Because He Possesses Me (3 page)

The girl in Savannah had long blonde hair and freckles, blue eyes and long legs, her face tan from the long Georgia days, her voice smooth like honey.

The one in Chicago was in medical school, but she was originally from a farm in Wisconsin, so not only did she know how to give people stitches, she could also milk a cow and raise a steer like no one’s business.

I imagined all of them, tangled up in him the way I’d been, wondered if he’d murmur the same things to them that he’d said to me, if he’d hold them the way he’d held me.

It was eleven o’clock when the first text came.

Lemon.

That was it.

Just one word.

I read it over and over, typed out my
yes?
response five or more times before finally deleting it, along with the original text that he’d sent.

The satisfaction only lasted a moment, and I hated myself for it, but I wanted that text back immediately.

I didn’t have to mourn it long.

Don’t be mad,
the next one said.

The text did the exact opposite of what it was intended to – all it did was make me angrier than I already was. How dare Callum tell me not to be mad? He already thought he could tell me what to do -- now he wanted to tell me how to feel.

When the phone rang in my hand a second later, flashing his name on the screen, I ignored it, and instead mustered up all of my self-control and turned back to my work.

He was always there, though, burning the back of my mind the way he had ever since I’d met him. Every person on the phone who asked me how many keys I would need for his room, every time I would spell his name for a front desk clerk, explain who he was and what he needed, made me think of him, his blue eyes, his hands on me, how he made my body feel. I made myself push forward, though, forced myself to focus, to concentrate on what I was doing.

When noon rolled around, I was finished booking his itinerary. I double- checked everything I’d entered into the spreadsheet -- the names of the hotels, the room numbers, the phone numbers. I made a new column on the document, showing how far away the hotels were from the bookstores or arenas where Callum would be speaking.

I even put asterisks near the events I thought would be most appropriate for the twitter giveaways that Kiersten had been talking about, the ones where you could win a dinner with Callum.

Screw him,
I thought. If I was going to be forced to work with him, then I would go all out. I’d pick the prettiest twitter followers, the girls who looked like they’d be most likely to sleep with him. I’d force them on him.

It would be like desensitizing myself or whatever they called it.

Like when people were afraid of something and they made themselves do it over and over again until it became background noise. I would imagine Callum with different women, over and over again, until my brain was so bored by it that it just didn’t react.

I emailed the spreadsheet to Kiersten and was about to head to her office to see what she wanted me to do next when a girl appeared at my cubicle. She was about my age, with curly red hair, and she was dressed all in black – slim black pants, black ruffled blouse, black cardigan, black flats.

“Hey,” she said. “You’re Adriana, right?”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “I’m Adriana.”

“Hi! I’m Bailey. I’m one of the other publicity assistants.”

“Oh,” I said, smiling with relief that there was someone else on the same notch of the totem pole as I was. “Nice to meet you.” I held my hand out to her and she took it.

“Oh!” she said. “Sorry, these came for you.” For the first time, I noticed she was holding a long, shiny white box, which she handed to me. “I cover the desk for Peggy while she’s on her lunch break.”

“Thanks,” I said, running my hand over the glossy surface. My heart was pounding. Were they from Callum?

“Boyfriend?” Bailey asked, her green eyes sparkling.

“Probably from my mom,” I said, and set the box down on my desk.

“In a box like that?” she said. “I doubt it. Those are from Anthony’s.”

“Anthony’s?”

“They’re the most exclusive flower place in the city. Super expensive, but their flowers are absolutely gorgeous. When I get married, I’m having everything done from Anthony’s. Purple and silver are my colors, so I’m going to get lilacs and purple roses. Doesn’t that sound elegant?” She giggled, but didn’t wait for my response. “Don’t you dare steal my idea, or else I’ll have to kill you.”

“When are you getting married?” I asked politely.

