Pace Martin in the flesh.
“Hi,” she said, gripping her pad of paper and pen, perfectly willing to forgive his tardiness if he made this easy on her. Not that it mattered. They were doing this either way, even if he’d made a secondary career out of being tough, cynical, edgy, and for a bonus, noncommittal. She specialized in tough, cynical, and edgy. She thrust out her hand. “I’m Holly Hut—”
“Sure. No problem.” Without making eye contact, he grabbed her pen and leaning over her, quickly wrote something on her pad.
He was in her space now, and she took her first up close look at him, searching for that elusive “it” factor that seemed to make men want to be him and women want to do him. Granted, he owed much of that to his packaging, but she’d already known that. He had wavy dark hair, movie-star dark eyes, and a face directly from the Greek gods, but she wasn’t moved by such things. As a writer and a people watcher, Holly knew his pull had to go far deeper, that there was more to his charisma than genetic makeup.
Or so she hoped.
But the charisma sure didn’t hurt. His hair was wet from a recent shower. She could smell his shampoo or soap, something woodsy and incredibly male that made her nostrils sort of quiver.
Huh.
Okay, so People magazine was right. He did have some genuine sex appeal, she’d give him that. Since she barely came up to his broad shoulders, she had to tip her head up to stare into his face as he handed her back her pad. She had just enough time to see that his eyes weren’t the solid brown his bio claimed but had gold swirling in the mix. They weren’t smiling to match his mouth, not even close, and if she had to guess, she’d say Mr. Hotshot was pissed at something. Then she glanced down at her pad and saw what he’d done.
He’d signed his name across her pad.
An autograph.
He’d just given her an autograph.
And then, while she was still just staring at the sprawling signature in shock, he handed her back her pen and walked away, heading down the wide hallway.
“Hey,” she said. “I didn’t want—”
But he’d turned a corner and was already gone.
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