Page 17 of Is It Casual Now?

seventeen

Siena’s body ached in all the right places. She couldn’t remember the last time she had spent a whole afternoon ravishing and being ravished by a sexy woman. And not just any sexy woman, but one who not only understood the need for consent but reacted to the smallest cues from Siena’s body.

She had managed to keep her mind focused on work for the better part of the day. She loved her work and enjoyed the thrill of seeing others thrive, despite the prima donnas—those who thought she should do all the hard work while they did nothing but stand still and look pretty. Despite them, Siena still loved her job.

Thank goodness, because it made it a lot easier for her to push the sneaky memories aside.

But as the afternoon wound down to its usual lull, her mind kept wandering back to Jamie and all the things they had done to each other. And with each other. It had been a while since Siena had truly let herself go with another woman. The one-night stands of the past were nothing more than scratching an itch. But with Jamie, she had allowed her desires, her cravings to rise up and do far more than just scratch .

The trilling sound of her phone startled her out of the memories, and she chuckled quietly at herself. Like a teenager caught masturbating, she had jumped at the sound. Placing her hands on the keyboard, she turned her face to her screen. Only now did she realize that she’d been lost in her own memories so long that her screen had grown dark from inactivity.

Rolling her eyes at herself, she realized that it wasn’t her work phone.

And no matter which phone it was, they couldn’t see her anyway. It wasn’t as though Paula stood at the door with her pursed lips, raised eyebrows, and judgmental and concerned glances. Her phone stopped, and she shook her head. It wasn’t like her to get so caught up in her head over a one-night stand.

Technically two-night stand really, but Jamie had crawled beneath her skin, and Siena’s swirling mix of emotions confused her to no end. She picked up her cell from the desk, turning it over in her hand to check the missed call.

“Ingrid?” Siena said aloud to the empty room. It wasn’t unusual for Ingrid to call during the day. It happened regularly. But rarely did it ever happen on her personal phone.

Before she could unlock her phone and return the call, it vibrated in her hand, the sound almost as startling as the first time it had rung.

“Calling on my cell in the middle of the day means one of two things. Did you have lots of salacious adventures you don’t want recorded, or is there a world of fury needing to be vented?” Siena answered the call, the smile still on her face. With Ingrid it really could be either. Both of their workplaces recorded all phone calls. And that had saved Siena many lawsuits over the years.

Right now, she really hoped Ingrid’s call would be in relation to her former suggestion, but her stomach plummeted as the energy through the phone told her the truth before Ingrid’s words came out .

“Definitely fury.” Ingrid’s voice threatened to scorch Siena where she sat.

“Oh shit.” The smile dropped, and Siena instantly brought her computer back to life, clicking up a new file ready to take notes. When Ingrid was like this, Siena always needed to take notes. Her words would flow quickly and were more often than not filled with vitriol. “Tell me.”

“That fucking tabloid hack of yours is at it again.” Ingrid exploded in a torrent of words. “I have no idea how or where she got her information, but the idea she can make these accusations and I can do nothing about it is bullshit. All because she hasn’t made a single statement I can use as solid proof of a defamation claim is fucking ridiculous. She’s a sneaky bitch. And I want to know how the fuck she got ahold of any of this information to begin with. Is there someone in our circle being a narc? I want to find these fuckers. Without the sources, she’d be nothing. And why does anyone listen to her to begin with?”

“Ingrid, hey…” Siena cringed as she interrupted the flow of fury, but her heart pounded too loud in her chest. “Slow down for a second, all right?”

“What? Why?” Ingrid’s pout could be heard through the phone line.

“Because I need to know who and what exactly you’re talking about.” Siena used every ounce of her self-control to keep her voice calm and steady.

“I’m talking about that tabloid hack who fucked with Bunny and Piper earlier in the year. The one you’re always having to put fires out because of. Well, she’s now got her talons into my top client.”

“Jamie Kettlehouse.” Siena barely managed to get the name out. Her mouth was dry, and her lips felt chapped when moments ago they hadn’t.

“None other,” Ingrid hissed. “She got some dirt on my golden girl, and now everywhere you turn, she’s being targeted as a liar and a fraud. I mean for fuck’s sake. This could ruin her! All because that bitch thinks it’s her right to call out the hypocrites. We’re entertainment managers, of course half our clients are fucking hypocrites, but how the fuck does it affect her? So what if my client wants to act like she does charity work and splash that over the pages?”

“Hang on.” Siena’s fingers flew over her keyboard, her shoulders dropping and her heart growing heavy with each new article that popped up.

“Wow. They are not holding punches, are they?”

“Exactly. So you see what I mean?” Ingrid’s voice still carried the fury, but there was also a smugness in the tone. One that Siena had never minded before. But this time, she wanted to scream and kick shit. Holding back, she couldn’t be sure her frustration and annoyance really had anything to do with Ingrid at all.

“All right, so from what I can tell…” Siena had scanned several of the more popular articles, all pointing their sources back to Jamie’s blog. “…the slant is definitely on her offstage presence.”

