Chapter One: Emma

So I guess this would be a good thing to state. Copyright and all, you know. The usual.

Copyright © TheFlamingPopsicle 2013

All Rights Reserved

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying recording or otherwise) of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Except no one actually reads the copyright statement because it takes too much effort, so basically, just don't steal the shit I write and everything will be cool.

I watch a lot of TV and Spanish soap operas about drug lords so I could probably get the Russian mafia to hunt you down or something.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

***

Kidnap My Heart

Chapter 1: Emma

You know how people in movies always seem to know when their lives are about to change? Yeah, that doesn’t happen in real life. You don’t wake up one morning and think, “Oh, my God, I’m going to get kidnapped today.”

The day I got kidnapped, I didn’t wake up with some otherworldly premonition about what was about to happen. I woke up barking orders at the air, still stuck in party-planning mode even when I was half-asleep. I had no idea my life was about to change. If I had, I would’ve run for the hills. I would’ve even been willing to abandon my party-planning. But I didn’t have a premonition, and I didn’t run. I just kept obsessively planning my best friend’s birthday party.

“No, no, no! I said gardenias. First Love gardenias. What is so impossible to understand about that?” I snapped into the phone, cutting the man off every time he tried to speak. He was obviously just your average worker. He was too flustered to be anyone of power. “No! I don’t want to hear talk of tulips! Or lilies! I said gardenias. We want First Love gardenias. No. No!”

People these days were so incompetent. Why would this man even think to suggest tulips or lilies when I was so clear about our desire for gardenias? It was ridiculous.

“Ma’am, you must understand—”

“There’s nothing to understand,” I exclaimed. “My client said she wanted First Love gardenias, and that’s what I’m getting her.  Not tulips. Not lilies. Gardenias.”

My client wasn’t just any client; I wouldn’t have been doing this for any old person. My client just so happened to be my best friend, Taylor Williamson, and this wasn’t just any party. It was her eighteenth birthday party, and it had to be absolutely perfect. Taylor had entrusted me with this job, assuming I would do it to the best of my ability, and that was exactly what I was going to do. No imbecile was going to ruin this for me or for her.

“But we don’t—”

“I don’t care! I’m not asking for some endangered flower from Africa. My request is so simple. Gardenias. We just want gardenias.”

Well, I was definitely never ordering flowers from this business ever again. This was absolutely ridiculous. Horrible service. Just horrible.

“But we don’t have—”

“You are living proof that evolution can go in reverse. Haven’t I made myself more than clear? We. Want. First. Love. Gardenias.”

“Ma’am, I’m sure there are plenty of other very beautiful flowers—”

“No,” I snapped, shaking my head even though the man couldn’t see me. “I don’t want to hear talk of these other flowers! You have two choices: either get the gardenias for this party, or count on losing our funding and patronization.”

He sounded much more nervous the next time he spoke. “There’s no need to take such drastic measures. Ma’am—”

“No, there is a need. I meant what I said. The choice is yours. Goodbye.”

I felt like that was a good moment to end the conversation, so I did exactly that. Something told me he’d find a way to get me those flowers. My dad gave his business a lot of money.

Glancing around the mostly empty ballroom, I heaved a loud sigh. This place was nowhere near ready, and I had less than a week to plan this party. The ballroom itself was gorgeous, but that wasn’t enough. It needed pizzazz, and pizzazz didn’t come from lilies or freaking tulips. That was for sure.

Aaron Gaff ran past me just then, distracting me from my contemplations. Aaron was pretty much my only guy friend. I tended to scare everyone else off, but that was fine with me. They were all idiots, anyway. “Aaron!” I barked, making him stop in his tracks. “What’s in that box? Did you find the lights I told you about?”

Aaron smiled, but it didn’t look natural. Something wasn’t right. “No—well, not exactly. I found these, and they’re just as good.”

I narrowed my eyes and peered inside the box, making a face at the contents and retching dramatically. “Are you kidding me? These are not just as good! The lights I told you about are lined with gold. These are lined with what, bronze? Some other cheap knockoff? No, this isn’t what I wanted. Go find the lights!”

“But—”

“Go!”

From the look he gave me, it was obvious he didn’t appreciate my tone, but it wasn’t like he was doing this for free. I was paying the guy; he knew what he was getting into when he agreed.

As I watched Aaron run out the door, my phone vibrated in my hand, and a glance at the caller ID told me it was the catering company. I answered the call with a frown. With my luck, something else was going to go wrong. “This is Emma van der Bilt,” I said, adjusting my phone over my ear.

“Hi, Emma. I’m just calling to confirm your order,” a woman’s voice said over the phone.

“That’s fine. List it off for me.”

As she listed off the foods I had ordered for Taylor’s party, I stopped her abruptly. “Wait a second. Did you just say cream of mushroom?”

“Yes. Is there a problem?”

