Lindsey Kelk 5-Book ‘I Heart...’ Collection

‘Can’t reach it,’ I said, trying to kick the phone out of my (poor) bag but only succeeded in booting it behind the loo.

Jenny looked up at me. ‘This might be a nice restaurant, honey, but I won’t forget crawling around on the floor of a public bathroom any time soon. You so owe me.’ She grabbed my phone from behind the toilet and passed it up to me. ‘Missed call from Alex.’

‘Shit.’ I pressed redial but it went straight to answer phone.

‘No time, Angie, call him from the cab.’ Jenny took my phone and my hand and led me through the packed tables out to the waiting cab that Daphne had summoned. ‘You got everything you need?’

‘I think so,’ I nodded, gripping my bag tightly, hoping it might help the ground stopping spinning underneath me. ‘Dictaphone, cash, room key. Call you when I’m on my way back?’

‘Screw it, I’m clearly gonna have to make sure you get there OK.’ Jenny pushed me into the back seat and hopped in after me. Daphne coughed loudly from the pavement, giving Jenny what I took to be her most apologetic pout. She leaned out the door and sighed. ‘Fine. Get your ass in here, Pussycat Doll, let’s go get a drink.’

Chateau Marmont was, as Daphne had promised, just fifteen minutes away, making it a straight thirty minutes between Blake’s hanging up on me and my standing in front of the door of bungalow two. The girls had made up in record time and cackled off into Bar Marmont, leaving me to face the long walk up to the hotel alone. As much as I was trying to concentrate on just putting one foot in front of the other, I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful the hotel was. Just how I imagined Old Hollywood to be. A beautiful turret sitting high up on the hillside, huge arched windows looking into lounges full of gorgeous high-backed chairs, palm trees, discreet but hot waiters everywhere. If it weren’t for the ever-present BlackBerries, MacBooks and Lindsay Lohans lounging by the pool, I could almost believe I was back in the Fifties.

What I couldn’t believe was how crap I felt. I couldn’t decide if it was hot-even-for-LA-heat, the chaotic cab ride over, or my quickly building fear of meeting James Jacobs, jetlagged, drunk and made up in a taxi, that was making me feel sick to my stomach. I paused for a second and dialled Alex one last time. Just talking to him for a minute, a second, would be enough, then I could go in and do whatever it was the magazine were expecting me to do. But he still wasn’t answering. As always in life, when my girlfriends were busy in the bar and I couldn’t rely on a boy, I turned to my two constants, my handbag and lip gloss. A quick slick of Mac lip gloss and I was as ready as I’d ever be.

One quick knock and the door opened.

‘Hi, I’m …’ I looked up with my biggest brightest smile and lost the ability to speak. James Jacobs opened the door.

‘Angela Clark?’ he finished for me with a smile that put mine in the shade. ‘Hi, I’m James.’

‘I … I …’ I reached out, grabbing something hard, spinning away from the door and puking into some very pretty bushes just before everything went very, very dark.

Waking up in a strange place to the sound of a strange man laughing was not something I was incredibly experienced at, and so, when I opened my eyes in a bedroom that was most definitely not my own, wearing something that was not my dress, I panicked slightly. In that I rolled off the bed, cracked my elbow on the bedside table and screamed. Before I could locate an open window and make an escape, a shadowy figure appeared in the doorway. Oh, I had seen Misery, I knew what was happening.

‘Hello? Can I help you?’ Since there was no time to escape from the scary stranger holding a blunt weapon and blocking my escape, why not be polite? My mother would be very proud.

‘Doubtful, at least not before you put your dress back on,’ A deep BBC British accent came out of the dark and then the curtains opened. From my vantage point on the floor, I could see a very tall, very handsome man holding out my beautiful new green dress and a huge glass of water. Ha, like I was about to drink his drug-laden cocktail. Unless it wasn’t a drug-laden cocktail and the very handsome man holding my dress was in fact James Jacobs. Oh, balls.

‘James … Jacobs?’ I pulled the hem of the T-shirt I found myself in down over my knees.

‘Angela Clark?’ He set down the glass and held out a hand to pull me up. ‘I hope you’re feeling better.’

‘Oh, erm, yes.’ This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. The six-foot-something Greek God standing in front of me holding out a freshly pressed dress with a gorgeously lopsided grin couldn’t possibly be James Jacobs. ‘I am so sorry. I just don’t know what happened.’

‘Food poisoning, I’m sure,’ he said smoothly, laying the dress out on the bed. ‘There’s a shower just through there and I had this cleaned so it’s puke free. When you’re done, I’ll be in the living room.’

‘Thank you?’ There was such a serious chance I was still dreaming that I just decided to go with it. ‘Was I sick on your shoes?’

‘Little bit,’ he said, luckily still smiling. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got more shoes knocking around here than a Footlocker. I’ll live.’

A quick shower, a long session with my Touche Eclat and I was dressed, ready to face my fate. Mary was going to go insane. It was one thing for me to blow the biggest chance of my career but, mid-shower, I realized it wasn’t just me: I’d blown the magazine’s shot at a major interview. They’d told me numerous times in the last week that James Jacobs hardly ever did press and I had just thrown up on his shoes, passed out in his hotel room and, oh my God, had he undressed me? This humungous Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt certainly wasn’t what I’d arrived in. I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to go in the ticks or crosses column.

