Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 61005 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61005 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Milo took a seat on the edge of one couch, gesturing with his hands as he started talking. “We’re so glad you’ve come, aren’t we, Janus? I was just telling Janus here how I knew what we needed, I knew just who to call. Hope! Hope would give us hope, wasn’t that exactly what I was telling you? And voila! Here she is! In the flesh.”
At the word flesh, Janus’s eyes flicked up and down my body again. I felt my cheeks flush. Good Lord. Didn’t he know that was… well… it was uncouth. Even if he had done so relatively discreetly. I hadn’t missed the flare of interest I’d registered in his eyes before he’d glanced away again, walking towards the bar opposite the kitchen.
Though he didn’t pour himself anything to drink. Instead, he suddenly turned around and cut off Milo’s warm stream of consciousness by asking, “So is it Mrs. Robins… or Ms. Robins?”
The way the register of his deep voice lingered on the Ms. in that phrase was truly obscene.
“It’s M-m-m,” I squeezed my eyes shut, cheeks heating in the hell of my stammer, “M-m-m-m— I’m single,” I finally finished with an expulsion of breath.
There was an awkward moment of silence and I was sure that my cheeks were overheated jars of tomato sauce about to explode.
“O-kaaay,” Milo laughed, then clapped his hands. “Why don’t we get down to it?”
Dear God, why did everything sound like sexual innuendo right now? I had a problem. I sat down hastily on a couch across from Milo. Smoothing my damp palms down the denim of my overalls didn’t help, and when I felt Janus’s eyes on me again, I balled them into fists.
I cleared my throat and tried to pull on all my professional training. For my sanity, though, I looked away from Janus and addressed Milo.
“You said you had some kind of PR emergency? Where’s your normal publicist? Why aren’t they helping you?”
“Well,” Milo hedged, his open face suddenly clouding.
“Are you sure she’s right for this?” Janus asked, walking lazily back towards us. “She looks about ten.”
I blanched, my mouth dropping open. Did he really just say that?
Milo swore under his breath. “Jesus, usually it’s Leander who’s the asshole. What’s with you today?”
Janus glared at him. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because the last publicist we brought in fucked us over so badly.”
Okay, they had my attention now.
As if they’d ever lost it. The Mavros twins were notoriously hot when they were pissed off. It was just one of the reasons Leander’s TV show Gemini was such a hit. I had a hard time looking away from his sculpted face. I had to keep forcing my eyes back to Milo so I wasn’t caught staring.
“What happened?” I asked, proud I’d managed it without any stuttering. The malady only hit when I was either extremely nervous or extremely excited. I couldn’t tell which I was right now, though I suspected it was some screwed up mix of both.
Milo and Leander just shared a dark look. Then Milo finally spoke up. “If she’s going to help us, we have to tell her.”
“Fine, but make her sign an NDA first.”
Milo rolled his eyes but nodded. “Naturally.”
“Of course I’m happy to,” I hurried to say, then reassured them, “I always keep my client’s information strictly confidential. But I understand how important paperwork is.”
Milo picked up an iPad from a side table by the couch where he was sitting and handed it over. I signed with my finger and handed it back. Then I looked at the two men expectantly. “So how can I help you today?”
I expected them to come right out with it, but instead, Janus finally sat down on the couch corner next to mine, so that we were almost seated side by side. With him so near, I was hit by the male scent of him—not overwhelming, but definitely present. Aftershave? Cologne?
“I take it you’re familiar with my brother’s career?” he asked.
I nodded, trying to keep my cool while also maintaining eye contact. I’d chatted easily with Oscar winners before. I could do this. “And yours,” I said politely.
Janus smirked. “Such as it was. He’s the star now. I’m just in the shadows. Spotlight doesn’t agree with me.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that—even though I had a lot to say on the topic of child stars, considering my place in the industry. It wasn’t as if adolescence had been kind to either Mavros twin. Like so many child stars who didn’t have a strong support system, the twins had spiraled in their mid-to-late teens.
Both of them had quite publicly engaged in every sort of debauchery they could find. There were pictures of them with powder on their noses. One or the other of them making out with some starlet or another, often with arms around two women at once. Usually stumbling out of whatever club he was too young to have been in in the first place.