Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,29
until its nearly noon.”
“Bright eyed and bushy tailed?” I chortled with weak laughter, opening my eyes to stare at him pointedly. I didn’t bother to get riled up at his comments anymore. Half the time his remarks were made with the sole purpose of getting a reaction out of me. By not giving him what he wanted, I smugly considered each brushed off attempt a personal victory. “I could point out that you don’t have a deranged actress calling you at all times of the night demanding answers to the most inane questions you’ve ever heard. Like how am I supposed to remember what the common themes of my dreams were four years ago? Last night she called me at midnight and wouldn’t let me off the phone for three hours while I related to her every birthday party I had between the ages of five and twelve in graphic detail.”
Declan tried to stop his amusement with a guffaw, but he caved soon enough, cackling loudly at my expense. His gray eyes sparkled as he threw his head back and accepted the moment fully. There weren’t many people who laughed like he did. There was freedom in it. It was thrillingly unabashed.
It was also unbelievably sexy. I’d been fighting my attraction for him tooth and nail, and most of the time Declan did a nice job curing me of it himself, just by opening his mouth.
“You know you wouldn’t be doing twice as much as me if you hired people to help you keep up with things? It’s the only way Madeline survives,” I said, hoping to distract him. I needed a second to get my panties back under control.
“Madeline doesn’t pay those people to do things for her.”
There was no question of my disbelief. It was written all over my face. I saw those people wait hand and foot on the eighteen-year-old princess every second of every day with my own eyes. They did everything for her.
“Okay, well they definitely help, but that’s not the real reason she keeps them around.” His fingertips tapped a tune I didn’t know on the expensive wood detailed inside the car.
“Why don’t you tell me the real reason then, Dr. Phil?”
“I’m going to ignore your obviously American reference that you’re perfectly aware I will not understand,” he informed briskly. “Madeline is really paying those people to pay attention to her.”
“Pssh.” I blew my long, blond bangs out of my face. “She doesn’t need to pay anyone to do that. All of America gives her plenty of attention for free. If anything she gets too much attention.”
He shrugged and looked away, not putting up near the fight I was expecting.
His sudden disinterest threw me off, and I was left grappling back to the original subject. “I’m just saying, if you had an assistant, you wouldn’t have missed that meeting with the reporter from Variety yesterday.”
“How’d you know about that?” His eyes cut to me sharply.
“I pay attention,” I brushed him off, not resisting a little dig, leftover from our last topic of conversation. It wasn’t like I was stalking him. When he was sitting next to me – yammering away on the phone in his slanted English – it was impossible not to eavesdrop.
“I don’t need to pay people to hang all over me all day. I’ve played out that whole bit before and I don’t need another lesson in how fame ruins people.” His words were clipped, reverting back to the scowl I was so familiar with. He slipped it on smoothly, like an old favorite sweatshirt. His legs and arms inched inward, until his back was stiff and his arms crossed over his chest resolutely.
It was clear it was a sore subject, and I wasn’t as curious as I was disconcerted by his mood swings. I knew how to handle snarky-Declan, but the scowl was something I’d never get used to. The silence ate at me until I was about to blurt out something pertaining to the weather, just to scare off the space growing between us, when he saved me.
“I just remembered what I wanted to ask you about.”
In the short seconds I’d been distracted, he’d easily reverted back into his slouching position that would have surely given my old ballet teacher a coronary. His bad posture wasn’t what was making me nervous though. It was the dirty smirk pointed directly at me. I really wasn’t going to like what he was about to say.