Just the Sexiest Man Alive

Twenty-four

THE FOLLOWING WEEK flew by uneventfully. Business as usual with her trial, and before Taylor knew it, another Friday morning had rolled around.

Unfortunately, on this particular Friday morning, Taylor was stuck in some very nasty Los Angeles traffic. Possibly, she was lost. Most definitely, she was late.

Trial-wise, the past four days had proceeded smoothly. The plaintiffs were nearing the end of their case-in-chief and had begun presenting their final witnesses in support of their claims for emotional distress damages. From the skeptical looks she’d seen on the jurors’ faces, Taylor suspected they had as much problem as she did awarding someone $30 million for alleged sexually harassing behavior that was about as sexual as a Hilary Duff movie. Nowadays, and nowhere more so than in Los Angeles, juries wanted to see trials like the ones they saw on television. They wanted drama. Scandal. In the era of HBO, they expected a little bada-bang for $30 million.

Taylor thought again about how much she wanted to win this trial. Actually, it was pretty fair to say that she needed to win this trial. Because lately, work was the only thing in her life that still made sense.

She had been hoping that Val and Kate’s visit would provide her with some much-needed clarity. But all it did was leave her even more confused.

After their conversation late Friday night, in a silent agreement to keep the rest of the weekend stress-free, the three of them had avoided the subject of Jason. On Saturday morning, they woke up and treated themselves to the full California workup: shopping on Rodeo Drive, a ridiculously overpriced lunch at the Ivy, an afternoon at the beach, and dinner at a quaint outdoor bistro in Santa Monica. While the night hadn’t been as glamorous as the previous one spent with Hollywood’s Sexiest Man Alive, it was the perfect way for the girls to relax, talk, and leave all cares of men behind.

Sunday morning, after a late brunch at the Viceroy hotel, Taylor had dropped off Kate and Val at the airport, shocked by how fast the weekend had flown by. It was when they were saying good-bye that Val first dared to broach the topic of her love life.

“So call us next week and tell us how Saturday goes.” She hugged Taylor tightly. “I can’t wait to hear all about your second date with Scott Casey.”

Taylor smiled tentatively at her friend. “It’s okay, Val, I’ll say it if you won’t. I know you think I’m making a mistake.”

Val shook her head. “I don’t think you’re making a mistake. I think the same thing as Kate—that you should follow your instincts. I just hope you’re willing to listen to those instincts no matter what they tell you.”

Val’s final words on the subject had stuck with Taylor well after her friends waved good-bye and boarded their plane back to Chicago. The words were in the back of her mind later that evening, as she worked alongside Derek late into Sunday night. They had stuck with her all week, during her trial, as she cross-examined the plaintiffs’ witnesses.

And they still echoed in her head that Friday morning, as she sat in that damn L.A. traffic.

Taylor tapped her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. She checked her watch again, growing more agitated by the minute. She had never once been late for court. But lucky her—this morning there had been a detour on Wilshire Boulevard that had led her to the freeway, where she had no clue where she was going.

Taylor peered out the windows, looking for any sort of sign or street name she recognized. By now, she had turned against the PT Cruiser. What, the stupid thing couldn’t have a navigation system?

Traffic suddenly began to move. This turned out to be even more problematic for Taylor, who had no idea where she should be moving to. Figuring this was no time to be proud, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed up Derek for directions. He answered from his post at the courthouse, relieved to hear that yes, of course she was still coming and no, she had not run off to Lake Como, Italy, to do backflips with the boys off George Clooney’s yacht.

As Taylor jotted down the directions Derek gave her on a valet sticker she found in the glove compartment, she went over the day’s strategy. Never one to miss an opportunity to multitask.

“Just make sure the exhibits are ready to go, one on top of the next,” she told him as she precariously balanced a phone, a pen, and the steering wheel all at once. “I don’t want to give the witnesses any time to think between questions.”

“Do you really think Frank’s going to keep putting them on the stand?” Derek asked on the other end of the line. “They’re all doing so horribly.”

Glancing up at the road ahead, Taylor spotted the exit she was supposed to take. Thank god. She guided her car toward the off ramp, still holding her cell phone with one hand.

“You and I may see that,” she answered Derek, “but Frank seems to be living in crazy—”

Suddenly, she was cut off as another car shot out of nowhere into her lane, trying to make the exit ramp. With barely any time to react, she yanked the steering wheel to the right, trying to get out of the car’s way, swerving into the next lane and—

—felt the jolt of an impact as another car hit her.

Everything happened in a lightning-quick blur: the wheels of the PT Cruiser spun out as Taylor’s head struck the driver’s side window and everything spun around and around and around and then—

The car suddenly lurched to a stop in a ditch on the side of the road.

Taylor’s airbag exploded.

Well, at least the stupid PT Cruiser had those.

WITH A GROAN, Taylor pulled her head away from the inflated airbag. She gingerly touched the side of her head where she had cracked it against the window. While it felt quite painful, she didn’t feel anything warm, icky, or gushing, which she took as a positive sign. She then began mentally running through a checklist: fingers moving, toes moving, all teeth appeared to be intact.

