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“Tell me more,” Fiona said. “Actually, Adam, if it’s okay with you, I would love it if Julia joined us for the interview.”
Adam shot a look at Melanie, who had her arms folded squarely across her chest. He had no earthly idea what she was thinking. “Perhaps we should ask Ms. Costello.”
Melanie nodded. “Sure. Of course. Whatever seems right, Fiona.” Her voice wobbled when she spoke. Perhaps this was as nerve-racking for her as it was for Adam.
“Can we get a chair for Ms. Keys, please?” Fiona asked.
Julia perched herself on Adam’s chair and draped her arm across his shoulders. “Don’t worry about me. I’m just fine like this.” She wiggled herself into place against him, making him exponentially more uncomfortable. “So, yes, Adam brought me a dozen roses that night. At first it made me mad, because roses seemed like such a cliché.”
Adam wanted to scream. The damn roses were your idea. Instead, he forced himself to watch Julia as if he was captivated by her every word.
Julia shrugged and pressed a kiss to Adam’s forehead. “But it was so romantic, I couldn’t do anything but tell him that yes, I wanted to get back together with him, too. It’s been like a dream ever since.”
Except that it wasn’t a dream, at all. It was a big, messy lie that he was expected to perpetrate.
Plus, Melanie had called him a dream, and that was the only context in which he ever wanted to think about that word again.
Eleven
Melanie’s email and voice mail had become the Julia and Adam show, and she, its unwitting choreographer.
Everyone had questions. Is it true that they’re serious? How was Melanie supposed to answer that? It appeared so. The photos were heartbreakingly convincing. Even when Melanie was supposed to know, deep down, that they weren’t really a couple, it looked as if they were. Why else would she get a pit in her stomach every time she saw them in the newspapers together?
Is he finally settling down? His family sure seemed to think so. Roger Langford had called and thanked Melanie again for her supersmart plan. The Langfords had reportedly hosted Julia for dinner and she regaled everyone with her wit and Hollywood stories. Adam’s mom had apparently remarked that Julia and Adam would make beautiful babies. Of course they would...not that Melanie could stand to think about that for even a minute.
Will Julia be the woman to tame him? Melanie audibly snorted when she read that one. Tame Adam Langford. It made him sound like a lion in the circus, when she knew that he was nothing of the sort. Not even when he’d been engaged had Adam allowed himself to be anything less than the person who called the shots.
Her cell phone rang and she was about to chuck it across the room, especially when she saw on the caller ID that it was Adam. Spending the past three hours dwelling on the question of whether or not the relationship between Adam and Julia was real had left her in no mood to converse with the man in question. But she had to answer.
“Adam, hi.”
“I’m coming to your office.” The sound of car horns blared in the background.
“What? Where are you? When?” Melanie closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why?”
“Aren’t you full of questions? I’m in the car, stuck in traffic, and late for the interview with that tech magazine. We’re about a block from your office. I just had my assistant call the writer and tell him to meet me there. It actually works out better for him, anyway.”
Melanie surveyed her disastrous desk. The lobby area was fairly tidy, but there was one glaring thing missing—someone manning the actual reception desk. How does someone run a so-called up-and-coming public relations firm with no staff? She had absolutely no idea, only that she had to do it every day.
She scrambled to put on a pot of coffee and arrange a suitable interview space in her reception area for Adam and the writer. The final throw pillow on the sofa had been fluffed when Adam strolled in.
“Sorry. Crazy day,” Adam said, hitting a button on his phone and shoving it into his front pocket. He was dressed in impeccable gray flat-front trousers and a black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, no tie. The dark stubble along his jaw was at its usual perfection. It was a windy day in the city and Adam’s hair showed the effects, disheveled and mussed, just so—sexy and enticing, almost like bed head.
She had to clasp her hands together, squeeze them hard, all while gritting her teeth to keep from combing her fingers into the thickest part of his hair, at the top of his head, where it got a little curly when it was wet. It was no wonder he had such a pull on her. Why did he have to be so flawless? Well, he did have one or two flaws, the most glaring of which was his unwillingness to make a serious relationship with a woman a priority.
