Seduced The Unexpected Virgin - By Emily McKay Page 0,33
Ward, then left a message when he didn’t answer. After a few minutes of tapping her fingers on the desk and fuming silently, she dug out Jess’s number and called him, too.
“Great!” he said as soon as he answered. “I was trying to get ahold of you.”
He couldn’t have been trying very hard, since neither her cell phone nor her office phone had rung in the past thirty minutes. It didn’t seem wise to point that out. “Oookay,” she said blankly.
“Do you want the limo to pick you up at Hannah’s Hope or at your house?”
“The limo?” she asked.
“Sure, the limo.” Jess kept talking, oblivious to the warning tone in her voice. “Ward thought maybe it should pick you up at Hannah’s Hope. Protect your privacy. And he was worried you wouldn’t have an appropriate dress.”
“A dress appropriate for what?” she spoke slowly, trying to rein in her temper. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Ward hadn’t called her himself to ask her out to this supposed red carpet thing, she had to hear about it from his assistant.
“The second annual Hudson Pictures Breast Cancer Research Fundraiser. Ward is going to have a dress sent over.”
“I…” She fumed, stumbling over her words in surprise. The Hudsons owned one of the most prestigious studios in Hollywood. They represented the glamorous world of old Hollywood. For decades, they’d hosted a Valentine’s Day ball. Lillian Hudson, the matriarch of the family, died a few years ago after battling breast cancer. Since then, the Hudsons had retooled the Valentine’s Day party as a fundraiser for breast cancer research. The invitations were highly coveted and almost impossible to come by. “Why would I need a dress for the Hudsons’ Party?”
Finally, Jess picked up on her shock and confusion. “Ward hasn’t talked to you yet, has he?”
“No.”
“Ah, crap.” Jess started talking rapidly. “I’ve bungled this. He intended to talk to you first. When you called me, I just assumed—”
“Stop,” she cut Jess off midbumbling explanation. “Why don’t you just tell me where I can reach him and I’ll talk about it with him.”
“I can’t do that,” Jess said meekly.
“You can tell me I’m being sent an appropriate dress for some event I’m supposed to go to with him, but you can’t tell me where he is?”
“Oh, I can tell you where he is,” Jess hastened to correct her, as if to prove his worth as an assistant. “You’re just not going to be able to talk to him.”
She blew out a long, frustrated sigh. “And why is that?” she asked slowly.
“Because he’s at the recording studio.” Jess’s tone sounded sheepish. “Look, Ana, I know it’s awkward when you can’t get ahold of him.”
“Awkward. That about covers it.”
“But trust me,” Jess continued. “Ward is planning a very romantic evening.”
And that’s when Ana went ballistic. Quietly and internally, but still she went ballistic. Because not only was their secret relationship no longer secret, but it had gone from a passionate fling to something that included romantic evenings, limo rides and red carpets. Which felt like something much more complicated that mere sex.
By nine o’clock that evening, Ana was about halfway through her glass of wine and flipping through the channel guide on her television when she saw a VH1 program that would ruin her attempts to put Ward firmly out of her mind. If she tuned in she’d have the very surreal experience of watching on her flat screen a man she’d been kissing less than twenty-four hours ago.
She stared for a long minute at the name of the show on her screen. Instead, she found a movie playing, and settled down to watch that. Two minutes in, with a hefty gulp of wine, she changed the channel to VH1. Forty minutes later, she’d given up all semblance of being a casual watcher. Feeling voyeuristic and just a tad obsessive, she’d scooted to the edge of her seat and sat with her elbows propped on her knees. They’d already covered Ward’s rapid rise to stratospheric fame and were now analyzing his distinctive musical style, how his detailed fret work on an electrified acoustic guitar combined with his gravelly voice to create a sound unlike any other musician.
But honestly, she knew all that already. She’d been enough of a fan before he’d come to Hannah’s Hope that she knew much of his professional history. What held her riveted tonight was the footage of him on stage.
Of course, she’d seen him on stage before. Back when she’d been going