When their eyes met, Jason grinned and added, “With a penis.”

“Is that what this is all about?”

“Penises?”

Taylor laughed. “I meant, you needing a model for your character. Is that why you . . .” She trailed off, as if uncertain how to finish her sentence.

“Is that why I . . . what?”

Jason realized then that despite the fact that Taylor was trapped between him and the railing, she seemed to be making no attempt to move away.

Her eyes searched his. “Why you keep . . . pestering me,” she said softly.

“Is that what I’m doing?” Jason murmured, stepping closer.

Drawn in, Taylor’s eyes lowered seductively as she raised her face to his. “Yes,” she whispered, “you’re definitely very pesty.”

And suddenly, Jason couldn’t help himself.

Despite all his best-laid plans, he was lost . . . his hand reached up to the nape of her neck and he gently pulled her in to him . . . she wasn’t stopping him, in fact her hand slid up his chest and her lips parted invitingly as she pulled him closer and his lips came down to hers and—

“Oh my god, it’s Jason Andrews!”

The scream came from the terrace below.

Jason watched as it happened—the dreamy fog dissolved from Taylor’s eyes, like a method actor who’d been deeply into character when the director suddenly yelled “Cut!” Reality set in.

She immediately stepped away from him as if caught. He looked down and saw that a crowd had formed on the terrace below them. Several women shouted frantically, pointing, crying out his name. Paparazzi appeared out of nowhere. Cameras began to flash as everyone scrambled to get photographs. Suddenly, it was pure bedlam. Jason took a step back from the balcony and reached for Taylor—

But she was gone. Inside.

With a look of disappointment, Jason waved to the crowd, then turned and headed to the terrace doors.

The screams of his fans were upon his back all the way inside.


AS JASON WALKED Taylor up the brick path to her apartment, she was quietly relieved that the evening was coming to an end. She’d been internally berating herself over the Terrace Snafu (as she’d come to think of it) and externally had been doing her best to let Jason know that whatever he thought was about to happen back in Vegas was not, in fact, what had been about to happen.

Of course, she knew full well what had been about to happen.

God only knows what she’d been thinking, but she had, in fact, been about to kiss Jason. Such a move would have been unprofessional and unethical, not to mention overwhelmingly stupid. She blamed the vodka and the heat for getting to her. Never mind the fact that it had been only sixty-five degrees on the terrace and she’d gone instantly sober the minute the crowd had begun screaming.

“Did you have a good time tonight?” It was the fourth time Jason had asked her that since they’d landed.

She nodded. “Yes.”

For once, conversation seemed to elude them. Luckily, they arrived at her front door. Taylor was careful to keep a good distance between her and Jason as they said good-bye.

“So, thank you, again, for the gambling lesson and, you know, everything else,” she said lamely.

Jason, too, seemed to be struggling for something to say.

“So . . . okay, then.” He shifted uneasily.

When another awkward moment passed, Taylor nodded efficiently. “Good-bye, Jason.” She turned and unlocked her door and was just about to step inside her apartment when—

“I’m having a party next Saturday.”

Taylor glanced back over her shoulder. Jason stood there, on her doorstep, wearing the same lost-but-adorable expression he’d had that first evening when she’d left him alone with the paparazzi outside her office building.

“You should come,” he said, shrugging with a boyish grin. “If you don’t have other plans, that is.”

“Next Saturday?” Taylor quickly tried to think of an excuse.

Jason nodded. “June twenty-first. Mark it in that little BlackBerry you carry everywhere.”

The words hit Taylor with a shock, like a bucket of icy water that had been dumped over her head.

“June twenty-first?” she repeated.

Her wedding day.

Or rather, her former wedding day, before she called it off after finding Daniel in flagrante doggie-stylo with his assistant. With everything going on, the date had completely slipped her mind.

Jason saw the expression on her face. “Do you have other plans that day?”

Taylor shook her head slowly. “No. Um, not anymore.”

Jason smiled, the matter having been settled in his mind. “Great. Then I’ll see you there.”


HE HAD MADE up the whole thing about the party, of course.

Jason had been struggling, trying to think of anything to say to get a second nonwork date/meeting/whatever with Taylor, and he’d just blurted the words out. He hadn’t hosted a party in years (he hated having people in his house), but it had been the first thing that had come to mind that wouldn’t so obviously convey to her exactly what he was trying to do.

