She tapped her fingers on the resume. As far as Kat knew she was still considering this man-child who needed to get his life straight. That’s who she should be focusing on. She’d already written off the other guy. He’d just been a one-night-stand while she waited for Patrick to come back.
She took a deep breath, her mind once again clear and drama free. It was decided. She wouldn’t ask Kat about him, she would forget about him. One day in the not too distant future she would totally forget all about him. Until then, she had her work.
Taking a sip of her water, she actually did focus on the words in front of her. “Days of Love, huh?”
“You ever watch it?” Kat asked.
She shook her head. “I’ve always had a job.”
Kat let out a little laugh. “Right. They do have these methods for recording TV shows these days,” she teased. “Also, there’s this little thing called the Internet. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but they tend to do this thing called streaming and—”
“You’re hilarious,” Kennedy interrupted in a flat tone. But her lips were tugging up in a smile. Kat, like Emma, was easy to be around. She didn’t take herself too seriously and she didn’t get weirdly nervous around Kennedy like so many people tended to do.
You’ve got to learn how to warm up around people. That’s what Patrick had told her once. He’d meant well. He was just trying to help her be a better people person. What he’d never seemed to understand was that she didn’t particularly want to be a people person. What would being fakely nice get her except some fake friends?
No, her demeanor might not be warm and fuzzy like Emma or open and funny like Kat, but at least she knew that the people who were nice to her actually liked her.
She liked to think of her prickly outer layer as a buffer zone. If people made it through they were strong enough to earn her respect.
Kat and Emma had passed. So had Patrick. Her circle of friends might be small but they were tried and true. Her friends were the kind who lasted a lifetime.
And the sexy guy from the other night? A little voice asked.
Didn’t matter if he’d gotten through or not. One night was not the same as a lifetime.
“You should check out my friend on the show,” Kat continued. “He’s really good.”
Kennedy held her tongue. Ye who never watches soap operas shouldn’t judge. Wasn’t that a saying? Probably not.
She found herself judging anyways and Kat seemed to read her mind.
“Okay, fine, as far as soap operas go, he does a good job. Or he did, before he got killed off.”
Kennedy couldn’t help it, the laugh came bubbling out of her. “He got killed off?” For some reason this struck her as absurdly funny. It would have been one thing to learn that he’d quit because he wanted to find a more stable, long-term career, or that the show was coming to an end because, little as she knew about soap operas, she did know that they were a dying breed.
But no, this poor loser was fired. Canned.
He was freakin’ killed off.
Kat watched her laugh with a funny sort of smile. It was tolerant, like she didn’t want to join in at laughing at her friend’s downfall, but she could appreciate the fact that it had struck Kennedy as funny.
She knew there was a reason she liked Kat.
“Sorry,” she said as she did her best to go back to her typical sober self. Laughing at a potential hiring candidate was hardly professional and she was nothing if not professional.
Usually.
She bit her lip to keep another laugh at bay. “Sorry,” she said again, somber this time. “So, what else should I know about this guy? We don’t have a lot of openings at KidzTV, so if you tell me what you think he might like, what would interest him…”
Kat’s expression was frighteningly perplexed. Kennedy would go so far as to say she’d stumped the poor girl.
She started to get suspicious. Kat was a good judge of character, but if this was an old friend, maybe her judgement was clouded.
“Oh God, is he that dumb?” The blunt question seemed to rouse Kat from her stupor.
“No!” she said quickly. Maybe too quickly. “He’s not dumb, I swear,” she said. “I mean, he should be, but he’s not.”
“He should be?” Kennedy repeated.
Kat grinned. “Oh yeah. You should see how hot this guy is. If all was fair in the world, he would have the IQ of a turnip. No one should be smart and ridiculously attractive.”
Once again Kennedy’s traitorous mind filled with an image of six pack abs and startlingly blue eyes. Her one night stand was attractive. Some might even say ridiculously attractive.
