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Nothing personal, she’s just not my type. Love it or hate it, I’m a sucker for blondes. Always have been, always will be.
“Sorry,” I say, turning to face her. “What did you say your name was?”
She purrs, leaning into my arm. “I’m Mila.”
“Nice to meet you Mila,” I say through my teeth. Make a good impression. Make a good impression. “You work for Sizzle?”
She laughs like I’ve cracked a joke or something and launches into a lengthy explanation of just how important her job is. It’s a dick move, but I tune her out—she doesn’t need me here for this monologue; I figured that out about ten minutes ago—and survey the room for a possible escape.
Problem is, I don’t know a damn soul here.
That’s the whole point, jackass. Network. Make a good impression. These people need to like you if you’re going to stick around past just the one contract.
Trouble is, I’m not exactly good with people. Not on the ground anyway; face-to-face is not my jam. I’m great in front of a camera. And fortunately, being on camera is what Sizzle is paying me for.
I hate schmoozing and I’m no ass-kisser. Which makes this kickoff gala basically my worst nightmare, complete with—
Yep, there he is. Dickbag extraordinaire, Drew Hicks. And wouldn’t you know it, he’s got the hottest woman in the room on his arm—a petite blonde, exactly my type—to boot.
I hate that guy.
Bad enough he appears to have absolutely no clue that we went to college together—we even had a couple of the same classes. Then he got to witness my total lack of kitchen skills up close and personal.
Granted, I’m not exactly the scrawny nerd I was back then. Still. Guys like him, they’re all the same: can’t see past the fog of their own ego.
I turn back to the brunette at my elbow—looks like she’s waiting for an answer again—and gesture to the bartender to bring us both another round.
You can’t afford to be rude. Play nice, Coop.
“Ugh, I can’t believe he brought her here,” says the brunette, whose name I’ve already forgotten. Again.
God, I suck at this. I check my watch on the sly, trying to calculate just how much longer I have to stand here before excusing myself to find the bathroom.
“Who?” I ask, not caring at all. She jerks her chin toward a small crowd nearby.
“My colleague over there, with that trashy blonde.” The brunette sneers into her second martini. She gets my attention when mentioning the blonde, but if she means Drew’s date, there’s nothing trashy about that particular woman. I prod her along anyway.
“You know Drew Hicks?”
She snorts. “Know him? We were together until she came along.”
Ah, a jealous ex. This would normally be my cue to exit, stage left, except this gala is a work function. And maybe there’s some merit in the old “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” expression.
“Who is she?”
My companion shrugs and sneers. “Hell if I know. I thought for sure he was making her up until they showed up together tonight.”
“Ah,” I say, laying on all the sympathy I can fake. “I take it things didn’t end well?”
“You could say that,” she says vaguely, her eyes narrowing at Hicks and his date. “I still don’t buy it.”
“About his girlfriend?” I ask. Hicks’s arm around the blonde’s waist looks awfully comfortable. Whatever she is to him, they’re not strangers.
“Come on,” says the woman—Mira? Miranda?—as she sinks her fake nails into my wrist, pulling me away from the bar. “I’ll introduce you.”
“You don’t have to—” I shut my mouth, mainly to keep from yelping because those nails are fucking sharp and I’m pretty sure yanking my arm away would knock her over, given how fast she sucked down those martinis.
Drew Hicks and his petite companion are surrounded by a small group of people I only sort of recognize and whose names I probably ought to know by now. When the network hired me to host their new local cooking competition they made it clear during the interview process that if I impressed them, it might lead to other work. Nobody actually used the words “regular show host,” but it was heavily implied.
