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Standing, Nicole walked around the desk and gestured to a chair; Chelsea sank into it, her face pale. Nicole sat next to her. “I’m afraid he isn’t here,” she explained, “and I don’t have his address.”
“I do. I checked there first, but he wasn’t around. He...he got me a ticket so I could, um, come and visit. I’m afraid I just jumped on a plane and came, so he didn’t know when to expect me.”
“Have you tried calling him?”
“I, uh, don’t have a cell phone right now. It’s lost, and I should have replaced it before leaving, but I didn’t.” Chelsea’s lip trembled and she wiped a hand across her face, only to stare at the heavy smear of makeup on her palm. The bruise was now quite visible. It looked fresh.
“How did you get hurt?” Nicole asked, deciding it was best to mention it openly.
“Oh. I... I was in a traffic accident a couple days ago. It wasn’t too bad.”
Nicole wasn’t sure she was telling the complete truth. Something difficult was going on in Chelsea’s life.
“I’m glad it wasn’t serious. Was anyone else involved?”
“There was the other driver and my boyfriend. That is, not anymore... I mean, we’d just broken up. It was his car. They say it wasn’t his fault, but...you know.”
The phone rang and Nicole sighed. “Sorry, I need to answer that. We don’t have an office manager right now and the temp agency didn’t have anyone to send today.”
It turned out to be a photographer who’d seen their website and wanted a go-see with three of the agency’s models. Nicole took down the details and swiftly texted the clients.
While she’d been on the phone, Chelsea had wandered away. When Nicole went looking, she found her visitor standing in the reception area, straightening files on the desk.
Chelsea turned and looked at Nicole. “I don’t suppose you’d consider hiring me as your office manager.”
“You’re looking for a job?”
“I worked out my notice on my last position and haven’t started looking, but I’m getting my résumé together.”
“You don’t live here.”
“On the flight up I was thinking it might be a good idea to move away from Los Angeles. I’ve really liked Seattle whenever I visited Jordan.” Her face fell. “But...but I guess you wouldn’t want to hire me. I mean because he’s writing the articles and the way our moms... I mean, I’d never say anything to Jordan about anything here at the agency, but it wasn’t fair to ask.”
Nicole couldn’t deny that privacy was a concern. On the other hand, she had nothing to hide. She wouldn’t hire Jordan’s little sister just to prove that, but it would be a side benefit should Chelsea prove to be suitable.
“What sort of work experience do you have?” she asked, playing for time to think.
“At the company where I used to work I started out as an office manager, though I’ve been in HR for the last three years.”
Chelsea had experience a talent agency could use, yet the last thing they needed was a scared rabbit in the office. Nicole hesitated, but Moonlight Ventures was supposed to be about encouraging people to become their best. Why couldn’t that apply to an office manager, as well as other clients?
She took an application from a file drawer. “Fill this out if you’re really interested.”
Chelsea’s expression brightened. “I’ll do it right now.”
“One of my business partners should do the official interview. He’s just here until the end of the week, so he’ll probably want to see you this afternoon.”
“So soon? I don’t, that is, I...” Chelsea looked alarmed and gestured nervously toward her face.
“Don’t worry, it’s fine. We’ve all been there in one way or another.”
Still looking apprehensive, Chelsea sat down to work on the application. The fact that she didn’t cut and run seemed a point in her favor.
Nicole walked down the hallway and, with a brief knock, slipped into Adam’s office. He was intently watching a video. Prospective clients had begun inundating them with portfolios and DVDs of amateur performances. Reviewing them was at least half of how he’d spent his time since arriving.
He glanced at her. “This one is painfully awful. It’s from the stage mama of all stage mamas. She’s in the video more than her child.”
Nicole had already known that parents who pushed their kids unbearably would be one of the less palatable aspects of working as an agent. Over the years she’d come to the conclusion that parents were often trying to fulfill their own dreams through their children.
“I have someone interested in the office manager’s position. She’s filling out the application right now and I wondered if you had time to interview her.”
“That’s fine,” Adam said. “Beats watching this and we have to get somebody hired. You can’t do everything alone and I won’t be here full-time for another two months, give or take. Not that you haven’t been doing a terrific job. Agency revenues are already higher than when Kevin owned Moonlight Ventures.”
Nicole was glad she didn’t need to explain the circumstances, just let Chelsea make her own impression. Hopefully, letting her interview was the right thing to do.
Chapter Three (#u9c86c194-2932-5459-a77e-0431c154d25e)
JORDAN STARED AT his sister in stunned surprise. “You did what?”
“I got a job. When I went looking for you at Nicole’s agency, it turned out they needed an office manager. So I applied and interviewed with Adam Wilding, who’s even more delicious in person than in his pictures. I start tomorrow.”
