My heart soars. Time with my gorgeous, sweet, sunny sister that doesn’t involve a heart-wrenching trip back to Ireland. Sign. Me. Up.
‘There’s just one tiny detail Ryan is insisting on.’
‘What?’ I knew it sounded too good to be true.
‘You have to collaborate with Jayden. As Ryan’s agent, he’ll be equally involved in the organisation of the event. He has all the inside knowledge.’
‘That smug-faced twat? You’ve got to be joking me.’ Not only is he Ryan’s agent, Jayden’s also his older brother. And a top-notch dickhead. Conceited, arrogant and infuriatingly attractive, and my god does he know it.
If he were a bar of chocolate, he’d devour himself whole.
‘I’m deadly serious. Play nicely now. When Ryan and I get married, you’ll be related.’
‘Ugh, don’t remind me.’
‘He might be a little arrogant…’
‘A little? Who are you kidding?’
Sasha clears her throat with her big sisterly air of authority. ‘He might be a little arrogant, but he’s the best agent in Hollywood. He knows his stuff. The two of you combined are going to make a formidable team.’
I huff like a teenager. ‘Fine.’
‘Just don’t fall into bed with him.’ Sasha pokes her tongue out at me in jest. ‘Turns out he’s even more emotionally unavailable than you.’
She’s certainly changed her tune. At Christmas she was all “Ryan’s got a brother.”
Finally, she must see him for the obnoxious, self-righteous prick that he is.
‘Dubai will freeze over before that happens. Apart from the fact I can’t stand the sight of the man, I’m a professional, I’ll have you know.’
An image of Mark in my bed a mere twenty minutes earlier pops into my brain.
But that was different. Mark’s a decent human being. Nice. Too nice for me.
Jayden Cooper is a different animal altogether.
ChapterTwo
JAYDEN
‘I can’t work with her. The woman has a silver spoon stuck so far up her ass she’d need twelve hours of extensive surgery to have it removed.’ The luxury of my own surroundings isn’t lost on me. An enormous triple-height kitchen. Elaborate marble flooring. Enormous windows overlooking my own private pool, glistening under the moonlight.
The difference is, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon upmyass. I worked damned hard to ram it there. And despite my opulent lifestyle, I like to think I’m still me. Still grounded.
I drive a Ferrari. I live in a mansion on Santa Monica Boulevard. I’m the highest paid agent for the most ruthless record label in LA, but I know where I came from. It’s etched into every cell of my DNA. My father’s rotting in an Irish prison cell, for fuck’s sake.
Definitely no silver spoon here.
My brother’s heavy sigh resounds through the receiver from across the miles. I balance my phone between my ear and shoulder, open the American-style fridge and help myself to an ice-cold Budweiser.
‘She’s about to become my sister-in-law,’ Ryan reminds me.
As if I could forget.
Ryan’s upcoming marriage will turn my jet black hair grey before my thirtieth birthday and it has nothing to do with the lavish nuptial exchange that half the world is desperate to witness and everything to do with the fact he’s desperate to re-negotiate his contract with Diamond Records to spend every waking moment with Sasha Sexton.
She’s hot. I get it. They’re in love. Even I can see that. But is any relationship worth giving up everything you ever worked for? Not in my book. I’ve learnt the hard way that one way or another, they never last.
