Devi set my cherry-vanilla latte on the desk with a little harrumph and eyed the mini pies with suspicion. “You’ve been baking.”
“Just some pies.” I flopped into one of the chairs facing the desk, which still had hot guy pheromones all over it. I sucked back a deep breath, savoring the lingering scents of cinnamon, leather, and the faint, intoxicating musk of a warm, clean male.
“Katie.”
“What?” I glanced up; Devi was studying me accusingly.
“Just pie?”
“And some scones.”
She raised a slender eyebrow.
“And a few cookies,” I added.
“What flavor?”
“Chocolate chip.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And pecan butter ripple.”
“I knew it. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. You look…” Devi looked at me sideways. “Horny.”
“I am not horny,” I lied. Who wouldn’t be after getting eye-fucked like that? My head was still dangerously deprived of blood.
Devi sat down behind her desk. She looked gorgeous, as always, her dark hair smoothed out, flawless cappuccino skin set off with velvety red lipstick, sleeveless black top tricked out with a chunky necklace and leopard-print leggings, all of which she’d probably worn specifically for the meeting she’d just had. Fashion was just one of the many ways Devi built rapport with people.
I, on the other hand, considered myself coordinated if I managed to pull on matching shoes.
“Spill.” She gathered up the slew of model photos that littered the surface of her desk, stuffing them into a file folder. “I’ve got like ten minutes before my next meeting. What’s up?”
“Nothing. We just miss you.” It was true; my best friend had been pulling a lot of overtime, which was great for her career but not so great for me.
“I miss you guys too.” She reached beneath the desk and pet Max. “But that’s not the reason you busted in here.”
“Again, sorry. Just wanted to talk to you. I figured this may be my only chance to do it face-to-face.”
“Talk about…?”
I took a breath and sighed. “I think… I may be ready.”
Devi lit up, then caught herself and cooled her reaction. “Oh?” She was trying really hard not to jump for joy. It was kind of cute.
“I know you’ve been telling me this for a long time. I just had to get there myself.”
“For sure.”
“For so long I just wasn’t ready, you know? And then maybe I was, sort of, but I was scared. And then it just got easy to keep avoiding it. But now…”
“Now?” Devi fluttered her dark eyelashes hopefully.
I sipped my latte. “Are you sure you have time for this?”
“Hell, yes.”
“Okay. I think I need to go on a date.”
“Halle-fucking-lujah!”
“Alright. Ugh. I’m so bad at this.” Just saying it out loud to Devi made me nervous. Especially when she got all sparkly about it.
“What? Dating?” Devi sipped her coffee, waving a manicured hand in the air. “You always say that, but you never date. How do you get good at anything unless you practice?” She waggled her eyebrows, making me grin.
When it came to dating, Devi was a total pro. I, on the other hand, was pretty much a born-again virgin, more or less by default.
“You’re going to meet someone who blows your lid off, babe. You just have to put yourself out there.” Devi’s cell phone buzzed and she glanced at the screen. “Oh! I should take this.” She picked up. “Hey, Maggie!”
I wandered over to the stack of magazines on the coffee table. These days, I was getting used to sharing Devi with her other life. Just one more hint from the universe that I needed to get a life of my own.
I sank onto the couch and flipped through a French Vogue. Max came to lay at my feet and I toed his soft fur with my sneaker. Devi was such a natural with people. She’d forgotten more hot men than I’d ever dreamed of meeting. The concept of not putting herself out there wouldn’t even cross her mind. But for me, the whole idea of exposing myself to rejection and failure made my stomach churn.
Still, she was right. I wasn’t about to meet guys sitting at home with my dog.
Not like I hadn’t tried.
“Okay? Oh. Okay…”
I glanced up at the odd tone in Devi’s voice. Bad news? Her eyes met mine, but I couldn’t quite read the look in them.
