“No problem at all.”
“On another note, I’ve heard from every friend I’ve ever had asking me who my sexy new man is.”
“Great,” he said with a groan.“The Ivy might’ve been a mistake.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered where we were.They would’ve found me.This is the part of my job that I hate the most.I can’t even have lunch with a man, who is myattorney, without it being all over TMZ that I’m in a new relationship.Ty even heard about it at school!”
“Ugh, that sucks.Freaking paparazzi.”
“They’re the worst.”
“We’re on the job.Try not to worry.”
“Thank you again.”
He ended the call with Cresley and called Carson.
“What’s good?”Carson said when he took the call.
“The usual insanity.I might need you on Cresley Dane’s case after all.”
“Sign me up, brother.Does she need me to get right over there to provide comfort and counsel?”
“Easy, killer,” Julian said with a chuckle.“I need you to find her deadbeat baby daddy, who’s suddenly resurfaced looking for money right after she signed a big new deal.And he allegedly has some dirt on her that’d prove embarrassing if it got out.For some reason I can’t quite fathom, he’s not returning my calls.”
“And you’re such a nice guy.”
“Right?”
“Send me what you know about him, and I’ll get on it.If you wanted to mention to Cresley that I’m handling itpersonally, that’d be fine with me.In fact, you should feel free to send over her number so I can reassure her myself.”
“You’re a clown.”
“She’s asupermodel, my dude.What’s wrong with you that you’renotinterested?”
“Other than her being my client?”
“Yeah, other than that.”
Why did Isla’s pretty face pick that exact moment to pop into his mind, reminding him all over again of how connected he’d felt to her the night before?
Julian shook off those thoughts as quickly as they’d appeared.“Gotta go.I’ll get you the info on the baby daddy as soon as I get to the office.”
“I shall be waiting with bated breath.”
“Gross.You ought to do something about your bait breath if you’re setting your sights on a supermodel.”
Carson was laughing when the line went dead and his Sirius XM picked up with his favorite channel, Classic Vinyl.
“Idiot,” Julian said even as he smiled about Carson’s foolishness.He had no trouble whatsoever attracting female companionship.In fact, if he set his sights on Cresley, she’d probably be interested, supermodel or not.She was only human, and the ladieslovedCarson.
He turned up the volume to sing along to the Badfinger song “Day After Day” as he drove past the Beverly Hills Hotel in the neighborhood where they’d been raised on Lomitas Drive.Corbin now lived alone in the big house.
Anyway, about Carson and women… It wasn’t that they didn’t dig Julian, too, but for Carson, it’d always been seemingly effortless in a way it’d never been for Julian.When they were younger, he’d been the awkward one, while Carson was Mr.Smooth from about sixth grade on.Sometimes Julian felt like he’d never truly outgrown his awkward stage, especially since his goal was to stay single forever.
Most women didn’t want to hear on the first date that there was no chance of any kind of future.Once in a while, he met one like Stacey, who said they wanted the same things he did, until they went and fell in love and ruined a good thing.
He was relieved to have not heard any more from her since their office standoff the other day, but he had an uneasy feeling he hadn’t seen the last of her.
