by Zoey Dean
“Not a problem,” Sam said easily, though normally it irritated the hell out of her not to be the one keeping the other person waiting.
Adam looked around the restaurant. “I told my mom you’d invited me to dinner here. She was duly impressed.” He grinned his disarming grin. “And I’m kinda surprised. What’s the occasion?”
Before Sam could respond to that, the black-clad waiter was at their table, handing them menus. The name of the restaurant came from the fact that there were only eight appetizers and eight main dishes from which to choose, so the menu fit comfortably into one hand. The waiter, who reeked of cute-struggling-actor, rhapsodized about the various dishes until Sam broke in.
“Tell you what. Bring us half a plate of one of each.” She took Adam’s menu and handed them both to the waiter.
The waiter faltered a moment. “You want everything?”
t was a trick she’d learned from her father. If you ordered everything, you could taste-test each dish and never had to envy what the other person ordered and wish you had ordered it yourself. Of course, half the time Jackson Sharpe ended up not even touching half the dishes since—like his daughter—he was constantly on a diet.
“Everything, thanks,” Sam said, which translated to: Go away. Now.
Adam winced. “I hope we’re planning on taking the leftovers to a homeless shelter or something.”
“How about we just mail a donation and call it a day?” Sam suggested. She reached across the table and put her hand atop Adam’s. “So, what do you think about Anna?”
Adam shrugged and took a sip of water. “She’s her own person. She has to follow her own heart.”
“That’s incredibly mature,” Sam said. “You’re not a bit jealous that she spent the last two nights with Ben Birnbaum—”
“What? Since when?”
Adam sputtered water, and Sam’s hand flew to her mouth. She realized that her assumption about Anna had been wrong—that Anna hadn’t spoken to Adam yet.
“Didn’t Anna call you?” Sam asked.
“Like, three times today,” Adam said. “But I wasn’t near the phone. Voice mail picked up. I know she wants to talk to me. She said she was out of town but now she’s back.”
Sam backpedaled. She suspected that Anna wouldn’t be pleased if she learned that Sam had spilled her beans. “Well, it doesn’t seem right to be the one to tell—”
Adam looked steadily at Sam. “Come on. I’m a big boy. Tell me.”
She told him. Ben and Anna. Anna and Ben. Together. Big time.
Emotions skittered across Adam’s face. He rubbed the small star tattoo behind his ear. His shoulders slumped. “I just don’t… .” He reached for a fresh-baked roll, then put it down again. “I guess I won’t understand until I talk to her. Man, love sucks.”
“Hey, I have an idea,” Sam said, sensing that if she was planning to make a big move on Adam, this wasn’t the time. “What are you doing this weekend?”
“Walking my dog and licking my wounds, most likely.”
“My dad’s doing a cameo in a TV series, Hermosa Beach, this weekend, a favor for a friend. It’s new this season. There’s an after party. Why don’t you come with me?”
“I don’t think I’ll be up for it, Sam. But thanks.” “Oh, come on. Why should you stop having fun just because Anna and Ben are having lots of it?”
Adam grimaced. “Way to rub salt in the ol’ wounds.” She touched his hand again. “It’ll take your mind off her. I’d really like you to come.”
Before Adam could answer, a line of waiters came to the table, carrying their eight first courses: everything from green beans and figs with sliced summer truffles to grilled sweetbreads thinly wrapped in pancetta. Sam looked at the food. None of it appealed to her. Maybe the realization that Adam was nowhere near ready to be thinking of anyone other than Anna Percy had dulled her appetite.
She touched the sleeve of the last waiter.
“On second thought, could you just ask the chef to make me a burger? Medium rare, a slice of tomato, a scooped-out baguette instead of a bun. That’d be great.”
The waiter nodded. “Absolutely, Ms. Sharpe. That’ll be about ten minutes.”
“Hey, aren’t you the one who did the Fox show? And was in that video? You are so hot, no lie.”
Cammie barely turned her head toward the guy who had just crept up next to her at the bar. It was so dark that she could barely make out his features. But whatever they were, he was short—no more than an inch or two taller than she was. Cammie Sheppard could afford to be choosy. She didn’t do short. Besides, he was confusing her with Paris Hilton. And that really was an insult, and not just because Cammie had the best implants that money could buy.