I huffed in disbelief. “Is there a problem? Is there a problem? Of course there’s a problem! I said crème brûlée, not cream of mushroom! How do you even mix the two up?”

“I’m sorry for the mix up. I’ll fix this right away and have your order ready by Saturday.”

“Good. Call me when you have it right.” With that, I hung up.

This was stressing me out beyond belief, and it really shouldn’t have been stressing me out at all. It couldn’t be that hard to get a simple request down correctly. Nearly everyone had somehow screwed up my orders. This was getting way out of hand. I needed a nap.

“Emmy, you should really chill out,” Taylor said, walking towards me with a frown on her face. She placed a hand on her hip and shot me a look when she reached me. “You’re stressing out, and you know what happens when you stress out.”

I let out a sigh. “I know, I know. I break out.” Pimples were probably the thing I hated most, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if I woke up with a monster zit one of these days.

“Exactly. So just chill out. It’ll all be fine!”

“Right. Except I’m the one who has to make sure it turns out fine.”

“And it will,” she went on, but I ignored her and went on with my own tirade.

“This is important. This is going to be the biggest party of the year. No, it’s going to be the biggest party of the decade. I have a right to stress out.”

“I know,” Taylor replied, sounding much calmer than me for once, “and I’m super excited! Seriously, I am, but even I’m not freaking out over this, and it’s my birthday party, so what does that tell you?”

“That you have an unusual disinterest in parties and party planning?”

She laughed and shook her head. “No, it tells you that you need to calm down.”

I sighed. “You’re right.” No, she wasn’t. “I’ll try to calm down, I guess.” Except that was a lie. There was no way I was going to calm down. Calmness wasn’t in my genes. Obsessive tracking and planning was in my genes.

Taylor beamed at me, completely unaware of my real take on this matter.

I actually did attempt to calm down a bit, and it worked pretty well at first. I walked around the ballroom breezily, silently surveying the work that was being done and politely answering my phone when it rang. Well, as politely as I could handle. My manners weren’t the best, despite my upbringing. I blamed the rebellious teenager in me for it.

The tiny bit of calmness and politeness I was managing to exude disappeared the moment I saw my bodyguard sneaking dessert samples into his jacket. He glanced around the room to make sure no one was watching him, but obviously he did a horrible job at surveying the room if I caught him. Seriously, what kind of a bodyguard was he? He was supposed to be an expert at surveillance! Who had my dad hired to guard me? My God.

“Jack, you thieving fatso,” I shouted, narrowing my eyes at him. “Put that down right now!

He glanced over, looking at me with a guilty expression on his face. “Sorry, Em.”

I shook my head in disbelief, stalking over to where he was standing. I snatched the samples out of his hand and shot him a dirty look. “What if you took a sample that was absolutely amazing? What if you destroyed our chance at having the most scrumptious dessert on the face of this planet at Taylor’s party?”

“I think you’re exaggerating. I only took the cheap ones.”

I looked at the dessert table in horror. “There shouldn’t be any cheap ones here. What is this garbage?”

Jack was quick to correct himself. “Let me rephrase my sentence. I only took the cheaper ones.”

“I’m sure.” I glared at him for a few more seconds, just for good effect, before turning away. He was lucky he was practically family, or I probably would’ve fired him already. “Just quit stealing the food, Lardo.”

He readily agreed, but just before I left the room, I saw him sneak one last sample into his jacket. I shook my head. Some things just never changed.

***

“Get to class, all of you!” a teacher yelled, stalking up and down the hallway. Her attempts were made in vain since we all promptly ignored her, even when she made obscene gestures out of anger.

Eventually, she just gave up and went back to her classroom. She’d never had much of a backbone, especially not when it came to huge groups of kids. She knew when she was outnumbered.

“It’s going to be the hottest party of the year,” I announced to the adoring crowd in front of me, turning the invitations over in my hands as I spoke. “It might just be the hottest party of the decade if people stop messing up my orders,” I added, my tone only a little bitter.

A few of the people standing in front of me laughed, staring at the invitations in my hand with anxious anticipation. My original plan had been to mail the invitations, but Taylor wanted to pass them out at school, and well, it was her party. What she said went.

The invitations weren’t readily available, of course. There were simply too many people that would want to come and too many people that we actually wanted to come. There wouldn’t be enough room in the ballroom, and there was no way I was changing the venue by that point. Besides, we didn’t want there to be over 500 people, and we had to take surprise guests into account. There was just no way we could let everyone come.

As I was handing out invitations to the lucky few that were on my list, my cell phone vibrated. I looked down and saw that it was the caterer again. Rolling my eyes, I handed the invitations over to Taylor, letting her take over. “It’s the caterer again. You handle this for right now. I’ll be right back.”

Taylor nodded at me, and I turned and walked away, answering the call. “Did you get it right this time?” I asked.

“Well…” The woman’s voice trailed off slowly.

“What do you mean by that?”

“There’s been a slight complication.”

