bit,’ he said, luckily still smiling. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got more shoes knocking around here than a Footlocker. I’ll live.’
A quick shower, a long session with my Touche Eclat and I was dressed, ready to face my fate. Mary was going to go insane. It was one thing for me to blow the biggest chance of my career but, mid-shower, I realized it wasn’t just me: I’d blown the magazine’s shot at a major interview. They’d told me numerous times in the last week that James Jacobs hardly ever did press and I had just thrown up on his shoes, passed out in his hotel room and, oh my God, had he undressed me? This humungous Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt certainly wasn’t what I’d arrived in. I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to go in the ticks or crosses column.
‘Hi.’ He stood as I sloped into the living room, all six gorgeous feet and four beautiful inches of him, clutching loose pages of something in his tanned hands.
‘Hi.’ I didn’t know where to look.
Seriously, my Alex was so incredibly sexy, just the thought of him made my stomach curl up and purr, but this giant chunk of man was something else. His curly dark brown hair was longer than it had been in any of the photos I’d seen online and his blue eyes were so dark they were almost black. Even in a slightly scuzzy T-shirt, I could see broad shoulders tapering into a slender waist and, oh my, his great big thighs were just itching to get out of those jeans and into a hot tub. With me. And a bottle of baby oil.
Bad Angela: time to be professional. Plus, even if I was interested, I had a feeling that James Jacobs didn’t go for girls that introduced themselves by vomming on his shoes. Perhaps I could give ‘friends’ a go.
‘You’re feeling better? I can give my assistant a ring and ask him to get us some coffee or something if you want,’ he said, gesturing for me to take a seat on the sofa. ‘I thought you were out for the count, to be honest.’
‘How long was I passed—asleep?’ I asked, looking around the bungalow. Anything to avoid looking directly at The Hottest Man Ever. It was all very cool, very LA Confidential, the total opposite of The Ivy.
‘Couple of hours. I didn’t know if there was someone I should call or anything, so I thought it was better to just let you sleep it off.’ James folded himself back into the easy chair as I took the sofa. His legs were so long. Long enough to wrap themselves around a girl with a good shin to spare. Hypothetically speaking.
‘The only thing is, I’m actually going to have to get off quite soon—I’ve got a meeting with a director this evening.’
Fantastic. I had actually blown it. How lovely of him to give me a couple of seconds to check him out before dropping the bomb. ‘Oh, of course. I’m really sorry about, well, everything. It has been great to meet you. I’ll let the magazine know what happened. Sorry.’
‘Really? I can’t imagine they’d find it as funny as I did, to be honest. Wouldn’t you rather just crack on tomorrow and pretend this never happened?’ James put down the pages of the script he was holding and held out his hand. ‘I love your writing. Really bloody funny. Can’t wait to see how the interview is going to work out.’
Which was when I realized it wasn’t a script that he’d been holding, they were printouts of my blog. Pages and pages from ‘The Adventures of Angela’, photocopies of articles I’d written for the US and UK editions of the The Look scattered all over the coffee table. Wow. Beautiful and prepared.
‘Thank you, but well, it’s difficult to take a compliment when you’ve just been sick on someone’s shoes,’ I said, eyes firmly on his bare feet. He even had sexy feet. Eyes on the carpet. ‘So you still want to do the interview?’
‘Absolutely,’ the voice attached to the beautiful man replied. ‘Stop stressing about it. It’ll be a great story to tell the grandkids.’
I snorted a tiny bit of water through my nose. ‘Won’t it?’ I managed eventually. ‘Anyway, if you have a meeting, I should let you get on. What time do you want to start tomorrow?’
‘Ten?’ He stood up again to get the door. ‘I’ll get Blake to send a car for you. Where are you staying?’
‘I’m at The Hollywood,’ I said, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. ‘Uh, my friend works at The Union in New York, so we’re staying there.’
‘I love The Union. I haven’t stayed there yet but I, uh, visited a friend when she was staying there last year.’ James pulled out the big guns, a little shy smile with the big blue eyes peering out from behind his hair. ‘I’ll have to come and see you at The Hollywood. See if it’s as swish.’
‘Swish,’ I echoed. Then I actually giggled. ‘So tomorrow at ten.’
‘Tomorrow at ten.’ He kissed me on the cheek as I stumbled backwards out through the door. ‘Bye then.’
As the door closed, my sanity began to trickle back. I needed a cab. I needed to call Jenny. I needed to call Alex. God, that man was good looking.
As the cab travelled along Hollywood Boulevard, taking me further away from James Jacobs geographically, the further away I felt from reality. Surely none of that had just happened. The only thing that was certain was that Jenny did not appreciate my turning in early again.
‘This is the second night in a row you’ve ditched me, Angie,’ she yelled over the row of the bar. ‘Seriously, come on. You’ve already thrown up, you may as well get back on it.’
‘Jenny, I really wish I could,’ I lied through my back teeth. All I wanted was my bed. ‘I have to meet James tomorrow morning and I just need to call Alex and get some sleep.’
‘Call Alex?’
Apparently that was the wrong thing to say.
‘You’re going to go back to the hotel and call Alex instead of coming to meet me?’ Jenny wasn’t amused. ‘You get your ass out here and tell me every single thing that happened with James Jacobs.’
‘She’s blowing you out for a guy?’ I heard Daphne crow over her shoulder. ‘What an asshole.’
‘No, I…Jenny, I just need to sleep,’ I sighed. ‘Seriously. We’ll go out tomorrow.’
‘Yeah, whatever,’ she hiccuped. ‘Until you decide you have to stay in and wait around for a boy to call. Just don’t bother calling me in the day when Mr Movie Star stands you up again. I have plans.’
‘Doing what?’ I asked but she’d already hung up. Jenny was so much fun when she was drunk and grumpy. Why did I have a feeling Daphne was not going to be a good influence?
Back at the hotel, I stripped off my new dress and pulled on the ancient Blondie T-shirt I had ‘borrowed’ from Alex before I left. It must have been washed a thousand times but it still smelt of Alex’s apartment, of home. I dialled his number again.
‘Hello?’
‘Alex? It’s me.’ I had never been so happy to hear his voice.
‘I tried to call you earlier.’
‘I know, I’m sorry.’ OK, so we weren’t starting with ‘I love you, I miss you, I’m going mad without you’. ‘It’s been such
