“Oh, good luck with that. Personally, I hate parties. They’re not really my scene,” I told him. I was much more of a crash-on-my-couch-and-eat-my-body-weight-in-chocolate kind of girl. And why was he bragging about going to a party? We already knew he was famous. He didn’t need to remind us.
He raised his eyebrows. “Right. Okay.” He paused, and I ignored Shelby, who was currently pressing down on my right foot and I didn’t know why.
“Oh, that Juliet!” Shelby said, slapping me on the arm. Hard enough that I flinched. “She likes parties! Who doesn’t like a party? She’s the perfect girl to take to a party. You’ve obviously already met her, so you know that she’s tall and gorgeous and fun and so, so sweet and kind.” Was it my imagination or did mention of my sweetness and kindness make a smile ghost across his lips? “And she’s an entrepreneur. She just started up her own mobile dog-grooming business.”
“Yes, she might have mentioned that already,” he said.
“Do you have a dog?” Shelby asked, her voice still too bright and perky. “Because you definitely want to hire Juliet. She will come to you and clean your pup. Anytime, day or night.” She opened her purse. “Here’s her card.”
That made me blink rapidly. Why did she have my business cards in her purse? And why was she talking about me like I wasn’t even in the room?
He studied it for a moment. “Thanks. I’ll give you a call sometime, Juliet Nolan.” He said my name like he was caressing it with his voice, and I almost passed out. “Have a good evening.” He slid my card into his breast pocket, nodded his head, and then he was gone. Vanished as quickly as he’d appeared.
I would have wondered if I’d hallucinated the whole thing if not for Shelby jumping up and down and shrieking, “I can’t believe we met Noah Douglas! What? How did that happen? Best day ever! And how deliciously awkward were the two of you? I loved it!”
“What was that?” I demanded.
Her jumping stopped. “What?”
“That . . . that word vomit just now? About me and my business?”
She tilted her chin defiantly. “I was helping you.”
“I don’t think so.” That had been awful. If I hadn’t scared him away before, well, Shelby had just made sure that I’d definitely never see him again. He probably thought we were psychos. “And why do you have my business card?”
“Duh, in case we need them. Which we obviously just did. Don’t you have some of mine?”
“I don’t even have mine in here.”
Shelby took my clutch and put both my cards and some of her cards for her interior design business into it. “There. Now you do. Just in case one of the Hemsworths wants me to redo their bedroom.”
“Do you think Harmony will get mad about you trying to drum up business?”
A look of dismay crumpled up Shelby’s face. “Well, I do now!”
“No, don’t get upset! I was kidding. I’m the only one who knows, and I promise I won’t tell her. And you know Noah Douglas won’t, so we’re good.”
“To be fair, the Noah thing was personal. It wasn’t about business.”
“What do you mean?”
“Uh, he’s interested in you. He asked you out.”
I could feel my eyebrows fly up my forehead. “What! He did not.”
“Yes, he did. He was inviting you to that party, and you cut him off and then shot him down. After he was all gallant and returned your clutch to you. Which is something he absolutely did not have to do.”
My heart started pounding fast. Was she right? I mentally reviewed what he’d said. He had never actually asked me to go. Shelby was reading into the situation. I couldn’t let myself believe that she might be right. Time to put my defenses back up. It didn’t matter how hot Noah Douglas was—nothing was happening and I wasn’t going to buy into the fantasy. That was much more her thing than mine. I was the pragmatic realist here.
“People can be polite without ulterior motives. Plus, he was already on a date. With a very beautiful woman.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “You know as well as I do half of the ‘relationships’ in this town are just showmances arranged by their respective PR teams. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would ask a girl out if he was on a date with another one.”
“You don’t know anything about him.”
“Neither do you. Which is why you should get to know him when he calls you.”
I wanted to roll my eyes. “He’s not going to call me. That’s just something you say when somebody forces you to take a business card.”
“Noah Douglas is going to call you.”
“No, he’s not. Tonight did not go well.”
“He is.”
“He is not going to call me.”
He totally called me.
CHAPTER FOUR
A week after the awards show, I was on my couch enjoying the second movie in the Duel of the Fae trilogy. Halfway through a box popped up on my screen.
ARE YOU STILL WATCHING?
“Yes, InstaFlicks, I’m still watching. I don’t need your judgment on my movie consumption,” I muttered. I clicked the “Yes” button. If they were going to question my life choices, they should create something that would appear in my fridge and ask, “Do you really want to eat that?” It would be much more helpful. Or remind me to take a shower.
My phone rang, and I picked it up to look at the screen. It said RESTRICTED. Before I started my business, I wouldn’t have answered it, but now I couldn’t afford to miss out on any potential clients.
The total upside was all the time I got to spend chatting with telemarketers about my insurance needs and potential credit card applications.
“Hello?” I asked, my mouth full of popcorn.
“Hi, is this Juliet?”
“Yep.”
“This is Noah. Noah Douglas? We met the other night.”
I sat straight up and shot all the popcorn out of my mouth, dropping the bowl to the floor. Then I fumbled with the remote, trying to hit the pause button. The last thing I needed was him hearing his own voice coming from my TV.
“Yes, hi. Noah. I remember. What can I do for you?” I cringed. I sounded so stupid.
“I know this is last-minute, but . . .” He trailed off, and my whole chest constricted. What if Shelby wasn’t misguided by her pretty-girl vision filter and had called this correctly and he wanted to go out with me? “I find myself in need of some emergency dog-grooming services. Could you help me out?”
My shoulders caved in. Oh. “Emergency dog-grooming services? You know that’s not really a thing, right?”
“In this case it is. My dog, Magnus, is obsessed with mud, and he managed to find some. Problem is that we have an interview and photo shoot we’re doing together tomorrow, and we both need to look our best. Can you come over?”
It felt like a heavy weight was pressing down on my chest as my heart thumped loudly. This was a job, and someone like Noah Douglas was well connected in Los Angeles. This could lead to more clients and more money.
So why wasn’t I saying yes?
As if he sensed my hesitation, he said, “I don’t want to be that guy, but you do still owe me one, and I’m calling it in.”