Without waiting on a reply, I hurried to the room that Emmie had lent me and rushed through a shower before dressing and throwing all my things into my suitcase. I’d find a hotel later, but there was no way in hell I was going to sleep under the same roof as Nik Armstrong.
Suitcase in hand, I rolled it downstairs and put it in my trunk before going to the small guesthouse that Emmie had turned into her office. I’d heard her telling Layla Thornton just a few days ago that she was going to find some office space downtown because she didn’t want to chance putting her family in even more danger by having clients coming in and out with her kids so close.
I didn’t bother to knock on the front door. Stepping into the little guesthouse/office, I saw Emmie’s secretary sitting behind her desk typing away. Rachel glanced up long enough to offer me a smile and nodded her head toward the closed door of Emmie’s office, which had once been a bedroom. “She’s free. Go on in.”
I gave her a nod in appreciation and stepped into Emmie’s domain. The little redhead was standing by the window looking out at the ocean as the waves hit the beach, a cellphone pressed to her ear. “I’m glad Dallas is feeling better and that Cannon didn’t catch it,” she was saying into the receiver. “No, don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it for you. You just take care of your family, Ax. Yes…Okay. Love you, too. Bye.”
She turned to face me as she placed her cell on the big desk behind her. “Hey. Everything go okay at Zander’s last night?”
I glared down at her, still seething over my run-in with this woman’s husband. “It went better than expected, seeing as my daughter forced my hand and ended up meeting her father for the first time last night.”
I was watching Emmie’s face, so I wasn’t surprised to find her unaffected by my statement. I should have known that Emmie knew about Mieke and who her father was. Emmie knew everything about everyone she dealt with. It was one of the reasons she’d gone so far in her career so quickly. It was how she’d gotten the connections in the music world that she had. She had everyone she so much as spoke to investigated before she even shook their hand.
That didn’t mean I didn’t feel as if I’d been emotionally violated. She’d sent her henchman, Seller, to find out all the dirt he could on me before offering me the partnership deal. “How did he take it?”
I shrugged. “After he stopped throwing his guts up, he took it pretty well. How long have you known? About Mieke and Z, I mean?”
Emmie gave me half a smile. “About five minutes after I saw your reaction to Z at the hospital a few weeks ago. Seller gave me a full report the next day, but I’m not stupid. I can do basic math and I’m really good at reading people.”
“And obviously you didn’t share this intel with your husband.”
Green eyes narrowed. “Nik knows that I can’t always tell him things. If it’s important to him, our family, or the band, then fine, but I can’t tell him everything that I know about my clients and he understands that.”
“Well, he knows now. He was all kinds of ready to defend Zander. Since you offered me this partnership knowing all the dirty little details, I’m assuming you don’t care one way or another.”
“Annabelle, that is your business. I wasn’t going to use it to convince you to go into business with me. I wasn’t even looking for shit like that when I had Seller do the background check. All I wanted to know was if it would be risky doing business together. That’s it. You’re great at your job and you have awesome PR skills that I sometimes lack. During all those press conferences, I wanted to tell the paps to go fuck themselves, but you kept your cool. I need someone like that with me when things go to hell. And since you’ve been thinking about my offer, I have to at least assume I have something to offer you as well.”
She sat on the edge of her desk and crossed her arms over her chest. The look on her beautiful face was completely serious. “If Nik said something to upset you, I’m sorry. He’s a guy and guys tend to support each other even without knowing all the details. The OtherWorld guys are good friends with the Demons and that isn’t going to change. But Nik’s opinion doesn’t mirror my own. I still want you to be a part of this with me. Please, keep considering it.”
I knew Emmie’s reputation so I knew good and well how much that ‘please’ had cost her pride. That she had admitted to needing me soothed my own pride. A little. Pushing my hair away from my face, I crossed my arms over my chest, mimicking her. “Would I really get to work from Nashville?”
I hadn’t realized I was going to even ask that question when I opened my mouth, but once it was out, I knew that I was going to take her offer seriously. Maybe it was a good idea after all. Maybe it would make my life easier and I’d have more time with Mieke and the important things I’d missed out on in the last few years.
Green eyes brightened, as if she knew I was weakening toward her. “Yes. You would probably be home more often than you are now if we were partners. I’m not saying I won’t need you here or in New York or wherever the hell a shit-storm might be, but you will be in Nashville most of the time. We will share the workload together, and I plan on hiring a whole team to help us out. With the way technology is right now, we could do a lot of our important meetings via Skype or whatever else there is out there to help with that crap.”
The excitement in her voice was contagious and I found myself weakening that much more. Damn it.
“Between the two of us and Natalie, we can train a competent team that will make our lives so much easier. We can delegate, something Nik has been begging me to do for years now. All I need is you, Annabelle. You’re the missing piece to the puzzle to make all of that possible.”
Cursing under my breath, I dropped down into one of the chairs in front of Emmie’s desk and buried my face in my hands. “I’ll probably regret this tomorrow, but what the hell.” Dropping my hands from my face, I extended my right hand toward her. “Okay, fine. Let’s do this thing.”
C HAPTER T WENTY
Zander
It seemed easy enough to please Mieke as we spent the day out exploring L.A. I showed her all the sights that had entranced me from the first day I’d stepped off that tour bus seventeen years before. She listened intently as I talked about why certain places meant so much to me. Mostly they were places that spoke to me the most when I was writing a song.
For Demon’s Wings, they relied on Nik to do most of the song writing for them. He had a real talent for writing music and had sold his songs to other artists over the years. Hell, we’d even bought a few of them. More often than not, however, my band and I took turns writing our own songs. The majority came from me, but each of us had written at least a few over the years.
Mieke ate up everything I told her and found a few places she loved along the way. By dinnertime I could tell she was getting tired, though. The emotional events of the night before added to the excitement of that day were catching up with us both, but I was reluctant to end our time together. I knew what was coming, knew that when I got back to my apartment, Annabelle wouldn’t be there. That thought alone made me not want to go home.