Escorting the Actress (The Escort Collection 2)

Lo blew out a deep breath and fidgeted some more. "I'm nervous. Last night was really, really bad. But tonight's gonna be worse."

"What happened last night anyway?"

"I drank too much tequila," she mumbled.

"That part was pretty obvious. But what made you do that? And what was that about mansplainers? Something bad must have happened. Getting that hammered really doesn't seem like a nerdface kind of move."

She stiffened. "I'm not that nerdy girl I was when we were kids."

I held up my hands in surrender. "I know. That's pretty obvious too." I motioned to her dress. She groaned and slumped her shoulders, so I added, "I'm not trying to be offensive—I just meant that you look nice."

She raised her eyebrow. She looked offended anyway.

"Not that you didn't look nice when we were kids… but yeah, you weren't hot back then." I stopped in horror, wishing I hadn't said that, wishing I could swallow the words back. "I mean—I just didn't think you'd end up this hot."

She raised her other eyebrow. I felt as if I'd stuffed both of my feet in my mouth and swallowed them whole.

"This isn't coming out right," I said.

"It's really not." She groaned then seemed to collect herself, composing her face. "Please don't flake out on me tonight. This needs to be a solid performance. Otherwise, you're out."

That was all I had to hear. I never wanted to go down on Mrs. Plastic Desperate Housewife again.

"I won't flake out," I said quickly. "I promise. But… will you please tell me what happened? What brought this all on?" Two things I could never picture Lo doing were: one, getting so drunk she barfed and, two, hiring an escort. Actually, the third would be having me show up on her doorstep as said escort and not kicking me out.

Only desperate times called for measures this desperate.

She looked at me. "My director told me yesterday that my ass is too big and that I need to make it less big before we start filming our next set of scenes."

"Seriously?" From what I'd seen of it, her ass was perfect—round and firm and luscious.

"Nope, I'm not," she said, her voice flat. "So I made the mistake of letting Tori take me out and buy me an endless supply of margaritas. Then we got pulled over because her registration was expired, and then the police officer told me I was prettier in person than I was in my scowling photos, and then I lost it. I got out of the car and started arguing."

"I heard you say y'all, and that's when I knew you must be really shit-faced."

Growing up, Lo had fought against her accent, which was courtesy of her early childhood in Texas. She controlled it fiercely; you only ever knew she was Southern when she was really pissed. One night, our parents had dragged us to dinner. In the car, Lo told her mother that I'd been lighting firecrackers under bottles to see if they'd explode. In retaliation, I took the book she was reading and chucked it out the window. I heard a lot of her Texas drawl after that, yelled right into my face. She'd been so close I could even see the little elastic bands in her mouth.

"Yeah… I was completely drunk and showing my Texas. Then I threw up on that cop. After I said a bunch of bad things about mansplainers and the movie industry."

She shrugged as if she didn't care, but I knew she did. For her to be in this car with me, headed to a shoe event, less than twenty-four hours after it had happened, her life must have depended on fixing this.

She looked at me again. She was still fidgeting with nervous energy, but her eyes looked tired. "I knew I had to come up with a brilliant plan to save my career. So here we are."

"I'm the brilliant plan? I feel so special."

"You are not supposed to be here. My hot escort is supposed to be here. Not my ex-stepbrother escort."

"I might be your ex-stepbrother, but I'm still hot. And because we go back so far, I have a vested interest in helping you. I'll pull out all the stops." I adjusted my shirt again, making sure it was tucked snugly into my jeans. "I'm sure no one will be looking at your ass tonight anyway."

"Why's that?" Lo asked, a mixture of amusement and general disbelief on her face.

"'Cause they'll only be looking at mine." I made sure to flash my dimples.

"Great," she said, sounding both resigned and appalled.

We pulled up at the curb, and I saw at least fifty photographers, cameras flashing at all the beautiful people spilling toward the event.

Lo looked as if she was about to walk the plank. "This is all just great."