didn’t tell one.”
“You used to, especially your senior year.” She knew because she’d been one of his targets.
“I was a teenaged boy. That isn’t an excuse, but...” Jordan stopped and a shadow seemed to crowd his eyes. “I was angry because of my parents’ divorce and taking it out on every person available. I’m not proud of the memory. Now I dislike gags that laugh at people instead of with them.”
He seemed sincere and Nicole decided to take him at his word. Lots of kids were rotten during high school, and, hopefully, most of them got over it.
She pulled out paper plates and found plastic silverware. “My apologies for the inelegant dinnerware. My kitchen stuff is still in boxes. I only moved in a few weeks ago.”
The food he’d brought was from the local Chinese restaurant and Nicole ate quickly, enjoying the Szechuan dishes alongside the vegetarian pizza she’d ordered.
“I’ll leave you to finish eating,” she said. “I want to get going with the painting.”
Jordan joined her in the living room a few minutes later and crouched briefly in front of Toby, ruffling his ears. “Hey, girl. How are you doing?”
“He’s fine,” Nicole corrected. “His name is Toby.”
“Oh. I didn’t mean to offend you, Toby.”
With both of them working, the primer went on quickly, and it dried while they did the dining room. But once the top coat was on all the walls, Nicole stared in disgust. It was streaky and she wondered how the professionals got it to look good.
“I thought it would be better than this,” she muttered, “but at least it isn’t green any longer.”
“It should be okay once it’s dried overnight. What made you decide to do your own painting?” Jordan asked.
“Is there something wrong with wanting to handle it myself?”
“No, but it seems unusual. For you, that is.”
“Why me?”
He snorted. “Come on, Nicole, don’t pretend you don’t understand what I mean.”
“I’m not a model any longer. Can’t I do normal things the same as any other person?”
His lips twisted. “Oh, that’s right, poor Nicole couldn’t live a real life because of her supermodel status. I’ve seen the pictures and I’m sure the whole world feels bad for you, going to all those parties and enjoying the international first-class travel.”
* * *
THE MINUTE THE words left his mouth, Jordan knew he’d crossed the line.
Nicole straightened and sent him an icy stare. “What?”
“I shouldn’t have said that,” he told her hastily. “It was inappropriate.”
She planted her hands on her hips and he couldn’t help noticing how the movement drew attention to her slim waist.
“But you opened your big mouth, anyway,” she retorted. “So, you think it’s ridiculous for me to want a regular life. Maybe you think I don’t even have a right to normalcy. But, for your information, those parties were invented by the paparazzi, along with various photos that made it look as if I was in the middle of an orgy. I sued and it was proven that those pictures were faked.”
There was a smudge of paint on her cheek and a few strands of her gold-spun hair were stiff with primer. She must have brushed against the wall at some point because the tight T-shirt she wore had a smear of paint over her right breast. Regardless, no one would mistake her as “normal.” She looked like a supermodel in a paint company’s commercial.
Jordan tried to keep his body from reacting. “I’d forgotten about the lawsuit. But you talk about wanting normalcy as if you’ve been deprived,” he said carefully. “Yet you have fame, fortune and beauty.”
“Are you suggesting I feel sorry for myself?” she returned sharply. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Frankly, it sounds as if you’ve already decided what you’re going to write and how you’re going to characterize me. If that’s the case, just go home and write your articles. Save me the effort of dealing with you, because I’m too busy for pointless pursuits.”
Jordan winced. It was true that he had preconceptions about Nicole. The irony was inescapable. When Syd had asked him to do the articles, she had suggested it would be good for him because he’d be forced out of his “reflective reverie.” He’d found her words annoying.
“I was out of order,” he said quickly. “I genuinely want to listen to what you have to say. I can’t promise not to have other biases, but I’ll do my best not to let them influence what I write or my approach to the interviews.”
For a long moment Nicole regarded him suspiciously, then she nodded. “Very well. I have my own prejudices about reporters.”
“I’m not a reporter.”
“Right,” she drawled with patent disbelief.
“Okay, for the moment I’m sort of a reporter. I’ve been one in the past and might be again, on a limited basis.”
“Acknowledging your problem is the first step on the road to recovery.”
Jordan glared. “Very funny.”
“I thought so, but I’m just the total idiot who didn’t even know to use a primer when painting over bright colors, right?”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to, your tone said it all. Not to mention the expression on your face.”
He wanted to deny it, but he had been surprised she didn’t know something that seemed basic to him. Yet even Syd—who was a very sharp lady—hadn’t known about primer, nor her husband, who was a brilliant neurosurgeon. All at once Jordan was reminded of an editor he’d known when starting in the business. Fred had been fond of saying “intelligence and information are different beasts.”
“In case it’s too basic for you to understand, everybody has to start somewhere,” Nicole continued. “The clerk was frantically busy at the hardware store when I bought the paint and somehow he didn’t tell me about primer.”
“Did you get better advice when you went in this time?” Jordan asked, wondering if the clerk had been distracted by Nicole’s physical attributes. His own brain had short-circuited earlier that afternoon for the same reason, though he didn’t think he’d been obvious about it.
“I hope so. This time a woman helped me. She was very professional. Tell me, is it possible for a woman to be as smart as a man about painting?” Nicole’s voice dripped sarcasm.
Oh, Lord. Jordan felt a chasm opening at his feet. Not only had he opened himself to claims of journalistic bias, now she was challenging him about male chauvinism.
“Absolutely,” he said. But a measure of self-honesty made him wonder if he still possessed caveman attitudes on some level. His sisters teased him about it now and then, but he’d figured it was just sisters being sisters. After all, if he was a total caveman he would have run Chelsea’s latest boyfriend off with a bat and told him to stay away from her.
“I’d forgotten you were a runner,” he said, pushing the thought aside. He wasn’t crazy about doing emotional inventories at the best of times.
Nicole flashed a smile. “What’s wrong, didn’t the research department include my being a runner in their file on me?”
“What makes you think I have a file?”
“Jordan, no matter what some people assume about models, we have brains. A file comes with the territory. The PostModern research department must have worked overtime to get you all the available details.”