Give Me Love (24 page)

“And you will.” Tate smirked. “When it’s typed up and we fax it to your office.”

“It’s all right,” I assured Jared and leaned in to give him a quick kiss. “It won’t take long. I’ll be fine.”

He returned my kiss quickly. “Come get me if you need me, okay? I’ll be right here.” He glared warningly at Tate. “You keep your hands off her.”

Tate rolled his eyes and as we both walked down the length of the long hallway. I felt a burning crawl up my back as every set of eyeballs in the room tracked our movements. He led me into a small windowless meeting room at the back of the second floor that housed a surprisingly nice office table and four black chairs.

Walking in behind him, he turned and shut the door and took my hand, pulling me in close.

“Evie...” he reached out to run his hand down my cheek “...I was so worried about you.”

I jerked away immediately. “Tate, don’t.”

He sighed in frustration as he moved away, slapping a thick manila folder on the table and nodding towards a chair. “Take a seat.”

When I sat down, he was leaning up against the wall, hands in his pockets, running his eyes over the length of my body before meeting my eyes.

“I could kill him for getting you caught up in this,” he said angrily.

I frowned up at him as he stood there. “Why are you blaming him for this?”

Pushing off the wall, he came over to sit down at the table. “Because he’s reckless. Joe didn’t need to die, and now Jimmy is out there and after you. Are you okay?”

Tate’s disparaging comments towards Jared were like a slap, and I fisted my hands at my sides, fighting the urge to jab a finger in his chest with my next words.

“Whatever Jared did saved the lives of two young kids, and last I heard, it was the job of the police to round Jimmy up and put him away. Jared and Coby have a team out there working tirelessly around the clock, losing money and sleep, to not only find him but cover my ass at the same time and keep me safe. And I’m fine by the way.”

Tate replied by rubbing his hands over his face and exhaling loudly. With his hair mussed and shoulders slumped, he looked tired and worn down. “Can I get you a drink or something before we get started?”

My face softened. “A cup of tea would be nice. Thanks, Tate.”

“Won’t be a sec.” He stood up and stuck his head out the door, murmuring to someone before sitting back down.

“Aren’t you going to record the interview?”

As he opened the thick manila folder, pen at the ready, he pointed up towards the camera in the corner of the ceiling. I ran through everything, stopping every so often to answer one of his questions. We paused halfway through for a young man who came in with tea and biscuits, his movements hurried. He stopped quickly to catch my eye with a brief smile, and then rushed back out the door before I could return it and say thank you. When we finished the interview, Tate handed me a mug shot that Jared had already showed me a week ago, asking me if I was able to identify him as the man in the Camry.

“That’s him,” I confirmed, taking a sip of my tea.

As I handed back the photo, the door opened.

“This looks cosy,” Mitch said to Tate as he walked in, taking in my now curled up position in the chair as I sat munching biscuits and sipping tea.

Mitch looked just as tired as Tate, showing the same furrow in his brow that Jared had. He also had the same golden skin and green eyes that ran through the Valentine family, though his hair was dark brown, almost black, and cut in a short choppy style, the ends going every which way as though he’d run his fingers through it a thousand times.

“We were just wrapping up,” Tate advised.

“Get anything new?” he asked him as he came over and leaned down to kiss my cheek. “Hey, beautiful,” he murmured in my ear.

“Hey, Mitch.” I gave him a warm smile.

Tate cleared his throat at our exchange. “Nope. Not that we expected to.”

Mitch ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “Goddamn asshole must think we’re a bunch of fucking pu…ah pansies,” he corrected for my benefit. He shouldn’t have worried. I lived with a bunch of people who spoke Pottymouth as a second language, though the p-word wasn’t one bandied about often, so his considerate behaviour was appreciated.

I frowned, remembering the nasty text from Jimmy that Henry read out and asked, “What about the message he sent. You can’t trace it somehow?”

“Jared’s already had it checked out, honey, and just like we thought, it came from a disposable,” Mitch replied.

I raised my brows in question. “Disposable?”

“Just a cheap throwaway phone, Evie. We can’t trace it,” Tate expanded.

“Great,” I muttered under my breath.

Chapter Thirteen

“
Jared,” I said in a hurry, “it’s not what you think, you don’t
―
,”

“
Fuck. Save it. I should have known better, really, it was stupid of me to think you would be different.”

He rushed to the front door, swung it open, and stalked out, slamming it shut behind him.

I sucked in painful breaths while everyone watched me in silent shock, apart from Mac who was looking at me with narrowed eyes.

How had it come to this?

Since everything seemed to be on an up hill swing, something needed to happen. The laws of the cosmos dictated balance. The universal scales of life were off kilter, and now I needed to be brought back down to earth where I belonged.

The day started with Sydney suffering under the throes of a heatwave. Mac and Henry lounged on recliners, moaning about the stifling humidity. Cam who came to visit from Melbourne, and I moaned in hunger while we watched a movie.

Mac’s phone rang, startling us out of our heatwave coma. With her legs dangling off the side of the chair, she pulled it out of her pocket, sighing as she looked at the screen, and promptly disappeared up the stairs. She came down the stairs so fast she took a stumble at the last leg and fell in crumpled heap of twisted body parts, not a trace of lethargy remaining. I rushed over to help pick her up off the floor, and despite a little wincing as she struggled to her feet, she blurted out the reason for the phone call. I almost knocked her back over when I heard Gary Gilmore from Jettison Records wanted us in that very afternoon.

During a late lunch, we met Casey for the first time. He had recently returned from overseas and was assigned bodyguard duty for our trek to the city to see Gary. It wasn't exactly his brand of excitement since it didn’t come with a shoot-out and a car roll or two, but we were enthusiastic enough to practically be doing cartwheels.

