Lauren Conrad - Sugar and Spice

“Hey, Gaby! What are you doing here?” Scarlett stood up and gave her a big hug.

“Saul and I—” Gaby began.

“Skull,” the guy corrected her.

“Skull and I had a drink at the bar, and now we’re heading over to Industry,” Gaby explained.

Jane gave Gaby a hug, too, and introduced Caleb and Naveen, whom she jokingly referred to as “Dr. Naveen.” Gaby eyed both boys appreciatively, then turned to Scarlett. “Don’t worry. I promise I won’t tell Liam about your date with Dr. Hottie,” she pretended to whisper, although everyone at the table heard.

Scarlett gaped at her. “Gaby!”

“Seriously. Your secret’s safe with me. We girls have to stick together, right? Come on, Scott!” Gaby said, tugging on Skull’s arm. “I think I need another Cosmo.”

“Whatever,” Skull said, sounding bored.

After they took off, Scarlett dug into her salad, concentrating hard on spearing each lettuce leaf precisely with her fork, trying not to let Naveen or anyone else see how embarrassed she felt. But Naveen was completely cool about the Gaby incident, leaning across the table with an amused smile and saying, “Don’t stress. It’s easy to misinterpret stuff when you’ve had as many Cosmos as she’s probably had.”

“Yeah, Gaby does like her Cosmos,” Jane piped up quickly.

Then Caleb brought up a funny anecdote about him and Jane and Scarlett cutting class to go to Hendry’s Beach and getting caught by the principal, who was also playing hookie there. (Scarlett tried to erase the image of Hendry’s Beach from her mind … and the image of her and Naveen making out on a blanket, near a bonfire, with a full moon overhead.) For the rest of the evening, Scarlett managed to relax and enjoy herself. And it really was no biggie, four old friends from high school, hanging out on a Friday night and having a meal and catching up. Besides, she planned on telling Liam every single detail about the evening as soon as she got home.

Well … maybe not every single detail.

“So I got an email from Aja’s assistant this morning, and Aja really likes the idea of having her engagement party at the Venetian,” Jane said. “The question is, how do we use that space? We’re talking five hundred guests.”

Jane glanced at Hannah across the conference table, eager for her response since she was always full of great ideas, especially when it came to big celebrity events. Unfortunately, Madison—whose response Jane had zero interest in—opened her mouth instead, saying, “The Venetian? That place is lame. The Palms is way better.”

Jane gritted her teeth and forced herself to turn to Madison. Of course Madison would say this, because the Venetian had been Jane’s suggestion, and the Palms had been Madison’s —and because they were on camera. Trevor and Dana must be loving this, Jane thought, knowing that one or both of them were out in the hallway, listening in on their headsets. “Thanks for your input, Madison, but Aja definitely wants the Venetian,” she said firmly. “Soooo. What do you guys think?”

“I think we need to have a sit-down with Aja and persuade her to go with the Palms,” Madison persisted. “I’m friends with the events person there and I’m sure he’ll give us a fantastic deal.”

Hannah regarded Jane, her brown eyes full of worry. Jane shared Hannah’s unspoken sentiments—how were they going to keep this meeting from degrading into The Madison Show? Because lately, Madison seemed to have perfected the art of hogging the cameras, shamelessly baiting Jane with snide, bitchy comments, and in general focusing any and all attention on Madison Parker. She had been at Fiona Chen Events for only a week, and already she was dominating the shoots there with her provocative remarks, on-camera meltdowns, and, of course, her form-fitting, cleavage-baring outfits. Worse, Madison’s reign of terror was not limited to L.A. Candy. Jane had no idea how many more times she could stomach seeing Madison on The View and other shows, rehashing her teary-eyed, Oscar-worthy rendition of “I thought she was my friend and now she’s blaming me for everyone finding out that she slept with her boyfriend’s best friend. She’s the one who did something terrible, not me!” Jane knew that her publicist, Sam, was working hard on a media counterstrategy. Unfortunately, the press—and the public—couldn’t seem to get enough of Madison’s poison.

Madison opened her mouth to say something else—then hesitated when her cell vibrated on the conference table. “Sorry, I’ve gotta take this,” she mumbled, scooting out of her chair. As she rushed out of the conference room, Jane noticed her reaching down her dress, presumably to turn her microphone off. What was that about?

Then Jane’s own cell vibrated. It was a text from Dana:

CAN U AND HANNAH PLZ DISCUSS MADISON’S IDEAS?

Great. This was Dana’s code for Can you and Hannah please say mean, nasty things about Madison while she’s out of the room? Not that Jane didn’t want to. But there was no way she was going to play into Dana’s (and Trevor’s and Madison’s) hands on this. She really was going to have to talk to Trevor about Madison—soon.

“I was thinking that maybe we should do a Caribbean theme,” Jane said brightly to Hannah. “You know, because Aja grew up in Martinique?”

Hannah nodded enthusiastically. “I love it! Maybe we could do something with—”

There was a knock, and the door opened. A young guy walked in. Jane’s eyes widened. A young, really cute guy. “Um, excuse me. Sorry to interrupt. Fiona asked me to bring these over,” he said, setting some files on the table.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.