“Mm-hmm. Right. Okay… no, no problem. I totally understand.” I went back to my magazine while she finished up the conversation, which was brief and consisted of a lot of “Totally,” and “No problem,” and “Of course.”
I looked up again when Devi hung up. She was staring at her phone, like it might somehow explain to her what just happened. “Well. That was interesting.”
“A client?”
“No. Maggie Omura. You just met her. Kind of.”
“Oh.” Right. The pretty dark-haired waif with the hot guy and the even hotter guy. “Max liked her. Didn’t you, Max?” At the sound of his name, Max woofed contentedly.
Devi leaned back in her chair, assessing me. “You also just met Jesse Mayes, which you’re playing it awfully cool about.”
“Who?” I slurped whipped cream from the top of my coffee.
Devi sighed. “Honestly, Katie. Are you kidding me? Jesse Mayes?”
“What? That guy who just left?” I pretended to be enraptured with a deodorant ad in my magazine. “One of your models?”
“I wish. Jesse Mayes is only one of the hottest rock stars in the world and as an incredibly cool young person you should really know what I’m talking about.”
I assumed she added the “incredibly cool young person” comment since last week we got into an argument when she said my apartment looked like an old lady lived in it. And after I’d rigidly defended my music collection (on vinyl), my home phone (on a cord), and my TV (which didn’t exist), I realized she had a point, and maybe she was just scared of losing her best friend to spinsterhood at the age of twenty-four, which was probably a realistic fear.
I gave her my best stink eye anyway. “So?” Then I went back to my magazine, because in truth I had no idea who Jesse Mayes was. Other than the hottest guy in the known universe.
“So,” she said, “I thought you liked Dirty.”
“Dirty what?”
“The band. Dirty.”
“Oh. Who doesn’t?” I looked up again. “You mean, he’s in that band?” I knew music. Kind of prided myself on it. But people? People were Devi’s domain.
“He’s their lead guitarist. And he sings like a sexy beast.”
That, I could believe.
“He just put out a solo album and they’re shooting a music video in town. The woman they cast to star in it with him as his music video girlfriend bailed.” Devi tipped her pretty nose in the air. “Not from our agency, of course.”
“Of course,” I said, but she’d lost me somewhere around sexy beast. I was now trying to recall every Dirty song I knew, and imagining how Jesse Mayes would look playing guitar, and singing under a spotlight all covered in sweat.
“Anyway.” Devi sipped her coffee, eying me over the rim. “Long story short. I met Maggie at a party a while back. She works with Dirty as the assistant to their manager, you know, the dude with all the tattoos.”
Uh-huh. Hottie number two.
“She’s involved in a lot of their publicity and whatnot and naturally we’ve been in touch.”
“Naturally.”
“She called me up last night. They’re looking to recast, but they’re having some issues getting Mr. Rock Star to commit to what he wants. Maggie knew they’d be in the neighborhood today, so she took the opportunity to haul his ass in here and have him choose one of our girls.”
“That’ll be some lucky girl.” I kept flipping through the magazine, but I didn’t really see the pages. I was too busy trying to picture J
esse Mayes with his shirt off.
“Exactly. They just hired one of our models.”
“Well that’s good for you, right?”
“It’s great for me. Katie, pay attention.” Devi stood, came around her desk and took the Vogue from my hands. “They changed their minds. They just called to drop her.”
“Oh. Well, that’s shitty.” Why was Devi all up in my face about it?
She dropped the Vogue on the coffee table with a resounding splat. “They dropped her because they want you.”
CHAPTER TWO
Jesse
If there was one thing I hated about being a rock star, it was shooting music videos.
They were tedious as hell, or more specifically, limbo. It was all hurry up and wait, all fucking day.
They were also total bullshit. I’d spent half the morning shooting take after take after take. Fake singing with my guitar, fake singing with my shirt off, fake singing with my guitar with my shirt off. And fake was a total fucking turn off.
