~1~
I stopped by my cubicle, as I did every morning, turned on my radio and grabbed my coffee cup. Sunny 107 was on a commercial break as I wandered off to fill my cup and wish Peter a good morning. I didn’t find him in his office, which was unusual, so off I went to the coffee room to fill my cup with some wake up juice. I returned to find Peter standing in my cubicle with a serious look on his face. I had no idea what was up but it looked important. Little did I know I was about to set in motion a series of events that would change my life forever and meet the man that would turn my world upside down.
“There you are,” Peter said.
“Good morning to you too,” I replied. Peter was my boss and mentor, a good guy and usually not wound up like this so early in the morning.
“Sorry. Good morning, Simone. I need you to bring the Battery files to the conference room ASAP. Victoria is on the warpath,” he told me.
“Great. I’ll be there in a minute,” I replied as Peter smiled to let me know he wasn’t upset with me and left. I took a sip of my coffee and listened to P!nk sing “Raise Your Glass” for a moment before I sighed and abandoned my coffee. The files Peter wanted were for the heavy metal band Battery, one of the agency’s biggest clients. I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting James Turner, the band’s lead singer and rhythm guitarist, not to mention the brains behind their success. Honestly, I’d never even heard their music to my knowledge and really had no desire to. All that heavy metal sounded like horrible noise to me.
I was Peter’s assistant at the Roland Talent Agency, a job I’d only had for three months. Peter was my boss but Victoria was his boss. She was the daughter of the founder of the company and now the CEO after her dad, a sweet and caring man by all accounts, died about five years ago. Apparently, Victoria took after her mother, or the milkman or maybe Satan, because she was anything but sweet and caring. In fact, she was a raving…we’ll if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all, right?
I grabbed the files from my desk, a six-inch thick stack of them, and carried them to the conference room. Battery had been with the firm since they were discovered back in the late eighties practicing in a garage and playing dives around Southern California. I’d heard rumors they were becoming increasingly unhappy with the representation they were getting since Victoria took over. I don’t blame them. Peter says a lot of clients left the agency when Victoria’s brand of bottom-line first management replaced the client-first creed of her father. However, the agency still had its share of clients, many loyal to the Roland name, and was still a powerhouse in the industry.
Peter waited nervously in the conference room clicking his pen repeatedly. I walked behind him, set the files down and stole the pen from him as I took a seat. He looked over and smiled. “Sorry. I hear that Mr. Turner is…,” Peter began to explain when Victoria walked into the room talking to someone, James Turner I assumed, in that phony voice she used to imply she actually cared about more than money and power.
The man that followed Victoria was tall with cinnamon streaked blond hair cropped short to his head and a wild, bushy goatee. His eyes were a deep golden brown, bright and full of intelligence. He wore a plain black t-shirt that failed to hide his broad chest or the deep v of his torso, faded jeans with a tear across one knee that looked one size too small stretched around his strong thighs and big, black leather boots. Tattoos of all kinds covered his strong, muscular arms. In short, he was the kind of guy I was sure, up until that very moment, wasn’t my type.
“Pete! Thanks for coming on short notice,” the man said taking Peter’s hand and shaking it roughly as his eyes settled on me.
“Morning, Mr. Turner,” Peter replied and the man cocked an eyebrow and pulled his penetrating gaze from me and shifted it back to Peter.
“Pete, it’s James. My father is Mr. Turner…for the millionth time,” James said and laughed as his eyes found me again. “And who might you be?” he asked as he walked around Peter and took my hand. His hand was rough and calloused, the result of playing a guitar for a living, I assumed, but his touch was warm and inviting. I realized suddenly that I hadn’t taken a breath since he had walked into the room. I looked up at him to introduce myself but Victoria beat me to the punch.
“That’s one of our new assistants, Simone Navarro. We all know she’s very cute James but let’s stop pawing the help and get down to business, James,” Victoria said with barely concealed contempt. Her father respected musicians, actors and performers, however, Victoria seemed as if she thought they were all beneath her. James knit his brow and growled almost imperceptibly, a rumbling groan that both frightened and excited me.