Just the Sexiest Man Alive (2 page)

Taylor folded her hands in her lap and thought quickly of the best way to graciously decline Sam’s offer. She knew he meant the opportunity as a compliment, but working with some prima donna actor on his overly melodramatic “You can’t handle the truth!” courtroom scenes was hardly her idea of
serious
lawyering.

So she flashed Sam her best soft-rejection smile.

“Sam, I’m flattered. But don’t you think one of the associates from this office would be better suited for this kind of project? I’d hate to waltz in here as the new girl and steal their opportunity to work with a Hollywood actor.”

That didn’t sound half bad, she mused. Apparently, she had a bit of a flair for acting herself.

But then Sam topped her with his trump card.

“Well, Taylor, Chicago assures me that you’re the best litigation associate this firm has. If that’s true, then don’t you think it should be you representing us?”

A direct challenge to her skills as a lawyer. Taylor’s kryptonite.

She sighed, having only one answer to that.

“When would you need me?”

Sam grinned victoriously, looking ever fox-like once again. “Thursday.”

For a brief moment, Taylor saw a possible way out of this situation. “Oh . . . that’s too bad,” she said. “I have to argue those motions to compel on Thursday.” She snapped her fingers. Damn.

But Sam was not about to let her off so easily.

“And as much as I know it will kill you to miss a chance to be in court, I’m sure you can get someone else to cover it.” Then he folded his hands politely, indicating that the discussion was over.

And so Taylor stood up to leave. She gave Sam her best team-player, I-couldn’t-be-more-thrilled-to-squeeze-this-shit-into-my-schedule grin.

“No problem, Sam, I’ll work it all out.”

She turned to leave and had made it all the way to the door before she realized something. She glanced back over her shoulder.

“I didn’t even think to ask—who’s the actor?”

Sam peered up distractedly from his computer, having already turned his attention back to $800-per-hour work.

“Um . . . Jason Andrews.”

And with those words, Taylor’s hand slipped just the slightest bit on the doorknob.

She turned back toward Sam, trying to appear nonchalant. “Really. I see.”

But unfortunately, her initial reaction had not gone unnoticed. Sam’s face turned serious as he rose from his desk and crossed the room to her.

“You know, Taylor, I told his manager that your reputation in this firm is that you can go head-to-head with any man. And win.” Sam paused meaningfully and stared down at her like an army drill sergeant.

“Do
not
get starry-eyed on this,” he lectured firmly.

Taylor’s eyes narrowed at the mere insinuation. After Daniel, her days of being starry-eyed, dreamy-eyed, or any other-eyed over any man, celebrity or not, were finished.

Sam was right; she was more than capable of going head-to-head with any man. She had, essentially, been raised that way. Growing up, her father, a police sergeant, worked double shifts and her mom, a nurse, often worked overtime, so Taylor had frequently found herself being watched by her three older brothers. And in their minds, the only way to handle being stuck after school and on weekends with a girl was to pretend that she was, in fact, a boy. (Albeit one who had pigtails.)

One of Taylor’s favorite movies was
A League of Their Own
, and in that movie Tom Hanks’s character had a line that had always resonated with her: one of his girl ballplayers was crying after he had chewed her out for missing a play, and Tom Hanks told her, “There’s no crying in baseball.” That could have been the mantra for Taylor’s youth, except in her world apparently, not only was there no crying in baseball, there was also no crying in kickball, hide-and-seek (even when her brothers forgot about her and left her in the neighbor’s shed for two hours), climbing trees, falling two stories out of said trees and breaking her arm, and even fishing when her brothers used her pet caterpillar collection as bait.

Yes, Taylor learned at a very young age that the only way to get boys to shut up and play fairly was to show them that you took crap from
no one
. It was a lesson that served her well working at a large law firm, where women comprised roughly 15 percent of partners despite the fact that they generally constituted, year after year, more than half of every entering first-year associate class. Somewhere along the way, these women were getting lost, ignored, weeded out, or were choosing a different path.

Taylor, however, was determined not to fall victim to what these law firms accepted as inevitable reality. Even if it meant she had to eat nails for breakfast.

So in response to Sam’s directive that she not get “starry-eyed” on this particular assignment, she folded her arms definitively across her chest, having only one thing to say.

