The Best of Winter Renshaw - An 8 Book Collection - Winter Renshaw Page 0,634

you still there?” Cameo’s tinny voice plays through the speakers. “I keep hearing a weird buzzing noise. What are you doing?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Cam,” I say. “Can I call you tomorrow?”

“Everything okay?” she asks.

“Of course. I’ll call you tomorrow after the fitting and let you know how it went,” I offer, hoping that will quell her stress a bit.

“Perfect,” she says. “Bye, Love.”

I end the call and return to my Messages app where a little red notification waits for me.

“Yes or no?” Jude’s new text reads.

“No,” I say outloud, placing my phone down.

He does the same.

“Do you need one?” he asks.

“No.”

“Do you want one?” Jude’s mouth twists and his eyes flash, and all of it makes my stomach flip without permission.

“Are you offering?” I ask him, though I’m not serious.

“I am.”

“My family is nuts. I wouldn’t do that to you,” I say, rising. Heading to the kitchen, I connect my dying phone to its charger.

“Just so happens that I love weddings,” he says, following me. “I’d love to be your plus one.”

“You’re a liar. No one loves weddings.”

When I turn, I find him standing right there, so close, I can breathe in the musky clean scent of his muscled skin, and it silences me in an instant.

“I think … Love … that we’d have a really amazing time.” Jude’s voice is low, intimate, with just enough rasp to remind me of what his voice might sound like against my ear in the throes of the very thing I have no business doing with him. “So, what do you say?”

Surrendering to the smile on my face, I can’t help but admit to myself that I’ve always enjoyed his company … maybe a little too much at times. And I think he’s right. We could have a good time together.

I’m not sure what it is about Jude that makes me cross every line I’ve drawn, that makes me push every boundary and barricade I’ve set up, but here I am, about to take him up on his ridiculously kind offer like a crazy woman with zero self-control.

“Okay,” I say, exhaling his perfect scent from my tightened lungs. “You can be my plus one. But let me warn you … you have no idea what you’ve just signed on for.”

But to be fair, I’m not sure I do either.

Sixteen

Jude

* * *

Hunter LeGrand’s assistant, Marissa, escorts me to his office Monday morning. He’d texted me late last night, asking me to be here by nine AM sharp for a “progress report,” which was shortly after Lo called me in tears and freaking out because she got a hospital bill in the mail for twenty-eight thousand dollars from the last time Piper was hospitalized with complications from her juvenile diabetes. I don’t know why her restaurant even offers medical insurance to its employees when it’s not much different than not having insurance in the first place.

“Would you like anything to drink, Mr. Warner?” Hunter’s assistant asks, her baby blues fluttering and her tight floral dress leaving little to the imagination. Everything about her is fake … her breasts, her lips, even her eyelashes that look like thick strips of mink glued to her lids.

“No. Thank you.”

She smiles. “All right. Well, Mr. LeGrand will be here any minute. Make yourself at home.”

Marissa turns, her chestnut-colored ponytail swinging over her shoulder, and she closes the double office doors behind her.

This is the second time I’ve been in Hunter LeGrand’s office, but the first time I’ve actually had a chance to do a little gawking.

Heading across the room to what can only be described as a “wall of accolades,” I find framed and matted newspaper articles, photos of Hunter with various rock gods and music icons from Paul McCartney and JAY-Z to Chris Stapleton and Cardi B. In the center of it all rest his platinum records. I count twelve, all of them in the last handful of years, all of them on newer, lesser known musical acts who’ve gone on to massive overnight success. Hunter might be new to the music industry, but his reputation has quickly become that of a star maker.

Taking a seat in one of the onyx leather guest chairs, I cross my legs wide and glance at the gold-plated clock on the edge of his oversized mahogany desk. A cup of platinum pens emblazoned with Blue Stream’s logo rests in a shiny gold cup next to his iMac monitor.

His office is boastful and unoriginal, everything I’d come to expect from someone whose Wikipedia page