L. A. Candy by Lauren Conrad Read Free Book Online Page B

guys who are technically old enough to father us.”
    “You think I’m that old, huh?” Trevor chuckled. “Listen, I’m not trying to hit on you. I promise. I’m a producer. I’m looking for girls to cast in a new TV show I’m putting together.”
    “The Real World: Hollywood?” the brunette said drily.
    He smiled patiently. “I’m casting for a new documentary-style show. We’re going to be following around a group of girls in L.A. Seeing what their days and nights are like. It’s going to be really fun stuff. Kind of a reality version of Sex and the City , but totally PG, of course. Would you girls have any interest?”
    The blonde leaned forward and regarded him curiously. Her eyes were big, blue, expressive. The cameras were going to love them, he thought. “You’re a TV producer? Seriously?” she said.
    “Yes,” he replied. “You girls are exactly what I’m looking for. Why don’t you come in for an interview, and we can talk some more about it?”
    “What, do we look like we’re totally clueless?” the brunette demanded. “We’re really not interested in your low-budget project, or whatever you’re doing.”
    He’d never met a girl who hadn’t immediately softened at the words producer , casting , and interview . “Listen carefully to me,” he said after a moment. “Thousands of girls like you come to L.A. for an opportunity like this, and it never happens. Except it’s happening right now, to you. You can front all the confidence you want, but you don’t fool me. You waited in line to stand at a bar in a place where you don’t belong. I am offering you the chance to fit in at a hundred places like this—places where people would kill to be. Isn’t that why you moved to this city? To take a chance? No one moves here to be a nobody.”
    Now the brunette was staring at him, a little stunned. So was the blonde. Good, good. It was working. The blonde he hadn’t been too worried about. She was an open book. It was the brunette he had to win over.
    He reached into his pocket, pulled out a slim silver case, and placed a business card on the bar. “In case you get tired of waiting in lines for tequila shots,” he said, locking eyes with the brunette.
    And then he turned and made his exit.

8
IT’S CALLED POSITIVE VISUALIZATION
    At 6:05 on Tuesday night, Jane pulled out of the parking lot, away from Fiona Chen events. She had survived another day…barely.
    She had accidentally hung up on three more people (she couldn’t quite get the handle of the Call Waiting and Hold and Forward buttons), ordered the wrong kind of sandwich for Fiona, and almost spilled iced tea on a $100,000 wedding dress. (A hundred grand? For a dress that would only be worn once?) The bride—a famous Danish lingerie model named Petra—had been so upset that her therapist, acupuncturist, and psychic all had to be called in for emergency sessions.
    Jane made a right onto Sunset and adjusted her shades. She drove past a row of trendy-looking sidewalk cafés, where pretty people were drinking pretty cocktails, laughing, and having fun. She wished she was one of those people right now.
    She reminded herself that it would get better—it had to. She’d figure out the phones, she’d figure out Fiona…. By next week she’d think it was hilarious that she kept calling Fiona’s favorite color specialist Max instead of Mav (she’d assumed Mav was a typo on the call sheet). Well, if Fiona didn’t fire her before next week.
    Up ahead, the early-evening sky was thick with smog; it was murky and gray, and it reflected Jane’s mood perfectly. For the first time since moving to L.A., Jane felt troubled, uncertain. She had put off college and left the comforts of her home and family back in Santa Barbara to work for Fiona Chen. If Fiona fired her, what would she do?
    Jane drove a few more blocks, wondering if she was going in the right direction. Wasn’t the apartment this way? Or was it the other way? She reminded herself