As Ellen left the office, Lucas hoped she wouldn’t return with her written resignation the way too many others with similar degrees, and similar good looks, had.
The door drifted shut behind her, and Lucas looked back at the sofa to see that Bobby W had moved to the window overlooking the harbor, a miraculously full tumbler in his hand. How had the old bastard wrangled that?
“Mr. Warren,” he began.
Bobby W turned from the window. “No need for formalities, Luke. We’re all friends here.” He smiled at Rochelle. “Isn’t she a beauty? Wouldn’t anyone kill for a body like that?”
Then Lucas realized what was going on, what the poor old bastard was thinking. Julie Larimore was bad enough. Bobby didn’t need two of them. And neither did he.
He moved toward the window, trying to pretend the woman in the emerald-green dress and matching contacts was not in the room. “Could we discuss this later?”
“Later’s an excuse for those who can’t take action now.” Bobby took another swig and stared past Lucas’s shoulder at Rochelle, smiling so hard he could injure his jaw. “What the hell is so wrong with having a spokesbody—what do you call it?”
“Spokesmodel, Bobbo,” Rochelle said from the sofa.
“Spokesmodel, right.” Then, he turned his gaze on Lucas, and the burn of those still brilliant brown-black eyes and the legacy they carried was stronger than any argument in the room. “Why can’t we have Julie Larimore for Killer Body, Inc. and another spokesmodel for the Ass Blaster?”
“Because, with all due respect—” Lucas shot Rochelle a look that he hoped conveyed just a smidgeon less than that. “Because we can’t confuse the public. Julie Larimoreisour Killer Body. She’s in our ads, on our products, our posters. Bobby, it just won’t work.”
Not now. This was the last thing he needed. Lucas’s collar felt suddenly stiff and itchy. How bad could this timing be? They’d been to the mat, as Bobby W called it, before, and they always came away better friends. Damn, he loved the old man. He could already see the sadness filling the brown eyes. Could see Bobby W, like a kid in grade school, trying to remember a speech, getting ready to explain away this pseudo offer to Rochelle.
Then Lucas glanced at Rochelle and knew, just like that, as sure as there was sun lighting up the water of the Santa Barbara harbor, that she realized there was only one way this little meeting of her-against-him could possibly end.
“All I want is the Ass Blaster,” she said. “I love, love, love it, Bobbo.”
“That’s a lot of loves.” His grin bordered on giddy; the eyes were way too smitten.
“That’s how they say it now in Hollywood—New York, too. No one loves anything. They love, love, love it. And I love, love, love your wonderful Ass Blaster.”
“Sweetheart,” he began, tapping on her thigh with his pale fingers.
“You two talk, and we’ll catch up later,” Lucas said. Then he left the room before he had to embarrass either of them one more minute. On the balcony, breathing that sea-fresh air, he tried to control his temper. So easy to tell the old man to stuff the job, to walk out the way he had on his own father.
No, he could never deal with that kind of guilt again. It was Bobby W’s company, and Lucas could do no more than offer an opinion.
He heard the glass door slide open. Smelled her perfume.
Lavender. Lots of it.
He didn’t bother to turn around. Just looked out on the ocean that calmed him as no person ever had.
“I’ll join you two in a moment,” he said, meaning that she could leave him the hell alone.
“I’d rather stand out here.”
She slid up beside him at the railing. “Besides, Bobbo’s in the john.”
“He’ll be out soon, I’m sure.”
He was trying to be cool, but he had a nasty feeling he wasn’t going to get out of this one unscathed.
She nudged him with her elbow. “So whatwereyou?”
“WhatwasI?”
“You know. Mr. Rose Bowl? Mr. Long Beach, maybe? The jacket’s nice, but it doesn’t cover the obvious.”
“Thank you,” he said.
