Method Acting: An opposites attract, found family romance (Center Stage Book 2) Adele Buck (e novels to read .TXT) 📖

“Time enough for another stop to pick up an additional passenger, you think?”

Jeanette’s eyebrows rose. “Are you telling me you’ll be going with a lady friend?”

“No, I’m telling you we will be making an additional stop for—how is it you Yanks put it?— ‘hookers and blow’ prior to my arrival at the gala.”

“Funny. What’s her name?” Jeanette pursed her lips and looked fixedly at her computer screen, the lines fanning around her eyes giving away her appreciation of the joke.

“Alicia Johnson,” he said. “Her flat is in Capitol Hill, more or less on the way to the Grand Hyatt.”

“Then let’s back your pickup time off by ten minutes.” Jeanette made a note. “Anything you want sent to her in advance?”

“Such as?”

She gave him a withering look. “Flowers are always a nice gesture.”

He was an ignoramus. He had frequently sent flowers to Tressa. Why hadn’t it occurred to him to send them to Alicia?

“Hm. Well, she did mention that her attendance was contingent on finding a suitable gown.” As he mulled this over, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Pulling it out, he saw a text message notification. Unlocking his phone, his screen filled with an image of Alicia’s face, her head tilted back, her hair characteristically spilling across her eyes. She must have held her phone almost directly over her head. He could see a glimpse of a silvery bodice and an enticing shadow of cleavage. His mouth went dry.

“Problem?” Jeanette asked.

Colin cleared his throat and showed her the phone screen. “Ah. No. No problem at all.”

Jeanette’s eyebrows quirked up. “Is that her? Lovely. Looks like she found a dress.”

“As you say. I think flowers are in order.”

“On it, boss.”

“I thought you weren’t assisting me with personal matters?”

“Only if it isn’t fun. This is fun. Besides, you always had me send them to…well. You know.”

“If I have to do the distasteful things like take calls from ‘you know,’ then I get to do the allegedly fun things like send flowers to Alicia. Where do we order flowers from?”

Jeanette made a face. “I’ll e-mail you the information.”

Unlocking the front door of her apartment, Alicia suppressed a giggle at her luck. Over one arm she hefted a garment bag with the “borrowed” designer evening gown a television star had worn to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The other actress had savaged the hem with her six-inch platform heels, and the designer had refused to take it back. Having already been seen in the garment, the actress didn’t care what happened to it. Her assistant, a D.C. native, had brought the dress straight to Olga and sold it to her at a fraction of its original worth. Olga had a seamstress hem the dress again, eliminating the torn edge.

And now it was Alicia’s, at a price she imagined would make the D.C. Police run her down for theft.

Carrying it back to her bedroom, she hung the garment bag on the back of her closet door and unzipped it. A column of black silk, topped by silver and illusion netting, met her eye. Alicia pressed her fingers to her lips.

It was gorgeous.

She had felt bold and sexy when she had given in to the impulse to text the photo to Colin. Now she felt silly. He would give me his number when he asked me for mine. And I would use it for something like that.

She did know how to be provocative.

It was maybe time to finally dial that back. Her new job…cable TV. Give an inch and they’d ask for a mile. Or give them a nipple and they’d ask for…

She grimaced. Cross that bridge when she got to it.

The doorbell rang. Alicia took a deep breath, gathered herself, and moved through the kitchen and living room to the front door. A glance through the peephole showed a young woman in a drab baseball cap.

Okay…

Opening the door, Alicia was met with a large, square vase filled with an enormous profusion of flowers spilling out of the top. She blinked as she took the giant arrangement, nodding as the delivery woman said something about signing for it and setting it on the coffee table. Receiving the other woman’s clipboard, she scribbled a signature and smiled. The delivery woman merely turned on her heel and walked up the shallow flight of stairs to the street level.

Alicia turned to the mass of flowers as if they were an unexpected visitor to entertain. Or maybe an alien delegation. “Take me to your leader.” A plastic trident sticking up from the arrangement held a small envelope. Plucking it off, she pulled out the card inside.

Thank you for agreeing to go to the gala with me. I look forward to seeing more of the gown next weekend.

—Colin

Damn the man. How had she ever thought he was an asshole?

“Jeanette,” Colin called out of his office. “How do you know that a flower arrangement has actually been delivered?”

Appearing in his office doorway, Jeanette smiled and crossed her arms over her chest. “Generally speaking, you don’t.”

“Then how do you know that the delivery has been…delivered?”

“You don’t. You trust that it has.” Jeanette grinned with wicked humor.

Colin glared at her. “You seem to be enjoying this.”

Jeanette’s smile broadened. “I am. You’re generally so in control. This is amusing.”

Narrowing his eyes, Colin looked at the florist’s webpage. “Why don’t these bloody services give some sense of the…service they’re offering?”

Shrugging one shoulder, Jeanette stood away from the doorframe. “You have to have some faith, Colin. You paid for the service, you need to trust the professionals.”

“Professionals that should have GPS-enabled delivery notification,” Colin said.

“Or maybe a gentleman should just wait for a thank you note,” Jeanette noted.

“Thank you note? In the twenty-first century?”

“We haven’t descended into absolute savagery,” Jeannette said.

“And how many thank you notes have you received lately?”

“From whom?” Jeanette asked.

“How about from your grandchildren?” Colin said, a sinking feeling in his gut an early warning sign that he was engaged in a losing