“How’s it going?” he asked.
Jeez, where to start?
“Busy day,” I said, since I didn’t want to stand there all night filling him in on the day I’d had, and I was pretty sure he wouldn’t want to hear it, anyway. “How about you?”
He walked closer. Wow, he smelled kind of good. “Busy,” he said.
He looked handsome too, with the security lighting reflecting off his blond hair. The T-shirt he wore fit tight, showing off the muscles in his chest and belly.
“I came by to explain why I haven’t been here,” he said.
“Do you want to come upstairs?” I asked. It came out in kind of a breathy little whisper—but I didn’t mean for it to. I swear.
Cody grinned—that kind of grin. He eased closer. A crazy heat rolled off of him.
“I’d love to come upstairs,” he said. Oh, wow, Cody had a Barry White voice. “But I can’t work on your place tonight.”
“Oh.”
I know I sounded majorly disappointed, but what else could I do when he was talking that way?
“Maybe I should come up, anyway?” he asked.
Cody moved closer, then leaned down and kissed me.
My thoughts scattered.
Oh my God. I can’t kiss Cody. I have an official boyfriend, and I’m a real stickler about—
No, wait. I don’t have a boyfriend—official or otherwise.
Why can’t I ever remember that?
He pulled away and gave me a how-about-it eyebrow bob.
I was tempted—really tempted. Cody was good looking, and I’d been lonely, and he seemed like a great guy. Maybe this was just what I needed to finally get over my breakup with Ty.
But I couldn’t do it.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“No problem.” Cody smiled and eased away. “I’ll be back to finish up the work in your place.”
He got in his truck.
I went up to my apartment.
CHAPTER 14
“Good morning, good morning,” Priscilla something-or-other, the office manager, called out in a pleasant singsong voice. “Let’s all get settled.”
I was in the conference room at L.A. Affairs for my first staff meeting. The chairs were arranged theater style, and a table at the rear of the room held coffee, juice, and pastries. Everybody looked fabulous dressed in chic business suits.
So far, I liked this way better than the meetings at Holt’s.
Since there was no big-guy-from-menswear equivalent here that I could sit behind, I headed for the last row of seats.
Then I spotted Eve, one of the assistant planners I’d chatted with several times when we’d run into each other in the breakroom. Eve was a huge gossip. She was forever dishing dirt, talking smack, and running her mouth about everything and everybody in the office—so, of course, I made it a point to sit next to her.
Kayla sat down beside me and sipped her coffee. “Did you see that Vanessa is here today?”
I glanced around the room and saw her chatting with Priscilla. She looked fantastic, of course, which really irritated me.
“Brace yourself,” Kayla said.
Priscilla stepped to the podium and kicked off the meeting by welcoming me, the newest employee, to the firm. At her request I stood and executed my mom’s pageant wave to perfection, and everybody gave me a polite round of applause—everyone but Vanessa. I saw her lean into the woman next to her and whisper something, and I could tell from her reaction that Vanessa had said something stinky about me.
Bitch.
“I have a few announcements,” Priscilla went on, consulting a tablet on the podium. “First of all, BeeBop the clown is not available for bookings. He’s currently on tour.”
From the reactions around the room, I got the feeling on tour was code for in rehab.
“Next, there’s a list of additional vendors that will be e-mailed to everyone this afternoon,” Priscilla said. “Let’s all give them a try, if possible.”
“We’re always getting new vendors,” Kayla whispered. “Mostly because the old ones get fed up working with Vanessa.”
“Sadly, I must report that Lacy Cakes has been removed from our approved list,” Priscilla said. “With the unfortunate and untimely death of the owner, the future of the bakery is in question, so we’re holding off on placing orders there until we learn something definite.”
“That Lacy Hobbs was a holy terror,” Eve said quietly to me.
“How so?” I whispered back.
“It was her way or no way,” Eve murmured. “If you crossed her, she never forgave you—and never forgot. You were dead to her. She’d refuse to talk to you no matter who your client was. She’d call Priscilla and demand to work with a different planner.”