Cash (Hawthorne Brothers Romance) (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Cash

“Are they here?” I asked as I got out of my car and walked over to my agent.

“Yeah, they’re all upstairs waiting. Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.

“I have to,” I said.

“Then I’ll be in your corner. Let’s go,” he said.

In my suit, I confidently walked down the halls towards the conference room where the studio executives were waiting. While I exuded confidence like a character in one of my movies, deep down I was a bit scared, mostly because of the contract. I knew they weren’t happy with me, but I also knew that I had to stand my ground if I were going to keep Jenna and keep the life I wanted to live. It was imperative.

“Mr. Hawthorne,” one of the men said as we walked into the room.

There were about six of them, all sitting around a table, and I shook all of their hands and tried to be as cordial as I could. I hated giving bad news like this.

“Gentlemen,” I said, sitting down.

“We aren’t happy, Cash,” one said.

“I know you aren’t, and I’m sorry for that,” I said.

“Pulling a stunt like this, after we’ve casted you and signed contracts, is not acceptable. You’re costing the studio a lot of money,” another said.

“My client didn’t do this to hurt anybody,” Mike, my agent, said.

“Whether or not his intention was to hurt the studio doesn’t matter. He broke his contract,” a man said.

“I did it because I had to. The training location was causing major strife in my personal life, and I had to leave there,” I said.

“In what way did it cause this trouble?”

“My girlfriend and I had broken up because of it, because I was leaving for so long. I thought I could handle it, but I couldn’t and I came back to get her back,” I said.

“And did that work?”

“Yes, it did. I’m happy again,” I said.

“None of us want you to be unhappy, Mr. Hawthorne, but we have to keep the interests of our studio in mind as well.”

“I understand that, and like I said, I’m sorry. I’m still willing to do the movie,” I said.

“You’ll go back and train?” one man asked, perking up.

“No, I will not,” I said firmly.

“You just said you’d do the movie.”

“I will if I can do it here. I’m fully committed to filming, learning the martial arts, and training in every way needed. I will not, however, leave the country to do so. Either you guys find these instructors to teach me here, or I’ll have to walk away from the role,” I said.

“Absolutely not,” one of the men said, obviously annoyed with me.

“Take it or leave it,” I said, staring them down.

“We just worry it won’t be authentic.”

“And training there will? What does it matter where I learn the moves? All that matters is that I learn them,” I said.

“Yes, but—”

“You heard what my client will do, and what he’s willing to work towards. Either you take his deal, or we break the contract and you do what you need to do,” Mike said, alluding to a lawsuit.

“We need to confer for a few minutes,” the man at the end of the table said.

“Take your time,” I said, and Mike and I got up and walked outside.

“Tough crowd,” he said as we stood outside the doors.

“I feel like I’m disappointing them, but I can’t kill myself and my happiness for them. It just won’t happen,” I said.

“I know it won’t, and I support you there. Hopefully they’ll have the common sense to see the big picture,” he said.

“They’ll see you now,” the receptionist said, after picking up the phone.

They didn’t say a word as we walked in and sat down in our chairs. They all looked at me, really looked at me, before I asked them their decision.

“We have a very strong lawsuit against you, Mr. Hawthorne.”

“I know you do,” I said.

“Is that the route you want to take?” Mike asked.

“I didn’t say that. We’re willing to bring in whomever we need to if Cash is willing to commit fully. Any other contract violations will result in an immediate lawsuit,” the man said.

I looked at Mike, and him back at me, as we kind of nudged a secret smile to one another. 

“I’ll take it,” I said.

“Training will start again soon. We’ll let you know as soon as we have people,” the man said.

“Have a good day, boys,” Mike said, and we stood up and walked out the doors.

“I can’t believe that happened,” I said, smiling.

“You really made a risky move, you know. I swear you better not stress me out like this ever again, or I’ll kick your ass,” Mike said, laughing.

•••

I could see Jenna in the window as I pulled into the garage. I thought about teasing her a little, making her think the worst, but as fun as that might be for me, I knew it would only cause me a headache later. She’d probably kick me in the nuts or something. I didn’t want to ruin this already.

“So, how did it go?” she asked as I walked in the door.

“Well, there were six of them, all high-up executives, and they weren’t happy with me,” I said.

“What did they say?” she asked.

“That they could sue me, and they’d win in court,” I said.

“Oh, no,” she said, looking stressed.

“But they’re letting me do it here,” I said, smiling.

“Wait, what?” she asked, her eyes widening.

