Page 12 of Touch Me

She matches his grin. “Never. Agenting is ninety percent afull contact sport. Ten percent observation. Today, I’m out of uniform.” Shemakes a V with her fingers and taps the tips under her eyes. “And I’m watchingyou both.”

“No tricks,” Matthew says, holding up his hands. “In fact,we’ve got a solid treat.”

“Very solid,” Carson adds. They glance at each other, bothlooking like they’ve swallowed the canary.

It could be a bluff. They both not only grew up inHollywood, but thrived here. Which, of course, means that lying is pretty muchsecond nature. The hard part is remembering what lies they told.

At the same time, I know them both. I’ve worked with themboth. And I trust them both. If they say they have good news for me, then Ibelieve them.

“Well, I’m guessing you’re not upping my comp to fiftypercent of the gross,” I quip. “Evelyn would have been in on that negotiation,and there’s no way she’d have been able to keep that secret.”

“The lady knows me well.”

I shoot her a quick smile. “I do. And I know these guyswell, too. And they’re about to explode with their good news. And since theonly thing that would make me truly giddy is a box office magnet foaming at themouth to play Breaker, then I’m going out on a limb and guessing that you boyscaught yourselves a living, breathing movie star.” I say the last with acountry accent, doing my best to channel Ellie Mae Clampett.

Carson chuckles—he’s the one who introduced me to TheBeverly Hillbillies in the first place. The films he makes may be edgy andwild, but his favorite pastime is to curl up with his dog and watch old TV.

Considering my favorite pastime before getting married wasgetting drunk and fucking my way across Los Angeles, I figure I’m in noposition to judge.

Carson and Matthew eye each other like two mischievous boys.I glance at Evelyn, who just shakes her head. They’re bothclearly—genuinely—excited, and why not let them have their fun building thesuspense?

Then Matthew leans over and pushes the intercom button.“Send him in.”

No sooner have the words left his mouth than the door clicksopen, and I watch as Hollywood’s hottest leading man walks across thethreshold.

He’s the first man I ever truly fell for.

The man who treated me like shit.

The asshole I hate most in the world.

The bastard who broke my heart.

Oh, god…

My stomach does a backflip, and I try to bolt for the door.

I don’t make it.

And right there, twelve floors above a dozen Hollywoodsoundstages, I hurl the muffin I’d grabbed in the lobby all over Bryan Raine’strendy, hand-painted sneakers.

Chapter Four

“You really just left?” Nikki passes me the glass ofchardonnay, then pours one for herself. I’d called her from my car,half-laughing and half-crying, and she’d ordered me to come straight to herhouse for lunch and consolation.

I probably should have left my car and taken a Lyft—becausegod knows I have zero memory of how I made it from Burbank to Malibu—but “goodchoices” has never been up there on the list of words that describe me.

Still, I made it alive, and now I’m staring into a glass ofwhite wine that I don’t really want and wondering what I could have possiblydone to piss off the Hollywood Gods. Because I definitely have some bad mojo.Why else would Carson and Matthew toss Bryan the Bastard at me?

Well, other than the whole the boy is box office goldthing.

“Earth to Jamie.”

I blink, then look up, realizing I’ve been watching thereflection of her light fixture in my wine. “Sorry, what?”

“I said, you really just walked out?”

“Well, the vomit came first. And it was more of a run. No,actually, it was a stumble.” I close my eyes and breathe. “Correction. The wordI’m looking for is clusterfuck. It was a total clusterfuck, and I was thefuckee at the center. And not in a fun orgy kind of way.”