Julie James - Just the Sexiest Man Alive

The reporter shifted eagerly in his chair at the opening Jason had just provided him. “Speaking of finding the right fit . . . you’ve led into my next topic. Women.”

Jason laughed and folded his arms behind his head. “You guys are all the same. You always ask me about this.”

“Can you blame us?” the reporter inquired with an innocent grin. “You’ve dated supermodels, a pop star, and many of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood.”

Jason nodded along with the list, obviously quite proud of his accomplishments.

“And I think the only thing that gets more media coverage than the names of the women you date is the speed at which you go through them. Let’s see, you are . . .” The reporter trailed off as he shifted through his notes, appearing puzzled. “Oh, I see that for ‘age,’ your publicist tells us only that you are in your ‘thirties.’ ”

The reporter glanced up questioningly at Jason.

Who clearly had nothing further to add on that particular subject.

After a semi-awkward moment, the reporter pressed on. “I guess my question is this: when it comes to women, what are you looking for?”

The camera zoomed in on Jason. And Taylor watched as he answered as only a man in his position could.

“My philosophy is that relationships should be treated the same as a new script. If it doesn’t hold my interest after an hour, I’m not going to waste any more time on it.”

Taylor’s mouth fell open at the pure, unadulterated arrogance of his words.

Linda, who was standing next to her, leaned over and mumbled under her breath. “Wow—actress, supermodel, whoever—I feel sorry for any woman who has to get over him.”

Taylor turned to Linda, scoffing vehemently at this.

“Please—after hearing what he just said, any woman dumb enough to go out with him can’t complain when she inevitably gets hurt.”

“That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”

“Maybe. But I’ll tell you this—smart women don’t date Jason Andrews.”

Linda nodded as she turned back to the television. “I suppose that’s true.”

But then she peered over at Taylor with a sly grin. “Except . . . let’s see how much that resistance holds up once you’re alone with him.” Listening in, the other secretaries all laughed in implicit agreement.

Taylor defiantly flung her long hair over her shoulders. Jason Andrews had hardly made much of an impression on her thus far.

“Please—I’m sure in real life the man can barely hold an intelligent conversation.”

Linda considered this. “Well then, I guess you better find a way to keep him from doing a lot of talking.” She threw Taylor a wicked grin. “How big is your shower?”

The secretaries burst into tittering giggles.

Taylor found herself oddly flustered by Linda’s words. It had to be the temperature in the office, she thought with annoyance, which had suddenly become ridiculously hot again. All that money, and the firm couldn’t even afford damn decent air-conditioning.

Realizing she had been fanning herself—and that everyone was watching—Taylor stopped and pretended to be waving off the group’s giggles.

“Don’t you people have any work to do?”

The secretaries exchanged amused looks at her tone. With a dismissive flick of her hand—figuring she’d wasted more than enough time on nonsense that morning—Taylor abruptly turned back toward her office.

And stumbled most ungracefully over a file box sitting in the hallway.

After an ungainly balancing act, Taylor managed to right herself. She looked down in annoyance. Stupid stinking box. She kicked it with her heel.

Behind her, the secretaries giggled even louder.

Taylor straightened her suit and pulled herself together, then hurried off to the sanctity of her office. On her way, she gestured to the object of everyone’s fascination.

“And why do we have a television in here, anyway?” she demanded in an attempt to at least get the last word in. “This is a law office!”

Linda shrugged this off nonchalantly.

“This is L.A.”

TAYLOR CHECKED THE clock on her desk for what had to be the tenth time that morning. 11:07. She tapped her pen impatiently.

He was late.

She should have been in court that very moment, arguing her motions to compel. As it turned out, Derek had nothing to worry about—if they lost on one single issue, she would hold Jason Andrews entirely responsible.

She glanced up hopefully when Linda stopped in the doorway.

“Any word?”

Linda sadly shook her head. A deep depression had begun to creep over the office at the actor’s failure to appear thus far. “None.”

They went through this routine for the rest of the morning, and then the afternoon, too. Assuming Jason Andrews would eventually show up at some point, and having cleared her schedule for the entire day, Taylor found it difficult to concentrate on any meaningful task. So when six o’clock rolled around, she began the futile task of filling in her daily time sheet with a whole lot of nothing.

Great, she thought—say hello to another Saturday in the office.

But then she was interrupted by a frantic knock at her office door. She looked up to see Linda, flushed with excitement and out of breath, as if she had run to Taylor’s office the moment she had received whatever news she was about to convey.

“His assistant just called. She said there was a mix-up, but that Mr. Andrews will be here first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow?” Taylor repeated. Then she frowned. “Perfect,” she muttered in annoyance. Say hello to Sunday in the office, too.

“Did his assistant at least apologize?” she asked.

Linda put a finger to her chin and paused, as if trying to remember. “Hmmm . . . now that would be a ‘no.’ ”

Taylor rolled her eyes. Now there’s a fucking surprise.

BUT BY THE next day, Taylor could definitively say that she had gotten over the issue of Jason Andrews’s lateness.

Because being late was no longer the problem.

The jerk had completely blown her off. No phone calls, no apologies, and no explanations.

So by late Friday afternoon, after a second day spent mumbling obscenities, pacing through the hallways, and generally huffing about, Taylor decided she was not going to waste one more minute of her life on Jason Andrews.

She shoved a stack of files into her briefcase, grabbed her suit coat off the back of her chair, and resolutely strode out into the hallway, past Linda’s desk.

“I’m going home. And I will be unavailable for the rest of the afternoon if, by some miracle, a certain person should happen to show up.” The haughty way she said this left Linda no doubt as to who the “certain person” might be. “For anyone else, I can of course be reached on my cell phone or at home.”

Linda panicked. She leaned over her desk and shouted frantically to Taylor, who was already halfway down the hall by that point. “But what am I supposed to say if Jason Andrews shows up?”

Ten responses inappropriate for the workplace came to Taylor’s mind.

Not bothering to stop, she called back a simple message for Linda to relay.

“Tell him I hope his movie bombs.”

SATURDAY AND SUNDAY thankfully passed by without further needless (and highly inconsiderate) delays. Taylor used the weekend hours to get back on track in terms of her pretrial schedule. Derek had informed her that the judge had continued one of their motions—the one most critical to their case—until Monday morning. Although neither mentioned it, both of them were quietly relieved that she would be able to cover the motion after all. Derek, a little on the shy side, had always been slightly uncomfortable with the subject matter.