A sick feeling in her gut made her reach for her water again, but this time the feeling had nothing to do with the greasy burger and everything to do with a deep-seated fear that her worlds were about to collide. That her venture to the dark side with Hottie McHotness was about to come back and bite her in the ass. She licked her lips and made sure her voice remained steady as she attempted to delve for the kind of information that wasn’t on a resume—like, what did he look like and oh my God, was he the same guy who’d fucked her senseless the other night?
Instead, she said, “So he’s super attractive, huh? Did you guys ever, um…”
Kat shook her head quickly. “Oh no. God no. Definitely not.”
“Why not? I mean, if he’s so crazy hot and smart and—”
“Not my type.” Kat said it firmly. Since Kat was currently dating a super sexy and, some might say, ridiculously attractive billionaire, this didn’t really narrow it down. Maybe by “her type” she just meant not a billionaire.
“Not your type how?” she asked.
“Too attractive.” Kat made a funny face. “Caleb is so crazy hot, I’d go so far to say he’s beautiful. Gorgeous, even, in a super preppy, clean cut, well-dressed, metrosexual kind of way. I mean, Bryce is hot, obviously, but he’s still a man, you know? He’s manly.”
Some of the tension in her gut eased a bit at Kat’s description, which so did not match the scruffy-beard-sporting stud in her bed. “Ah, so this Caleb guy isn’t manly?”
Kat tilted her head to the side as if weighing that comment. “I wouldn’t say not manly but…” She sighed as if caught red-handed. “Yeah, I guess I’d say he wasn’t very manly.”
The tension eased further. No one in their right mind would say that the sex god from the other night wasn’t manly.
“He’s kind of one of the girls with me and our other best friend, Yvette.”
The tension was nearly gone as it became clear. Caleb was gay. Oh, thank God. “Got it,” she said, hoping her relief wasn’t totally obvious.
Kat toyed with her phone for a minute before pressing her on the topic at hand. “So, will you give him a shot? Please? Pretty please?”
Kennedy rolled her eyes. “You know it’s not terribly professional to beg.”
“Maybe it’s not professional for Katherine the headhunter to beg a hiring manager, but this is friend Kat asking a favor from friend Kennedy.” She clasped her hands in front of her chest and batted her eyelashes outrageously until Kennedy relented with a laugh.
“Okay, fine, I can give him a shot.” She crossed her arms as she added the next part. “If his ego can handle it.”
Kat raised one eyebrow in question. “Handle what?”
Kennedy uncrossed her arms and spread her hands out before her as she laid it all out on the line. “Look, we don’t have many openings at the moment and most of those are high-level positions that would require far more experience than your friend could fudge.”
Kat frowned. “Okay, that’s understandable. He’d be fine starting out entry level, he’s not picky.”
Kennedy had a hard time believing that—not that he wasn’t picky but that a super attractive actor who was probably used to being coddled in life wouldn’t kick up a fuss about what she was about to propose. She supposed they’d both find out soon enough. “We do have an internship opening.�
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Understanding dawned in Kat’s expression and now it was her turn to muffle a laugh as Kennedy continued. “It doesn’t pay well but it would expose him to all the different departments and at the very least, it would give him some experience for his resume. If you think—”
“Oh God, I can’t wait to tell Caleb he’s going to be an intern,” Kat interrupted with unabashed glee.
Kennedy shot her a questioning look. “Do you think he’d go for it?”
Kat nodded. “I know he will.”
Chapter Six
I’m an intern, Caleb told himself as he studied his reflection in the mirror of the midtown highrise’s lobby. I’m an intern.
Yup, it still sounded just as ludicrous when he said it, even to himself. He straightened his tie and assessed his appearance. He looked the part. He narrowed his eyes and turned so he could study his profile. No, that wasn’t right. He looked the part of a high-level executive, not some intern.
But then, he’d have to reverse his age by a solid ten years to look like an intern.
