“I don’t know why we couldn’t have the meeting here.” I look at Sylvia who just leans back in her chair.
“He isn’t going to be himself here,” she says, and I know she’s right. “He’s going to have a chip on his shoulder, but if he’s in his home, he’s going to be open more. The guy was just told via a legal and binding contract that he cannot have sex at all for the next sixty days. A man of his proclivities will more than likely have more than a chip on his shoulder. If not now, then in the very immediate future.”
“This is true.” Gathering the pictures, I get up and push my chair under the table. “How long should I expect to be at his house?”
She looks over at me, and I see her smirk. “Thirty days.” I don’t say anything when she walks past me out of the room, leaving me by myself.
I pack the stuff in my bag and walk out of the office at five, dragging my ass since I’ve been up for twelve hours and my brain is finally catching up to everything that just happened. I make my way home and sit on the couch, catching up on my DVR. I fall asleep with the remote in my hand and wake up to the blue screen. I see that it’s two thirty in the morning, so I make my way to my bed. Sinking into my king-size bed, I fall asleep again just as fast. When the alarm rings as the sun is coming up, I grab my phone and go through my routine.
I check Facebook to see what everyone was up to, then I slide over to Instagram to go through my stories there, and then I see that Carter made a personal story. I click the round circle with his picture, and it shows him sitting on a couch with a smirk. A movie playing on his screen.
There is a movie screen with the caption “Thursday night movie.”
See, that wasn’t so bad, I think to myself as I roll out of bed. I debate whether to make the bed. My mother is a stickler about making the bed. Something about a post she saw in the news about how the day just starts off better if one makes the bed. I just toss the covers over and pretend it looks done, and then I start my day. I take a quick shower while my coffee brews, then fix a to-go cup after I finish getting dressed. I have no idea what the dress code is for my meeting this morning, so I decide to go with pants. I grab the pink capris with black lines down and across them. Grabbing my black long-sleeved shirt, I toss it on. I pick up the same black Louboutins I wore yesterday and decide to wear my hair loose. Grabbing my bag and my to-go cup, I walk out the door.
I grab my phone once I get in the car and punch in the address to Carter’s house that I got from the file. It shows that it’s about forty-five minutes from me. When I get to the gate for the neighborhood, I tell the guard who I’m here to see. After he checks that I’m on the list, he tells me it’s the second house on the right. I thank him and drive through the gate once it’s opened. I pull up to the driveway and see the house. Stepping out of my car, I grab my bag and walk up to the house. A low concrete wall blocks off the house, but you see a huge window and little balcony. Once I walk closer, I see that it’s the second floor and that you have to walk down a staircase to get to the front door. I walk down the steps, holding the cast-iron railing, and see the wall of the house is different shades of brown rocks. The big window from the top is the same on the bottom, and the house now looks like an L. A wooden bench sits beside the glass door, and a little cast-iron white table and two chairs are in the corner next to a small rose garden. It’s such a romantic location, and I can’t help but envision a social media post of Carter outside in this element and what sort of impact that would make on his image. My brain is always in work mode.
I reach out and press the bell and then turn to look at the different layers of his garden and how it hides his front door from all the passersby. I hear the door unlock and turn to see Carter open the door. Dressed in sport shorts and a plain white shirt, he has feet bare and a coffee mug in his hand. He looks like he hasn’t been up that long, his hair is still sticking up all over the place from sleep, and his eyes are still a bit sleepy. He looks amazing dressed up, but like this, he just looks so much hotter.
“Good morning,” he says, smiling at me and then moves out of the way for me to step inside. “Come in.”
“Thank you,” I say, walking into the house and stopping in my tracks. Because two huge windows cover the back wall. The one on top doesn’t open, but the bottom one is fully open with a panoramic view of blue ocean that is his backyard. After the huge infinity pool, that is. The sound of the waves crashing into the shore can be heard faintly in the distance.
“I didn’t know if you wanted to do this inside or outside,” he says, and I look around to see who else is here. The house is an open concept, which is my favorite type of home. Following him past the staircase, I enter the living room. His big brown leather couches have throw pillows all over them. The stone wall fireplace faces the couch with a huge screen hanging above it. Behind the couch is the kitchen. The whole side wall has the fridge, stove, and dishwasher, and in front of it is a long counter like you find in diners with brown pendant lights hanging over it. Eight stools sit side by side, and seven fruit bowls sit on a lower counter. Two brown pillars stand between the living room and the dining room. I can see that the wall in the kitchen is also windows, and it’s open also.
“I’m good with whatever everyone wants to do,” I say to him, hoping that they want to work outside.
“Well, considering it’s just me and you,” he says, and I turn to look at him with surprise on my face. “Let’s start outside because it’s not too hot yet, and then we can come back inside,” he says without giving me a chance to respond. He walks toward the big open window, and I follow him. Once we get outside, I see five lounge chairs right in front of the pool with different colored tables between them. He walks to the right where I see a table set up with six chairs. I walk behind him and take in the little pathway to the stairs that lead down to the beach. “Do you want to face the ocean or the house?” he asks. When I just shrug, he pulls out a chair at the head of the table. “You can have both,” he says, and I sit. Putting my bags next to me, I take out my papers, then turn and see the back of the house. There are two balconies on the second floor each from a side of the house.
“Shouldn’t we wait for your assistant before we start?” I ask him, knowing full well assistants run their lives.
“I actually don’t have an assistant. Like I said, it’s just you and me,” he says, and I look over at him. With us outside and him facing the ocean, the sun hits his eyes, making them bluer than they were yesterday. The scruff on his face makes him that much more of a heartthrob.
“What do you mean you don’t have an assistant?” I ask him, confused by this.
“I mean, I don’t have an assistant,” he says, his voice husky as he drinks another sip of coffee.
“But how do you manage?” I ask him. “You are very busy, and there is so much to do.”
He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “This has a calendar, and if you enter your schedule in it, it tells you where you have to be.”
“I know what it does,” I tell him, “but how does it get on your calendar?”
“Jeff gets all the contracts, and his secretary puts it all in there. I don’t know how it happens, but it just tells me where to be and when to be there.” He pulls up his calendar. “See, this afternoon I have a photoshoot here. Then tonight I have a nothing and then tomorrow I have . . .”