“Let me get on it. I’ve got a frat brother down in Los Angeles in the publishing industry. Maybe he can get me some information.”
I saw Alix, Layla and Dad walking back in from the front and I quickly ended the call, putting my phone away as the door opened. “Sorry guys, I got a call from the office. Nothing major, just a client who needed their hand held on a contract negotiation.”
“Oh? Anything pressing?” Dad asked, a bit of anxiousness in his voice. I smiled and shook my head, putting him at ease.
“Not at all. The guy’s still got nearly a season and a half left on his current deal,” I said, quickly pulling a client profile out of my head but carefully avoiding saying any names. “He just wants to get more guaranteed money locked in before the trade deadline. He thinks if he doesn’t, he’s going to be put on the trade market for some big free agent or something. Here, I’ll carry Alix’s bags upstairs for you guys.”
Layla laughed, and Alix gave me a shy smile, one that, for the first time since I’d seen her step into the house, actually looked genuine. Still, I wasn’t totally at ease, even as I walked up the stairs and dropped the bags off on her bed. I just couldn’t get the image of her bruised eye out of my mind, nor the way she tried to play it off.
Chapter 5
Alix
The first night home was actually one of the more pleasant ones I’d had in a long time. Derek Prescott isn’t a bad guy, I just felt bad for him being taken in by my mother. Still, there were none of the probing questions from her, and even Kade seemed nicer than usual as we went out to dinner at Studio at the Montage, a really top-flight restaurant in Laguna Beach. I blushed when about halfway through our dinner, a teenage boy who couldn’t have been older than fourteen came up to our table and asked me for an autograph. The staff was about to escort the boy away and maybe even throw him and his family out when I waved them off and instead asked my server for a pen. Used to accommodating any request within reason, I soon had a marker in my hand and signed the boy’s magazine, which looked like it had been rolled up or carried in a book bag for quite a while. He blushed when I gave the picture a kiss as well and handed it back.
“That was nice of you,” Derek commented to me. “Do you do that for every autograph?”
“I don’t get asked very often,” I replied, “but even then, no. It’s just that, well, you know this place. That boy’s family probably won’t get reservations for the next year after that little stunt of his, and he just looked so tied up in knots when he came over to ask. And he was nice about it too, you know. Kind of sweet.”
“You probably just made him the most popular kid in junior high school,” Kade added as we continued our meal. “Are you sure you can handle that?”
I laughed, my eyes drawn to Kade. With his dark brown hair and chiseled jaw, he could have been a model himself if it weren’t for the eternal glint in his eyes. He was handsome, athletic, and on top of all that, very intelligent. Of course, when you graduate with honors from Stanford Law, you have to be intelligent.
The truth was, Kade was too much of a man to be just a pretty face. I know that sounds like I’m putting myself down, and maybe I am. But most of the people in modeling who do more than just a few local shoots do it because it’s the best way they can make good money. Nobody puts up with the egotistical designers and photographers, the demeaning treatment by a lot of the public who see us as nothing more than airheaded sex objects, or the physical hell you put yourself through just to maintain the look that got you popular if we had another way to earn six figures. I was one of the lucky ones, in that I was in a comfortable niche, not in the high-fashion, stick figure world, but still making good money without having to take my clothes off.
Yet I also knew my limitations. I wasn’t going to ever graduate from Stanford like Kade did. He’d certainly be quite the catch for any girl.
“I think I can handle it,” I finally said to Kade, and turned my face back to my plate before my thoughts betrayed me. As I finished my meal, I mentally chastised myself. I mean, sure, Kade was the proverbial all that and a bag of tortilla chips, but he was also my stepbrother. I wasn’t supposed to have any attraction to him.
He’s not blood, a little voice whispered inside my head. No blood, no foul.
I was still confused by the change in my thoughts when we got home, going to bed before anything else could happen. I knew I was intentionally avoiding Kade, but I couldn’t help it. I felt like one more look from those too-discerning eyes, and I’d spill the beans on everything, including things that I didn’t want him or anyone else to know.