After what felt like only seconds, Taylor heard a frantic knock to her left. In her daze, she turned in the direction of the sound and saw a middle-aged man wearing a light blue suit and a Mickey Mouse tie at the driver’s side window. The man yanked open her car door.

Taylor’s first thought was that she, Taylor Donovan, was about to be rescued by a man in a blue leisure suit and Mickey Mouse tie.

Her second thought was that she, Taylor Donovan, didn’t need to be rescued by anyone.

Her third thought was that she was oddly thinking of herself in the third person, and that couldn’t be a good sign.

The Mickey Mouse guy stuck his head into the car. “Miss! Are you okay? Are you all right?”

Taylor smiled reassuringly. No worries, man. After all, she was Taylor Donovan. Confident that, through her customary humor and wit, she could show just how unfazed and confident a person Taylor Donovan was, she held up her cell phone for the Mouse man to see.

“Could I be more of a cliché?” she asked jokingly.

And that was the last thing Taylor Donovan said before passing out cold.

“I’M TELLING YOU, I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about. I feel great.”

The doctor scribbled something in his chart, ignoring Taylor’s assurances. She sat on the edge of the examination table, thinking that the Los Angeles emergency room certainly must have had more important things to worry about than the little bump on her head. Wasn’t there some Lindsay Lohan “heat exhaustion” crisis to tend to?

Taylor had already called the courthouse and, luckily, the judge had been very understanding. He had agreed to recess the trial until Monday and told her to take care of herself for the weekend. Now if she could just get out of this darn hospital.

The doctor finally finished his scribbling and snapped his file shut.

“Well, you have a concussion, Taylor. And that means I can’t release you for the next twenty-four hours unless you’re under the care of another adult.”

“No, but look—I’m fine,” Taylor insisted. “See?” She wiggled her fingers and toes for the doctor’s benefit, although being fully dressed in her suit and high heels meant the toe part of the demonstration wasn’t particularly impressive.

“I’m sorry, but that’s hospital policy. Blame it on you lawyers for making us so careful.” He grinned at the joke.

Taylor groaned, not because of the lame attack on her profession, and not even because her head felt worse than it did when she was seven years old and her brother Patrick had dropped her on the sidewalk in a chicken fight against the O’Malley brothers gone awry, but because she really, really hated hospitals—possibly even more than airplanes. They had a funny smell.

The doctor looked at Taylor sympathetically. “Isn’t there anyone you can call to come pick you up?”

Taylor silently debated the ethics of asking one’s secretary to babysit one’s concussed self on a Friday night. Then her cell phone rang.

She sheepishly gestured to her ringing purse, which sat on the chair in the corner of the examination room. “Sorry,” she apologized to the doctor. “I forgot to turn it off.”

The doctor was wholly nonplussed. “This is L.A., Taylor. I’ve seen women deliver babies while on their cell phones.”

Taylor jumped off the table and pulled the phone out of her purse. She saw it was Scott calling and answered with surprise.

“Hello?”

“Hey! Gorgeous!” Scott’s voice rang out cheerfully. “I was just calling to see what time I should pick you up tomorrow.”

Shit—she had forgotten all about their date. Again.

“Um . . . Scott, hi . . . there’s a slight problem.” Taylor moved to the corner of the room and lowered her voice, not wanting the doctor to overhear.

“I was kind of in a car accident,” she whispered into the phone. “Nothing serious—but I guess I have a concussion or something. They say they won’t release me today unless someone comes to pick me up. I guess it’s hospital policy.”

Taylor paused, debating whether to continue. She decided to go for broke, driven on by dreaded thoughts of staying in the hospital overnight.

“So I don’t suppose you have any interest in changing our date to tonight, do you?” she asked Scott, laughing lightly to cover how stupid she felt. “You’d just have to make sure I don’t vomit after eating or anything. Although I suppose in Los Angeles, that’s more a sign of peer pressure than a concussion, right?”

Instead of a reciprocal (or even polite) laugh, there was a long, silent pause on the other end of the line.

Okay, so that hadn’t been her finest one-liner, Taylor thought. She had a concussion, after all. Cut her a little friggin’ slack.

Finally, Scott answered, sounding even more uncomfortable than her. “Shit, Taylor, you know . . . normally I would love to help you out, but see—we’re in the middle of filming right now, and I can’t leave the set. Plus I don’t know how long the director wants to go tonight. You understand, don’t you, gorgeous?”

Taylor nodded. What had she expected, anyway? She’d had one date with the guy. “Sure, no problem,” she said lightly, hoping to cover her supreme lameness. “Why don’t I call you later, when things settle down?” She hurriedly said good-bye and hung up.

Taylor turned around and saw the doctor watching her. Clearly, he had heard every word.

“It’s not like jail,” he said with a kind smile. “You can make more than one phone call. I know you’re new in town, but you must know someone else.”