The seven of us (the band and Cam) were squished around the dining table eating hot chips and chatting excitedly when the knock came at the door. While Henry got up to answer it, I quickly scooped the rapidly dwindling pile of chips onto my plate ignoring shouts, frantic scrambling, and complaints which included words like
greedy bitch
and someone saying, “Your ass could have its own postcode.” I was pretty sure that one came from Mac, and giving her the laser death stare took all my attention, so I didn't expect to find my plate empty.

“You greedy seagulls!” I yelled.

“Us seagulls, Evie?” Frog raised his brows incredulously.

“Damn straight.” I reached across to grab a massive handful of chips off his plate and shoved them into my mouth with smug satisfaction. Unfortunately, the mouthful was so huge I couldn’t even chew it properly, leaving me thinking I’d either have to spit them out or wait for them to break down.

An amused male voice spoke near the table, suspending my dilemma.

“Did I miss lunch?”

Looking to the direction of said voice, I blanched, thinking that Jensen Ackles had somehow taken a wrong turn and materialised in our dining room in Sydney, Australia.

“Jesus Christ,” Cam mumbled, obviously arriving at the same conclusion.

Henry introduced him around the table as Casey, and when his blue eyes fixed on mine, I merely nodded politely, struck speechless and only partly because my mouth was full of chips. I chewed frantically and swallowed a mouthful so big I felt it ache on the vertical downslide.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

Casey raised his delicious eyebrows as the three of us girls looked at him in silence. Could eyebrows even be delicious? I assumed so because his were.

“Uh…” I managed.

Mac nodded.

Cam sat staring silently.

Later that afternoon, as Casey waited in reception, we found ourselves sitting at a boardroom table in expensive high backed cream leather chairs, fidgeting nervously just as we had been for the past half an hour. My hands gripped the arms of the chair fiercely, fingernails digging in, while I sucked in short, sharp breaths. Mac kept giving me odd looks, but I could barely afford her a glance since I was physically restraining myself from getting down on my hands and knees to kiss the thick, plush carpet in a giddy frenzy of gratitude.

The tinted floor to ceiling windows of the June Grady building let in a sunny glare. Already sweaty from anxiety, I was left wishing I had some tissues to stick under my armpits. I evened my breathing by focusing on the iconic view of Centrepoint Tower and the Harbour Bridge.

“Evie,” Mac hissed. “Fix your hair.”

I didn’t quite catch what she said because I was too busy gagging a little. Was I really going to ralph all over the creamy expanse of carpet? Did I really need to eat that supersized caramel sundae right before we got here? Cold shivers racked my body, and I felt I was suffocating under a haze of fear. What if I cocked this up? It was an entirely possible scenario because I cock up most things. It would be on my tombstone.
Here lies Genevieve Jamieson, strangled by a giant sheet because she cocked up her life.
Too much rode on this meeting, not just for me either, which made it worse. I risked a glance at Frog and Cooper, then Jake, Henry, and Mac, who still gave me odd looks and tried to catch my attention. They looked just as freaked out as I was. Frog had a sheen of sweat lining his forehead. Cooper’s beautiful olive skin was so unnaturally pale the tattoo under his shirt that climbed around the side of his neck stood out in stark contrast. Jake clenched his jaw, and Henry was counting to a hundred; because from across the table I could lip-read him silently saying, “...eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven.”

I started bouncing my leg up and down. I knew I should have gone to the bathroom even though I went before we left. Was that a scuff on my shoe? I was about to reach down to wipe it off when Mac snapped at me, drawing my attention back to her.

“Evie,” Mac said through clenched teeth.

“Mac,” I hissed back. “What is your problem? You’ve been on everyone’s case all afternoon. We know how important this is. Stop reminding us.”

The guys all nodded their agreement. Just as I sat back to take a deep calming breath, Gary Gilmore walked through the door, swiftly closing it behind him.

We all sat up a little straighter, and I smoothed the creases that had formed on my shirt from my seat belt. I’d actually considered leaving it undone to keep my shirt wrinkle-free, but somehow I didn’t think that would fly in the face of an accident. Fancy explaining to some stern copper the reason I’d flown out the front window of the car, smashing myself to smithereens in the process, was because I hadn’t wanted to ruin my shirt.

Mac glared at me and pointed to her head.

What?
I shrugged.

She shook her head back in a silent
whatever
.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Gary said as he walked hurriedly over to one of the chairs and quickly sat down, dumping a folder on the table in front of him. “I got held up at the studio. Sins of Descent are in the middle of their world tour, and we’ve been busy putting together a selection of supporting acts to put forward for the Australian leg in February because Menace pulled out.”

We looked at each other with wide eyes. Sins of Descent was one of top bands in the world. They currently had three songs in the top fifty Billboard Chart. They were musical gods, and their lead singer, Ethan, had been voted second sexiest male singer, only behind Adam Levine.

Gary looked at all of us and sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers, as his assistant David came running in with a coffee. David had kindly offered us drinks when we arrived, but we’d all declined for various nerve related reasons.

“I’m Gary Gilmore and I head up the A & R Department here at Jettison Records. We're in charge of discovering talent, which you seem to have quite a bit of.” He smiled at us. We stared back, hanging off every word. “Thanks for coming in at such short notice.”

We murmured polite responses.

“We’ve called you in because I liked what I saw when you played at The White Demon Warehouse a little while ago, and I think you may have what we’re looking for. However, what I think and the label thinks don’t always align, which means it’s up to my department to convince them you’re worth the investment, so that in turn, leaves it up to you, as the talent, to convince me to take that risk on my reputation.”