Julie James: Just the Sexiest Man Alive

“Oh my god! So it’s true then? You’re really going to be working with Jason Andrews?”

How the hell did that get out so fast? Taylor glanced around the office and saw that the other secretaries all had paused in what they were doing. They were staring at her, wide-eyed, and holding their breath as if their very lives depended on her reply. Looking over, she saw that most of the lawyers, too, lingered in their office doorways. For that moment, all business at Gray & Dallas had utterly, completely stopped.

With the one hundred sets of hopeful eyes on her, Taylor cleared her throat and addressed the waiting office, like the town crier announcing that the king was on his way.

“Yes, it’s true. Jason—uh, Andrews—will be here. On Thursday.” Taylor began to fan herself, suddenly feeling a little flushed. Strange how warm it had become in the office right then. Probably a poor ventilation spot, she mused. She’d have to speak to Linda about calling the maintenance people.

All around her, the secretaries and lawyers had erupted in a frenzy of frantic conversations at her exciting news.

“What should I wear?”

“What do you think he will wear?”

“Didn’t you just love it when he [insert favorite Jason Andrews movie/scene/line here]?”

“Do you think”—gasp—“he could ever possibly be as gorgeous in person?”

Taylor stood in the middle of all the chaos. As always, she felt the need to maintain control over the situation, so she gestured calmingly to the secretaries that hopped about her like over-caffeinated jackrabbits.

“You all need to pull yourselves together,” she said firmly, over the racket. “We need to treat this like any other project.”

At this, the secretaries simmered down and stopped dancing. Linda stared at her incredulously. “Any other project? It’s Jason Andrews .”

Taylor felt herself getting all flushed again. Damn ventilation. Someone really needed to see to that soon.

Linda’s expression was one of utter disbelief. “Are you seriously trying to tell us that you’re not the least bit excited about this?”

Taylor sighed loudly in exasperation. “Oh, Linda, come on . . .” With that said, she turned and coolly headed toward her office. But when she reached the door, she looked back at her secretary and winked.

“Hey—I didn’t say it wouldn’t be a fun project.”

With a sly grin, she disappeared into her office.

IT WAS AFTER eleven that evening when Taylor finally pulled into the driveway of her apartment building. For the remainder of the day, she had tried to put all thoughts of the “Andrews Project” (as it had widely come to be known throughout the office) out of her mind. But fate, of course, had been conspiring against her.

Shortly after her meeting with Sam, she had received a phone call from one of “Mr. Andrews’s” assistants, who had informed her in clipped, brisk terms that “Mr. Andrews” (the assistant’s repeated use of the surname conjured up visions in Taylor’s mind of a stuffy eighteenth-century British servant) would arrive at her office on Thursday morning at nine o’clock. It was expected, said the servant-assistant, that Ms. Donovan would not be late, as Mr. Andrews kept a very busy schedule.

The whole tone of the conversation had irked her.

Let’s get something straight, Taylor had been tempted to say. I am doing him a favor.

She hadn’t been in Los Angeles long enough to adjust to the fact that catering to celebrities with overinflated senses of self-importance was simply part of the city’s framework, never to be questioned. She may have been living—temporarily—in the city of dreams, but her life was quite grounded in reality. And that life, whether in L.A. or Chicago, was in The Law.

Moreover, since her work schedule generally permitted her to see only about four movies per year, she simply didn’t have enough interest in “the industry” to give a crap about stroking Jason Andrews’s ego. Besides, she was quite certain that—given his infamous reputation—he’d already had enough things stroked to last a lifetime.

But despite the strong opinions she had on the matter, Taylor thought she had been highly diplomatic in her response to the servant-assistant’s instructions.

“Now, is it customary that I curtsy before or after I’m presented to His Highness?” she had innocently inquired.

The servant-assistant had not been amused.

After ending the call on that note, Taylor had set off to find a way to miraculously fit three days of work into the two days remaining before His Royal Wonderfulness arrived. Her first priority had been to meet with Derek, the second-year associate assigned to work with her on the sexual harassment case.

Poor Derek, always a bit of a nervous type, appeared ready to break out in hives when Taylor told him he’d be arguing the motions on Thursday. For a moment, she thought about sneakily whispering a trade—seven motions in limine for seven hours with you-know-who—but she knew Sam expected that she personally handle the actor.

Even to the likely detriment of their motions.

And the possible harm that would then befall their client.

Not to mention what she personally wanted.

Not that she had any opinions on the matter. Really.

But for the rest of the afternoon, Taylor had other, far more important things to worry about. And so, between the seventeen class member deposition transcripts she needed to review, and the eleven telephone arguments with opposing counsel over jury instructions, it was not until late that night, as she exhaustedly made her way to her front door, that she remembered the envelope Linda had handed her before leaving for the day.

Research, her secretary had called it. She had smiled in amusement, thoroughly enjoying the new project.

Given Linda’s mischievous grin, it was with dread that Taylor pulled the envelope out of her briefcase as she walked up the bricked path to her apartment. She slid out the envelope’s contents, and found herself staring at that week’s edition of People magazine.

Taylor rolled her eyes. Oh, for heaven’s sake—like she had time to read this.

But tabloids have a sneaky way of grabbing the attention of even the most resolute of scoffers, and Taylor was not immune. It was the cover story that caught her eye.

“The Women of Jason Andrews!”

The image below the headline consisted of three side-by-side photos of the film star with a different starlet/model/bimbo hanging all over him.

Taylor shook her head disdainfully at the pictures. Typical. There was something about the sight of this particular man, the way he so deliberately flaunted his parade of conquests, that rubbed her feminist sensibilities the wrong way.

Or maybe it was something more personal.

Right, like she would ever admit that.

She opened the magazine, and a multiple-page foldout of Jason Andrews and his various dalliances fell out.

And spilled all the way to the ground.

For a moment, Taylor could only stare at the pages and pages and pages of “The Women of Jason Andrews!”

With a scornful snort, she bent over to pick up the foldout. The last photo in the series happened to catch her eye: the actor with a classically beautiful blonde in her midtwenties, who Taylor immediately recognized. She may not have been particularly interested in “the industry,” but even the four times a year she crawled out from under her rock to see a movie was enough to know who Naomi Cross was. She saw that written in big, bold letters above the waiflike actress was the urgent question, “Jason’s Next Conquest?”

Deciding that she could somehow manage to go on living without getting an answer to that question, Taylor tucked the Jason-plus-starlet/model/bimbo pages back into the magazine and headed up the walkway to her front door. It was then that she stumbled upon something sitting on her front stoop.