To Love Jason Thorn (Page 18)

“Can we talk about this some other time?”

“Before you leave for your date tonight?”

“It’s not a date, we’re just going over my contract with his agent. It’s a…work thing.”

“You say tomato, I say tomato.”

“God, you talk too much in the mornings.”

After that I completely tuned her out and finally, after several minutes of trying to engage me in a conversation about Jason, she gave up and let us get some sleep in peace.

***

“I think I’m a little in love with your car,” I said a few minutes after I got in Jason’s car that night.

“Yeah?” he asked, smirking.

“Yeah. I love the midnight black, and the red leather accents. Oh, and his eyes are so cute when you look at him from the front.”

“Him? My Spyder isn’t a he, woman, and nothing about her is cute. Sexy? That’s a hell yes. Cute eyes? No.”

I shrugged.

I’d had Char distract Lucy for me as I escaped from the house before she could corner me and discuss her newly made plans. She’d even made a list with the title How to Get Jason to Fall Crazy in Love with Green Olive. Her reasoning behind the importance of the list? She needed him to fuck my brains out. In her pretty little mind she thought I was her best bet for getting some answers to her questions. All in all, having effectively escaped that line of thinking, I felt pretty good about the evening. There was nothing worse than having Lucy making you her pet project. I was already struggling with being near Jason as it was; I didn’t need to think about how certain parts of him looked when he was naked.

His home was on a hillside overlooking a breathless view of Beverly Hills. Strangely, up until I saw the beautiful, ornate steel gates, I hadn’t felt out of place with him. After he did something on his phone I couldn’t quite see, the gates opened and he drove up the driveway, stopping the engine when we reached the enormous white doors of his home—or small mansion was more like it.

“Wow.” I breathed out as I stepped out of the car. “This is amazing, Jason.” Looking around in awe at the well-kept garden that surrounded the place, I had the sudden urge to take off my shoes and simply walk around on the grass.

“You like it?” he asked with an odd, innocent smile on his handsome face. “You don’t think it’s over the top?”

“You’re a full-blown Hollywood star, Jason,” I said, unable to take my eyes off of every little detail around the house. “It would be disappointing if you had a run-down house. Your girlfriends must go even more crazy over you after seeing this place.” As if a sincere smile from him wasn’t enough to make you hand over your soul to the devil.

“You’re the first girl I’ve brought here.”

I glanced around one last time and walked to his side. “What do you mean?”

He scratched the back of his head then gestured for me to follow him to the front door.

“I guess you could say I’m a little weird about that. This is my home, my escape from a demanding industry, in a way. I’m constantly surrounded by thousands of people when I’m off somewhere filming. Forget about filming, everyone knows every detail of my life whether I want them to or not. When I come home, I want this place to be untainted by all that. I don’t even have a staff that’s around 24/7. I like my privacy a little too much,” he said as he opened the door and invited me in.

A little too excited about seeing his home for the first time, I stepped inside. “So…you’re saying there are no outrageous Hollywood parties in my future? Damn, I was hoping to snag an invite.”

He laughed. The throaty sound was entrancing.

As we walked through a narrow hallway, our arms almost touching, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him and his smiling eyes.

“How about I’ll promise to take you with me if I’m ever invited to an outrageous Hollywood party?”

“Yes please.”

When the hallway came to an end and I saw the open plan of the living room and the kitchen, I gasped and walked ahead of him straight to the floor-to-ceiling glass walls that revealed not only a killer view, but an expansive backyard with an infinity pool and a hot tub.

My face an inch away from the glass window, I felt Jason come up behind me. “Can they bury me here? Will you let them? Please? I just want my ghost to sit over there and look down at the city, and maybe walk around the grass every now and then. I won’t bother to haunt you at all.”

He chuckled again. “I didn’t think you’d enjoy it this much.”

“Are you kidding me? I would give pretty much anything to come to this place at the end of every day.” Giving the pool a longing look, I faced Jason.

“Seriously, this is amazing, what you’ve accomplished, what you’ve built for yourself. It will probably mean nothing to you, but I’m proud of you. So proud to have known you when you weren’t such a hotshot.” Giving him a small smile, I shrugged. “I’m also glad that you lived with us for as long as you did back then. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity to annoy you as much as I probably did when I was a kid.”

I felt a familiar tug on my hair as he hooked his arm around my neck and drew me to his side. I let my shaky hand rest on his chest, near his heart. When his lips touched my forehead and he didn’t loosen his hold on me, I closed my eyes and let my heart enjoy the peace.

When he drew back, my heart was going a mile a minute. Looking into my eyes, he smiled. “You have never in your life annoyed me, little one. If I didn’t have you looking after me, who would’ve always given me the first and biggest slices of those pies you made with your mom?”

I chuckled. “Do you remember the first time you came to our house? I promised you the biggest slice of the apple pie and ended up giving you half of the damn thing. I can still see the shock on your face when I brought it over.”

His eyes twinkled with laughter. “How could I forget? You looked so pleased with yourself, just waiting in front of me to hear what I thought of your baking skills.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t so happy when my mom swooped in and took the thing right out of my hands before I could give it to you.”

“You brought me five slices worth of pie, little one. After your mom’s dinner, I barely had enough room to eat one piece.” His voice had gone quiet when his eyes met mine.

“Well, I was heartbroken,” I said, equally softly.

His dimple beckoning me to take a very, very small taste, Jason’s eyes looked down at me with such a warmness to them that I didn’t know what to do or what to say for several seconds.

Could I handle being his friend?

Could I ignore my heart begging and screaming against my chest?

Did he even want to be my friend, or was this just a one-time-only favor kinda thing?

The loud ringtone of his phone burst our little bubble, and he took his arms away from me to answer the call.

“Tom? Yes. Take your time, we’ll be okay. Fine, call her and come up with a new strategy then.” Ending his call, he turned to me. “He’ll be here in an hour or so. I had Alvin bring in Chinese takeout, you hungry?”

“Alvin?”

“My assistant. You’ll meet him soon enough.” As he padded toward his beautiful kitchen, I followed a few steps behind him, admiring the way his shoulders moved with every relaxed step.