Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Knowing, Chasing Harry Winston, Last Night at Chateau Marmont. Lauren Weisberger

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СКАЧАТЬ that? He’s smart and undeniably gorgeous, and the whole take-charge confidence thing was incredibly sexy. Hanging out with someone who just happened to be sexy didn’t exactly translate as cheating. I’m sure there had been situations over the years in which Alex had worked with or studied with or gotten to know a cool, attractive girl, and he may have had thoughts. Did that make him disloyal? Of course not. With renewed confidence (and a now-desperate attempt to see, watch, hear, just be near Christian again), I began cruising the lounge.

      I found him leaning on his right hand, talking intently to an older man, probably in his late forties, who was wearing a very dapper three-piece suit. Christian was gesturing wildly, hands flailing, with a look on his face that registered somewhere between amused and supremely annoyed, while the man with salt-and-pepper hair looked at him earnestly. I was still too far away to hear what they were discussing, but I must have been staring rather intently, because the man’s eyes locked on mine and he smiled. Christian pulled back a little, followed his gaze, and saw me watching them both.

      ‘Andy, darling,’ he said, his tone entirely different from what it had been just a few minutes earlier. I noticed he made the transition from seducer to friend of your parent quite smoothly. ‘Come here, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. This is Gabriel Brooks, my agent, business manager, and all-around hero. Gabriel, this is Andrea Sachs, currently of Runway magazine.’

      ‘Andrea, a pleasure to meet you,’ Gabriel said, extending a hand and taking mine in one of those annoyingly delicate I’m-not-shaking-your-hand-as-I-would-a-man’s-because-I’m-sure-I’d-just-snap-your-girly-little-bones-in-half clutches. ‘Christian has told me a lot about you.’

      ‘Really?’ I said, pressing a bit more firmly, which only caused him to loosen his already slack grip. ‘All good, I hope?’

      ‘Of course. He said you’re an aspiring writer, like our mutual friend here.’ He smiled.

      I was surprised to hear that he actually had heard about me from Christian, since our conversation about writing had sounded like just small talk. ‘Yes, well, I love to write, so hopefully someday …’

      ‘Well, if you’re half as good as some of the other people he’s sent my way, then I look forward to reading your work.’ He dug around in an inside pocket and produced a leather case, from which he drew out a business card. ‘I know you’re not ready yet, but when it does come time to show your stuff to someone, I hope you’ll keep me in mind.’

      It took every ounce of willpower and strength to remain standing upright, to make sure that my mouth had not flopped open or my knees had not just given out. Hope you’ll keep me in mind? The man who represented Christian Collinsworth, literary boy genius extraordinaire, had just asked if I would keep him in mind. This was craziness.

      ‘Why thank you,’ I croaked, tucking the card into my bag, from where I knew I would pull it out and examine every inch of it the first chance I got. They both smiled at me, and it took a minute for me to recognize this as my cue to leave. ‘Well, Mr Brooks, um, Gabriel, it was really great meeting you. I’ve got to be getting home now, but hopefully we’ll cross paths soon.’

      ‘My pleasure, Andrea. Congratulations again on scoring such a fantastic job. Right out of college and working at Runway. Very impressive.’

      ‘I’ll walk you out,’ Christian said, placing a hand on my elbow and motioning to Gabriel that he’d be right back.

      We stopped at the bar so I could tell Lily that I was heading home, and she unnecessarily told me – in between William’s nuzzlings – that she wouldn’t be joining me. At the foot of the stairs that would take me back to street level, Christian kissed me on the cheek.

      ‘Great running into you tonight. And I have a feeling I’m going to have to hear Gabriel talk about how great you are now, too.’ He grinned.

      ‘We barely exchanged two words,’ I pointed out, wondering why everyone was being so complimentary.

      ‘Yes, Andy, but what you don’t seem to realize is that the writing world is a small one. Whether you write mysteries or feature stories or newspaper articles, everyone knows everyone. Gabriel doesn’t have to know much about you to know that you have potential: you were good enough to get a job at Runway, you sound bright and articulate when you talk, and hell, you’re a friend of mine. He’s got nothing to lose by giving you his card. What does he know? He could have just discovered the next best-selling author. And trust me – Gabriel Brooks is a good man for you to know.’

      ‘Hmm, I guess you’re right. Well, anyway, I’ve got to get home since I’ve got to be at work again in a few hours anyway. Thanks for everything. I really appreciate it.’ I leaned up to kiss him on the cheek, half expecting him to turn his face forward and half wanting him to, but he just smiled.

      ‘More than my pleasure, Andrea Sachs. Have a good night.’ And before I could come up with anything remotely clever to say, he was headed back to Gabriel.

      I rolled my eyes at myself and headed to the street to hail a cab. It had started to rain – nothing torrential, just a light, steady stream – so of course there wasn’t a single cab free anywhere in Manhattan. I called the Elias-Clark car service, gave them my VIP number, and had a car screeching to the curb exactly six minutes later. Alex had left a voice mail asking me how my day was and saying that he’d be home all night writing lesson plans. It had been too long since I surprised him. It was time to make a little effort and be spontaneous. The driver agreed to wait as long as I needed, so I ran upstairs, jumped in the shower, took a little extra time making my hair look good, and threw together a bag with stuff for work the next day. Since it was already after eleven, traffic was tame and we made it to Alex’s apartment in Brooklyn in under fifteen minutes. He looked genuinely happy to see me when he opened the door, saying over and over and over again how he couldn’t believe that I’d come all the way to Brooklyn so late on a work night and it was the best surprise he could’ve hoped for. And as I lay with my head on my favorite spot on his chest, watching Conan and listening to the rhythmic sound of his breathing as he played with my hair, I barely thought about Christian at all.

      ‘Um, hi. May I speak with your food editor please? No? OK, maybe an editorial assistant, or someone who can tell me when a restaurant review ran?’ I asked an openly hostile receptionist at the New York Times. She had answered the phone by barking, ‘What!’ and was currently pretending – or perhaps not – that we didn’t speak a common language. Persistence paid off, though, and after asking her name three times (‘We can’t tell our names, lady’), threatening to report her to her manager (‘What? You think he cares? I’ll put him on right now’), and finally swearing rather emphatically that I would personally show up at their Times Square offices and do everything in my power to have her fired on the spot (‘Oh, really? I’m not so worried‘), she tired of me and connected me to someone else.

      ‘Editorial,’ snapped another hassled-sounding woman. I wondered if this is what I sounded like answering Miranda’s phone, and if not, then I aspired to it. It was such an enormous turnoff hearing a voice that was so incredibly, undeniably unhappy to hear from you that it almost made you just want to hang up.

      ‘Hi, I just had a quick question.’ The words tumbled out in a desperate attempt to be heard before she inevitably slammed down the phone. ‘I’m wondering if you ran any reviews of Asian fusion restaurants yesterday?’

      She sighed as though I’d just asked her to donate one of her limbs to science and then sighed again. ‘Have you looked online?’ Another sigh.

      ‘Yes, yes, of course, but I can’t—’

      ‘Because СКАЧАТЬ