Katie LeBlanc of the Wake Up with Katie morning show kept the plastic smile plastered across her face. Toby wished he could rip her head off.
What they’d been promised would be a standard Q&A about Aria’s blossoming career and her participation in A Week in the Life of A Wannabe Star had turned into a bludgeoning of probing questions that had caught everyone—especially Aria—totally off guard. The confidence she had built up had plummeted. Katie fired questions at her at lightening speed. But it was all done with a smile, so apparently, it was okay.
“The temptation of drugs and sex is so strong in the hip hop music world. How do you avoid getting caught up in that lifestyle, Miss Jordan? Or, have you taken a walk on the wild side?” Katie asked, all bleached white teeth.
“I…ah, I’ve never done drugs,” Aria said. Her eyes were as wide as a deer in headlights, a blush turning her caramel cheeks crimson. “And, well, as for sex...um…I’ve only done it a couple of times.”
Standing just to the right of the morning show’s set, which was made to look like an inviting living room, Toby groaned in frustration and dragged his hands down his face. “This is a freaking disaster.”
Sienna stood beside him, biting her fingernails. “I’m trying to find the bright side, Toby, but I really can’t with this one. It is a freaking disaster.”
Toby shot her a glance and chuckled. “Don’t you go using that language around your mother. She’ll blame me for corrupting you again.”
“With good reason,” Sienna said, the knowing look on her face intimating that a mere cuss word was not what she was thinking about at the moment. Toby couldn’t afford to comment. He’d had a hard enough time pushing thoughts of last night from his mind. If he thought about the way Sienna’s silken skin had felt on his tongue, his day would be shot to hell for thinking about anything else.
“We should have demanded to see the questions before the interview,” Toby said after a moment.
Sienna shook her head. “I’m not sure it would have made a difference. I think Katie LeBlanc wanted this ambush.”
Toby had a feeling Sienna was right, but thankfully, the interview was almost over.
“What we need to do today is work on a way to counter any backlash that may come from this interview,” she continued. “The only thing that may raise a few eyebrows was her views on American Idol. I’ll construct a more tactful response, indicating that Aria was misunderstood.
“Don’t worry, Toby. This is just an extremely small bump in the road. You knew it wouldn’t go perfectly.”
“You’re right. There are always snags. And if we’re lucky enough to have this as the only thing that goes wrong, we’ll be in good shape.”
“Let’s hope,” Sienna said. “I’m going into the office for a bit, then I’ll meet you at this afternoon’s radio interview.”
He leaned over and placed a soft kiss on her lips.
“Thank you,” Toby said. “For everything.”
***
“Why me?”
Ivana stood in the newly renovated lobby of Jonathan Campbell’s law office, trying to make sense of the transformation that had taken place, or as the case may be, the lack of transformation she had been expecting. Instead of being destroyed, the interior of the home had been restored to its 18th-Century splendor. But that couldn’t be. Hadn’t he torn down the original woodwork?
“What happened to this place?” Ivana asked before he could answer her previous question. “Didn’t you have the contractor strip down these walls?”
“I tore the walls down because they were rotting.”
“But where is all the chrome and black crap. The first day I came here there was a sketch of an office on a poster board. Everything was ugly and cold and metal and black leather.”
A devilish grin tilted his lips. “That was for my office at the club. Happy to hear you like my style.”
“So you had no plans to have that modern décor in this office?”
He shook his head.
“What about the room in the back? I asked you specifically not to touch it.”
“And I won’t touch it if you have dinner with me.”
“And if I don’t?”
He shrugged. “My original intentions were to gut it and turn it into a personal gym. The mirror panels to replace the existing walls are already on order.”
Ivana could not hide her revulsion. A gym? Could this man do anything more to make her detest him? Apparently he could. Blackmailing her into going out with him was pretty damn detestable.
“Are you so desperate for a date that you’re willing to sink to blackmail?”
“Not just any date. Only with a certain woman who pretends it’s the hardest thing in the world to simply give me the time of day.”
“I don’t wear a watch,” Ivana said, which made him laugh that deep, rich laugh that sent tremors along her skin. “You still didn’t answer my question,” she said. “Why me?”
“Why not you?”
“Stop answering my questions with a question and get straight with me. I want to know what game you’re playing.”
“Is this the way you treat every man who asks you to dinner?”
“I don’t get asked to dinner,” Ivana told him.
One brow cocked.
She decided to be truthful. “Most men are intimidated by me.”
He stepped in closer, boring into her with heated eyes and slowly shaking his head. “It would be a mistake to compare me to other men, Ivana.”
Ivana thought she was taking a deep breath, but it was only a fraction of the oxygen she needed to help clear her head.
