“You should go spend some time with your friends,” I said. “You don’t need to hang around with an old man like me.”
Her eyelids fluttered as she cast her eyes to her feet, and her cheeks blushed.
“I never think of you as an old man, Uncle Tobias.”
She spoke softly, her voice trembling slightly, and I can’t help but wonder if she felt the same way about me as I do about her. But she couldn’t. Jacine is young, smart and gorgeous and deserves a young man like herself.
“But I am,” I said.
She laughed gently, almost ruefully.
“Do you remember when I was five I said I’d marry you if I didn’t marry my father?”
My breath hitched. Oh damn. We are not having this conversation. Then I found Franklin staring at us. His face darkened and I smiled wanly to reassure him. If he knew the thoughts I had about his daughter, he would murder me.
“No,” I said.
The tiniest bit of disappointment seemed to tug at her eyes, but then she smiled brightly.
“Of course not. It was a bit of silliness on my part.”
Her sparkling blue eyes caught mine and I couldn’t tear my gaze from hers. And at this moment I knew that to the depths of my soul, I loved Jacine Alexander as a man loves a woman.
I am so glad that she’s going away to New York City. Otherwise, I’d make a big fool of myself and lose everything I ever worked for.
CHAPTER ONE
Jacine
Iscrunched the hard copy of today’s Variety between my hands as the plane landed at LAX. The jolt of the aircraft hitting the runaway did nothing to relieve my pounding heart. Flying didn’t bother me but the newspaper’s headline did.
Three Rock Bands Trade Blows in Eatery
Not three rock groups, but key members of three of the hottest rock sensations in the US, Arcane, Clash, and Obsidian raged at each other. The insane violence spurred customers to run screaming from the trendy restaurant, Angelo’s.
Not an eatery,I thought wryly.The Angelo family will hate that.
A few though, including the ever-present paparazzi, snapped with bacchanalian delight pics and videos that flashed through social media almost as immediately as the event happened.
Welcome to the Information Age.
Tucking the trade rag in my purse, I prepared to flee from this seat with relief. I had spent the past six hours in it miserably scrunched between two hefty women. In a hurry to get to LA, I took an economy class seat, a mistake I will never repeat. My thoughts swirled in a mess as chaotic as the passengers trying to disembark.
PR Head Suffers Cardiac Event after Three Clients Come to Blows.
That sidebar story was the piece that made my heart race. My father was there sitting in a business meeting with a potential client when the three rockers started the ruckus.
In thirty years of public relations, Franklin Alexander witnessed untold absurdities. Some of his customers practiced little discretion. His no-nonsense wrangling of stories and clients saved many celebrities from ruin. That and a rare reputation for honesty in the land of stars made him one of LA's top spin-masters.
I sympathized with Franklin Alexander, my father, but not Franklin Alexander, the businessman. I warned him that taking on the three musicians at once would cause trouble.
But I was too professional to give him a deserved dose of “I told you so.” My father schooled me in every angle of the business and I worked hard to prove my worth as the head of the New York office of Alexander and Wells. Though he would argue, running the New York office was more difficult than the LA branch. The New York celebrity base sprang from deep roots in music and theater, with a few cultivated from the film industry. That crowd demanded stability, reliability, and solid results for their cash. It was a jittery atmosphere compared to freewheeling LA, where anything was on the table, including a few lines of pearly white coke.
I stepped off the plane in Louboutin spiked heels and took the crowded concourse in quick New York long strides that outpaced more leisurely West Coast residents. Anson, the family limo driver answered my phone call immediately.
“I’m here. I’ll meet you at departures.”
“Do you need me to get your bags, Miss Alexander?”