Her words were fast and nervous, her hands twisting together. Jordan hated seeing her that way. For a while she’d come out of the shell she’d forged to protect herself from the constant tension in the house between their battling parents, then a string of cheating boyfriends had damaged her newfound confidence. The latest, Ron, hadn’t been physically abusive, but he’d done his best to convince her that she was lucky to have him, and any issues between them were all her imagination.
Jordan sighed. His sister’s new job would complicate doing the articles for PostModern. He’d need to have a discussion with Nicole about her motives in hiring a relative of the journalist writing about her and the agency.
“Congratulations,” he said. “Shall we look for an apartment over the weekend, or would you rather stay at my condo while you get the lay of the land first?”
“I don’t need to do either, at least not right away. Nicole has a guesthouse over her garage, and she says I can rent it while I get used to the Seattle area and figure out where I want to live permanently. Your place only has one bedroom, so this is much better than sleeping on the couch and crowding you. I know Terri usually stays on your boat when she’s here, but this, uh...is best for me, I think.”
Jordan wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or grateful. For months he and Terri had been encouraging their baby sister to break things off with Ron. Chelsea had struggled with the idea—hardly a surprise with the less-than-blissful example of domestic life in which they’d been raised. She probably believed that was how relationships worked. Now, after one visit to Nicole George’s talent agency, she had a job that was twelve hundred miles from Ron Swanson.
Jordan decided it was something to celebrate, no matter how it had come about, or how many complications might ensue.
“Could we, um...go over to Nicole’s right now?” Chelsea asked. “That way you could see the guesthouse with me.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
In his small two-seater sports car, he noticed Chelsea gulping and turning pale.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “Does being in a car make you nervous because of the accident?”
“Not exactly.” She frowned at the dashboard. “I feel guilty, I guess. I’d just told Ron I wanted to split up. He got angry, and the next thing I knew we were broadsided.” She pushed a hand through her hair. “I don’t remember getting hit, just Ron swearing a blue streak afterward about the damage to his SUV.”
“The police told Terri that the other vehicle ran a stoplight. It had nothing to do with you or Ron’s driving.”
“I know, it’s just hard not to keep thinking about it.”
Jordan winked at her, the way he’d done when they were kids. “Come on, Cheesy, you aren’t to blame. The accident had nothing to do with you.”
She grinned at the old nickname. “I guess not. Anyway, getting the job up here feels right.”
It was harder for him to be certain of the same thing, but at least she was making decisions about her life.
* * *
CHELSEA HOPED SHE didn’t look too anxious. She’d never lived anywhere except the Los Angeles area and the thought of moving to a different city in another state was scary, though her brother lived there, too. But this was the time to do it, while she was between jobs. She was even excited to think Seattle could be a whole new start.
She had quietly given notice for her old position two weeks earlier, asking her boss to keep it confidential. Since Ron worked for the same company, she’d figured it was best to cut all ties. The day before yesterday, she had finished working out her notice so it had seemed the right moment to break up with him. As soon as she’d told him they were over, she had felt a huge conviction that she’d done the right thing, but then the accident had happened and uncertainty had flooded her again.
In retrospect, telling him while they were driving might not have been the best choice. But she’d been afraid he’d yell or make a scene and had figured no one would hear if they were in his SUV.
It might take a while before she felt as if the world wasn’t going to fall apart around her at any moment.
Jordan parked on a quiet residential street and she looked at the house, which wasn’t what she’d expected. It was built in a homey style and there were hanging baskets of flowers on the front porch. She wasn’t sure where she’d thought a supermodel would live, but it wasn’t something so...so cheery and normal.
The door opened as they came up the walk and Nicole stepped out. “Hi, Jordan. Hi, Chelsea. Let’s see if the guesthouse suits your needs.”
Following Nicole toward the garage, Chelsea sighed with relief. The way things had happened seemed almost too good to be true; deep down it had been difficult not to wonder if Nicole would change her mind about both the job and the apartment.
Exterior stairs climbed up the far side of the three-car garage into an apartment that was even nicer than Chelsea had hoped.
“It’s furnished, but the house isn’t?” Jordan asked, glancing around.
“The guest apartment came this way. The previous owners used it for their in-laws, but they didn’t need the furniture in their new place. Everything was nice and in good condition, so I agreed to buy it as part of the house purchase.”
Chelsea listened as she explored the pretty apartment. A bouquet of fresh flowers sat on the dresser in the bedroom, and she thought it was awfully nice of Nicole to have done that. And there was a small balcony in the back, looking onto the neighbor’s stand of evergreen trees.
“It’s perfect,” she declared, turning around. “Thank you so much. I’ll take really good care of everything.”
“I’m sure you will.” Nicole handed a key to her. “Move in whenever you like. Right now, I need to get somewhere.”
Chelsea’s fingers closed around the key as if it was a lifeline. In a way it was—a lifeline that would help her stay away from the dark memories lurking around every corner in Los Angeles.
