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“What gave you that idea?” I asked.
My ex-wife had hooked up with a film studio executive a few months ago and this time, it seemed to last.
“She asked me if I liked him,” Summer said, an expression of intense dislike on her face. “I said no and she asked if I could try.”
“Well, you could try,” I said, trying to hide the amusement I felt at the thought of Summer having to try to like someone.
“I could pretend,” Summer amended, looking at me. “I think that is what she wants,” she said with a sigh. “She said something about us coming out there to spend time with her, Trevor and his son.”
“Us?” I asked. This was news to me. Did Star want me to come out to LA too?
“Yes, you too,” Summer grinned, enjoying pulling me into the drama.
This was the first time I’d heard of it. “She said she’d talk to you,” Summer added.
This meant Summer was probably right, Star could be thinking about taking things to the next level with this Trevor.
“We’ll see,” I said. I had no intention of going to see Star and her new lover in their love nest up in La-la-land. If she wanted to see us, she could come here, which I knew would not happen. Star liked to pretend that she had never lived here, had never been something as boring as a wife and mother with a house and dinner to cook for her family. She had recreated her image as a stylist to the stars. Someone glamorous and above the drudgery of normal life.
I decided to immerse myself in work.
But my thoughts kept straying to the night before and to Evie. It shouldn’t really have surprised me that it happened, and yet it did. Over the past two weeks, things had changed between us. From a rather rocky start, she had managed to find her feet quickly. In a matter of days, she had figured out exactly what I wanted. She developed an attitude with people from work, and it was amusing to see how she dealt even with important people. Like, when Max Topper, the CEO of a major tech company called to talk to me, and she told him I was not available.
I was standing at her desk, talking to her about some meeting I had to attend in Washington the following week when the phone rang.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Topper,” Evie said in a crisp, professional voice. “Mr. Sagarro is out all afternoon in a development meeting. If you leave a detailed messaged, I will make sure he gets it.”
“That was impressive!” I said after the call.
She blushed, which was cute.
Then she confessed that Summer had shared some tips with her on how to deal with me.
“The rat!” I said. “How did you manage to get that kind of highly-confidential info out of her? Waterboarding? Sleep deprivation?”
She looked sheepish. “Actually, I fed her MacDonalds.”
She knew how I felt about nutrition and healthy food, but she’d been helping me out with Summer because the nanny was sick. I kind of admired the underhanded way she had gone about getting in Summer’s good books. It was the sort of thing I would have done myself. Looking at the outcome, what was one high calorie, super processed and preservative-laden meal compared with an extremely productive employee who was able to truly assist me in my work?
I started noticing other things about her as well.
She was attractive but not drop-dead gorgeous. Somehow, I liked that. She was natural, real. She didn’t wear fake eyelashes or acrylic nails, didn’t have loads of make up on her face. Some days she had her hair in a messy ponytail, or in a bun with a pencil. That made me think of a scatterbrained librarian and all kinds of fantasies popped into my head about taking the pencil out and watching her hair fall on her shoulders.
I’d never had fantasies about my personal assistants before. I’d never been romantically involved with anyone at work, it had never occurred to me to view my female colleagues and employees as anything other than professionals working with me.
But it was different with Evie.
As the days passed, I started wondering about her, who she was in her private life, what she liked doing. Did she exercise? Do sports? Did she watch a lot of TV? I sometimes asked questions but she tended to be vague when it came to herself. Instead of discouraging me, that only seemed to heighten my interest in her.
I started watching her.
When she took calls that seemed personal, I would try to get into the vicinity to hear what she was saying. When she was at home, talking to Summer, I would listen to their conversations, but never learned much. It was infuriating. I was used to women who loved talking about themselves, what they liked and didn’t like, but Evie was not like this. One morning I overheard her asking Summer where we went forice-cream.
“Are you kidding?” Summer exploded with mock outrage. “All that sugar, dairy?! We don’t poison our bodies like that!”
“Right,” Evie said and they laughed, ganging up against me.
Then Summer said, “But there is a place in town that Dad once took me to, it’s sugar-free, dairy-free, everything free.”