He bit back a sigh as he met his gaze in the mirror. He refused to feel sorry for himself. Yes, this was a minor setback in his life but that didn’t mean he had to wallow.
He was not a wallower, goddammit. He was an attractive former soaps star with a fan club. How many people could say they had a fan club? Not many. And he’d bet good money that none were interns.
That made him grin, albeit a rueful, mildly self-pitying grin. But it was better than crying.
He was not one of those men who couldn’t cry or even one who was repulsed by it. Maybe it was the many years of being able to well up on demand—a manly tearful glisten when a patient died or a careful tear of happiness when his true love came back from the dead.
She hadn’t really been dead, just presumed dead.
Still, even though he embraced the occasional cry, he was not about to show up at his first day at work at his first non-acting job with tears in his eyes.
He might be a thirty-year-old intern, but he had his pride.
Sort of.
Taking a deep breath, he turned away from the mirror and headed toward the elevators. The guard had given him his guest pass already and if the paunchy bald security guy had thought it was odd that he’d stopped to check himself out, that was his business. He refused to think about what anyone else thought of him today. Not the security guard and not Kat’s friend in HR who’d set this thing up.
Was it a blow to his pride? Yes. But was it a job? Yes. Kind of. Well, it was a foot in the door and that was the best he could hope for considering his severe lack of skills, degree, and training.
Not to mention his complete and utter lack of direction.
He stared up at the ticking numbers as the elevator rose. Counting the floors as they went by was a better use of his time than kicking himself once again for not having a plan in his life. He’d spent the past week doing nothing but that as he sat around his apartment, watching TV in his boxers.
The day he’d found himself watching Days of Love for fun, he knew he’d gone to a very bad place. So really, this internship was a blessing. Even if the pay was nearly nonexistent and the job was demeaning, even if the role was clearly meant for someone a decade younger, it was a blessing. If nothing else it got him out of his apartment.
And it would give him some crucial experience. Kat’s voice in his head reminded him of that, she’d said it more times than he could count the other day when she’d come to his place to pitch the idea.
She couldn’t hide her amusement, though. Oddly, her laughter about his predicament was just what he’d needed. If she’d shown any sort of pity, he might have started to cry in earnest. Not an elegant one-tear cry for the cameras but an honest to God blubber.
But with Kat laughing, he’d found himself laughing too, which was what he needed. First he’d been killed off his show, then he’d been unceremoniously kicked out of a hot woman’s bed, then he’d been informed that the only thing he was qualified to do in the “real world,” as Kat called it, was to intern at a television station. Not just any station, one that was solely geared toward children.
So glamorous. If only the reporters at Soap Opera Digest could see him now.
The elevator came to a stop and he stepped out onto a plush carpet that muffled the sound of his footsteps so he was inadvertently sneaking up on the woman behind the large reception desk.
The receptionist behind the desk was bent down so only the black bun atop her head was visible as she scribbled something on a notepad.
He cleared his throat and her head snapped up.
His heart stopped beating in his chest. For a second he forgot where he was and why as he gaped at the woman—his woman. His mystery woman, rather.
She glared. Her lips were pursed like she’d tasted something sour. With her hair back and that unpleasant look on her face, she looked exactly as he’d last seen her when she’d shut the door in his face.
Only she didn’t seem to recognize him. Not at first. “You must be Caleb,” she said. Then her eyes widened and he could practically feel her gaze raking over him, taking in his body, his eyes, his jaw.
“Fuck.” She spit the curse word at him like a weapon before clamping her mouth shut.
He realized his mouth was still hanging open. “You work here?”
Yeah, that was not the smartest thing he’d ever said and her scornful look said she agreed. She crossed her arms over her chest. “What are you doing here?”
Unbelievable. She’d been the jerk who’d rudely kicked him out and now she was offended that he was here, where he was supposed to be?
“What are you doing here?”
