of her? Julian had been a part of the Hollywood scene for several years and had seen his fair share of staged relationships. The women were usually attractive and greedy, hoping they might actually charm their fake boyfriend into falling for them so they could take advantage of California’s community property laws.
He waited for her to say something, but she just stood there, sort of awkwardly hovering outside his door. “Hi,” Julian finally offered to end the silence. “I’m Julian, although you probably already know that. Are you the one the wedding company sent over?”
“Yes.” She nodded, her dark brown curls bouncing around her round face. He expected her to say something after that, but she continued to just hover. It made him think that at any moment, she might turn and bolt down the hallway. He was used to his fans being nervous around him, but not skittish. He was certain Ross would blame him if he ran off the woman his manager had so carefully arranged for him.
Julian didn’t want a fake girlfriend. He would gladly send this poor woman back home with an apology, but Ross wouldn’t have set this up without a good reason. He paid the man to make smart, strategic decisions about his career, so he had to be nice and make this work. Or he’d hear about it.
“And your name is...?” he prompted.
She seemed to snap out of her nervous daze. “Gretchen,” she said, holding out her hand. “Gretchen McAlister.”
Julian shook her hand, noticing how ice-cold her skin was and how her fingers trembled in his grip. This woman seemed terrified of him. Women usually had a much...warmer reaction to Julian. He had to pry them from his neck and wipe away their lipstick from his cheeks at movie premieres. He needed to warm her up or they were never going to convince anyone—much less a skeptical press—that they were dating.
He took a step back to let her into the hotel room. “Come on in, Gretchen.” He shut the door behind them and gestured for her to take a seat in the living room of his suite. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Something alcoholic would make all this easier,” she muttered under her breath.
Julian’s lips twisted in amusement as he went over to the minibar. That wasn’t a bad idea to help break the ice. At least for her. He didn’t drink, but certainly the hotel would’ve stocked the room with something useful. He wished he could drink, but that was on his personal trainer’s list of no-no’s: no alcohol, no sugar, no carbs, no dairy, no preservatives, no artificial colors, flavors or anything else remotely interesting or tasty.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know where to start with a drink for Gretchen. “There’s a collection of tiny bottles in here. Feel free to pick whatever you’d like.”
Gretchen watched him curiously as she walked over to the bar and pulled out what looked like tequila. He expected her to mix it with something, but instead, watched in surprise as she twisted off the lid and threw back the tiny bottle in a few hard draws. She really must be nervous if she was doing tequila shots just to be in the same room with him.
“You know, you look like you could use one of these yourself. I’m not getting the feeling that you’re very happy about this,” she said as she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. She tossed the empty bottle into the trash and turned back to sit on the couch. “I know I probably don’t meet your standards for a woman you’d date. Mr. Bentley specifically requested an everyday woman, but I assume I’m not what he had in mind. I’m obviously not a Bridgette, so if that’s going to be a problem, just say the word and I’ll go on my way.”
He was doing a crappy job at making her feel welcome. “No, no. I’m sorry,” Julian said, sitting down in the chair to face her. “My manager informed me about this whole arrangement literally minutes before you showed up. My reaction has nothing to do with you and the standards you seem to think you fall short of.”
“So you’re not on board with Mr. Bentley’s plan?”
“Not really,” he replied. There was no sense in sugarcoating it. “I’ll do what I need to do, but this isn’t my choice, no. It’s pretty common in Hollywood to contract relationships, but that’s not my style. I’d rather go to an event alone than with some woman I don’t even know. That’s probably why Ross sprang this on me—I couldn’t get out of it quickly enough. But now, here we are, and I find I’m just not as well prepared as I would like to be.”
“Neither am I,” she said. “Does one ever really get used to being pimped out by your friends for something like this?”
“Pimped out?” Julian chuckled. The alcohol seemed to loosen her tongue. “That’s one way to put it. Welcome to the Hollywood game, Gretchen McAlister. We’ve all sold ourselves for success. How much did it take for you to toss your good sense out the window and end up on my couch?”
A flicker of irritation crossed her face, blushing her cheeks an attractive pink. It might have just been the tequila kicking in. He’d bet her hands weren’t cold any longer. He fought the urge to find a reason to touch her again.
“Apparently, ten grand for my time and another two grand to make me more presentable.”
Julian looked over his date of the next few days and frowned. It shouldn’t take two thousand to make her presentable, and he hoped Ross hadn’t been rude enough to say such a thing. Ross was usually brutally honest, with a set of unrealistic Hollywood ideals. Whereas Gretchen wasn’t the kind of woman Julian was normally seen with in LA, she wasn’t unattractive. Her skin was creamy and flawless, her lips full and pink. Her eyelashes were so long and thick, he thought they might be fake, but she didn’t strike him as that type.
He supposed anyone could use a haircut and a manicure. She could take the rest of the money and buy clothes. Tonight she was dressed as though she’d come straight from her work at the wedding chapel, wearing a plain green shirt and khakis with a brown cardigan, a pair of loafers and argyle socks. Appropriate for winter in the South, he supposed, but not overly dressy. She looked nice. She actually reminded him a lot of his mother when she was younger and life hadn’t completely sucked away everything she had.
But instead of complimenting Gretchen the way he knew he should, he went the other direction. He felt himself being drawn in by her shy awkwardness, but Julian had no intention of getting chummy with this woman. She may not be a part of the Hollywood machine, but she’d use him just like everyone else. She was only here because she was being paid a ridiculous amount of money to do it.
“You should’ve held out for more. Ross would’ve paid twenty.”
Gretchen just shrugged as though the money didn’t mean much to her. He knew that couldn’t be true. Who would sign up for something like this if it wasn’t because they needed the money? He was a millionaire, and he still wouldn’t turn down a well-paying role. There was always something he could do with it. Even socking it away in the bank put it to good use.
He doubted that was the case for her, though. She certainly didn’t seem to have agreed to this because she was a fan. She was lacking that distinctly starry-eyed gaze he was used to seeing in women. The gaze that flickered over him was appreciative, but reserved. He sensed there was a lot going on in her mind that she wouldn’t share with him. He knew he shouldn’t care; she was just a fleeting part of his life this week, but he couldn’t help but wonder what was going on under that curly mop of hair.
“Well, now that we’ve established that I’ve been had cheaply, do we need to work out any details?”
Yes, Julian thought. It was better
