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“Come on, we have work to do,” I muttered to Shelly. She threaded her arm through mine and let me tow her through the crowd until we reached Miller’s side.
Miller was, as I knew he would be, dazzled by the sight of her. I took advantage of his momentary speechlessness to say, “Hey Miller, where the hell is my raw cut of the trailer?”
“It’s on its way,” he said absently, staring at Shelly.
She smiled her five-million-dollar-toothpaste-brand-ambassador smile, and a dopey, answering grin spread across his own face.
“You know, Miller, I don’t think it is,” I said, dragging his attention back to me. “I don’t see it in my inbox, and you haven’t sent the production assistant over with it.”
I’d have known if he had. I’d given Travis explicit orders to call me wherever I was, no matter what meeting, no matter what time, if Willow Laurier showed up at the office.
“I—yeah, I mean,” he blinked, aggravated at the interruption. Couldn’t I see he was staring at Shelly Monroe, damnit? How often did a man get a chance to gaze upon the number one supermodel in the world in the flesh? With her gazing back?
Shelly’s smile softened, became coaxing.Go on,it said, give him what he wants and maybe you’ll get what you want.
“I’ll send it over on Monday,” Miller said, his voice melting back into dreaminess. “It still needs some work.”
Which I knew meant he’d done jack shit on it, but I also knew it wouldn’t take him much time.
“It better be here by Monday,” I said. “Or else you’re going to have me on location every day until I get it.”
Miller’s worst nightmare.
You could practically see the struggle on his face. Did he tell me to go fuck myself, or did he play nice and hope I wouldn’t take the nice supermodel away? “It’ll be there,” he said finally, the aggravation in his words finally convincing me he meant it.
I took Shelly away anyway after I saw Garrett walk in with his wife, Destiny. After introductions were made–Shelly and Destiny knewofeach other but had never met–Garrett and I headed to the bar to grab a drink.
“Isn’t that Dana’s ex?” Garrett asked when we got far enough away to ask without being overheard.
“Yeah, but now she’s her fiancé.”
“Again?”
“Yeah.”
Garrett shook his head, disgusted. “Julian, we said you needed a friend withbenefits, not baggage. A woman who will make you forget this intern, not one that is banging your sister.”
“Production assistant,” I corrected automatically.
Garrett gave me awhat’s the differencelook that I didn’t bother answering. We got our drinks and rejoined our dates. I was glad to see that Shelly and Destiny were getting along so well. It made the conversation flow easily, which meant I could mentally check out. Nod at the right places. Laugh when Garrett did.
And think about Willow.
There was no reason for her to be here tonight, but I’d still hoped. It wasn’t unlike Miller to bring a crew member as a security blanket. He wanted to be where the people were, but he didn’t have a damn thing to say to them half the time.
I made my way back to the bar solo to get the next round of drinks before the lights flickered, indicating we needed to make our way into the auditorium and take our seats. Inexplicably, I found myself standing beside Fletcher James.
“Long time, no see,” he said with a megawatt grin. If anyone snapped a picture of us, we’d look like best friends instead of bitter rivals.
I didn’t bother to play along though. “I just saw you standing on the other side of the room. What the hell are you doing over here?” It was a serious question. That side had its own bar. There was no reason for Fletcher to be bellied up to this one. He was breaking our unspoken contract, the one that said,even though we can’t avoid being at the same events, we can still avoideach other. It kept things nice and civil.
Fletcher feigned surprise at my abrupt tone. “I wanted to say hi to Lewis, Jr. What’s wrong with that?”
I hadn’t been calledjuniorsince I was a teenager. I hadn’t liked it then. I sure as hell didn’t like it now, and especially not from him. But I wasn’t going to engage. I didn’t know what he was up to, but I wouldn’t put it past him to goad me into a fight that would inevitably make its way back to O’Conner and end in our mutual destruction. No way would O’Conner sell to either of us if word got printed that we were fighting because of the rights to his book.
I ignored him, but Fletcher wasn’t going to give up so easily. “How’s your little documentary going?” he asked casually. “I heard there was an incident last week.”
I had to fight to keep from reacting. How the hell had he heard about that? How closely was he following Lewis Productions these days? Not Lewis Productions, I corrected myself,me. He was determined to find some dirt that would smear my name and ensure that O’Conner would never work with me again. The motherfucker. I wasn’t mad, though. I just wish I’d thought of it first. When Dana got back, I’d talk to her about it. We could hire Landon’s security company.