“They said I’ll start pretty much as soon as they get trainers, and that if I violate the contract again I’ll be sued and fired and all that, but I get to stay here,” I said.

“So you’re here? Like, for good?” she asked.

“Now you can’t get rid of me,” I said, laughing.

She ran and jumped into my arms. I picked her up off the ground and closed my eyes while she buried her face in my shoulder. I felt every kind of good emotion I could possibly feel, and I loved every second of it.

“How often will I see you now?” she asked.

“Well, it’s only training for now, not filming or anything. I’ll still have months before they start doing that,” I said.

“I—I just don’t know what to say,” she said.

I kissed her softly, my arms still wrapped around her, before pulling back and putting my forehead against hers. “You don’t have to say anything,” I said, smiling.

Chapter Thirty

Jenna

Five Months Later

“Are you ready this time?” Cash asked, as we sat in the back of a limousine.

“I’m ready,” I said.

“I’ll be here the entire time,” he said.

We were at the premiere of the movie he had been filming when we first met, the countless nights apart because of it now culminating into something visual.

He grabbed my hand, the door opened, and a flood of camera flashes went off as I slid out in my designer gown and followed him down the red carpet. His movie premiere was finally here, after many long months of waiting, and we decided it was the perfect occasion for my first true red carpet and to announce to the world that we were an item.

My graduation had gone amazingly, with Cash hiding in the audience with my mom so nobody would recognize him. She loved him, and she told me in private that I better marry that boy before he got away. She didn’t care about his money, or his status, but I think she saw the way I was around him, and the way he treated me like a queen, and knew that I’d found my match.

“Cash, over here!” a photographer yelled.

Cash and I posed together, smiling. I felt nervous, terrified, and excited all at the same time. It was an amazing feeling.

We walked down to the interview section, with reporters from just about every news source yelling for Cash’s attention. We walked up to one, and so it began.

The woman asked who I was, and if we were together. Cash smiled, looking at me, which of course made me smile so large my cheeks began to hurt.

“Yes, we are. This is my girlfriend, Jenna,” he said, wrapping his arm around my waist.

I felt happy, and even though I was going to lose some of my privacy, I knew that what I was gaining in Cash far outweighed that. He was all that I wanted in a man, and now he was mine.

The night wore on and we stayed together the entire time. I met all kinds of celebrities I never thought I would meet. Cash was cool about it all, seeing how excited I was getting and never making me feel stupid about it. 

“Thank you for coming with me tonight,” he said before we went into the premiere.

“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I know we’ve been through a lot together, but I’m glad this was the outcome,” I said.

“Me, too,” he said, smiling.

“I love you,” I said, looking up at him.

“And I love you,” he replied, kissing me on the forehead.

Life was good.

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Taken by You

Chapte
r One

Penelope

“
Okay, I think
I’m ready to go,” I said as I wiped my hands on my pants, which was also to try to calm down the wrinkles.

“In that?” my roommate, Nicolette, asked.

“Yeah, what’s wrong with it?” I asked in an unsure tone as I looked down at myself before looking back up at her.

“Nothing, if you’re a fifty-year-old cat lady who has some tissue shoved up her sleeve,” Nicolette said in her usual sarcastic voice.

I walked over to the full-body mirror we had on the back of our bathroom door and looked myself up and down as I tried to see the fault in my outfit. Sure, I was never one for “fashion” or “trends,” but why did that kind of stuff even matter? I was myself, and that’s who I was comfortable being, even if it meant never getting a second look from a man or impressing people like Nicolette.

“Don’t take it the wrong way, Penny. 

It’s just not something I’d wear to an interview, that’s all,” Nicolette said.

“Well, of course not. You’re like some, I don’t know, a Kardashian or something,” I said, throwing my hands up in frustration.

“Bitch, please. Don’t compare me to them,” she said, looking at me with her left eyebrow raised.

I laughed, before looking back in the mirror and seeing what was something good to me, and that was all that really mattered. Who cares if she didn’t like it? Not me. I wasn’t going to this internship interview to impress anyone with my clothes, anyway. I was going to hopefully score a paid internship that would not only help me out now, but also in the future. All that should matter was my resume, my credentials, and most of all, what I could do for the company, even if I was just a lowly intern.

I was unfortunate enough to still have another semester at school before graduation. Nicolette was lucky to have the chance to intern at this company during her senior year and was offered a job straight out of school, which was about as lucky as you could get. I first attempted to intern somewhere else, a software development company, but it turned out the CEO and board of directors were embezzling money and now the Department of Justice was looking into them, which meant no internship or job for poor Penelope Wells.

