Page 46 of Wanting What’s Wrong

I suck at being an agent. Even though it’s been a year since I started the position, I’m not getting better.

My social anxiety has my words stuck in my throat most of the time.

My finger tapping, the little noises I make and fidgeting with my clothes annoys almost everyone, including any potential client I manage to corner.

Why would they trust me with their careers? They wouldn’t, and they shouldn’t.

Imagine me sitting down trying to negotiate some seven-figure contract with back-end residuals and a share of profits. Yet, I continue to dream. I believe some magic will happen, and I will become the kind of person a man like Cade Jamison would want around.

I’m sure he’s tired of me fumbling around and screwing up every three seconds, trying to be something I’m not. But I need him to see my value lest I find myself without a job and a home.

In my heart, I know it’s his promise to my mother that’s kept me from being fired.

So, I’m throwing out a hail Mary tonight with plans in place that will make Cade see me as an asset and not just an obligation.

I hope.

“We had three of our own take home the golden statues tonight, including one best actress award. Congratulations on your client, Davis. I know what it took for you to land that role for Beverly. You went the extra hundred miles on that one, but she’s not just an actress now.

She’s a fucking franchise all her own. And that, people, is what I fucking expect from each and every one of you.

” I elbow Davis next to me as Cade slips his phone into the front pocket of his tuxedo pants, then crosses his arms. “I expect the agency to come out of tonight with a fuck ton of new A-list clients. I don’t care how you do it.

Just do it. As usual, don’t expect to sleep for a couple days.

It’s work, not fun. Keep me updated. If you need me to come in and hammer the closing, don’t let your pride fuck that up.

Text me 911 and where you are in the house. ”

Cade’s eyes rest on mine for a split second, a surge of wicked energy flooding my core.

I count, one, two, three seconds before he turns to look out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the vista of the Hollywood hills.

Three glorious seconds of just me in his line of sight.

That’s an eternity longer than he ever makes eye contact with anyone unless he’s threatening them or closing a deal.

“Go,” he barks but nods my way, and my nipples pebble under the light blue Oxford I paired with khaki pants and white Reeboks. It’s horrible and offensive to LA's enhanced and fashionable folk, but I can’t help it. I have things I have to do .

Things I have to wear.

Say.

Think.

He noticed the repetitive and obsessive things within weeks of living under his roof. Things he knew that caused me angst. The doctors, therapists, medications, life coaches, and yogis he brought into my life to help did just that.

They helped . I’m ninety percent better than I was. Now, it only takes me thirty minutes to psyche myself up to leave the house compared to before when it could be two days, and sometimes, I still wouldn’t make it past the front door.

Even the little chirping and humming noises I used to make when I was nervous, he turned them into something sweet by calling me Lennie-bird, or little-bird or songbird or something like that. He makes everything seem okay.

But there are things I’ve yet to release, and my need to dress like a prissy nun in a haughty prep school uniform is one of them.

It’s somehow comforting to wear the same thing whenever I leave the house.

There are the white Reeboks I polish nightly.

I iron the light blue oxfords and khaki slacks for hours, trying to get them just right, unable to trust anyone on the house staff to do the job to my standards.

Cade orders all the pants and shirts now custom-made. Without tags.

He notices everything .

I wish I could wear something to show Cade I’m no longer a little girl. Something sparkly, tight, low cut, sexy. I could order anything I wanted online. I have no budget when it comes to my spending.

But, tempting him like that and imagining his lips on mine is wrong . Wicked. Horrible.

He is one obsession I wish I could release, but deep in my marrow, I know I never will.

I’ve got it bad for Cade Jamison, but who doesn’t?

I’ve watched how the gorgeous women of this industry lean into him—whispering into his ear. Brush against him, licking their filler-filled lips and beckoning him with their lash extensions and willowy, runway model bodies.

Even if I could rachet up the courage to hit up some swanky boutique for a slinky, come-hither sort of ensemble, do you know how hard it is to find size fourteen clothes in LA? Im poss ible.

As much as he gives me everything, my heart breaks a little more every day, knowing it’s out of obligation.

When we are in the same room, it’s as though he wants to be as far from me as possible.

When I walk in, he counters, stepping back.

We are repelling magnets, and I hold my breath every day, waiting for him to tell me it’s time for me to move out.