“What? Oh, I’m not engaged,” she said. “But I plan to be.” She studied her nails for a long moment, then looked at me. “So! Aren’t you going to open them?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Definitely. Thanks for dropping them off.” There was no way I could open the flowers in front of her. If they were from Callum, it could get me in serious trouble. What the hell had he been thinking, sending me flowers at work?

Bailey clutched the side of my cubicle and rested her chin in her hand, giving me an expectant look. “Go on!” she said. “I want to see!”

She was making it extremely hard to say no. If I didn’t open them, it was going to seem weird. I took in a deep breath, then reached over and pulled the top off the shiny white box.

Inside were a dozen red roses, each of them exquisite, each bud unfurling the perfect amount, each stem filled with sharp, delicate thorns. They were tied together with an elegant white satin ribbon. They were the kind of flowers every girl dreamed about, like something from a photo shoot or magazine spread.

Nestled in the ribbon was a tiny card.

“Open it!” Bailey urged.

I opened it.

Callum, as usual, was a man of few words.

Answer your phone.

“So?” Bailey said. “Who are they from?” She reached for the card, but I quickly pulled it out of her reach.

“They’re from my mom,” I said. “Just like I thought.”

Bailey frowned, giving me a weird look.

Before I could figure out how to respond, Kiersten appeared at my desk.

“There you are,” she said, as if she’d been looking for me for forever, and that it was strange for me to be at my cubicle, when that should have been the first place she’d checked. “Are you done with the spreadsheet?”

“Yes,” I said. “I just sent it to you.”

Her eyes flicked to the flowers, the card in my hand. “Who are the flowers from?”

“Um, my mom,” I said, and quickly shoved the card into my bag.

If Kiersten was suspicious, she didn’t show it.

“How sweet,” she said, and her voice softened just a little bit.

“Yeah,” I said. “She just wanted to congratulate me on my new job.”

“That’s nice,” Kiersten said. “But we have to leave now for our lunch with Dean Bellingham.” She turned to Bailey, acknowledging her presence for the first time. “Bailey, can you put those in water for Adriana? Thank you.”

“Um, sure,” Bailey said, and rolled her eyes at me behind Kiersten’s back. “Yes, your Highness,” she mouthed, and I covered my mouth to keep from giggling.

“Adriana!” Kiersten barked. “Are you coming?”

“Yes, yes,” I said, and ran to catch up.

W
e took
a cab to our lunch with Dean at some restaurant named Carmine’s. Kiersten was on her phone the whole time, barking orders at people and attempting to calm agents who were all upset how much publicity their clients’ books were (weren’t) getting.

Listening to her talk made me start I started to feel the first tiniest bit of anxiety over the career path I’d chosen. Of course I’d known publishing wasn’t all unicorns and rainbows, everyone smiling and dancing as they worked together to bring a book into the world.

I’d heard all the horror stories -- publishers passing on books that had gone on to become bestsellers, how publishers didn’t pay their authors nearly enough, how contracts would be cancelled if the publisher decided they didn’t like the book anymore, even after the author had gone through revision after revision in an effort to make their editor happy.

But then there were the other stories, the great, exciting ones -- the author who’d written their book on the bus ride to and from a job they hated because they couldn’t afford a car, and then got a six figure advance and catapulted to the top of the bestseller lists, the author who dreamed of being a writer forever and then wrote three books for medium advances before hitting it out of the park and hitting and making millions with their fourth book.

It all seemed so romantic.

But now I was starting to see the reality of it, starting to understand how much pressure the publishers were under to deliver on their big books, how the books with the big advances were the ones who got the big publicity budgets.

I wondered if Callum was right, if publishing really was a dying industry.

And if he
was
right, then what did that mean for my future?

Don’t worry about it, Adriana
, I told myself.
You’ll be lucky if you last the next six weeks in publishing with the way you’re going, never mind the next ten years.

I did my best to push out the sound of Kiersten’s sharp voice, and picked up my phone to google Dean Bellingham, the guy we were meeting for lunch.

