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I winked. “See ya, Lacey.”
Chapter 12
Lacey
I knew when Penn, the Director of A&R at Castle Music, entered my office that the news was either going to be fantastic or terrible. He never made the trip to my office unless I’d explicitly set up a meeting here. A casual pop-in? Never.
The news was terrible. Castle Music had been courting an up-and-coming band, The Seditionists. Their manager had given Penn a courtesy call to let us know they’d be signing with a different label. Penn tried to counteroffer, but they firmly rebuffed it.
It was a huge loss for Castle. The Seditionists had immense talent and the right look to go along with it. It was a killer combination. I’d had a feeling about these guys — under the right management, they’d be huge — and my track record in picking bands was impeccable.
So I’d authorized Penn to roll out the red carpet. These days, I left all the wooing to his department, but maybe I should have gotten personally involved with this one when it was too big to lose.
Dammit. As soon as Penn left, I slammed my fists down on my desk in frustration. Who the hell had pilfered them right out from under our noses? I could probably find out in less than five minutes, but I didn’t like to expose weakness to anyone. I’d wait for the news to be released to the public. It wasn’t like I could change anything at this point.
Penn’s news was just another dollop of shit-icing on the cake that was this week. I’d only taken a few days off work to go to Las Vegas and I came back to pure bedlam. Suddenly, it felt like everyone in the company urgently needed to meet with me while I was still trying to catch up on all the e-mails and meetings I’d missed. Then an ex-employee sued one of my managers, along with the company, for sexual harassment. I spent hours conferring with lawyers, so the matter could be handled delicately.
It came at me all at once while I was still grappling with whatever the hell had happened in Vegas. Yesterday, I’d managed to consult with a lawyer about that debacle. Nothing he told me eased my anxiety about any of it. The situation was sticky. A quick and easy annulment wasn’t as sure of a thing as I’d assumed. Divorce took time, and publicity was an issue.
None of that mattered until I could determine if we actually got married. The lawyer advised me to wait for the marriage certificate to be filed because news could leak if he made inquiries and piqued someone’s interest. I wasn’t sure if a quickie Vegas wedding between me and Sebastian Archer would be newsworthy, but I’d rather not test it.
So, I had to sit back and wait, something I was decidedly not good at. Yesterday, Bash texted me just to check in on how I was doing. I knew I should fill him in on what the lawyer told me, but I was still emotionally reeling from everything.
After I received his text, I went to the ladies’ room and discovered that I’d started my period. My reaction was shocking and out of nowhere. I broke down crying.
Of course, I’d been thinking about Vegas all week. One of my worries was that we might have had unprotected sex, and I’d been off birth control for months. In my mind, there had been a chance that I could be pregnant.
The terror that the possibility first brought had quickly and without my consent morphed into something else. My biological clock was ticking. Morph. I wanted a baby. Morph. Bash was a great father to Kody. Morph. I kind of liked Bash. Morph. Morph.
Before I knew it, I desperately wanted to be pregnant with Bash’s baby. I actively fantasized about it for a few days.
Getting my period was a crushing blow. And it freaked me out that I was so upset about it. I was a complete head case.
Luckily, I only had a few more hours of work to get through before I could escape for the weekend and hopefully pull myself together. With the stressful week piling up, the bad news about The Seditionists, getting my period, and worrying about Vegas, I decided to spend the night at home. I didn’t feel like being social. I’d order some food, eat in, enjoy a long soak in the tub, and just forget about everything for one night.
My admin, Nisha, stepped into my office holding a padded mailing envelope marked ‘priority shipping’. “This came for you.”
“Thank you, Nisha.” I took the package from her and waited for her to retreat before ripping it open.
A jewel case slid onto my desk. I still got sent a surprising number of demo tapes from aspiring musicians. Usually, I had Nisha pass them along to an intern in A&R, even though I was pretty sure no one ever listened to them.
I flipped it over and froze.
My heart started racing. It wasn’t a CD. It was a DVD with a picture of a white chapel on the front with the words ‘Amore Mio Wedding Chapel’ at the top. Across the bottom, it read ‘Sebastian and Lacey’ in a fancy scripted font.
Oh, my God. It was our wedding video.
I was married to Sebastian.
I quickly stuffed the jewel case back into the envelope and then sat stunned for several minutes. My mind was working frantically, but I wasn’t quite sure how freaked out I was — atomic-level or just moderately panicked.
There was no way I was going to be able to work with this little time bomb ticking away on my desk. I ordered a car to pick me up at work and then began tidying up my office before I left for the weekend.
When my car arrived, I told Nisha to leave work early and start her weekend, and then I scurried out, clutching the incriminating envelope under my arm.
I was home before five o’clock, sitting on the couch and staring at the picture of the Amore Mio Wedding Chapel. I still hadn’t gotten the courage to pop the disc into a DVD player. My stomach churned with nervous energy. I didn’t think I could watch this alone, but no one else knew about my crazy weekend in Vegas. Normally, I’d confide in Kaylie, but that was definitely out of the question under the circumstances.
I picked up my phone and winced. It was a Friday night. He was probably heading out to party.