“Now, do I call in the contractor to continue with the renovations, or sign-up for membership at the gym down the street? You make the call.”
“You are unbelievable,” Ivana said.
He looked at his watch. “Time’s passing pretty quickly.”
“Wait, you expect me to go to dinner with you now? Tonight?”
“It’s nearly seven o’clock. I haven’t eaten since nine this morning.”
“But tonight? I’m not dressed for dinner. “
“You look perfect,” he said, then laughed. “Why do you look at me that way whenever I give you a compliment?” With an exaggerated look at his watch he asked, “So, Ivana. What’s it gonna be?”
Ivana’s gut clenched with anxiety at the thought of accepting Jonathan’s invitation, but she knew what she had to do. She’d learned of the room’s significance during her research soon after she’d joined the religion. Dinner with Jonathan was a small sacrifice to save the room where the first Voodoo healing in New Orleans had taken place.
She gave him a resigned shrug. “Italian or Seafood?”
***
“Sienna, are you ignoring me?”
Her lids briefly slid shut. Sienna opened her eyes and refocused on the road ahead. “Mother, I couldn’t ignore you if I tried,” she barely gritted the words through her teeth.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but I don’t like it. And it had better change soon. Now let’s go over what you’re going to say at the introduction ceremony.”
“I know who I am, Mother. I do not need to rehearse, and I am not lying.”
“It’s not lying, it’s embellishing. Everybody does it.”
It was bad enough she had to spend another hour of her life at yet another high society function. She was not up to dealing with her mother’s elitist friends. In fact, until her mother’s call in the middle of Aria’s radio interview, Sienna had forgotten all about tonight’s introduction ceremony.
As if they all didn’t know each other, and constantly talk about each other already. This was just another way for the Queen Bees to show off in front of the Wannabes. Her mother so wanted to be a Queen Bee, but her misfit daughters prohibited her from fitting all the criteria, which included having successful children and grandchildren to dote on.
Even Sylvia Culpepper could not produce grandchildren out of thin air. However, she had been trying to get Sienna to go along with “embellishing” her successes in order to fit her friends’ standards.
She was not going to do it. The feats she had accomplished these past few weeks were big enough to get her name mentioned in every water cooler conversation at every marketing firm in the city. If it was not enough for her mother, than that was too bad.
Sienna pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and turned the car off, but before her mother could open the door, she hit the automatic door locks, locking them in.
“Sienna, what are you doing?”
The look her mother pierced her with would have caused her to shirk just a few months ago. But Sienna was sick of cowering. She’d agreed to do this, but it was the last time she would allow her mother to reign over her life. And she was doing it on her terms.
“We need to set some ground rules before we walk into that restaurant.”
“Sienna, I don’t have time for your nonsense. Now unlock these doors so we can go.”
“You’ll either sit and listen to me, or we’ll spend the entire time in the parking lot. Take your pick.”
The gasp that escaped her mother’s lips was priceless. “Just who do you think you’re talking to in that tone?”
“Are you listening?”
“I am not about to let you talk to me this way, Sienna Elaine.”
“You don’t have a choice.” Sienna twisted in her seat. Her mother needed to see her face when she said what she had to say. “The only reason I am still going along with this is because I don’t want you to look like a total fool, but after the ball on Sunday that’s it, Mother. I will not let you use me to live out some ridiculous dream you’ve had.”
Her mother opened her mouth to speak, but Sienna cut her off.
“Listen to me. We are going to go in there, and you will not make anything more of my career than what it is. If you cannot be proud of the fact that I’m a very successful junior marketing executive, then find yourself another more acceptable daughter to pass around to your friends.”
If it were possible for a person’s head to pop right off their shoulders, Sienna was sure her mother’s would have by now. She could practically see the steam building under her perfectly coiffed hair.
“Furthermore, I will not tolerate you lying about any romantic relationships, or even worse, trying to push me with an unmarried son of one of your so called friends.”
“You should be grateful any of my friends would want their sons with you. Most of them think you’re gay.”
Sienna thought about Toby’s hand traveling up her stomach, his mouth pulling on her nipple through her blouse.
“Perfect,” Sienna answered. “I’ll start my introduction by telling them all that I’m a lesbian.”
“Sienna!”
Dang. She wasn’t holding onto her chest. Sienna was sure that would have given her mother a heart attack.
“Do you promise not to change me into your version of the ideal daughter when we get in there?”
Oh, yeah. Her mother could cook a head of cabbage with the steam radiating from under her collar.
“Just unlock the door,” Sylvia spat.
“Not until you give me your word.”
She gave the most imperceptible nod.
Pressing the automatic lock, Sienna shivered from the rush of pleasure that came with just this one small victory. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”