Choose Me. Jo Leigh

      As she reached to put her cell in her bag, it hit her. Why she was here. Why Rebecca had given her Charlie’s card. What the whole deal was.

      A favor.

      First night out with Rebecca, Bree had spilled her five-year plan all over the conversation. Her dreams, the steps, the obsession. Rebecca hadn’t told her she was related to Charlie. Hadn’t seemed to be aware of Fashion Week at all. That sneaky …

      Which meant Bree had better pull her expectations down another fifty notches. She wasn’t really on a date with Charlie. She was on a favor. Those two things ended in completely different ways. Favors didn’t extend to the bedroom.

      Charlie put his phone back in his jacket pocket just as her phone beeped again. “It’s going to be crowded in there. I’ve just sent you my number. If we get separated, text me, and I’ll find you.”

      She had Charlie Winslow’s cell phone number. She could be excited about that. It might be a one-off, but so what? Just because it was a favor didn’t mean it wasn’t the biggest kick of her life.

      “You okay?” he asked.

      “Fine. Great. Am I likely to lose you?”

      “Not if I can help it—ah, we’re here.”

      The door next to Bree opened as Charlie slipped her glass from between her fingers. In yet another spectacular fairy-tale moment, she stepped onto a red carpet. She hadn’t flashed anyone, she hadn’t tripped and she managed not to let her jaw drop even when flashbulbs popped all around, blinding and thrilling in equal measure.

      Charlie took hold of her arm above her elbow, and that was good because she really couldn’t see a thing. People around her were shouting, “Over here!” and “Look up!” over and over, and she hadn’t anticipated so much noise. Whenever she watched this part on TV it was silent, a voice-over, then a cut to a commercial, but here it was loud and scary and intrusive.

      Charlie’s hand squeezed gently as he escorted her toward a towering white tent, which she knew was the Fashion Week venue in Damrosch Park. The area was huge, with runway shows from morning till night, cocktail parties, dining areas, meeting rooms, press rooms.

      She’d been here, to Lincoln Center, but on the other side, with the fountain and the Met and the magic staircase. To be here now, when the whole complex was dressed up in its fancy best, when to get inside the tents should have been impossible for a girl like her, was a lot to process.

      Thank goodness for Charlie’s steadying hand. What world was she in that the most comforting thing around her was Charlie Winslow? She honestly couldn’t tell if she was trembling more from the freezing cold or the excitement.

      There was so much to look at between flashes of light, she was shocked to step inside. There was a line, and because this was the real world, there were metal detectors to go through. No one seemed to mind, though. Security was tight, and the slower pace as they were herded forward gave her a chance to catch her breath, only to lose it again as she got a load of who she was standing near.

      Charlie’s breath warmed her neck as he leaned in close. Goose bumps. Everywhere. Down her spine and up her arms. When his voice followed, low and warm, her own breath hitched and her eyes may have rolled up in her head for just a second. Probably in a minute she’d get with the program. She wouldn’t feel faint from his touch, or by standing one person away from her favorite designer on earth. The problem was, she couldn’t decide what to stare at—the clothes or the designers themselves. Oh, God, there was the model who was on the cover of this month’s issue of Elle, and good God almighty, that was the star of her favorite CSI, and Bree was so grateful for Charlie’s arm.

      “You’ll never see more food go to waste than you will at this party,” Charlie said in that same intimate whisper he’d used in the limo. “I don’t think any of these people actually eat. They do chew a lot of gum, though. Ketosis. It’s a breath thing, not that you’ll ever hear about it in Vogue or W. People who don’t eat may look fantastic on camera, but their breath could kill a buffalo. Be warned.”

      Bree giggled, and while it was true that everyone in the two long lines snaking into the tent was on the ridiculous side of thin, most of the people she saw were subtly chewing, or standing in such a way as to avoid being breathed upon.

      Of course, she thought of her own breath now. She’d barely eaten today, too nervous.

      “You’re fine,” he said, with a minty-scented chuckle. “Don’t fret.”

      She smiled at him as they inched along. “I guess I’m not hiding my small-town roots very well, huh?”

      “I don’t know what you mean.”

      She gave him a knowing look. “I’ll try harder to appear blasé.”

      “Don’t do that for my sake.” Charlie tugged her around even more, until they were facing each other. “I like that this is magical for you.”

      “I’m a real novelty, huh?”

      “Truthfully, yes. But a good one. I want to hear much, much more about your life before New York. I’m a native, and the way I was raised, you’d think there wasn’t anything between California and New York. I’ve never been to Ohio, although I’m reasonably sure I could point to it on a map. It’s at the bottom of Lake Erie, right?”

      “Wow, I’m impressed. Yeah.”

      “And where in Ohio did you grow up?”

      She waved her hand at him and turned to check on the line’s progress. “You’ve never heard of it.” When she looked back, his smile was a bit crooked. “So that food you mentioned. Passed around on little trays? Buffet? Sit down banquet?”

      “The first two,” he said. “There will be places to sit, tables all around, and here’s a secret. You can completely tell the pecking order by who sits, who stands and where those two things happen.”

      Her eyes widened at yet another morsel of insider-y goodness. She felt as if he was giving her the ultimate backstage pass, and while she knew a lot of it had to do with manners and even more to do with Rebecca, there was a tiny flare of hope buried deep inside that perhaps he was letting her in because he liked her? A little?

      Probably a good idea not to linger on that thought. She needed to be in the moment, enjoying the hell out of what she had. To ask for anything more was tempting fate.

       4

      CHARLIE COULDN’T TAKE his eyes off Bree. What had Rebecca seen that had made her believe this absurd blind date could work? That it was working was … bizarre. He never would have guessed he would find Bree enchanting.

      Hell, that he found anything enchanting stretched credulity.

      And yet, watching her reminded him what it was like when he’d had heroes. Though he’d never been as innocently enthralled by glamour as Bree. Given his background, how could he have been? His family was part of xenophobic wealthy New York, the inbred, insane inner circle that made disdain and dismissal an art form. So his heroes had been those outside the fold: sports stars, indie musicians who would never be mainstream, oddball scientists and computer hackers. The last, thank goodness, had actually set in motion key aspects of his life.

      “Oh, God,” Bree whispered, her hand clasping desperately at his lapel. “That’s Mick Jagger.”

      Charlie followed her gaze a few feet away to where the old warhorse stood, surrounded by his all-but-invisible-to-him entourage. The Rolling Stone hadn’t been there a few minutes ago, but there wasn’t a person in the tent, hell in the city, that would call him out for cutting in line.

      “Huh,” Bree said, still staring curiously at the megastar.

      “Better get used to that,” Charlie said, enjoying himself. The past couple of years, the novelty of his lifestyle had dulled. He rarely considered anything outside