Sugar and Spice_ An L.A. Candy Novel - Lauren Conrad [82]
“Cool.” Braden kissed Jane on the forehead, then rolled out of bed and headed into the hallway. She heard a door closing, then water running, then a door opening, then footsteps, then a coffee grinder buzzing loudly. Guess that means we’re getting up, Jane thought. She got to her feet, found her dress lying on the floor, and pulled it on over her camisole.
By the time she walked into the kitchen, Braden was pouring two mugs of coffee. “Do you take anything?” he asked her.
“Just some milk, if you have it.” Jane sat down at the small wooden table. “Soooo. I have some news.”
“Yeah? What’s going on?” Braden set the mugs down on the table and sat across from her. He picked up his BlackBerry and glanced at it briefly.
Jane took a deep breath and began playing with her hair. She tried to anticipate Braden’s reaction. Would he be happy? Of course he was going to be happy, right? Even though he had always been 100 percent supportive of her career, he had never held back on his negative opinions about L.A. Candy, reality TV, and the whole Hollywood scene. Not to mention the problems these things had caused for the two of them.
“I wanted to tell you last night, but . . . well . . . it’s kinda big.”
Braden grinned. “What? You’re killing me with the suspense.”
“Okay. So here it is. I quit the show.”
Braden stared at her. “You . . . quit the show?”
“Yep. I told Trevor last night. This is gonna be my last season.”
“Wow. What brought that on?”
Jane told him about Trevor’s notebook and the Caleb-Gaby incident in Las Vegas. “I’m sick of Trevor controlling me,” she finished. “I want my life back. I want to be able to do what I want . . . and date who I want.”
She paused and glanced at him expectantly.
Braden took a sip of his coffee and looked thoughtful. “Yeah, well, this is huge,” he said after a moment. “I’m really proud of you, Jane. That took a lot of guts.”
“Thanks!”
“Are you going to quit your other job, too? With, uh, Fiona Chen, right?”
“Right. I definitely want to keep working in event planning. I’m not sure about Fiona’s, though. PopTV’s pretty much taken over her offices.”
“That’s nuts.” Braden reached for his BlackBerry and started scrolling. “You know, my friend Amanda works at some fancy event-planning firm in New York. I could email her for you, see if they’re hiring?”
Jane blinked.
“Yeah, here she is. She works at Four Star Events. Ever heard of them?”
Jane began twisting a lock of her hair around her finger. Did Braden just tell her that he would try to help her find a new job . . . across the country? She had misheard him, right? But he kept on talking . . .
“Amanda Miller. Yeah, I think she really likes it there.”
Wait. Had Braden suddenly lost interest in her because she had basically told him she was interested in him?
As Braden talked, Jane’s mind flashed back to the conversation she had with Scarlett on the ride home from the Playground party. Scar had asked her if Braden was the kind of guy who avoided relationships until he really and truly fell in love—or if he was the kind who avoided relationships altogether. Had Braden ever been in a relationship? Jane knew he’d been on-again off-again with Willow for three years, which should have been a warning sign. She also thought about the first time she and Braden hooked up, back in December. Braden had made the overture, not her, and she had been too vulnerable and mixed-up to resist. Should the fact that he came on to her while she was dating his best friend have been a warning sign, too? And what about his late-night phone call from Banff, after he’d heard that she was dating Caleb? Did Braden only want her when she was with another guy, or he was with another girl, or they were otherwise unable to be together? The answer seemed suddenly obvious.
Here she had been thinking that he might be the one. Not Jesse, not Caleb . . . Braden.
God. She was such an idiot.
“Amanda’s really cool. I’m sure she’d be happy to talk to you,” Braden was saying.
Jane stood up and put her coffee mug in the sink. Then she