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Not again. Megan examined Jacqui’s guileless face and knew that Yasmin must not have told her what had happened the last time clothes had appeared on Megan’s doorstep. “Oh yeah, and Yasmin says, after tomorrow, you can meet with a couple of stylists yourself and choose one you want to use.”
“I. Can. Do. My. Own. Dresses,” Megan ground out.
“But these are delivered right to you! Or you can go to our office and they come to you there.” Jacqui put what should have been a soothing hand on Megan’s knee. “Yasmin told me this is all new to you. It’s part of the perks of being a celebrity. You’ll love it! Oh, and speaking of that, if you do yoga or if you want a massage this afternoon, let me know and we’ll have someone come over.”
“This afternoon? You can get someone that quickly?”
“Yeah.” Jacqui’s tone saidduh.
They were on another highway now, rising over the residential streets and moving toward high-rise buildings. Megan realized she’d never asked Alessandro where in LA he lived. Maybe in one of these trendy apartment buildings in the city, like she did.
Jacqui talked about the schedule between now and the Oscars, but Megan had lost her ability to listen. She said “uh-huh” and “got it” a few times, and Jacqui seemed satisfied. The road went up and down, and the high-rises fell behind. The palm trees seemed to get higher—or was that because the houses had gotten smaller? They looked like the ones she’d passed near the airport, though these were in better shape.
And before Jacqui had stopped talking and before Megan could understand where she was, they’d pulled off the highway and into a quiet, tree-lined residential area. They followed the roads up and down steep hills, the small Spanish-style or contemporary houses clinging to the sides so tightly that sometimes she could see only a set of stairs leading up to them.
“Alessandro lives here?” she said, astonished.
“Yeah. Right up there.” Jacqui pointed, and Steve pulled up to a small modern whitewashed stucco house with a front wall of windows and a beautiful door in dark polished wood. A driveway for one car led up to a small garage on the right side, and a set of stairs rose to the house. Between it and the road sat a perfectly manicured rock garden, alive with ground cover and bushes even in January.
Megan could have fit this house into the yard of her childhood home. It had no large gates, no eight-foot fence, no concierge. “He doesn’t live in an apartment?”
“Nope. Don’t you like it?”
“I love it. I just…” She smiled at Jacqui as Steve came around to open the door. “I was making assumptions, I guess.”
“Come on, lemme show you the code.”
By the side of the door was a camera and a digital keypad. Jacqui said, “Watch,” and Megan tried hard to memorize the code she entered so she wouldn’t have to beg her to write it down.
“Who watches the camera when he’s not—Oh!”
She stopped two steps into the house. The light flooded through the windows, revealing an open-plan living room, dining room, and kitchen. White walls were the backdrop to bright modern paintings and swooping organic sculptures. The dining and coffee tables had live-oak edges, and the couch, which faced the windows and a view Megan’s brain couldn’t even take in, was a worn denim blue that tempted her to sink into it and forget the house tour.
“Management,” Jacqui said, recalling Megan to her question. “Landscapers, too. So you don’t have to worry about that. Pool guys come in once every couple of weeks.”
“Pool guys?” Megan asked faintly.
“Yeah! Come see.”
Megan seemed to float over to Jacqui, past the shining steel appliances and concrete countertops of the kitchen, through a dining room that had two doors leading off it, and to another set of floor-to-ceiling windows that Jacqui slid to the side.
“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Megan breathed. The view here was even more overwhelming: treetops and tiled house roofs and, in the distance, a hint of mountains.
“You like?”
“I love.”
“Good!” Jacqui did a little spin on the spot. “You can chill here today. Pool’s ready, and the refrigerator out here has drinks and ice.”
Megan looked down and saw she was standing at the foot of a small plunge pool that somehow had made it onto the tiny lot. Two lounge chairs invited her even more loudly than the couch. Someone—it had to be Jacqui—had even put thick blue-and-white beach towels on them.
“We left a couple of swimsuits in your room in case you forgot yours,” Jacqui said.
“A couple… my what?”
“Lemme show you.” And Jacqui skipped back through the open glass doors and to the right, where Megan quickly discovered a guest room with its own bathroom and walk-in closet, decorated as minutely as the main living areas.
“This is just in case you want your own space, of course,” Jacqui informed her. “The master is upstairs. We made some space for your clothes up there, but some people prefer their own bathroom, so…”