Of course, Taylor’s mind did indeed turn right then to the one “someone else” in Los Angeles she knew.

Oh sure, like that was a possibility.

Maybe, in Valerie’s fantasy world, Taylor would call up Jason Andrews, the (alleged) Sexiest Man Alive, and he would ride up to the hospital like a knight in shining armor and whisk her off to his magnificent palace far, far away.

But this was the real world. And Taylor happened to know for a fact that Jason was tied up at that very moment, filming. She certainly wasn’t about to ask another man for help, only to again be rejected. Especially this particular man.

So Taylor took her seat on the examination table. She shook her head definitively.

“No—I can’t think of anyone else to call,” she told the doctor. “At least, no one any less busy.”

“Not even a colleague from work?” the doctor asked insistently. “I’d really hate to keep you overnight.”

Taylor shrugged. “I guess I don’t have any choice, do I?”

The doctor nodded reluctantly. He sighed and opened his mouth to say something when—

“She’ll stay with me.”

The voice came from the doorway. Taylor turned around to look—

And saw Jason standing there.

Ignoring the surprised look on the doctor’s face, he stepped into the room.

“You’ll stay with me, Taylor,” he said firmly.

She stared at him in shock. “What are you doing here?”

Jason shrugged her question off with a grin. “I heard you were here,” he said, looking a little embarrassed.

And when his eyes met hers, Taylor—who as a matter of pride never, ever, let people see her rattled—suddenly found that she had absolutely no idea what to say.

Jason waited for some kind of reaction from her. When she remained silent, he turned to the doctor worriedly.

“I thought they said she was fine. She’s too quiet.”

The doctor shrugged. “Ms. Donovan seemed perfectly fine until you showed up, Mr. Andrews.”

“Oh. Yes, well, that’s generally how it works with us.” Jason rubbed his hands together. “So what do I have to do to spring her out of here?”

“If you agree to have Taylor released in your care, you’ll need to watch her closely for the next twenty-four hours,” the doctor said. “Most important, when she’s sleeping, you need to wake her every four hours and ask her a few questions to make sure she’s conscious.”

The doctor peered over. “As for you, Taylor, I want you to promise to take it easy these next couple of days. If you do, you should be okay to go back to work on Monday.”

But Taylor could not stop staring at Jason. “How did you know?”

“How did I know what?”

“That I was in the hospital.”

“I called your office looking for you. Linda told me you were here.”

The doctor interrupted, turning their attention back to the important matters at hand. “So, as I said, Mr. Andrews, you’ll need to ask Taylor a few quick questions when you wake her up. Something like this.” He turned to her to demonstrate. “Do you remember my name?”

Taylor gave the doctor a look. Of course she remembered his name, she was fine. Didn’t he remember the wiggling fingers and toes? “Dr. Singer,” she told him.

“What did you have for breakfast this morning?”

“I don’t eat breakfast. Wait—does a grande skim latte with two Splendas count?”

The doctor gave her a look. No, indeed it did not.

“What’s your mother’s maiden name?” he asked.

“Jennings.”

Bored with the interrogation—this was really basic stuff—Taylor turned her attention back to Jason. “What were you calling me about?”

Distracted, Jason had to think. “I had a question about the courtroom scene we were filming.”

“You were filming?” she asked incredulously. “And you just . . . left? To come here? For me?”

At this, Jason turned back to the doctor and spoke to him in a low whisper. “Are you sure she’s really okay? Because it’s been at least three minutes and I haven’t been insulted yet.”

But for once, Taylor was not in a teasing mood. She put her hand on Jason’s arm. “I’m being serious, Jason. You left in the middle of filming to come here?”

Jason looked down at her. Suddenly, he, too, turned serious.

“They said you were in the hospital, Taylor. Of course I left.”

It was the matter-of-fact way he said it. And the way he looked at her right then. Taylor suddenly felt as though she was back in the PT Cruiser, spinning and spinning and spinning.

Jason Andrews.

Her knight in shining armor.

Well, if she believed in such things.

She looked down at the floor so that Jason couldn’t see her smile. A moment later, she felt his hand on her chin, bringing her gaze up to his. His eyes searched hers worriedly.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Taylor? Say something . . . normal.” He gently tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, being careful to avoid the bump on her head.

Taylor stared up into Jason’s amazing blue eyes. He really was the most gorgeous man she had ever seen.

With great effort, she pulled herself out of the dreamy depths of the Sexiest Eyes Alive and somehow managed a casual smile. She knew she should at least thank him for coming for her.

But then she noticed something she had somehow missed earlier. She peered more closely at Jason. “Wait a second—are you wearing makeup?”

Oh yes, there it was—a little trace of powder dusted across his face. And was that a smudge of eyeliner along his bottom lid . . . ?

This was too precious.

Taylor raised an eyebrow teasingly. “Gee, Jason, it’s just a hospital—you really didn’t need to get all gussied up.”

And with that, Jason smiled. He turned to the doctor, finally satisfied.

“Okay. She’s fine.”