Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Until he couldn’t.
He pushed the unhappy memories away, wondering why his mind would even go there when his life now was everything that frightened and unhappy boy had dreamed of. For a fleeting second, he wished his mom were still alive. He had so much money now he could have put her in rehab, got her the help she needed. Though, deep down, he knew it wouldn’t have succeeded.
He walked Erin down the hall and pointed out the bedrooms and the bathrooms, each of which had been painted in a different color. He was hoping she might share her ideas about the place. Erin had great taste. In fact, she was one of the classiest women he knew.
Instead, she just nodded again, then glanced at her watch. “I should really get going. I have an editorial meeting.”
His spirits drooped a little. “Come on, the Sea Shell can do without you for ten more minutes.” He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want to be alone in this big, echoing house that had no furniture in it yet. He liked having Erin here; the Davenports were as close to family as he’d ever had. It made him happy that the first two people who’d seen it with him were the two Davenport sisters.
When they got to the fifth ensuite bedroom she asked, “What do you want all these bedrooms for?”
He gave a stock answer. “Friends and family. Really special clients.” He didn’t share that secretly, he dreamed of filling these bedrooms with children. He didn’t know where or when he was going to find the kind of woman he actually wanted to settle down with, but he had this feeling that it was the next step for him. Jay had always liked to have the next step planned out.
She gazed around. “It’s architecturally brilliant, but strangely, at the same time it feels more like a family home.”
Jay smiled a small smile. Once again, Erin had seen through him. He shrugged. “Maybe. But the minute Mila showed me this house I knew it was The One.”
She looked slightly puzzled. “Really? I wouldn’t have chosen this house for you.”
He felt a little taken aback, almost offended. “Why not?”
She seemed to choose her words carefully. “It’s not flashy enough.”
His eyebrows shot up. “I’m not always flashy. That’s so not fair.”
Humor lit up her hazel eyes, which were fringed with thick, fluttery lashes. “Yes, you are.” She began to tap the fingers of her left hand with the index finger of her right. “You drive the most expensive car I’ve ever seen—all your clothes are custom made—you never buy a T-shirt off the rack—you fly to Milan once a year for suits and shoes.”
He laughed. “Come on, short stuff. You know that’s just for my image. As I told Arch when he first asked me to be his agent—when I had zero experience and he didn’t have much more as an actor—in Hollywood, and frankly in life, image is everything.”
They walked down the stairs and Jay lingered by the library archway. “Apart from the master bedroom, this is my favorite room in the whole place.”
Erin’s face said it all.
“What? You think I don’t read?” Again, Jay found himself offended just by her expression.
Erin looked a little flushed. “Come on, you’re a movie guy.”
She wasn’t to know, but Erin had hit a real sore spot. Jay was self-educated, and in fact had taught himself to read using cereal boxes and his mom’s gossip magazines.
“Do you know how many scripts I read in a week?” Jay shot back. Then he softened. It wasn’t the first time someone had believed him to be all talk and a fat wallet. “But that’s not all. I have enough books to fill this room twice over. In fact, I’ll have to have more bookshelves built in the living room.”
Erin still looked a little incredulous, so he explained how he’d started reading scripts at an early age, then progressed to devouring every screenwriting book before discovering the literary greats of the twentieth century. “It wasn’t long before I was going even further back and enjoying Plato and Socrates. Now I read a lot of modern philosophers.”
He could see Erin absorbing this information and he stiffened, waiting for another jibe. Instead, she said, “I can’t wait to see your library. I guess some of the philosophers were also great negotiators, and so are you.”
He stared at her for a moment, searching her expression for a sign that she was teasing him. But her eyes were wide and earnest. It was the nicest thing she’d ever said to him, aligning his work and his outlook with those of the great philosophers. Heck, it was probably the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him.
He smiled at her and tried to push down that flash of attraction that was growing now. He studied Erin again, the strawberry blonde hair tied up in a messy ponytail, no makeup, casual clothes. She was nothing like the models he was used to dating, who shapeshifted according to the latest fashion, surprising him by turning up to dinner with a blunt bob and bleached eyebrows or transforming from a curly redhead to a siren with straight jet-black hair. For the longest time, he’d found it seductive to be kept on his toes this way, but looking now at Erin—the familiarity of her, how comfortable she was in her own skin—he realized it was sexy as hell. He had always respected her smarts and the way she could read people. It had made him extra careful about keeping up his tough front when she was around. He didn’t want her sussing out his more than humble beginnings.