“Look around some more,” Jordan said when they were alone. “I need to check on something.”
He hurried out the door.
Curious, Chelsea went to a front window and saw him catch up with Nicole on the front walk. He seemed to be talking very fast and she bobbed her head before hurrying toward the house. A few minutes later a sleek silver-gray car appeared, practically below Chelsea’s feet, backing down the driveway.
Jordan was still standing at the side of the drive and the vehicle stopped. He put a hand on the sedan’s roof and spoke again. Even from her vantage point Chelsea thought he looked tense and she wondered if something was wrong.
Letting the curtain drop in place, she tried to stop trembling. How could she be twenty-seven and still feel like a scared child all the time? Over the past year Terri had been saying that Ron was gaslighting her, making her believe that everything was her fault. She’d finally realized her sister was right, but it wasn’t easy to stop feeling as if she was the one who’d done something wrong.
“You okay?” Jordan asked when he returned.
“Fine.” Chelsea loved her brother, but he’d always seemed so confident and bigger than life. He and Terri had reacted differently to the tension between their parents—they’d gotten angry and fought back. She was a mouse, which was something a lion like Jordan probably couldn’t understand.
“What’s that?” he asked, gesturing to the sheet of paper she was examining.
“The bus schedule. Nicole must have printed it out for me. She offered to give me rides when her schedule isn’t too crazy, but I want to use mass transit until I get my car up here.”
“I’ll give you rides,” Jordan said firmly, but Chelsea shook her head.
“Taking the bus will give me a better feel for the city.”
“All right. This place seems move-in ready. Let’s have dinner, then pick up whatever you need to get settled.”
She followed, locking the door carefully behind them. Maybe she was just fooling herself, but moving to Seattle really did seem to be a good decision.
So far.
Tears threatened at that mental caveat. She desperately wanted to feel like a normal person again...someone who wasn’t always expecting something horrible to happen.
* * *
NICOLE DROVE TO the agency where she and Adam were having a conference call with Rachel and Logan. She hadn’t felt like dealing with Jordan’s questions about Chelsea’s employment beforehand, so she’d agreed to talk before her run the next morning. Right now he was meeting all her low expectations of reporters.
“Even bad press is still advertising,” Logan quipped when she finished explaining the situation. He was in Venice for a wedding shoot. Weddings weren’t his thing, but he’d known the groom forever and was doing it as a gift to the couple.
“Besides, we don’t want to toady to reporters,” Rachel added. “Kevin McClaskey never did.” Rachel was at her home in Southern California.
“And his agency never grew,” Nicole felt obliged to point out, troubled that her friends could be harmed by the way she dealt with Jordan. The only consolation was that they were the ones who’d urged her to do the interviews with PostModern. “I don’t want to mess this up for you guys.”
“You aren’t going to mess anything up,” Logan assured her. “Kevin wanted Moonlight Ventures to stay a mom-and-pop type of business. That’s why it didn’t grow. We can’t worry about every biased reporter out there.”
“We knew it was a risk to agree to the articles, no matter what they promised us,” Adam said. “The editor wasn’t playing straight to send someone who wasn’t impartial, but it is what is. Besides, if we object, it’ll just make us look defensive. We trust you, Nicole. Handle Masters the way your instincts say you should. Blow him off, argue, whatever feels right.”
“I agree,” Rachel added firmly. “Just be yourself.”
“Except I’ve never been ‘myself’ with reporters,” Nicole reminded them. “I’ve always put on a polite, distant act. That isn’t going to be easy to do around Jordan.” She didn’t add that by the time she’d left modeling, she’d viewed reporters as conscienceless vampires who didn’t care if they destroyed lives as long as they got their story. It wasn’t fair, and she believed in a free press, but she just wished they’d stay away from her.
“Don’t try to put on a polite show,” Logan advised. “The magazine editor said Masters might want to talk with all of us. I think we should be upfront with him.”
“There’s also the issue of hiring his sister.” Nicole pointed out. “Maybe I screwed up by letting Chelsea apply.”
“I don’t think so,” Adam said. “I got great reports from her former employer and have a good feeling about her. Besides, it might be some form of discrimination if we hadn’t given her a chance.”
Nicole had wondered about that as well. It didn’t seem likely, but there were a number of laws regarding employers and she was still learning.
“I don’t think she’ll operate like a spy,” Adam continued, “though Masters may think we have ulterior motives for employing his sister.”
Nicole made a face. “I already know he has questions about us giving her a job, but I doubt he trusts me regardless, so it probably doesn’t make a difference.”
“How about doing our own article?” Adam suggested.
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“We’re launching our Beneath the Surface blog before long. Why don’t you write about Jordan and the process of being interviewed? You’ve always had good suggestions for fixing advertising material, so I’m sure you could do it.”