There was a picture of him splashed across the top of his Wikipedia page. In it he was smiling at the camera and holding his Grammy for Producer of the Year. He had strong features and dark blond hair that flopped over his forehead, his teeth dazzling white and perfectly straight.

He was only twenty-six, and had burst onto the scene about a year ago with his own indie music label. He was like the Macklemore of producers – from what I could gather, Dean would go out in search of talented indie acts, then take them into the studio, record them digitally, then upload their music to itunes, foregoing everything except a quick publicity push, youtube videos, and free concerts.

He didn’t work with any record labels. He and the artists kept all rights to the music, and he’d become one of the most successful producers in music because of it.

When I got to the bottom of his Wikipedia page, I read something that made me frown. The last line said,
“Dean Bellingham is the author of MORE THAN THE MUSIC, forthcoming from Royal House Publishing.”

Why would we be taking a meeting with Dean Bellingham if he already had a book deal with Royal House? It didn’t make any sense.

The car rolled to a stop in front of the restaurant, and Kiersten opened the door and stepped out onto the curb.

I scooted out after her.

“Don’t talk,” she said as she began walking toward the restaurant, striding easily in her stilettos. She’d taken her hair out of its loose bun, and it bounced around her shoulders, her curls loose and perfectly shaped. Everything about her was effortless, and I wondered if I’d ever have that kind of confidence. I felt like it was something you were just born with, not something you could ever learn or acquire. “You are here to take notes, and that is it. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “I understand.”

Kiersten gave her name to the maitre’d, and he began taking us to a table in the back, leading us through the simple round tables with the elegant white tablecloths that were filled with businesspeople in suits, their conversations blending together into a comforting lull.

We were almost to our table when I saw him.

Callum.

He was sitting at the corner table (of course he would be at the best table in the place, I thought with annoyance that soon turned to panic), with two other men in suits, a lemon water and the Wall Street Journal in front of him.

His eyes flicked up and locked on mine, his features darkening. He was mad I hadn’t texted him back, it was obvious. He stood up from his chair, squaring his shoulders and buttoning his suit coat, getting ready to cross the room to talk to me. Then he saw Kiersten and he frowned slightly before looking back at me.

I gave him a quick shake of my head.

Do not come over here.

“There you are!” Kiersten said, and I was so disoriented that for one awful moment I thought she was talking about Callum, thought she was going to invite him over to our table.

But then my brain tumbled itself back together, the two pieces – one my nightmare scenario and the other my reality – clicking together, reality winning out over the nightmare.

I cleared my thoughts enough to focus, and realized Kiersten was kissing a man on both his cheeks, the way they did in Europe. “Dean, it’s so nice to see you,” she said. I noticed her hand stayed on his for a beat longer than necessary. Not that I could blame her.

Even in my panicked state I could appreciate the fact that Dean was good looking – tall and broad-shoulders, he was more manly than he appeared in his picture, and his easy smile oozed charm.

“And who’s this?” he asked. His voice was smooth and sweet, soft, like he had a confidence about him that didn’t need to be shouted from the rooftops.

“This is Adriana,” Kiersten told him. “She’s my publicity assistant.”

“It’s so nice to meet you,” I said, surprised at how normal my voice sounded, how I was able to sound like I really did think it was nice to meet him, that I wasn’t completely freaking out because Callum was sitting just yards away. I could feel Callum’s eyes on me, feel his stare boring into my back. Could feel his hands on my hips, guiding me, the whip of his belt, the sting of his hand. My face felt flushed and I glanced around wildly for water.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Dean said. He held his hand out and I took it. His handshake was strong and firm.

We were at a round table with three chairs, and Dean and Kiersten ended up sitting across from each other, with me in between them. The maitre’d pulled Kiersten’s chair out for her, and Dean pulled mine out for me.

We all sat down and a waitress appeared and poured water into our glasses, and I reached out and took a long, grateful sip.

Callum was to my right, and I could feel his presence as if he were right next to me, as if he were
right there,
his lips grazing my neck. Goosebumps broke out on my arms.