The only reason I had this interview was because of Nicolette, who was both my roommate and best friend, though I couldn’t tell her that—it would go to her head. We met during my freshman year in an intro to psychology class and instantly clicked, even though she’s more of the prissy type and I’m, well, me. How we meshed so well together I’d never know.

“How long until we have to leave?” I shouted across the apartment.

“About fifteen minutes,” she yelled back.

I grabbed my bag, which was a basic and unassuming black leather wearing out on the bottom from years of use. I could feel slight hints of butterflies fluttering about my stomach as I thought about what I was going to say in the interview and how many other people might or might not be there. I wasn’t good in front of crowds or in intense situations. That was why I became a programmer. I’m able to be alone a lot of the time coding while the world seems to quickly pass me by. It’s an introvert’s dream job.

The offices were in San Francisco, which was odd because most of the tech companies, at least the major ones, were in Silicon Valley, which was a little drive outside of the city but nothing too crazy. Definitely wasn’t fun for a commute, especially when I still had some classes, but it was almost worth it to be able to work at one of those companies.

The company Nicolette worked for and where I’d hopefully get an internship, was RandomMeetX, which was a dating and hookup app that had been blowing up the charts for the past year. It allowed you to basically find good-looking people in your area to chat with and maybe meet for the night or something beyond. I had never used it before, which was something Nicolette got on me about, but it just wasn’t really for me.

I’d never been the pretty little flower that could stop a man dead in his tracks with just one glance. I was more the awkward girl at the party who was stuffing her face with shrimp puffs before putting some in her purse for later that night because her grocery money dwindled down a little too far. Hooking up with complete strangers wasn’t really my thing either. It wasn’t that I was against sex—I wasn’t, but I felt so, I don’t know, weird about it with somebody I hadn’t connected with. Chatting up some random guy you don’t even know and have never met and then making plans to let him fuck you seemed a little out there, even if it was the biggest thing at the moment.

“Ready to go?” Nicolette asked, as she grabbed her keys.

“Yes,” I said, grabbing my bag and walking out behind her.

I locked the door behind us and we walked down our five flights of stairs to the lobby, which was more of a small room and not anything magnificent. There were two sets of doors, ones that were locked and the others that went outside, with gold mailboxes inside that were constantly stuffed with fliers for a Chinese restaurant around the corner. There are only so many times you can hear about the egg drop soup special before you want to hang yourself with a giant noodle.

We walked two blocks down to where Nicolette was parked and before I could even get my door fully closed, she was off like a horse with a carrot dangling in front of its face. I wasn’t lucky enough to have a car, so I relied solely on public transportation and my own two feet. This wasn’t a city you needed a car in, but I had to admit that having a roommate with one was especially helpful on mornings like this. I’d much rather sit in this seat than be stuck next to some smelly man on the bus.

I looked out the window as we passed a plethora of different people during our painfully slow journey to the office. I saw men in suits, women in fitted dresses with their bags cocked in place in their arms, and more homeless people than I’d like to admit.

The office was downtown in the Financial District, which seemed like a million miles away from where we lived, though I guessed I could somewhat attribute that to the slow commute and my undying nerves. The anticipation made time feel a lot slower.

When we finally arrived, Nicolette did a sloppy parking job that was reminiscent of sixteen-year-old me in my father’s old Subaru, and we began our short walk to the office, which was in a towering building that appeared to be a thousand stories high.

“That’s it. That’s the building,” Nicolette said, as we stood on a street corner waiting for the light to change.

“That entire building?” I asked.

“Oh God, no,” she said, laughing. “Just five floors.”

“Oh, but still, that’s a lot—especially in San Francisco,” I said.

“Yeah, who knew that there was so much money to be made in pre-marital sex?” she asked, smiling.

With the brisk January air beating against us, we walked inside the building through the revolving doors that had always fascinated me as a child. Now I
might
be working in a place that had them, meaning I could walk through them every day. My five-year-old self was dying right now.
Dying
.

The lobby was grand; probably two stories tall itself, with shiny, bold white floors. There were a few security officers standing at a checkpoint of sorts before you could get to the elevators. People walked up and scanned their badges, before being let through and off to their floors.

“You’re going to need to get a visitor’s badge at the desk there. I’ll wait for you,” Nicolette said, as she pointed to an enclosed black desk near the security officers.

I walked up, nobody else behind or in front of me, and was greeted by a slightly pale man with a crew cut and a mole just above his lip. He didn’t look too thrilled, but then again, why would he?

“Can I help you?” he asked in a thick Russian accent.