‘Hi.’ He stood as I sloped into the living room, all six gorgeous feet and four beautiful inches of him, clutching loose pages of something in his tanned hands.

‘Hi.’ I didn’t know where to look.

Seriously, my Alex was so incredibly sexy, just the thought of him made my stomach curl up and purr, but this giant chunk of man was something else. His curly dark brown hair was longer than it had been in any of the photos I’d seen online and his blue eyes were so dark they were almost black. Even in a slightly scuzzy T-shirt, I could see broad shoulders tapering into a slender waist and, oh my, his great big thighs were just itching to get out of those jeans and into a hot tub. With me. And a bottle of baby oil.

Bad Angela: time to be professional. Plus, even if I was interested, I had a feeling that James Jacobs didn’t go for girls that introduced themselves by vomming on his shoes. Perhaps I could give ‘friends’ a go.

‘You’re feeling better? I can give my assistant a ring and ask him to get us some coffee or something if you want,’ he said, gesturing for me to take a seat on the sofa. ‘I thought you were out for the count, to be honest.’

‘How long was I passed – asleep?’ I asked, looking around the bungalow. Anything to avoid looking directly at The Hottest Man Ever. It was all very cool, very LA Confidential, the total opposite of The Ivy.

‘Couple of hours. I didn’t know if there was someone I should call or anything, so I thought it was better to just let you sleep it off.’ James folded himself back into the easy chair as I took the sofa. His legs were so long. Long enough to wrap themselves around a girl with a good shin to spare. Hypothetically speaking.

‘The only thing is, I’m actually going to have to get off quite soon – I’ve got a meeting with a director this evening.’

Fantastic. I had actually blown it. How lovely of him to give me a couple of seconds to check him out before dropping the bomb. ‘Oh, of course. I’m really sorry about, well, everything. It has been great to meet you. I’ll let the magazine know what happened. Sorry.’

‘Really? I can’t imagine they’d find it as funny as I did, to be honest. Wouldn’t you rather just crack on tomorrow and pretend this never happened?’ James put down the pages of the script he was holding and held out his hand. ‘I love your writing. Really bloody funny. Can’t wait to see how the interview is going to work out.’

Which was when I realized it wasn’t a script that he’d been holding, they were printouts of my blog. Pages and pages from ‘The Adventures of Angela’, photocopies of articles I’d written for the US and UK editions of the The Look scattered all over the coffee table. Wow. Beautiful and prepared.

‘Thank you, but well, it’s difficult to take a compliment when you’ve just been sick on someone’s shoes,’ I said, eyes firmly on his bare feet. He even had sexy feet. Eyes on the carpet. ‘So you still want to do the interview?’

‘Absolutely,’ the voice attached to the beautiful man replied. ‘Stop stressing about it. It’ll be a great story to tell the grandkids.’

I snorted a tiny bit of water through my nose. ‘Won’t it?’ I managed eventually. ‘Anyway, if you have a meeting, I should let you get on. What time do you want to start tomorrow?’

‘Ten?’ He stood up again to get the door. ‘I’ll get Blake to send a car for you. Where are you staying?’

‘I’m at The Hollywood,’ I said, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. ‘Uh, my friend works at The Union in New York, so we’re staying there.’

‘I love The Union. I haven’t stayed there yet but I, uh, visited a friend when she was staying there last year.’ James pulled out the big guns, a little shy smile with the big blue eyes peering out from behind his hair. ‘I’ll have to come and see you at The Hollywood. See if it’s as swish.’

‘Swish,’ I echoed. Then I actually giggled. ‘So tomorrow at ten.’

‘Tomorrow at ten.’ He kissed me on the cheek as I stumbled backwards out through the door. ‘Bye then.’

As the door closed, my sanity began to trickle back. I needed a cab. I needed to call Jenny. I needed to call Alex. God, that man was good looking.

As the cab travelled along Hollywood Boulevard, taking me further away from James Jacobs geographically, the further away I felt from reality. Surely none of that had just happened. The only thing that was certain was that Jenny did not appreciate my turning in early again.

‘This is the second night in a row you’ve ditched me, Angie,’ she yelled over the row of the bar. ‘Seriously, come on. You’ve already thrown up, you may as well get back on it.’

‘Jenny, I really wish I could,’ I lied through my back teeth. All I wanted was my bed. ‘I have to meet James tomorrow morning and I just need to call Alex and get some sleep.’

‘Call Alex?’

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say.

‘You’re going to go back to the hotel and call Alex instead of coming to meet me?’ Jenny wasn’t amused. ‘You get your ass out here and tell me every single thing that happened with James Jacobs.’

‘She’s blowing you out for a guy?’ I heard Daphne crow over her shoulder. ‘What an asshole.’

‘No, I … Jenny, I just need to sleep,’ I sighed. ‘Seriously. We’ll go out tomorrow.’