Taking Something (15 page)

“Don't think that because I told you not to come in that you are on vacation,” she said into the phone she had a viselike grip on. “I still expect you to get every goddamn thing I tell you to do done.” I watched her shake her head at whatever the person on the other end was saying. “I'm fucking serious, Gia. Do not drop the ball.”

Gia? Why in't she coming in?

“Consider this your second chance,” Sadie warned. “If I find out you're messing around with things that are mine, it will be the end.”

I stood still to not alert Sadie to the fact that I was eavesdropping and figure out exactly what she was talking about.

Is she telling Gia to stay away from me?

Sadie ended her call by furiously pushing her thumb against the screen of her phone and brought her hands up to her head with a heavy sigh. When she turned around, I could see the look on her eyes and I knew she was pissed. It was not a good time to even consider asking her about her assistant. As she took a step toward the door, I took three back to make it look like I'd just walked up.

“Hey, babe.” I painted on a smile and played dumb. “We're ready for you in the booth.”

“Of course.” She feigned the same look I had and linked her arm through mine. We walked back into the studio as if neither of us had another concern in our head—both of us returning to work. I couldn't speak for Sadie, but the phone call was all I could think about.

And continued to be all I thought about until we finished recording that day.

“What do you think?” Sadie placed her hands on my shoulders after the session had wrapped up. “Like it?”

The highs and low of Sadie Sinclair were a lot to handle, even for me, but I wasn't about to do or say anything that would bring her down, even if I really, really wanted to know what the fuck was going on with Gia.

I placed my hand on hers and looked up with a smile. “It's sounding great,” I complimented. Her voice—or what she had of one—was really working out well on the track. Landry's was much stronger and was carrying the bulk of the harmony, but with my track backing, it sounded pretty damn good.

Landry and Sadie both seemed pleased with the final recording, but it would have been nice to have a semi-impartial set of ears hear it. Landry had come alone and Sadie's assistant was M.I.A.

“Is Gia bringing lunch in today?” I asked, trying as subtly as possible to find out where she was and if I had drawn the correct conclusion from the phone call I had overheard. “I'm starving.”

“She took a couple days off. Personal reasons,” Sadie answered as she walked through the door to the other side of the glass. “We'll just order delivery.” She smiled sweetly.

That's a bold-faced lie if I've ever heard one.

If Sadie only knew that I knew Gia would never just take time off. She'd told me how important her job was to her, even if she'd convinced me she hated it with her fake smile and behind-the-back eye rolls. Gia all but wiped Sadie's ass, so I knew it was killing Sadie not to have her on hand to boss around. Her not being there was also a huge inconvenience for me because now, instead of focusing on Sadie and Landry, my mind was racing with Gia being gone.

It might have been true that I had an interest in getting to know her, but I’d settled on us being friends if for no other reason than to have her around. Especially at times like this. I knew Gia would be able to take one listen to the song and tell me exactly what to do to make it better.

“Did you hear me?” Sadie popped her head around the doorframe and called out. I jerked my head in her direction and tried to wipe of the stupid look off my face.

“Huh?” I asked, not having a damn clue what she had said because I was too worried about if I was the reason Gia was gone. I thought I'd convinced Sadie that there was nothing going on between us. Which there wasn't. Even if a part of me kind of thought she liked me.

Jesus, I'm a sixteen-year-old girl all of a sudden.

“I said, if we are almost finished up here we can just grab lunch on our way home,” she sneered, obviously annoyed.

I thought about her offer for a second. “I really need to take all the tracks back to my hotel and give them a good listen. Alone,” I informed her.

We had eleven songs recorded for Sadie's album, and Landry had agreed to let her put the duet on there. As far as Sadie's album was concerned, our studio time was almost finished, and all I needed to do was polish them up for the finished product.

Sadie immediately put on the pouty face she thought worked best on me.

“I just need a few hours by myself to dive into the music.” I painted on a grin. “Then I'm all yours tonight,” I promised, standing up and slinking over to her. As I wrapped my arms around her tiny waist, I pulled her into my chest. “Why don't you go home, take a hot bath, call in your masseuse, and unwind. Your album is almost finished, babe.” I kissed the top of her head and pretended not to hear her agitated sigh. “You've earned some alone time, Sadie,” I said, trying to sway her. “We can focus on me and you once this thing is in the bag.”

“You're right,” she finally conceded. “I'm going to go home to plan something special. Just for me and you.” She looked up into my eyes with an expression that almost made me feel guilty before pressing up on the tips of her toes and kissing me.

“That's my girl,” I said between kisses.

“You two want to finish this thing up or what?” Landry chuckled after clearing his throat. “I mean, I got time, but I really don't want to spend it here watching the two of you make out.”

“Sounds like you might be a little jealous, Landry.” Sadie tried to play cool, but I could see a little shimmer of hope in her eyes as she teased him. A part of her might have been over the moon about the night I'd just promised her, but I knew that if Landry proposed running away together at that moment, Sadie would haul ass without a second thought about me.

“Yeah.” Landry snickered. “Something like that.”

The two of them shuffled back over to the mics and laid down one more set of backing vocals. This song was going to be huge hit. It was an I-want-you, you-want-me kind of song. One of those songs that everyone could relate to because we'd all felt that attraction to another person. The lust. The need. The want.

I kept trying to force that feeling with Sadie. It had worked the first night we were together. There was no denying that she was beautiful, but it was getting harder and harder. And not in good way. Gia's suggestion of getting to know her hadn't helped. The more I knew, the more I wanted to throw in the towel.

