Just the Sexiest Man Alive(22)

She smiled matter-of-factly. “All of them.”

“Do you prepare any less now, just because you’re more familiar with what you’re doing?”

“No, of course not.”

“Why not?”

“Because I always want to do the best possible job.”

Jason looked at her pointedly. “Ditto.”

Taylor tilted her head in concession. “Fair enough.”

Jason smiled with her, and for a moment they were just two people being themselves, without anything else mattering.

Until the ring of his cell phone shrilly interrupted the mood, that is.

With a good deal of reluctance, Jason turned his attention away from Taylor and pulled his phone out of his jacket. He checked to see who was calling, then glanced over in explanation. “Sorry—it’s my publicist, Marty. He has a fit if he can’t reach me.” He rolled his eyes in exaggeration.

Taylor smiled. Kind of like partners, she thought.

“Marty! How are you?” Jason answered his phone with affection, knowing full well that he drove the man crazy. As Jeremy liked to joke, Jason’s publicist was the busiest man in show business.

Taylor watched as he listened to whatever news his publicist conveyed. She saw that his expression turned strangely serious.

“I understand,” Jason said, sounding very disappointed. Taylor wondered if he had just lost out on some part. “I guess it was to be expected.” With a terse good-bye, he hung up the phone.

Taylor noticed that Jason stared at his cell phone for a moment longer. When his eyes looked up and found hers, she could’ve sworn he seemed angry.

“Well, Ms. Donovan. It seems we have a problem.”

TAYLOR STARED OUT the lobby windows of her office building, at the enormous mob of paparazzi that had gathered outside. Hovering like vultures and perched with their cameras, they waited in anticipation for their five-hundred-thousand-dollar shot to emerge. She saw that a few photographers had even gone so far as to climb the trees that flanked the building’s courtyard.

“It’s a madhouse out there,” she murmured in amazement, taking in the scene. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many cameras in one place.”

Jason stood behind her, not amazed in the slightest.

“Any idea how they found out I’m here?”

Mesmerized by the media circus, Taylor didn’t notice the sharp edge to his voice.

“Probably one of the secretaries, if I had to guess.”

She looked away from the windows and noticed that the office building was deserted. She had worked late many evenings since coming to Los Angeles, so she was familiar with the routine.

“They lock the other doors after seven,” Taylor said. “This is the only way out.”

“How convenient.”

Jason didn’t bother to hide his bitterness. For some reason, he felt like he’d been punched in the gut since the moment Marty had called to let him know that someone had tipped off the media to his whereabouts. Of course, he should’ve known that Taylor Donovan would inevitably use his name to make one for herself. How typical. He just couldn’t figure out why it bothered him so much this time.

She suddenly turned away from the windows and faced him. This is the part, Jason thought, where she feigns annoyance, then asks how she looks as she primps for the cameras. Ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.

And so Taylor shrugged, as if accepting the fate of their situation. “Well, I guess this is where you do your thing,” she said, gesturing to the door that was their only way out. “Have fun.” And with that, she did the unthinkable.

She walked away.

She had gone only a few steps when she glanced back at Jason, apparently with one final thought. “It’s been . . . interesting, Mr. Andrews,” she said. Then she hurried off toward the elevator bank.

Jason stood there, speechless. Funny how he seemed to be like that quite a bit whenever he was around her.

He watched for a few moments, thoroughly confused, as Taylor walked away. Then he finally managed to find his voice.

“Wait!”

She stopped abruptly when he shouted and turned around. He gestured questioningly to the door.

“Aren’t you coming, too?”

Taylor stared at him incredulously. “Are you crazy? There must be a hundred cameras out there. I’ll leave later, when everyone’s gone.”

Jason’s jaw almost hit the floor. “Let me get this straight,” he said slowly. “You don’t want to be seen with me?”

He then looked at Taylor with such disbelief she couldn’t help but smile. He was quite cute when utterly clueless.

“I have a trial in one week,” she told him. “I can’t risk being accused of trying to bias the jury pool by being seen in the media with a celebrity. The judge could throw me off the case for that.”

Then she looked at Jason pointedly. “Besides, my client is trying to beat sexual harassment charges. They need to look as morally upright as possible. It would border on malpractice for me to link them to you.”

Jason blinked and almost laughed. No offense taken.

And it was in that moment, at her refreshing disinterest in the publicity that constantly surrounded his life, that Jason felt the strangest sensation—a slightly panicky, breathless feeling, like riding on a roller coaster.