“Yeah, but like you’ve always said, they deserve some privacy as well. They give enough.”

Siena saw the difference, but there was no point in highlighting that to Ingrid. It wasn’t her job to justify Jamie’s blog. It wasn’t Siena’s either. And yet part of her wanted nothing more than to form a defense for Jamie.

It was crazy. Her work meant so much to her, and here she was, thinking about Jamie instead of automatically helping her friend with the shitstorm she and her client were facing.

“Yeah, I know.” Siena shook her head. Tried desperately to shake off the desire to justify Jamie’s actions. “All right, let’s get on top of this as much as we can.”

“How?” Ingrid sounded deflated, and Siena knew she had to shake off anything to do with Jamie and help her friend .

“How we always do it.” Siena smiled, ignoring that small part of her that still clung to the confusion she felt over Jamie. “We use the media against them.”

“I don’t think the usual stuff will work.”

“No, I think you’re right. But we can start a dampening campaign and try to anticipate anything else that might come up about it.”

“Okay.” Ingrid’s tone was a lot calmer now.

Siena put her phone on speaker and let her fingers dance over the keyboard.

They spent hours together, and even after Siena had hung up the phone, her mind raced with steps Ingrid could use to help solve this problem. But she refused to let herself feel anything, at least yet. Because she wasn’t sure what to think or believe. Her feelings were getting in the way, and she needed to think about this logically.

Siena had seen texts fly in from Jamie throughout the day, but she hadn’t read or answered any of them. She wasn’t ready for what they had to talk about yet, whether that was an actual interview with Bunny and Piper, a conversation about their second one-night stand, or something to do with the pressure that Siena knew Ingrid was putting on Jamie’s boss to fire her.

Finally home and anything but rested, Siena’s mind decided she was no longer in control, and it was now time to unpack all the thoughts and worries she had pushed down. She collapsed onto her couch, one leg up and her hand over her eyes to block out the light as she crashed hard.

She and Ingrid had worked for hours on fine-tuning the steps Siena had laid out, Ingrid taking over the details as she knew her client better than Siena could. She had chuckled at Ingrid’s unguarded opinion of her client and wondered how her friend could work so hard for someone she obviously disliked. Then again, Ingrid had never had as strong feelings about that as Siena did. It was what had cost Siena her marriage.

Siena knew she wasn’t as perfect as Tori in always doing the right thing, but she did try to only represent those she believed in, those who didn’t lie to her or outwardly deceive the public. Keeping some things private was far from telling lies, as far as Siena was concerned.

Siena wished it had been her week with Harley. Her daughter was the light of her life. More than work, more than anything else she had ever experienced. And having her daughter here always helped ground Siena. She also had the skill of helping Siena with her grown up problems without even understanding what she’d done.

It had been a selfish thing, marrying Tori and having a child. Because that had been the only reason, when Siena truly thought about all those years ago, that she’d agreed to get married in the first place. That clock had been ticking, and Siena had let it take over her brain. In the end, she hadn’t been able to keep it up with Tori, and she’d needed to end it for both their sakes. But despite the guilt that often tried to overtake her, she could never regret those choices.

She didn’t want to regret any more choices when it came to Jamie either.

Then again, she wasn’t thinking about an actual relationship with Jamie. Siena wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice and rush into something when time seemed short. She always had more time.

Jamie’s article had definitely stirred up the hornet’s nest. But Siena couldn’t find herself as angry as Ingrid had been. The truth about Ingrid’s client being a spoiled brat behind the cameras was notorious on the manager side of the entertainment industry. It was why Siena had turned her down the first time and the second time she’d tried to leave Ingrid. And yet she was still cleaning up the brat’s mess .

Siena had ignored Ingrid’s rants about Jamie’s source, but she also wondered how the hell Jamie had gotten ahold of the information. Surely it wasn’t coincidence that they were spending more time together and suddenly Jamie was publishing more often and with stronger sources and claims than before.

Siena lay back on her couch and the dull throb of her earlier headache built up pressure. This wasn’t just a Jamie and Ingrid issue. This was more than that. The first time they’d had sex, Siena could claim ignorance. But not this time. This time she’d walked into Jamie’s apartment, and she had known full well what and who she was doing.

The itch beneath her skin wouldn’t be satisfied.

Firing up her laptop, Siena found Jamie’s blog and read the article properly.

It was incredible the way Jamie used her words to set the entire frame of her article. At the beginning, Siena wouldn’t have picked up how well the slant would lean against Ingrid’s client.

Three times she read it, and each time her stomach flipped in confusion.

The Jamie she knew, the feisty woman intent on truth and transparency, seemed to clash with the words and the sneaky way she found the information that Siena and her colleagues spent half of their working life keeping out of the limelight.

Who was Jamie really? And did her work show more truth of the woman than the caring and adventurous lover Siena couldn’t stop thinking about? Or the sweet woman who helped her twin sister with Halloween parties for kindergarteners?

Either way, Siena knew keeping in contact with Jamie, professional or personal, was going to be nothing short of a roller coaster ride.

She just had to decide if she wanted to buy a ticket.