THE HOT lawyer's

Part 9

Jennie

As I stood at Irene's front door, I debated on whether I should use my key and personal code to walk in, the same way I always entered her home. But something about that just didn't feel right today, so I rang the doorbell. Her house was quite large, but it certainly didn't take minutes to walk to the door, which was the amount of time I'd been waiting.

She was doing this on purpose.

I wasn't even surprised.

When she eventually arrived, she stood in the entryway with her hand high on the doorframe, blocking me from entering and staring at me as though she were about to perform facial surgery.

I extended my arm in her direction, holding the cup of Starbucks. "Skinny, extra hot, a small squirt of nonfat whip, and half a pump of vanilla. Just like you like it."

She rolled her eyes, taking the coffee from me, and turned her back toward me to head for the living room.

I followed her inside, shutting the door behind me, and took a seat across from her on the large sectional. "Irene ..."

"No." She shook her head. "Don't you Irene me. You straight-up ignored me for over twelve hours after the meeting at The Agency. You didn't answer a single one of my texts or phone calls. What kind of sister-slash-assistant are you?"

My head dropped, and I stared at the top of the coffee table, where there was a pile of hardcovers about cities in Europe—places Irene had never even been to, nor did she care about them. "You're right. I deserved that. But my intention wasn't to hurt you or make you feel ignored. I just wanted you to have some time to cool off—that's all." I glanced back up at her. "Time away from me, so both of our emotions could settle."

"Do you think my emotions were going to settle once I found out what show you're going to be on?" She grinned, but it wasn't out of happiness. "That I had to hear it from my team and not you?"

"I haven't signed the contract yet."

She leaned on the pillow next to her, throwing her legs over the end of the couch. "Please. You're on the verge. You're probably just demanding more money, and that's what is holding up the signing." Her lids narrowed. "So, let's spell this all out, shall we? You landed Bobby fucking Kim, my unicorn agent; Kim Jisoo, the leading manager at his agency; and Lisa Manoban, my attorney." Her voice was getting louder by the second. "If you wanted to be me, then why didn't you say that when you moved out here? We could have skipped the whole assistant part, and I could have just handed you my life." She sighed in disgust. "Seriously, Jennie, what the fuck?"

I stared at my sister. Someone who had competed with me since I was a child.

Except it had never been a competition—at least, not in my eyes.

We were on completely different paths.

Irene, the popular cheerleader, the center of attention, who had dated only athletes—and there had been handfuls of them. She had so many friends that she barely knew most of their names, and instead of going to college, she'd moved to LA and immediately begun auditioning for roles.

I had been the artsy kid, a paintbrush or colored pencil always somewhere in my hair, with only a handful of close friends before earning a bachelor of arts in graphic design from Northeastern. There hadn't been many relationships in my past, but the ones I'd had lasted for years—distance usually the cause of our breakup—and it would take me months and months before I could even consider moving on.

Our Mother name, childhood home, and our family were the only similarities.

I did me.

Irene did her.