For the third time this morning, I clicked open the tab on my computer to send an email, and for the third time I closed it again because I couldn't focus long enough to even type in a subject line.

Every time I thought of last night's confrontation with Ewan, I felt like fireworks went up my spine. Every time I didn't think of last night's confrontation with Ewan, fireworks went up my spine anyway as if to remind me of how close we'd come to kissing.

It made no sense. I should have been pissed at him crossing the line like that. In fact I was pissed. At myself for not kissing him when I had the chance.

He'd laughed at me. That was the worst fucking part. His chuckle still echoed in my ears, audible even over the sound of my boots slapping the concrete floor as I rushed away before I made the mistake of giving in to him.

No matter how badly I wanted to.

"Fuck," I hissed under my breath. The hum of my office was loud enough that I could chastise myself without anyone hearing. Or so I hoped. "Get it together."

I had to stop obsessing like this. There were already too many reasons for the people here in the Anthem offices to dismiss me. My young age, my famous last name, the truly nepotistic way I'd landed this job in the first place. If someone found out I had a crush on the talent...my God no one would ever take me seriously again.

I sat back up in my chair. Right. I just needed to dash off this email. That would be enough to jumpstart me and I could start drowning myself in work so I could ignore the faint pulse of desire that hummed deep in my belly.

GraniteWave Promotion Venue Change — FYI

I had no sooner typed out the subject line than my desk phone rang. Happy for the distraction, I grabbed the receiver. "Celia Gilbert!" I chirped into the phone.

There was a pause. "Your sister told me you were using a pseudonym."

I sagged back in my chair. "Daddy," I hissed, looking around wildly. "What are you doing calling me at work?"

"Don't worry my love, I'll make sure your boss doesn't dock you for taking personal calls," he chuckled as I turned beet red.

"Daddy."

"I'm sorry C, but you're being ridiculous," my father boomed. I could picture him in the high rise uptown, his massive oaken desk taking up half of his corner office suite. He probably was sitting with his feet up on it, barefoot of course, his suit pants hiked up to reveal his legs tanned from his recent trip to Bali. "I'm trying not to be hurt over here," he said, using the same cajoling, wheedling voice I'd heard him use countless times before. My Dad could always get you on his side. "About how my little girl doesn't want to be associated with the likes of her dear old Dad."

"Daddy, come on," I sighed. "Were you and Dell gossiping about me or something?"

"I was not gossiping. I was asking about the health and wellbeing of my beloved youngest daughter who never calls."

I felt myself softening. "I'm sorry."

His voice softened too. "How are you C?" he asked gently. "Is the new position working out?"

"It is," I relented. "Though I haven't signed a band yet."

"These things take time."

"But I'm close."

"Atta girl," he encouraged. "I knew you had what it took. It was high time you started working for me, Celia. I've needed your talents."

"Daddy, I haven't done anything yet."

"But you will," he said, blithely dismissing any possibility that I might not be good at this. "And when you do, they're gonna start calling me Celia Silver's father."

I grinned. That was the magic of my Dad and why he was so hard to resist. You had to stay far away from him, keep him at arms length, or else he'd have you believing his own pie-in-the-sky version of his fantasy world. It was only when you walked away, squirmed out from under his thumb that you realized he'd been selling you a line the whole time.

But he sold it with such love, "I don't think Mom would let that happen," I joked. "Because she doesn't want anyone to know she's a mother."

"That's not true and you know it," my father chided, ever loyal to my eternally youthful, exquisitely beautiful mother. "She just enjoys it when she's mistaken for your sister."

"She enjoys it a little too much, Dad. I think the word for it is 'gloating.'"

"You'll understand it better when you're our age, kid." My father was having a hard time with the fact that he was turning sixty this year, and my mother had refused to acknowledge her birthday for the past eight years running, staying perpetually forty-two in the eyes of the clearly unobservant press. "Youth is wasted on the young."

"Says the guy who was quoted in Rolling Stone saying he hoped he died before he turned thirty-five," I teased.

"See this is why you're going to go far at Anthem, CeCe," my Dad declared. "You pick up on every detail and you don't miss a trick. That band you're scouting has got it made."

My mind flashed back to last night in the hallway backstage and another firework exploded in my body. "Um, yeah," I said, feeling my cheeks heat up. I needed to get my Dad off the phone before he picked up on how I really felt about the band I was scouting. "Well right now I don't know if they'd agree with you. I told them they needed to make some changes and the guitarist got pretty pissed at me."

"Sweetheart, that's the business. Musicians are fickle and hot-tempered and they don't like being told they're not God's gift to the world. It's your job to nudge them in the right direction while making them believe it was their idea all along."

I blinked. My brute force approach had clearly set Ewan off. Maybe that was the wrong approach all together? "That's...solid advice, Dad."

He laughed. "Yeah well, I've been in the business long enough to have picked up a thing or two," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "If you came by the office once in a while, maybe I could share them with you."

A hot claw of shame closed around my throat. "Yeah sure Dad," I choked. "Sounds good." Gently, I replaced the receiver without saying goodbye, rationalizing that he never said goodbye either.

"Parents, huh?" Some PR guy I'd seen a few times in the break room was leaning over the edge of my cubicle wall. "Mine does that all the time too, calling me when I'm at work and chewing my ear off."

I looked up at him, confused. "I'm sorry, what?"

He pointed at my phone. "Your Dad called, right?" he chuckled. "Yammering on and on when you have work to do?"

I flushed, feeling a protective surge in my chest. "He wasn't yammering," I said, biting off my words. "He was...giving me advice."

The PR guy rolled his eyes. "Oh no, that's even worse! Like he has any idea how to do your job."

"Actually," I started to say, then caught myself. As far as this office knew, I was Celia Gilbert, recent college grad and A&R trainee. My father, my connection to this company, had never come up. In fact, I so strenuously emphasized my nobody-special status that at this point, claiming to be Ricky Silver's daughter out of the blue would make me look like a crazy person. "Never mind," I said instead. "Yeah, you're right." I faked a laugh. "Family, right?"

"The worst," he agreed, and mercifully wandered off, leaving me, for the very first time, feeling like the worst kind of traitor.