“Not a chance.”

Sam smiled. He nodded, satisfied.

Then something occurred to her. She cautiously asked Sam one last question.

“But I have to wonder, Sam, given the . . . reputation . . . of this particular client, did the fact that I’m a woman have anything to do with choosing me for this project?”

Ever the litigator, Sam paced grandly in front of his desk, ready to show off the interrogation skills he had honed over the past twenty years.

“Taylor, in your sexual harassment practice, who do you tell your clients they should have leading their defense team, a man or a woman?”

“A woman,” she replied without hesitation.

“And why is that?”

“Because it makes the client seem more credible if they have a female lawyer saying they treat women fairly.”

Sam paused meaningfully before his imaginary jury. “So then you agree, don’t you, that there are times when—in addition to being the best litigator—your gender can be an advantage to this firm?”

Taylor got the message. Shut up and play the game.

She smiled at her boss.

“Thursday it is.”

Two

JASON ANDREWS.

He would be at their offices on Thursday. The biggest actor in Hollywood.

Jason Andrews.

The movie star. In every paparazzi-following-your-every-move, crazed-fans-showing-up-naked-in-your-bedroom sense of the term.

Later, when Taylor’s secretary did her “research,” she would stumble across
Rolling Stone
magazine’s June cover interview, which summed up Jason Andrews as: “devilishly good-looking, and a true legend of his day. Like Clark Gable or Cary Grant, he exudes effortless charm and confidence. Thinks he’s smarter than most and frankly, probably is. A lethal combination that seemingly has left him with respect for very few.”

Devilishly good-looking. Effortless charm and confidence.

Jason Andrews.

And she was going to be working with him.

As Taylor left Sam’s office, she suddenly found herself wondering where she was in her bikini wax cycle. Hmm . . . she may have been due . . .

Then she immediately shook off the ridiculous thought. Please. She was a
professional
.

And so Ms. Professional straightened her suit and calmly shut Sam’s door behind her. She made her way through the office with what she assumed was a casually dismissive air, as if she acted as legal counsel to fabulously famous sex gods all the time. She had never, ever, let anyone at work see her rattled—not even during the worst point in her breakup with her ex-fiancé a few months ago. She’d be damned if she now was about to let some actor unnerve her in front of others.

“Linda, I need to clear my schedule for Thursday,” Taylor said as she approached her secretary’s desk. She was peering at her calendar, trying to figure out how best to move things around to accommodate her new “assignment.”

“There’s been a change of plans—a new matter has come up.”

She had barely gotten the words out when Linda flew out of her chair. It fell backward to the ground with a loud thunk, which Linda didn’t seem to notice.

“Oh my god! So it’s true then? You’re really going to be working with Jason Andrews?”

How the hell did that get out so fast? Taylor glanced around the office and saw that the other secretaries all had paused in what they were doing. They were staring at her, wide-eyed, and holding their breath as if their very lives depended on her reply. Looking over, she saw that most of the lawyers, too, lingered in their office doorways. For that moment, all business at Gray & Dallas had utterly, completely stopped.

With the one hundred sets of hopeful eyes on her, Taylor cleared her throat and addressed the waiting office, like the town crier announcing that the king was on his way.

“Yes, it’s true. Jason—uh, Andrews—will be here. On Thursday.” Taylor began to fan herself, suddenly feeling a little flushed. Strange how warm it had become in the office right then. Probably a poor ventilation spot, she mused. She’d have to speak to Linda about calling the maintenance people.

All around her, the secretaries and lawyers had erupted in a frenzy of frantic conversations at her exciting news.

“What should I wear?”

“What do you think
he
will wear?”

“Didn’t you just love it when he [insert favorite Jason Andrews movie/scene/line here]?”

“Do you think”—gasp—“he could ever possibly be as gorgeous in person?”

Taylor stood in the middle of all the chaos. As always, she felt the need to maintain control over the situation, so she gestured calmingly to the secretaries that hopped about her like over-caffeinated jackrabbits.

“You all need to pull yourselves together,” she said firmly, over the racket. “We need to treat this like any other project.”

At this, the secretaries simmered down and stopped dancing. Linda stared at her incredulously. “Any other project? It’s
Jason Andrews
.”

