Out or in?
Get your mind out of the gutter!!
I laugh out loud.
Dinner, sweet thing. Out or in?
Up to you. I’m just the houseguest.
How’s the repairs coming?
:/ They found mold and have to tear out the drywall. It’ll probably be another couple weeks.
I have room.
:) No need, Jett Brandon. I can find a hotel near the office.
I wasn’t giving you a choice
I wait a moment, then send ;).
So demanding...
You like it.
I love it.
My heart beats hard in my chest.
“There.” Connor slaps the portfolio back down on my desk, and it’s open to the page with the dotted line just waiting for my signature. “Neat and tidy.”
“No surprises this time around?”
He gives me a cheeky grin. “Not as long as you’ve got your head in the game.”
I glare at him, then laugh. “I’m in the damn game, Connor.” The pen I pull from the narrow drawer under the surface of my desk feels weighty in my hand, final.
“One of those big name pop singers is going to be at the Swan tonight,” Connor says while he waits.
“I’ll be there,” I say absently, scanning the document one final time to make sure there’s nothing out of place. “Wait—no, I won’t.”
“Why, do you have a date?”
“Not at the Swan.”
“Where at?” Connor can’t help but pry. He loves gossip as much as anyone in our circle of friends, even if he’s smart enough to keep it to himself.
“It’s not really a date.”
“Make up your mind, Brandon.”
“I have a guest at home.”
“A guest?”
“Are you going to repeat everything I say, or go back to work so you can keep earning your very generous salary?”
“Who’s the lucky girl?” Connor’s eyes are sparkling. He knows about the shit that happened with Emerald—the failed business deal in London, the bitchy double personality, and the older man the cheating slut was screwing around with behind my back. He was the very first one to suggest that I come back to New York and get back into the scene.
Because Connor is a fucking black hole in the gossip world, I can be positive that Angelica won’t end up in the tabloids on his account. “A woman named Angelica.”
“Did you meet her at the Swan?”
“In the elevator.”
“Let me guess—you pulled a Jett Brandon and had her panties off before you even got to your floor.”
I sign my name across the line in big, bold strokes.
“You think I’m going to kiss and tell?”
Connor laughs, and I close the portfolio and slide it back across the desk to him. “You don’t have to tell. I can tell by the look on your face that you’re doing more than kissing.” He leans forward, resting his knuckles on the surface of the desk. “So she’s hotter than the surface of the sun, then.”
I grin up at him.
He nods, shaking his head. “You never take long, do you?”
“I’ve never had a problem with timing.”
“You seemed pretty dead set on swearing off women when you left London.”
“Not women—on time-sucks disguised as relationships.”
“You’ve got someone waiting for you at home! What do you call that?”
I shrug. “It’s a story, man. Her apartment got flooded. I own an entire floor of my building. Best of all, I can do whatever the hell I please with my personal life.”
Connor bursts out laughing at my menacing tone. “You think I’m telling you to kick her out? No way. If you’re letting her stay, she has to be a ten. I wouldn’t mind coming home to that every night. How long is she staying?”
“Couple weeks, maybe three at the most.”
My friend whistles through his teeth. “That’s a deal at twice the price.”
I roll my eyes at him.
Connor tucks the portfolio under his arm and turns to go. “What a letdown, though, when she’s gone,” he says over his shoulder, before disappearing into the outer office.
Chapter Nineteen
Angelica
Hadley’s micromanaging is going to drive me insane.
She spends most of Thursday morning “checking in” with me every six minutes to make sure I’m “managing my time effectively,” which is honestly a new low for her. Something must be going on in her life to make her this neurotic, because as long as I’ve worked at Sisterspark, she’s always been the type to bark out instructions and then correct your work after the fact.
It gets so bad that just before lunch, she stands behind my chair and actually dictates an email that I’m sending to one of my sources. It’s for a post on organic smoothie recipes. It’s not like we’re handling state secrets. I have no idea why this kind of attention to detail is necessary. Yet, because I have to keep paying the rent, I type out the stilted email and let Hadley proofread it for any errant typos.