“A party?” Marty was surprised the next morning when Jason stopped by his office on the way to the set to pass along the news.

Jason nodded. “I’ll let you handle the list.” He relaxed on the couch that fronted the wall of windows in Marty’s office.

“Is there anyone special I’m supposed to put on this list?” Marty asked.

“Whoever. The usual people.” Jason’s tone was casual. “And Taylor Donovan.”

Marty paused at this. Then he nodded. “Sure, sure, Ms. Donovan—of course. But I also think we should invite some of the other actors from In the Dark,” he said, referring to the legal thriller Jason was shooting. “Like Naomi Cross.”

Jason shot Marty a knowing look. His publicist had been pushing Naomi Cross on him since the day she’d been cast. It would create great buzz for the film, Marty had urged repeatedly. One of the favorite strategies of any Hollywood publicist was to leak a web of hints, suggestions, innuendos, and whispers that two costars were hooking up on set. All of which, of course, would then in turn be vehemently denied by said publicist when asked.

“I’ve talked to Naomi’s publicist, and we agree it would be great for the two of you to be seen together,” Marty continued. “Her publicist is probably having the same conversation with her right at this very moment.”

Jason sighed. Normally, he didn’t mind this part of the business. In fact, typically he didn’t have to be asked by his publicist to be “seen” with his costars because he was already sleeping with them anyway. But something didn’t feel right this time. He didn’t like the thought of Taylor reading about him and another woman in the press. He already needed to handle things delicately with her. He didn’t see any reason to add more obstacles to the mix.

“Feel free to put Naomi or anyone else you want on the list,” Jason told Marty. “But for now, this party is the only thing you should focus on.”


TRUTH BE TOLD, Marty had been a bit perturbed by Jason’s flat-out refusal to discuss the Naomi issue any further. They were costars, they both were single—of course there had to be rumors spread about them. It was the Hollywood way of things. He didn’t understand why Jason was being so damn stubborn about the whole thing.

Luckily, within twenty-four hours, Marty’s annoyance with his number one client dissipated as word spread around town that Jason Andrews was having a party that weekend. All of Los Angeles seemed to be talking about it. Funny, even Scott Casey mentioned it to Marty when the two of them met for lunch at Ago a few days later to discuss the possibility of Marty becoming his new publicist. Over their steak salads, Scott casually mentioned that he had always been curious to see Jason Andrews’s famous mansion.

Of course, since Scott was now a potential client, Marty was more than happy to put his name on the invite list.

Fifteen

WHEN SATURDAY EVENING rolled around, as many of Hollywood’s biggest names and most beautiful faces were presumably being primped and dressed, and as frantic publicists undoubtedly raced around coordinating the all-important last-minute details of who would arrive exactly when and with whom, Taylor sat quietly alone in her apartment.

She wasn’t going.

She took the Terrace Snafu as a warning sign that Jason Andrews plus alcohol (she still blamed the vodka) was not a good mix, and that things between them should remain on a purely professional level from here on out.

Yes, true, not going would mean spending another Saturday night by herself while the one person she knew in Los Angeles threw what appeared to be the biggest party of the year. And yes, not going would mean pathetically sitting home alone on what was previously supposed to be the night of her wedding, while being forced to listen to the long and pitiful messages Daniel kept leaving on her machine (he had called three times that day already).

And not going also meant not seeing Jason.

This was a good thing, Taylor reminded herself. After their night in Las Vegas, she had a pretty good idea what Jason was after and—judging from her completely unthinking reaction to him on the terrace—she worried that she couldn’t keep him at bay forever. Or rather, that she wouldn’t want to.

And she worried that this seemed to be worrying her less and less.

Taylor had replayed that moment on the Bellagio balcony a thousand times in her head. Actually, it wasn’t just in her head—the shots the paparazzi had gotten of her and Jason, right before they had almost kissed, had made the covers of all the tabloid magazines. “Jason and the Mystery Woman: It’s On!”; “Hot Desert Nights: Jason with Mystery Woman in Vegas!”; “Romance at the Bellagio!” Every morning, Linda left a different tabloid on Taylor’s chair. And every morning, she promptly tossed them in her garbage can.