his favourite holiday spots, his favourite restaurants, and everything else a Look reader could feasibly want to know about her favourite actor, until my hand was cramping and my pad was full.
‘Do you know what?’ I said, jotting down his favourite place to buy bagels. ‘I think we’re done. You are released.’
‘You mean I have to go back to Blake?’ James asked, with mock horror. At least it seemed like mock horror; I would have been genuinely terrified. ‘You don’t want to do something this evening? I cleared my schedule.’
I smiled and shook my head. ‘I actually just want to go back to the hotel and sleep. The last few nights have been late ones and I really should go and write all this up, send it over to the magazine. Prove we’re actually working.’
‘Fair enough. I can wait until tomorrow,’ James stood up and stretched. He really was very tall. ‘As long as you are going to be working and not just going into hiding. Promise me you won’t let anyone make you feel shit about those pictures?’
‘Brownie Guide promise,’ I saluted. ‘You’re right. I’m sure I’m just overreacting.’
‘Good. And if your boyfriend hasn’t sent a dozen roses to your hotel when you get back, he’ll have me to answer to.’ He opened the door back into the bustling sunshine. ‘I’m not having him making you feel rubbish for no reason.’
‘If I didn’t know you were a hateful, ego-driven movie star, I could be fooled into thinking you were actually quite nice,’ I said, shielding my eyes and looking up into his. ‘You must be a very good actor.’
‘Make sure you put that in the interview,’ James said, dialling his driver. ‘I am good but I mean it. You should never let anyone make you feel crap. I don’t have those people around me any more.’
‘No, you only have really positive people like Blake,’ I said, watching the limo appear around the corner. ‘He really makes your life easier?’
‘I know he seems like hard work to everyone else,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know what I’d do without him. Even if he is going to lose his mind after we binned him off again today.’
‘It’s fine, I’m sure he’ll just blame me,’ I replied. ‘Again.’
‘I’m sure he will,’ James agreed. ‘I’m sorry. Thank you for putting up with him. And me.’
‘Thank you for making this so easy for me,’ I slid on my sunglasses to get a better, slightly hidden peek at him.
‘I know you won’t believe it,’ he said, pulling out his own shades. ‘But I’m having fun. Hanging out with you reminds me of something I don’t have any more.’
‘What’s that?’ More than three per cent body fat?
‘I don’t really know,’ James said, pushing my sunglasses up onto the top of my head and looking down at me. I could feel his stare right in the pit of my stomach. ‘But it’s there.’
‘Then I’m choosing to believe it’s a good thing,’ I said, pushing them back down as the limo pulled up beside us. How was him being an absolute angel as well as all kinds of gorgeous, while Alex was being a total arse, helping me anyway?
Jenny was nowhere to be found back at the hotel, which left me free for the world’s longest nap. But after an hour of staring at the ceiling, I was forced to accept that sleep wasn’t coming. There was just too much on my mind and, to be honest, the vodka I’d necked at The Dresden hadn’t helped me clear it up.
If I could just sort out one of the dramas in my mind, maybe I’d be able to get half an hour’s sleep. OK, first, Alex. Staring at my phone, I tried to replay our conversation but it all sounded so much worse in my head. If he would just call, if he would just tell me it was all right. If he would just bloody say that he loved me. But that wasn’t about to happen any time soon. And hello? How sad was I that I needed my boyfriend to tell me he loved me to make me feel better? OK, very, but it didn’t stop it being true.
I added another pillow to the stack already behind my head and grabbed my BlackBerry from the nightstand. No missed calls, no new emails. Nothing from Mary about the blog entry I’d sent over that morning. No matter what James said, my job was still on the line. Once the interview was over, he wouldn’t have any pull at the magazine and if Mary thought I was going to shag every person I worked with, there wouldn’t be any more work. Plus Jenny was still in such a strange mood, she wasn’t exactly helping me out.
And if that wasn’t enough, I had the most unexpected problem of them all to deal with. James was definitely flirting with me. Definitely. What was I supposed to do? My job was hanging by a thread, my boyfriend wasn’t talking to me, my best friend was one missed call away from kicking my arse and here was this insanely beautiful man—not even a man, a movie star—telling me I’m amazing, stroking my hair and asking me to stay the night. It wasn’t fair. I was only human, unlike him. Stupid Greek God of a man, how dare he try it on with me? Seriously, what was a girl supposed to do?
It had taken me six months to sort my life out after arriving in New York, amazing friends, wonderful boyfriend, the perfect job. And it had only taken me four days in LA to screw it all up. Wow, that must be some sort of record. Really, there was only one thing to do.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, Dad, it’s Angela.’
‘Angela, love, it’s midnight, what’s wrong?’ Dad yawned. At least they clearly hadn’t seen the photos.
‘Sorry, I hadn’t thought about the time difference,’ I apologized, looking at the blinking clock on my nightstand. ‘Nothing’s wrong, I just wanted to have a quick word with Mum, is she up?’
‘She is now,’ he muttered.
‘What’s wrong? Angela, are you coming home?’ The classic motherly panic. ‘What’s happened?’
‘No, Mum,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to have a bit of a chat. I’m working in LA this week, aren’t I?’
‘I never know where you are from one day to the next,’ she sighed. ‘And you haven’t wanted a bit of a chat for months, let alone at midnight. So what’s wrong?’
‘It’s only four here, sorry, I wasn’t thinking,’ I said. How true was that?
‘No, thinking hasn’t been your strong point since you moved away, love,’ Mum agreed. ‘What’s wrong now?’
She’d been awake for four minutes and she was already having a go at me. Why hadn’t I called her earlier?
‘Nothing really, I just wanted to call you about, well, some pictures,’ I tried to work out how to rephrase ‘the internet is crawling with suggestive photographs of your only child’ for my fifty-nine-year-old mother, but it just wouldn’t come out. Couldn’t think why. ‘I’m in some pictures.’
‘You’re in the pictures? Is that why you’re in LA; you’re going to be in a film?’
‘No,
