“Huh.” He let out a puff of air and twisted his mouth. “I thought that would be better.”
His expression was almost wistful in its confusion, his words without any sarcasm. My ego took a nosedive, and he shrugged, glancing down at his outfit.
“Shit. Get me a change of clothes.” His words were dismissive, an order handed out with absolute certainty of being obeyed. He gave me a parting wink then strode off. God, he was an ass. An ass that made Vic look positively gentlemanly. I pushed off the wall and looked down at my cream sweater, now ruined. The coffee was a lost cause, and Nicole’s sushi … I looked at the few pieces still stuck to the plate and wondered if they were salvageable.
Get me a change of clothes. I was, apparently, the only one with shaky legs and a raging libido. I thought that would be better. I wiped my hands on my jeans and pulled out my cell. Sent Hannah a text that the asshole she called a boss needed new clothes. I ignored the colorfully grouchy emoticons she sent back in response, too busy trying to clean up the mess. I thought that would be better. Ouch.
First kisses could tell you a lot. Ours told me that his sex appeal wasn’t limited to his looks. Ours told me that any attraction I felt for Joey Plazen wasn’t returned.
First kisses were often last kisses also.
I used to think that I was hot. Nabbing one of New York’s most eligible bachelors did that to a girl’s ego. But then Vic cheated on me. And my track record ever since had sucked. Between the thousand-dollar asshole and Joey’s reaction to our kiss—paired with zero date invites in the last year—I was failing terribly as a single in New York.
Nothing was going right.
“Hey, Nicole’s girl.”
The first time he’d spoken to me since our disastrous kiss, and that was how Joey Plazen summoned me. By command, one step above him slapping his knee and whistling at me like I was a dog.
I ignored him and kept walking, a juice in one hand, new shooting schedule in the other. Two weeks wasn’t long enough to heal the sting of that snub.
“Hey!” I zagged right and heard him curse as he jumped over a mass of cords and tried to catch up. I swallowed a smirk, speeding up a little. “Chloe.”
I stopped, spinning around and raising my eyebrows, his arms coming out as he reached me. I took a casual sip of the juice and winced, too much ginger in the blend.
“Where are you going?” He tucked both hands in the front pockets of his jeans.
An unexpected question. I stared, taking me a minute to remember where I had been going. Oh, right. To pick up Nicole’s cardigan. “Wardrobe.” I managed the word and took another sip. Waited for him to say something—anything—and when he stayed silent, his eyes roaming over the concrete between us, I turned to leave.
“Chloe.” My name was a puff on his lips, and I heard the scrape of his shoes when he lunged after me, his hand closing on my shoulder, a gentle pull that I ignored.
“What do you want, Joey?” Because that’s what it was. He wanted something. If I’d learned anything from two months of being on set with Joey, it was that every smile was a bribe, every flirt was a favor, and our kiss against the wall … that was just entertainment. Benta had more properly defined it as him trying to put me in my place. It had certainly, if anything, put my ego in check and killed any fantasies of a future between us.
“You know, for an assistant, you sure do walk around with a stick up your ass.”
WOW. Whatever he was chasing me down for just moved a lot further out of his reach. I kept walking.
“Chloe…” When he closed his hand on my shoulder a second time, it was harder, his fingers biting in and holding on, his pull forcing me to stop. I looked down at his hand.
“Move your hand or I’m pouring this juice all over it.”
He lifted his hand and held it up in surrender. “Chloe, please. Let’s grab lunch. I don’t have a scene ’til two.”
“Why?”
“I can’t ask you to lunch?” He scowled, and I liked that. I understood grouchy Joey. It was the random spurts of friendliness and sexuality that unsettled me.
“I can’t know your motives?” I smiled as sweetly as I