“Don’t tell me that; I’m running out of places to hide bodies.”

The phone call ended shortly after that, unsurprisingly. She’d find a way to fix the small complication.

Since I didn’t have a class the next hour, I left school grounds to go talk to my dad. He’d sent me a text saying he had a surprise for me, and I wasn’t about to wait until after school to talk to him.

No one said anything when I walked out of the building. No one ever did. My dad was the reason my high school was up and running, and they weren’t about to mess with his only daughter. It was one of the many perks of being his heiress.

The drive to his office was short, and getting through the front desk took seconds, if anything. Everyone at my dad’s office knew who I was and knew to let me pass whenever I wanted.

My dad was the CEO of a huge company that sold everything from clothing to jewelry to home goods, and he’d done ridiculously well with his business. I was sure his old boss really regretted selling the business to my dad because it had practically blossomed overnight once it was in my dad’s hands.

“Hi, daddy,” I said, walking over to his desk to give him a hug. “A little bird told me you have a surprise for me,” I added, nudging him with my shoulder.

My dad smiled over at me and said, “Now, how did I know you were going to rush over here the minute I mentioned the word ‘surprise’?”

“Because you know me too well. I don’t have much time, though. Lunch starts in half an hour.”

“That’s plenty of time. This won’t take long; I have a lot of work to do myself,” he said, rifling through some papers on his desk as he spoke. “They were just here a second ago… aha! Here we are.” He picked up two tickets and held them over his face. “Two tickets to Paramore’s sold out concert over in L.A. for my favorite girl.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re actually taking time off of work to go to this concert with me.”

He shook his head. “No. I wish I could, but with two new ads coming out this month and this sale coming up soon, I can’t. I’m sure Taylor would love to go, though, and you know getting Jack in is never a problem.” People tended to let Jack slide by when he stood over them and told them he was my bodyguard.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. I wasn’t even disappointed anymore. I knew my dad was busy, and I respected the work he did. He had priorities, and concerts weren’t one of them, especially not at such late notice. “Taylor’s going to freak when she sees these.” I took the tickets from him and gave him another hug, squeezing him tightly. “Thank you, daddy.”

“You’re welcome, Princess,” he said, squeezing me back. “Have fun at the concert, and be careful. Don’t leave Jack’s side for anything.”

“I won’t,” I said, but I didn’t really want to be tied to Jack all day. We would have to see about that. “Well, I have to head back, so I’ll leave you to your work,” I added, already feeling a little uncomfortable in the awkward silence. We never had much to talk about.

He nodded, already looking through his computer. “See you later, Em.”

I waved and said goodbye, but he didn’t see me.

I got back to the school just in time for lunch, and it was a good thing I did because I didn’t think Taylor would have coped so well without me. Things were going normally at first. We sat at our usual table as we ate and talked, laughing at Aaron’s stupid childhood stories until Taylor’s ex-boyfriend just had to ruin our lunch period.

He came up to our table all of a sudden with an annoyed look on his face. “Hey, Williamson, van der Bilt. Where’s my invitation?”

“Your invitation is nonexistent,” I answered simply.

“Nonexistent?” Noel blinked at me. “Why?”

I stared at him blankly. “Do you really have to ask?” Was he serious? Why would he even think to ask for an invitation after what he’d done to Taylor? They dated for two years, and he broke her heart as if it were nothing but a toy, dropping her for some girl he met on the internet.

“I deserve an invitation, Emma,” he insisted.

I snorted with laughter. “You deserve an invitation? What you deserve is a kick to the groin. Now get out of my face before I give you what you deserve.”

“Not without my invitation.” By that point, I didn’t think he even wanted to go anymore. I figured he was only insisting out of spite.

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Do you really think so little of your ability to have children in the future?”

He narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, I would. Do you really want to test me, Noel?”

I wondered if he remembered that I just so happened to be a certified black belt. He was starting to look a little less brave, but still, he carried on. “Maybe I do.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Jack said, finally stepping in. I subtly shook my head at him. What was he doing, waiting until then to step in? He was my bodyguard! I mean, true, I’d been handling myself just fine without him, but still. “I would leave Emma alone if I were you.”

Looking up at my bodyguard—who was six foot six and two-hundred fifty pounds of hard muscle—Noel suddenly looked a lot less brave. “Sounds good to me,” he said. “I’ll just be going now…”

“Jack, must you ruin my fun?” I asked, watching Noel walk away. “Things were just starting to get interesting.”

“Your idea of fun is rather disturbing.”

I smiled wickedly. “I know. But you know that just makes your life more interesting.”

***

I figured I might as well post it since it was already written. New story. Obviously.

I guess you could sort of say this is a spin-off of Better Than Revenge? Not really, though. It won't be exactly like what you saw in BTR, either. Movies are never exactly like the books, so I get as much creative freedom as I would normally. :D

Anyways. Hope you guys liked it! Tell me what you think. :)