And as sure as I was forcing myself to
love
Sadie, the more I had to force myself not to think about Gia. Not knowing what she was doing was really bugging me. Lucky for me, I'd just bought myself a couple of hours to do a little recon on the missing assistant.

And because I couldn’t focus on the task at hand if I didn’t solve the puzzle that was Gia Grayson, that's exactly what I was going to do.

What am I doing?

The question kept racing through my mind as I drove away from the upscale mansions of the Hollywood Hills and toward the address I'd stolen off Sadie's contact list while she was finishing up her session with Landry.

My fingers had pulled up Gia's name and forwarded the info to my phone before I’d even had a chance to think it through. To make matters worse, Sadie had insisted I take her Range Rover after I dropped her off at her house.

“Take my car back to the hotel. That way you can come straight back here when you are finished,” she'd said, kissing my cheek and reminding me of my promise to give her an uninterrupted night of Nick once I was done with work. This unwelcome feeling of guilt I had been fighting back all day was a pain in the ass. I did listen to the track we'd just finished on my way to Gia's house, so I had kind of been telling the truth. In hindsight, it probably wasn't my smartest move. Landry's smooth, silky voice and Sadie's ability to exude straight sex from hers had me in a mood I didn't need to be in when I saw Gia.

I wasn't going over there to seduce her. I was going over there because I was concerned. I hadn't seen her in days. I'd overheard Sadie, and I was convinced that I was the thing Gia was supposed to stay away from. She'd told me how much she needed her job, and I didn't want to be the asshole who’d cost her job.

What if she is the one who asked not to come to work?

What if I'd pushed her too far? What if, between the dancing at the bar, the lunch, and the flirting, she had developed feelings for me? More than friendship. I knew I felt something for her that I shouldn't, but it was selfish of me to do that to her. We couldn't be together. I was with Sadie. I was committed to my career and she was the way to get what I wanted. No matter how I felt about Gia.

Once I found her house, I sat in the car in front of it for a good five minutes, trying to come up with a valid excuse.

“I've missed you,” I said to myself, needing to hear out loud just how pathetic that sounded. We'd agreed to be friends, so I didn't want to come off as crazy as Sadie did when she talked to Landry.

I turned the car off and the music stopped playing.

A startling realization hit. I could ask her to take a listen to the song. Tell her I wanted her opinion. That didn't sound nearly as creepy.

I hopped out the Range Rover and locked it behind me as I walked up to the front door. The quaint little Craftsmen-style house was in a nice neighborhood. It was a far cry from Sadie's place, but it seemed like it suited Gia. Even if she had the movie-star looks and talent, she still seemed like a simple, easy-to-please kind of girl.

I knocked. And waited. Nothing.

I knew she was home—her little white car was sitting in the driveway. I hoped she wasn't pretending to be gone because she didn't want to see me. Just when I was about to turn and leave, I heard voices coming from the backyard. Not just voices.
Singing.

The first voice I heard was smoky and soulful. A voice that made my heart ache and race all at once—not something many singers could do.

I made my way around the house and peeked over the fence.

I knew it.

Gia.

It took two lines for me to fall in love with the boy band song she was singing, and that was saying a lot because it was not my type of music. She managed to take that song and sell it. I believed that she really had danced all night to the “best song ever.”

“Your turn.” She grinned, telling the person in the backyard with her—the person I had yet to see—to sing. I moved down the fence to get a better look. It was a kid. Her back was toward me, her dark hair hanging in ringlets down her back. She cleared her little throat and started to sing. She might have been young, but she had a pretty stellar voice for a kid. When she finished, Gia started to clap and tell the little girl how good of job she'd just done. That's when Gia saw me.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, quickly walking over to where I was standing. She pushed up on her tiptoes to meet my eyes with hers. Her hand grabbed the top of the fence, right next to mine. Centimeters separated our hands, and I inched mine over. I couldn't control it. I wanted to feel her skin against mine, even if it was just a tiny piece.

“I wanted to see you,” I replied, not caring how forward it sounded. After hearing her sing, I was pretty close to telling her a whole lot of things. Something inside, something I didn’t have a name for and usually kept hidden, had been exposed by her singing. Her voice was better than I could have even imagined. Landry had been right. “I stopped by to see why you hadn't been at work. I overheard you and Sadie on the phone. Did you take time off?”

“Is that what she told you?” Gia asked, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah. Is that not the truth?”

“Hardly.” She shook her head. “She would kill you—and me—if she knew you were here.”

“I don't care.” I smirked. “I finally got to hear you sing. Totally worth the assassination.” I saw the little glimmer in her eye and the tiny smile she was trying to fight back. “You're unbelievable.”

She began to protest, just like I knew she would. Like I'd said before, she was humble and didn't want to accept my compliment. Before she had a chance to respond, we were interrupted.

“Mommy,” the little voice called out. My heart skipped at beat. Oh shit. That was the typically hidden something Gia’s singing had brought pounding to the surface.

Mommy? What. The. Hell.

Gia's eyes darted over about the same time the gate to the left of me swung open.

“Who are you talking to?”

Peeking out from behind the gate, I got my first good look at her. Gia's daughter. She not only had her mother's voice, but was also just about her spitting image—heart-shaped face, cute little nose, even the little crease that formed between her brows when she was thinking. Her hair and complexion were just a little darker. And then there were her eyes.

Blue. An unmistakable shade of blue.