She widened her eyes and arched her brows. God, she was hot when she wasn’t looking like an angry schoolmarm. Actually, she was hot even then, just not nearly as approachable.
She wasn’t exactly approachable now, but the fact that she was no longer glaring and scowling seemed to be a step in the right direction.
“I work here,” she said, her tone dripping with condescension. “As you so aptly pointed out.”
He gave his head a little shake at her nasty tone. Jesus, what was wrong with this woman? What had he ever done to her? Except for sleep with her, obviously, but he was almost certain it had been as good for her as it had been for him.
It had been, hadn’t it? Oh shit. A whole new level of self-pity swept over him as everything he thought he’d ever known about women and orgasms was called into question.
“What are you doing here?” she asked for a second time.
“I work here too.” He watched as her eyes rounded in what could only be described as abject horror.
“No. Not possible.” She shook her head so quickly her tight-ass bun looked in danger of collapsing.
He wished it would. A memory of that long black glossy hair popped up in his mind. She’d looked like a classic Hollywood glamour queen with her hair down and lips that siren red color. One would never guess that kind of sexy siren hotness was hiding behind these stodgy clothes and the severe hair. He had an overwhelming urge to close the distance between them and tug the pins out of her hair so it would fall. Then he’d kiss the hell out of her until she stopped scowling and gave him that come-hither smile again, the one he’d been seeing in his mind’s eye every second of every day since that night.
“You can’t be—” She licked her lips and he found himself staring, fixating on that brief glimpse of her tongue, of her wet lips and the way they parted like she was waiting to be kissed.
Or like she was about to yell at him again. “You cannot be Caleb Jennings.”
She knew his name. His gaze shifted up so he could meet her stare, and that was when it clicked into place. The fact that she’d known his name when he walked in, that she’d seemed to be waiting for him…
Oh holy shit. “You’re Kennedy?” Everything Kat had told him about this woman came rushing back. Particularly phrases like ball buster, hard to impress, in
fluential in the industry, and intelligent in the extreme.
They stared at one another in mutual horror. This could not be happening. As if this day, this job, this new life was not humiliating enough. Now it seemed his new boss, the woman who’d offered him this pity internship was the same woman who’d thrown him out of her place.
Shoeless.
Somehow the fact that he’d been barefoot always made it seem that much worse in his mind.
Not only that, but she clearly hated him—why, he couldn’t say, but if that wasn’t hatred written all over her face he didn’t know what it was.
It definitely wasn’t like, or even lust. He’d seen lust on that face, and this? This was not it.
Contempt was probably the best way to describe the look. He cleared his throat and tried not to be intimidated by this scary woman with her practical pumps and death glare from hell. Sticking his hand out, he gave her his most charming smile, the one he used to win over the most ardent supporters of Brent Blakely, Dr. Brandon Reeve’s arch nemesis. If those diehard fans could still fall in love with him after his character had slept with Brent’s pregnant fiancée, surely it would help to thaw this ice queen.
“So,” he said, forcing a jovial tone as his hand hovered in the air between them. “You’re the super smart hiring manager Kat’s been telling me so much about.”
Her lips curved into a sneer. Her glance dropped down to his hand but she made no move to shake it. “So,” she said, her tone far from jovial. “You’re the actor.”
His hand dropped as he flinched. There was no disguising the disgust in her voice. It was shocking, really. He knew there were people out there who didn’t like actors, but he’d never actually met one.
If the situation were any different he might have called her on it.
He took in her terrifyingly cold eyes and the lips that were pressed together in a firm, unforgiving line.
Yeah, okay, probably not. No matter what the circumstance, he probably would not have confronted this she-devil. It was becoming abundantly clear that the woman he’d thought he’d met the night of the party did not exist. She must have been a figment of his imagination, because the woman before him showed no signs of similarity with the sexy, passionate, funny, charismatic vixen in the taxi and in his bed.
Desire for Days Page 4