I’d spent the rest of the morning on my phone in one of Brody’s spare bedrooms while the wardrobe girls dressed me up like a damn doll. Maggie had even gotten in on it, popping up between a couple of wardrobe racks with a pair of jeans that looked exactly like every other pair I’d tried on.
Fuck it.
I dropped the jeans I was wearing, and this time let my underwear go along with them. I kicked the jeans off my feet, stood there buck naked and said, “Make this one count, ladies.”
Maggie took it like the pro she was and handed over the jeans with a frown of disapproval. One of the wardrobe girls seemed to have swallowed her tongue and got busy looking anywhere but at my dick. The other one almost said something as I stepped into the jeans, commando, and zipped them up. Almost.
“Perfect.” I turned to leave.
“Jesse!” Maggie called after me. “We still need a shirt.”
“Whatever.” I yanked on my T-shirt as I went. “I’ll wear whatever.”
I headed downstairs, into the fray, waving off the half-dozen people who wanted to talk to me along the way. Any one of them probably would’ve fetched me anything I wanted, but I was already tired of being poked, primped and waited on.
All I really wanted was to get this day fucking over with and get down to L.A..
There were way too many people crowded into Brody’s place. Film crew, band management, security, wardrobe, makeup, and the many models that had been hired for the shoot were making the massive house feel like the bus we used on our first Dirty tour—totally overrun with hangers-on.
The house was strewn with lights, camera equipment, and all kinds of crap that was being used for the morning-after scene in the living room. It might’ve just been easier to actually throw a party and let everyone trash the house rather than make it look like the aftermath of a shaker. Zane had suggested it; no surprise Brody vetoed that one.
I passed the living room, where they were setting up for that scene, crew prepping a camera on the dolly track. Zane was in there, the only women in the room swarming around him like bees on a honeycomb, dabbing at him with makeup sponges and finger-styling his beach-blond hair while he ate a bowl of something with chopsticks.
Zane and Dylan, two of my bandmates in Dirty, were doing cameos in the video, the second single from my debut solo album. Since the album was called Sunday Morning, Brody had asked me what I’d be doing on an ideal Sunday morning. I said, “Fucking,” he ran with it, and the concept for the video was born. Zane and Dylan would be passed out in the living room in the aftermath of a party along with a bunch of babes, which would take about two seconds to shoot since all they had to do was lie around. Meanwhile me and the model that was playing my girlfriend would be getting it on, which would probably take hours to shoot, since I had to fake-sing the entire song to her while we went at it and the camera probably had to catch it from a billion different angles.
I was bored already.
I stalked into the dining room, which was mostly empty. Just a bunch of hot chicks fussing over their reflections in the big wall mirror and making goo-goo eyes at Dylan, who was in the adjoining music room, kicked back behind the drum kit in his kilt, talking to Brody, eating a sushi cone and being characteristically laid-back, borderline oblivious, about the attention.
I was about to dive into the sushi myself when the lone girl on the other side of the table snagged my eye.
She looked different from the other girls loitering around the house. For one thing, she was short for a model. The other girls were also completely ignoring the food. This one was hovering over it, looking adorably confused in her oversized bathrobe.
“You alright?” I took one of the avocado rolls she’d been eying and popped it, whole, into my mouth.
She looked up at me, and her already big eyes went wide. They were a pretty blue-green, a nice contrast to her dark hair. She looked familiar, maybe. But then again, I’d spent the last month having hundreds of photos of models shoved in my face.
“Um… I’m just not sure what to eat? They gave me a straw for my drink, to protect the lipstick, and the robe to protect my clothes.” She held up the water bottle she was holding, a straw poking out the top. “But I’m not sure how to eat without destroying this.” She made a sweeping gesture to indicate her face.
“Eat what you want,” I told her. “They’ll retouch it.”
She nibbled on her bottom lip, unsure.
“Eating your lip will probably do worse.”
She let go of the lip and blushed a little. I could see the color on her cheeks even through the high-def makeup they’d lacquered onto her already flawless skin. She smiled a little. “Thanks for the pro tip.”