Taylor felt herself getting all flushed again. Damn ventilation. Someone really needed to see to that soon.

Linda’s expression was one of utter disbelief. “Are you seriously trying to tell us that you’re not the least bit excited about this?”

Taylor sighed loudly in exasperation. “Oh, Linda, come on . . .” With that said, she turned and coolly headed toward her office. But when she reached the door, she looked back at her secretary and winked.

“Hey—I didn’t say it wouldn’t be a
fun
project.”

With a sly grin, she disappeared into her office.

IT WAS AFTER eleven that evening when Taylor finally pulled into the driveway of her apartment building. For the remainder of the day, she had tried to put all thoughts of the “Andrews Project” (as it had widely come to be known throughout the office) out of her mind. But fate, of course, had been conspiring against her.

Shortly after her meeting with Sam, she had received a phone call from one of “Mr. Andrews’s” assistants, who had informed her in clipped, brisk terms that “Mr. Andrews” (the assistant’s repeated use of the surname conjured up visions in Taylor’s mind of a stuffy eighteenth-century British servant) would arrive at her office on Thursday morning at nine o’clock. It was expected, said the servant-assistant, that Ms. Donovan would not be late, as Mr. Andrews kept a very busy schedule.

The whole tone of the conversation had irked her.

Let’s get something straight,
Taylor had been tempted to say. I
am doing
him
a favor.

She hadn’t been in Los Angeles long enough to adjust to the fact that catering to celebrities with overinflated senses of self-importance was simply part of the city’s framework, never to be questioned. She may have been living—temporarily—in the city of dreams, but her life was quite grounded in reality. And that life, whether in L.A. or Chicago, was in The Law.

Moreover, since her work schedule generally permitted her to see only about four movies per year, she simply didn’t have enough interest in “the industry” to give a crap about stroking Jason Andrews’s ego. Besides, she was quite certain that—given his infamous reputation—he’d already had enough things stroked to last a lifetime.

But despite the strong opinions she had on the matter, Taylor thought she had been highly diplomatic in her response to the servant-assistant’s instructions.

“Now, is it customary that I curtsy
before
or
after
I’m presented to His Highness?” she had innocently inquired.

The servant-assistant had not been amused.

After ending the call on that note, Taylor had set off to find a way to miraculously fit three days of work into the two days remaining before His Royal Wonderfulness arrived. Her first priority had been to meet with Derek, the second-year associate assigned to work with her on the sexual harassment case.

Poor Derek, always a bit of a nervous type, appeared ready to break out in hives when Taylor told him he’d be arguing the motions on Thursday. For a moment, she thought about sneakily whispering a trade—seven motions in limine for seven hours with you-know-who—but she knew Sam expected that she personally handle the actor.

Even to the likely detriment of their motions.

And the possible harm that would then befall their client.

Not to mention what she personally wanted.

Not that she had any opinions on the matter. Really.

But for the rest of the afternoon, Taylor had other, far more important things to worry about. And so, between the seventeen class member deposition transcripts she needed to review, and the eleven telephone arguments with opposing counsel over jury instructions, it was not until late that night, as she exhaustedly made her way to her front door, that she remembered the envelope Linda had handed her before leaving for the day.

Research, her secretary had called it. She had smiled in amusement, thoroughly enjoying the new project.

Given Linda’s mischievous grin, it was with dread that Taylor pulled the envelope out of her briefcase as she walked up the bricked path to her apartment. She slid out the envelope’s contents, and found herself staring at that week’s edition of
People
magazine.

Taylor rolled her eyes. Oh, for heaven’s sake—like she had time to read this.

But tabloids have a sneaky way of grabbing the attention of even the most resolute of scoffers, and Taylor was not immune. It was the cover story that caught her eye.

“The Women of Jason Andrews!”

The image below the headline consisted of three side-by-side photos of the film star with a different starlet/model/bimbo hanging all over him.

Taylor shook her head disdainfully at the pictures. Typical. There was something about the sight of this particular man, the way he so deliberately flaunted his parade of conquests, that rubbed her feminist sensibilities the wrong way.

Or maybe it was something more personal.

Right, like she would ever admit that.

She opened the magazine, and a multiple-page foldout of Jason Andrews and his various dalliances fell out.

And spilled all the way to the ground.