Move on.

Because I’ve had the feeling lately, he’s done just that.

He’s been more distant, had more late nights out, more trips away.

Sure, it could be business. Besides the agency, he owns a software development company in Palo Alto.

Another branch of the agency is in Manhattan, as well as a sprinkling of other ventures that have pushed his net worth into the billionaire range.

But the way he’s looked at me the last few months tells me something has changed.

He’s cared for me like a father, albeit a brooding, dark force of nature sort of father.

But I’m sure he’s found someone else. I see it in his blue eyes.

He opens his mouth as though he has something important to tell me, only to spin and leave me standing there waiting for the other shoe to drop .

Waiting for him to discover my secret.

“Go do your jobs,” he finishes as the rest of the team pull out their phones and file out of the glass room, already texting and calling and being oh-so LA.

He tosses me that new sort of annoyed, confused look and crooks his index finger my way.

I try not to walk on my tiptoes, as is my nature, something I’ve done since I was little.

I learned from one of the doctors Cade hired to help me that it is a characteristic of someone with ‘neurodivergent tendencies,’ as they say.

Davis is the only one besides me that stays behind.

He’s been Cade’s best friend for more than a decade.

My mom told me they met as starving, up-and-coming actors, sharing a barren apartment on the wrong side of Melrose and taking commercial and extra gigs while bouncing at bars, repairing cars, and hoping for their big break.

“You want me to have the limo take you home?” he asks, that low timbre of his voice shaking me down to my marrow as thoughts of rubbing out this frustration between my legs against him makes me dizzy.

I shake my head with a sharp breath. “No. I want to stay.” I straighten my spine and tap my fingers on the sides of my thighs.

One two three four. Four three two one. One two three four. Four three…

He blinks, dark lashes surrounding the lightest of narrowing blue eyes under a jutting, tight brow.

I shift my weight back and forth, forcing myself to stop tapping in exchange for twisting the end of the black ribbon tied in a bow around my shirt collar.

I focus on Cade’s Adam’s apple and the traces of ink showing on the sides of his neck.

“Stay close to me then,” he grumbles, then nods toward Davis. “Or him. Or our bodyguards.” He snaps his tongue over his sexy front teeth, then finishes with a piercing glare that hits me right in my soaking underwear. “We clear? ”

“What could happen to me here? There’s, like, a thousand people and a hundred bodyguards.”

That annoyed, charged look returns, and I swallow a stuttering breath.

“Just don’t wander. We have a table reserved.

That one.” He points where two black-suited hulks are standing, arms crossed, keeping anyone else at the party from sitting at a circular glass table in the all-white living room space below.

“You know the rules. Out here, beyond the walls of our home, you are always with a guard or with me. Or Davis. No exceptions.”

I nod, wondering how I will pull off my plan for tonight if I don’t get some distance between us.

“Yes, Daddy,” I say, turning into a puddle as the words slip from my lips.

I rarely use that moniker, and what was supposed to be a bratty, sarcastic counter to his over-protective commands, turns his eyes dark.

His hand loops around my wrist, the only deliberate touch we’ve had outside of my awkward attempts at physical contact since he shook my hand the day we met.

Or the handful of times he’s pulled me out of some dangerous situation.

Evidently, like right now.

My insides tighten like springs as electricity bolts up my arm from where his grip tightens. Even Davis stares at him in stone silence, the tension bucking hard between us as I whimper and chirp and fight the urge to press myself against him as his scent swirls deeper and deeper into my core.

As fast as he grabbed me, he released me. All three of us exhale as Cade’s buzzing phone draws his attention.

Tears prick hot in my eyes as he shoots me a last look, then points down at the table.

“You have ten minutes on your own. If you’re not down there checking in with me in ten minutes, I’m coming to find you.

I’ll blow this house up if necessary. I’ll hire every bodyguard here to bring you back to me. And do not go outside for any reason.”

Moisture floods between my legs as Davis offers me a wink, and Cade steps backward, his eyes on my shoes as he answers a call.

“Ten minutes,” Davis repeats next to my ear. “I’ll stall him best I can. Have some fun, but be careful. This gold-plated, diamond-studded world is a minefield.”

I force a smile, spin on the toe of my Reebok and dash down the hall toward the rendezvous point, hoping ten minutes is enough.