“And you’ve got lipstick on your teeth,” I said, popping a cherry tomato into my mouth.
“Shit.” She ran her tongue over her front teeth.
“If you’re really worried about it, have some of these.” I put the bowl of cherry tomatoes in front of her. “They don’t even need to touch your lips.” I winked at her and she blushed again.
This girl was too cute. Unfortunately she was fangirling at me big time.
Then again… I hadn’t fucked a groupie in a hell of a long time.
“Hey, Jesse.” Maggie walked in. “They’re ready for your next shot. Then it’s time for your scene with Katie.”
“Who?”
“Katie.” Maggie looked from me to the girl in the robe and waved a thumb at the girl. “Your girlfriend du jour. You met her at the agent’s office.”
I looked her over again, slowly—what I could see of her in the bathrobe. “What happened to the blonde?”
Maggie looked annoyed. “You didn’t want the blonde, remember?” I did remember. I just liked messing with Maggie. “You said she was, quote, ‘forgettable,’ as soon as we left the office.”
“Because I had no idea which one you chose.” It was true. I’d pretty much been writing song lyrics in my head the entire time she and Brody perused the models on offer.
Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “I knew it.” She made a gesture toward the girl in the robe again, who was standing there like a fawn caught in the headlights of a Mack truck. “Good thing we picked someone else. Katie. Remember?”
I stared at the girl, and finally it came to me.
Girl in the wet shirt.
She’d looked different then. No makeup. Damp hair. Kind of flushed.
Unintentionally sexy.
Now she looked awkward-sexy.
Maggie made a noise of exasperation. “Don’t mind him,” she said to Katie. “He’s been in a bad mood. For like a year.”
“I remember.” I held Katie’s gaze, ignoring Maggie. “Cherry pie.”
Her cheeks turned pink again. Damn, she was cute.
This shoot just got a hell of a lot more interesting.
“There’s pie?” Zane walked in, and it took all of two seconds for his gaze to find Katie. And stay there.
Great.
“Who’re yo
u?” he demanded.
“Um, Katie,” she said.
Zane, being Zane, went all the way around the very long table, took her hand, and kissed it. “Sweet to meet you, Katie. I’m Zane.” He gave her his ultra-intense, ice-blue-eyed Viking stare down; the one that generally got him any pussy he wanted.
“Cool,” Katie said. She stared at Zane, because that’s what women did.
“Alright,” Maggie said, rounding the table and hauling Katie away. Maggie was one of the few women I’d ever met who was immune to Zane’s bullshit. “Don’t mind Zane. He’s like that with everyone.”
Not everyone. Just women he wanted to fuck.
When the girls were gone, Zane looked over at me. He froze on the receiving end of the look I gave him. “What?”
I turned to leave, just as one of the wardrobe girls came in with a shirt for me.
“Not that one,” I said, and walked out.
CHAPTER THREE
Katie
I’d never felt so out of my element in my life.
The thing was, I’d been sitting on the sidelines of my own life for so long that I’d kind of forgotten what my element was.
Which was how I’d ended up here. I’d let my best friend convince me, Katie Bloom, regular girl with not one shred of modeling or acting experience, that I could play super-cool girlfriend-of-a-rock-star in Jesse Mayes’ hot new music video.
What the fuck was I thinking?
Today was the first time in my life I had legit palm sweat.
I rubbed my palms on the plush robe, my hands tucked into the pockets as I followed Maggie through the massive house she said belonged to Jesse’s manager, Brody, the guy with the tattoos from Devi’s office. I’d met him for real this time, and he had this intensely sexy business-meets-rock-’n’-roll thing going on that made me all tongue-tied. I was relieved when the incredibly nice Maggie rescued me from that conversation. Same, when she did it again with Zane. Because what the hell would I say to Zane Traynor, the most charismatic frontman to rock a pair of leather pants since Jim Morrison?
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