For a moment, Taylor could only stare at the pages and pages and pages of “The Women of Jason Andrews!”

With a scornful snort, she bent over to pick up the foldout. The last photo in the series happened to catch her eye: the actor with a classically beautiful blonde in her midtwenties, who Taylor immediately recognized. She may not have been particularly interested in “the industry,” but even the four times a year she crawled out from under her rock to see a movie was enough to know who Naomi Cross was. She saw that written in big, bold letters above the waiflike actress was the urgent question, “Jason’s Next Conquest?”

Deciding that she could somehow manage to go on living without getting an answer to that question, Taylor tucked the Jason-plus-starlet/model/bimbo pages back into the magazine and headed up the walkway to her front door. It was then that she stumbled upon something sitting on her front stoop.

A large bouquet of flowers.

As all women do when first receiving flowers, Taylor silently scrolled through the list of potential senders. Coming up with no pleasant suspects, she eyed the flowers with suspicion. She scooped them up and sifted through the bouquet until she found the card. She instantly regretted bothering to look.

I’m sorry. And I love you. Daniel.

DANIEL LAWRY.

The biggest mistake of Taylor’s life.

Ridiculously big. Gargantuan.

They had met in law school, when she was a third-year student and Daniel had just joined the Northwestern faculty as their new evidence professor. He was young for a professor, only twenty-nine, but his Harvard Law degree and four-year stint at the New York U.S. Attorney’s Office had been too attractive for the law school to ignore.

“Too attractive to ignore” was also the general consensus among the law school’s female student body. With icy blue eyes and streaks of golden blond in his light brown hair, he looked more like a Ralph Lauren model than a law school professor.

The first time Daniel had asked Taylor out was at her law school graduation. She, of course, had said no, having heard rumors from a classmate of hers who lived in the downtown high-rise across the street from Daniel that he frequently was seen around the area with women but much less frequently seen with the
same
woman.

Six months went by before he asked her out again. The second time was a Saturday morning, when Taylor found him waiting on the steps of her three-flat condo on her walk home from the gym.

He came bearing Starbucks, he said to her with an easy smile, and he had her order exactly right: a grande skim latte with two Splendas. Apparently, he had called her secretary earlier in the week for the info.

It took five Saturday mornings of waiting, and five grande skim lattes with two Splendas, until Taylor finally agreed to meet Daniel for coffee somewhere other than her front steps. Coffee led to drinks, which led to dinner and then dating, which eventually led to Daniel saying all the right things about Taylor being “the one.” She finally agreed to move in with him and a year after that, they were engaged.

It by no means had been a whirlwind affair. She had been cautious and careful throughout the first couple of years of their relationship, but eventually, Daniel’s charm and constant affection had brought down her guard.

She believed he had changed his womanizing ways.

But now here she was in Los Angeles, living alone. And without the two-and-a-half-carat Tiffany ring that used to sit on the fourth finger of her left hand.

Taylor stepped into her apartment. With that now-ringless left hand, she tossed her keys onto the console table by the front door and headed into the kitchen.

She had gotten lucky in terms of the apartment the firm had found for her. Since her case easily would last at least four months (after the inevitable posttrial motions were taken into account), putting her up in a hotel for the duration had not been either her or the firm’s first choice. So one of the legal assistants for the Chicago litigation group had been assigned the task of searching for apartments Taylor could rent. The paralegal was only a few days into her quest when one of her counterparts in the Los Angeles office contacted her with a suggestion: the daughter of one of the partners would be studying abroad in Rome for the fall semester. She wanted to backpack through Europe and Asia for the summer before her classes began, and they were looking for someone to sublet her furnished Santa Monica apartment.

The deal was done as soon as Taylor saw the photographs the L.A. office emailed over. Just minutes from the beach, with a quaint little garden off the living room and cozy cream-and-brown Pottery Barn decor, the apartment was far better than anything else the legal assistant had shown her and easily worth the ten extra miles it would add to her daily downtown commute.

Unfortunately on this night, however, the apartment’s charm was lost on Taylor as she stepped into the kitchen and set the copy of
People
magazine down on the black-speckled granite countertop. She threw the bouquet of flowers next to the magazine, not noticing as Daniel’s card slipped into its pages.