough with his leanly muscled, six-foot frame. His eyes were always full of something that resembled amusement. Resembled, but I wasn’t sure if it was believable or not. There were a lot of things that I didn’t find believable about the man. To me he came across as too…everything. Fake was what I would call him. As fake as they came.

If I’d been in Sean’s position, I might have been the same way though. He’d worked for Rex at the L.A. office long before I’d been a freelance photographer and reporter for the magazine. From what a few of the friends I’d made at work had told me, Sean had been itching for the editor position and up until I’d shown up, had thought it was a done deal. Then out of nowhere—or so it had seemed to Sean—I’d arrived from New York and been given a week trial period to show Rex what I could do. By the end of that long, tedious week, I’d been offered the position.

I knew most people thought that I’d been offered the job because I’d been dating Shane Stevenson, that I still had my job because I was now his wife, but that wasn’t true. I’d gotten my freelance job with
Rock America
on my own merit and I’d worked my ass off to get to where I was now. Shane or Emmie or anyone else hadn’t pulled any strings, hadn’t used their influence, hadn’t so much as sneezed in Rex’s direction to get me where I was today.

Not long after starting my new job, I’d found out exactly why Sean hadn’t been offered the position. No sane person would have ever given him such an important job. The man was incompetent. He had no eye for detail, no originality or creativity. He had to be told, in detail, what you wanted from him and even then all instructions had to be either written down or repeated several times before any task was completed properly. Under his overly charming—overly fake—smile, I could see his dislike of me growing like a cancer. Could almost hear him cursing me and hating me with each inhale he took while in my presence.

I could have asked Rex for a different personal assistant and I knew he would have let me pick anyone I wanted within the company—if not have hired a new one. Maybe all those years of living with Dallas had rubbed off on me without me realizing it and I’d turned into an evil bitch, but I got a sick kind of joy out of making Sean smile all day long in that overly cheerful way. Each night as I said my goodbyes to everyone and stepped on the elevator, I was hoping his face ached from having to keep that grin in place all day long. I was starting to get tired of it though. My fun in torturing the stupid man was growing dimmer by the day while my irritation grew more and more with each passing hour I had to deal with him.

“You have a meeting with Rex in forty-five minutes,” Sean reminded me now.

I lifted a brow, surprised that he had dared come near my office in the first place. Out of everyone in the building I was sure Sean was the one most terrified of Peterson. “I remember. Thanks.” I gave him a tight smile and started to lower my head back to the pictures in front of me, trying to decide which needed a little Photoshop magic on them because of any possible imperfections.

There was always something wrong with a picture. From a slight blur to an unwanted object in the background when the pictures were shot on location. It was my job to make sure that the cover and any other pictures in the weekly magazine were perfect. I never touched up anyone’s body, like some magazines did. Hell, for some of the rockers in the pictures that landed on my desk it would take more than the magic of Photoshop to make them them look better.

I’d spent most of my life working with photography in one form or another. From watching behind the scenes at photo-shoots for some of the world’s most beautiful models, to working the camera myself. Getting to edit them had always been my dream job and now here I was, doing what I loved.

“It’s a lunch meeting. Rex has asked me to place your order so the two of you can eat in the conference room.”

“I’ll order my own, thanks.” It had been months since I’d had to have Sean order my lunch, but I could still taste the sandwich that had had some kind of bizarre dressing on it that had left me with a roiling stomach for hours. “Tell Rex I’ll order for the both of us.” And I’d send Theo out to pick it up.”

The usually bright smile on Sean’s face dimmed ever so slightly, but he nodded. “You’re the boss.” His tone had a bite to it that rubbed down my spine in all the wrong ways.

Yes, it was definitely time to start thinking about a new personal assistant. Sean was no longer amusing to me. The idiot man was starting to add to my stress, something Bambach said I had to avoid as much as possible. Some things I didn’t have the power to turn off in my life, but I could certainly push Sean out the door and find someone who would make my work-life a little easier.

“If that’s all you needed, I have to get this done before they go to print tonight.” I dismissed him without another thought and turned my full attention back to the picture in front of me.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

Emmie

I glanced around the open space of the office building with a critical eye before turning back to Natalie who was standing beside the owner’s realtor. “Thoughts?”

Natalie shrugged. “It’s a good start. This entire floor would house a good number of staff and it’s in a great location. But you’re the boss.”

I lifted a brow at her. Did she think I wasn’t going to make her a partner eventually? It was something I’d always figured I would do, but that was still a few more miles down the road. Natalie was great at her job, but she still needed a little more experience. Then Annabelle and I would offer her a third of the company. For now, she had to get through the pregnancy that was affecting her blood pressure to the point that the doctors were already cautioning her about the possibility of preeclampsia. I probably should have insisted that she stayed home and let her husband pamper her all day, but the girl had grit and had shown up despite me telling her I could handle the realtor on my own.

“The floor is open for lease or sale, but of course the lease would—” the realtor started, sensing blood and going in for the kill.

I lifted my hand to stop the flow of words coming out of the man’s mouth. He was the best in all of SoCal, but the dude was too mouthy for my taste. “I’m not in the market to lease. I want to own. My partner and I want something that is ours, not some idiot’s who will raise the rent whenever he pleases.”