Also, would you please autograph the photo and return it in the envelopeprovided?
Thankyou,
April Jones, PersonalAssistant
He readthe note a couple of times. “This came to your office?” He had all his mail routed through Jay’s office. It was one of the measures he took to ensure his father was kept far away. A restraining order was another precaution, but good ol’ Dad didn’t think the law always applied tohim.
Jay nodded, swiping his napkin across hislips.
“Why?”
“I’m guessing that has something to do with the picture.” Jay sipped his water and looked away, giving London what privacy he could when they sat at the sametable.
London steeled himself. The picture could be one of a half dozen head shots Jay used for promotional purposes, but he didn’t think it would be that emotionally easy. Time hung suspended as he reconciled the way his life was now with not knowing what it would be the second he looked at thatphoto.
He grasped the edge of the image and slowly removed it from the envelope, centimeter by centimeter. Before he made it to the knees, he knew it was a picture of him and Maia at the auction. Excited now, he yanked the photo out andstared.
Maia was breathtaking. Not because her dress fit her curves perfectly—it did. And not because her long, brown hair looked so soft he could feel it sliding between his fingers—because he could. No, she was breathtaking because she looked like a woman in love. He squeezed his eyes shut and then wrenched them open again to verify that the man she was looking at washim.
Itwas.
And he was looking at her with that same awed expression he’d had in every photo of the two of them from high school. He hadn’t known they were being photographed right then or he would have tried to hide his feelingsbetter.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” he muttered. Maia had practically run away from him at the auction, and now she sends him this? The mixed signals were confusing atbest.
“Sign it and send it back. I thought you read thenote?”
“No. I mean, am I supposed to go running to her? Is that what she thinks will happen? That she can snap her fingers and I’m slobbering all over myself to run to her?” He paused, taking a long pull of ice water. The ice clinked against the glass in a polite sound, but inside of London, his thoughts were screaming at oneanother.
Don’t open that dooragain.
Things are differentnow.
She couldn’t handle your life in high school—she can’t handle itnow.
She’s grown up. We’re grownup.
You don’t deserveher.
He pressed the heels of his hands into his temples in an effort to stop thearguments.
“It’s an invitation to the movie.” Jay leaned over his plate. “You should go. It would be an opportunity to get your face out there.” He tapped his finger on the tabletop. “It would be better if you had a kid totake.”
London was an only child and didn’t have any children of his own. He could see the wheels turning in Jay’s head. If he didn’t put a stop to this, Jay would hire some childhood actor to pose as his little brother or something. “There’s only oneticket.”
Jay deflated. “Well, you there alone is better than you not there atall.”
London picked up his fork, ready to taste his steak, though it was probably cold bynow.
“What did you mean, she thought you’d comerunning?”
London didn’t answer. Instead, he focused on cutting the perfect size ofsteak.
Jay leaned back, his eyes narrowing. “London, I know you, man. You’re not the type for a one-night stand. What’s withMaia?”
London put the steak in his mouth and chewedslowly.
“I’m your agent and she’s hot right now. If anything happens with her, I’m the one who’s going to have to deal with the fallout. I deserve a heads-up.”