“Hi, I have an interview and was told I needed a visitor’s badge,” I said shyly.

“Name?” he asked.

“Penelope Wells,” I said, as I fidgeted with my thumbs.

“I have you here on the list. Here is your badge. Please clip it onto your person and don’t take it off. Return it to me before you leave,” he said, before handing me the badge.

“Thank you,” I said with a shy smile, clipping the badge to my shirt.

With her badge held firmly in her hand, Nicolette walked up and scanned it before the green light shone and she was let through. I walked up behind her, showing my badge to the security officers, and they nodded and let me through. As Nicolette pushed the button for the elevator I felt a sea of tremors deep down in my stomach.

After losing out on the other internship I had been a little on edge about money and keeping myself afloat. I had money saved from a cashier job I’d had for the past couple years, and this internship was a paid one, if I got it, but San Francisco isn’t exactly known for its cheap prices—especially rent. Nicolette was lucky that she had no problems, and I knew I would be fine with this opportunity behind me, but what if I didn’t get it? I’d be back to square one, and I wasn’t sure I could afford even that square. I’d need more like square negative fifteen or something.

The elevator dinged before it opened and a few people scurried out like rats with a light shining on them. We walked inside, about ten other people cramming themselves in, and I was pushed to the back while Nicolette played attendant at the buttons and pressed whatever floor she was told.

An unsightly man with his wrinkled white dress shirt tucked into his underwear stood in front of me, my stomach mere inches from rubbing up against his back. I sucked it in, getting myself a little extra room, and prayed he’d get off at the next stop.

After a few stops ours came, with Nicolette motioning for me to get off. The other remaining people were kind and I squeezed through before hopping off and brushing off my outfit.

“Well, are you ready? Are there any last questions you want to ask? We have a few more minutes before we need to go in,” Nicolette said, as we stood in the lobby for the floor.

“I don’t know,” I said nervously, as I wiped my clammy palms on my lint-covered black pants.

“Just be calm, and most importantly, be yourself. You’re a great candidate and I know they would be damned lucky to have you, even if you’ll mostly be doing coffee runs. You’ll be fine,” she said.

“Okay,” I said, nodding a little, before she opened the large glass doors that displayed the company’s logo on the front.

A woman behind a desk was on the phone and smiled at me before transferring the call and hanging up.

“May I help you?” she asked.

“Hi, I have an interview today for an internship,” I said.

“Name please?” she asked.

“Penelope Wells,” I said, as my voice cracked a little.

“Ah, yes, Ms. Wells, I have you here. If you’d come with me I can take you to the waiting area with the other candidates,” she said with a smile.

Just the thought of competing against a room filled with other qualified candidates made me want to break out in hives. Shy and very introverted people aren’t that great with competition—especially in interviews.

“Take good care of her, Melissa. She’s my roommate and best friend,” Nicolette said.

“Aw, yeah? Will do, Nicolette,” Melissa said.

“You’ll be fine. Text me afterwards and let me know how it goes,” Nicolette said.

“Right this way,” Melissa said.

I gave a nervous smile to Nicolette before following Melissa past the lobby and into the expansive floor filled with cubicles and offices. The floor was large, with abstract paintings on the walls and people rolling around on scooters. The atmosphere looked exciting, as people joked and laughed like they were out at a bar and not sitting on the job toiling away for a paltry paycheck like they did at my last job. Nicolette had definitely never mentioned any of this.

“Here we are,” Melissa said, as she extended her arm.

The room, if you could even call it that, was filled with two benches and enclosed in glass. It faced front towards a long open walkway that was surrounded by offices and open cubicles where all of the employees, which would hopefully include me, worked. I looked around for Nicolette but didn’t see her anywhere, which was a shame. Oh well, it wasn’t like I was going to be able to go talk to her anyway.

There were four other candidates here, and I had no idea if more were on the way. They didn’t even notice me as I walked in, and each of them was wildly different from the next. There was an overweight guy with a ten-year-old suit that you could tell he never wore, a guy with thick-rimmed glasses and a hipster haircut, a woman around my age in a pantsuit, and a disheveled Asian man who was furiously typing away on his laptop. I hoped people here didn’t think I fit in with them.

As the minutes wore on, people were taken out one by one and into another room about ten feet or so down the hallway. As the last guy, the Asian man, was taken out, I looked around to see nobody else around me. They hadn’t brought in anyone else for the interviews, and I had already been sitting here at least an hour and a half, so I assumed it was safe to say I’d be the last one to drudge through a long, arduous procedure of an interview.