“Nope.”
We leave the backroom together, she headed for the workroom, me up the steps to JP’s office. His door is open, so I knock on the doorframe. He glances up from his position on the floor, kneeling in front of a woman easily six feet tall.
“Oh good,” he says around a mouthful of pins. “You’re here.”
I walk over and hold out my hand. He drops the pins from his lips into my palm.
“I meant to ask you something yesterday.” Still on his knees, he shifts on the floor from her front to her side, adjusting the fuchsia material he’s draping into the shape of a dress for the September show. I rotate with him, handing him a pin without him having to ask. We work well together, read each other well.
“Yesterday?” I frown because JP is notoriously last-minute. “What do you need?”
“Your eye. Your sense of style. Your essence.” He bats his lashes through all the BS flattery. “For you to come with me on a shoot today.”
“Sure.” I nod and hand him another pin. “I didn’t know we had one scheduled.”
“It’s kind of last minute.”
Shocker. “Oh?”
“Yeah, Kenan’s going out of town next week, so I asked Chase if he could shoot today instead.”
I accidentally prick my finger with a pin at the mention of Kenan’s name.
“You know,” I say, sucking the sore finger, “maybe I should stay here. We’re expecting that shipment of silks today, and I wanted to be here to receive them. It’ll throw off our whole production schedule if anything happens to that delivery.”
“Anybody can sign for a package,” he says dismissively. “You are the only one Kenan wants to see.”
I freeze, glaring at my boss, the matchmaking devil. “Did he ask me to come or something?”
“Not in so many words.”
“In how many words?”
“I mean, the man agreed to do the whole campaign for a chance to kiss you,” JP says, sparing me a glance away from the material he’s draping and pinning over the model’s hip. “I’d be a fool not to keep you close.”
“You mean use me?”
“Don’t think of it that way, Lo.” He turns teasingly calculating eyes up to me from the floor. “Or do. Either way, you’re coming.”