Chapter 41
"Can I try it?"
Nathan asked so casually that Emma barely had time to wonder what he meant before she looked down at the strawberry lollipop in her hand.
Her body reacted faster than her brain. She stuffed the whole thing into her mouth and crunched through it in a few determined bites.
"Gone."
She pulled out the empty stick and showed it to him.
Nathan stared at her, apparently at a loss for words. Emma stared back with slightly puffed cheeks as she finished chewing, looking perfectly innocent.
Then he laughed.
Emma didn't see what was so funny. He wanted her food, and she'd finished it before he could have any. Problem solved.
Sharing food had never been one of her strengths.
Nathan leaned back in his seat, still smiling faintly. People were usually eager to give him things. Expensive gifts, favors, introductions—sometimes things he hadn't even asked for.
Emma wouldn't give him half a lollipop.
"We're here, Mr. Grant," his assistant said from the front.
Emma reached for her seat belt, but Nathan moved before she did. He leaned across her, and she stopped with her hand halfway to the buckle.
He was suddenly much closer than she'd expected.
Emma's lashes fluttered as his arm reached past her. For a second, she couldn't tell what he was doing. Then his hand moved toward her waist.
Oh.
The seat belt.
There was a soft click as Nathan released it for her.
By then, Emma had also caught up with what had happened a moment ago. There was no way Nathan had seriously wanted a lollipop she'd already been eating. He'd probably just been teasing her, and she had responded by immediately destroying the thing in front of him.
Maybe that had been a little rude.
Men like Nathan were used to people paying attention to their moods. If he wanted to amuse himself by teasing her once in a while, she could at least give him the reaction he was looking for.
So when Nathan straightened, he found Emma's cheeks slowly turning pink.
"Thank you, Mr. Grant."
Her voice had softened too. She met his eyes for only a moment before lowering hers again, her lashes trembling slightly.
Nathan watched her for a second, then smiled and reached over to ruffle her hair.
"Go on. I'll see you next time."
"Good night, Mr. Grant."
Emma got out of the car with the blush still on her face. The door closed behind her, and by the time she turned toward her apartment building, both the blush and the shy smile were gone.
Helen came first in this job, but keeping Nathan happy didn't hurt either. Emma had been doing this long enough to know when a client wanted a particular reaction.
Tonight, apparently, Nathan had wanted to see her flustered.
Easy enough.
She went upstairs, dropped her things by the door, and headed straight for the shower. By the time the water was running, she'd already stopped thinking about it.
Half an hour later, Julian was still staring at his phone.
"She hasn't texted me."
He had changed out of his concert clothes and into a black hoodie, and the van was already on its way back to the hotel. He checked his messages again before finally texting Sophia.
Julian put his phone down and turned toward the window.
Nance City was still bright at this hour, and every few blocks he seemed to pass another advertisement for his concert. His own face looked back at him from digital billboards—silver hair, bright smile, completely at ease in front of the camera.
It was strange sometimes, seeing that version of himself everywhere.
He hadn't started out as a singer. In the beginning, he'd been surrounded by people who had trained for years and seemed to know exactly what to do the moment a camera appeared. Julian had done the opposite. He wore black, stayed near the back, and quietly moved out of frame whenever he could.
There had even been a point when he'd thought about giving up.
His early fans had helped more than they probably realized, and Emma had been one of the loudest.
She used to send him messages all the time.
Then, one day:
Back then, there hadn't been a management team deciding what Julian Sterling should look like. So he listened to her and dyed his hair silver.
To his surprise, it worked.
People started noticing him. He smiled more because Emma kept telling him to, stopped avoiding cameras, and gradually got used to having attention on him. The confidence came later.
Now his face was on billboards all over the city.
Emma had been there from those early days. Whenever something good happened to him, she seemed even happier about it than he was. After the time she'd helped him when he badly needed someone, her presence at his events had become so familiar that he rarely thought about it anymore.
Until tonight.
He'd looked for her several times during the concert without even meaning to.
His phone buzzed, and Julian picked it up at once.
It was Sophia.
After her shower, Emma dried her hair just enough to keep it from soaking her pillow and collapsed onto the bed. When she reached for her phone, she found dozens of notifications waiting for her.
"What the hell?"
Most of them were from Sophia.
The messages were followed by an increasingly aggressive collection of bear stickers and reaction GIFs.
Emma stared at the screen for a few seconds. She had no idea why Sophia cared this much.
She'd saved Julian's number. She could text him tomorrow if she remembered, but right now she wanted to sleep.
It had been a long day. She'd climbed a tree, fallen out of it, spent hours at an amusement park, ridden roller coasters, eaten enough junk food for three people, and somehow ended the night pretending to blush in the back of Nathan Grant's car.
She was exhausted.
Emma dropped the phone beside her and was asleep within minutes. It buzzed several more times, but she didn't move.
Three of the unread messages were from Adrian.
Twenty minutes later:
And then:
Emma slept through all of them.
Sophia saw Emma's reply and immediately switched back to Julian's chat.
Julian checked again.
There was nothing from Emma.
He made sure Sophia had sent her the correct number. She had. After staring at his phone for a while, he looked over at Evan.
"Text me."
Evan glanced up. "What?"
"Just send me a text."
"You already have my number."
"I know."
Evan gave him a strange look but did it anyway. Julian's phone buzzed almost immediately.
Julian stared at the message.
"My phone works."
"Congratulations," Evan said. "Big night for you."
Julian ignored him.
Maybe Emma had typed the number wrong. That made more sense than anything else.
He checked his phone once more before going to bed. There was still nothing from her.
Sometime after midnight, he woke up and checked again before falling back asleep. When he woke a second time, he did the same thing.
By morning, there was still no message.
Julian sat up in bed with his silver hair sticking out in every direction and called Evan.
It took several rings before Evan answered.
"What?"
"Didn't you say there was a corporate event coming up in Nance City?"
"The one we already turned down?"
"Yeah."
There was a brief silence on the other end.
"What about it?"
"Call them back."
This time the silence lasted longer.
"You want to take it now?"
"Yeah."
"Julian, you said the schedule was too tight."
"I changed my mind."
Evan sounded more awake now, though not necessarily happier about it. "All right. I'll see if they're still interested."
"Okay."
Julian hung up and sat there for a moment before checking his messages again.
Emma still hadn't texted him.