That Cammie was an eleven on a looks scale of one to ten was something she took for granted. Her strawberry blond mane and bee-stung lips pretty much guaranteed a plethora of male attention. When you added that to her size-two figure, topped off by perfectly perky D-cup breasts, men were simply going to fall at her feet. It was a given. It wasn’t even all that interesting anymore.
At the moment, she was wearing a white velvet Jenny Packham bodysuit with a thong bottom and her lowest Posh jeans, which meant that there was a good six inches of golden, tanned flesh exposed on both sides, all the way to her hip bones. Her hair was in its trademark wild style, and you could ski down her pink Stila lip gloss.
Just because a girl suffered from Beverly Hills ennui didn’t mean she should let herself go.
Wordlessly she turned her back and iced the guy out, deeming him unworthy of the energy of a put-down. In fact, Cammie was already wondering why she’d agreed to meet Sam at this new place in Los Feliz near the ABC studios. So what if a variety of flavor-of-the-week under-thirty stars owned it? It was a pain in the ass to get here. As far as Cammie could tell, it was just as boring as every other bar.
“What’d I miss?” Dee Young asked breathlessly, hopping back up on her bar stool. Dee had been in the ladies’ room all of five minutes, but from her tone you’d think she’d been in the loo snorting coke for a half hour during a really good movie.
“I found God, Dee,” Cammie replied. “I’m taking a vow of chastity.”
Dee’s round baby blue eyes got even larger. “You mean it just, like, came over you?”
“Joking.” Cammie knew better than to joke with Dee. She was the most literal person Cammie had ever known.
With her diminutive size and baby face, Dee appeared to be an innocent. But what Dee lacked in IQ, she more than made up for in raunch. Or at least she had in the past. But Dee had made a recent change, which was why she was sipping iced green tea. Alcohol had not touched her lips in forty-eight hours, she’d restarted her colonics at Zen Nation to purge toxins from her body, and she had recently intensified her class schedule at the Kabbalah Center.
From Cammie’s point of view, all this was unbelievably boring since she was sure it wouldn’t last. With Dee, nothing ever did. “Where’d you lose Sam?”
“Some girl in the bathroom had a small part in her dad’s last film,” Dee reported. “They’re talking.”
This news depressed Cammie even further—more evidence that Sam was changing, too. Sam had never been known for being friendly to minor players from her father’s movies, though they always tried to suck up to her. But since she had started spending less time with Cammie and Dee and more with Anna Percy, her behavior had begun to shift.
Anna Percy. That bitch.
In the few weeks that Anna had been in Beverly Hills, she’d proved herself to be the kiss of death. Everything she touched turned to shit for Cammie. It was bad enough that Ben Birnbaum had dropped Cammie—the first guy who ever had—and then fallen hard for East Coast snot Anna. When that relationship fizzled almost before it began, Cammie was delighted. But now Sam was reporting that Ben and Anna were a couple again and Ben was claiming to be in love for the first time!
Which means he never loved me, Cammie thought, a catch in her throat.
Fucking Anna.
“God, this place sucks,” Sam said, edging her way over to them through the thick crowd. “Every two-bit wannabe west of the Mississippi is glomming onto me.”
Cammie sighed with relief. Now that sounded more like the old Sam. Cammie raised one French-manicured finger and signaled the bartender for another round of drinks. He’d pretended to check their IDs, and of course they each had fake passports complete with stamps from Barbados and Antigua. But they could have flashed passes to Knott’s Berry Farm for all the scrutiny he gave them.
“Now, about the A-word,” Cammie sneered when she had a new drink in front of her. “First of all, I predict that this round of her and Ben will be history within days. Second of all, I happen to know she got fired today from her internship at Apex.”
Cammie wasn’t certain that Anna had been fired but figured saying so was worth a shot. Her father was notorious for being one of the biggest son-of-a-bitch agents in a town where the title was bestowed with respect. The scene Anna and her sister had caused at the Feinberg party didn’t exactly bode well for Anna’s future. That Cammie had been with Susan when she got drunk didn’t make Cammie feel guilty. Sure, maybe she’d offered Susan a drink. And sure, maybe she’d worked on Susan’s insecurities so that Susan would want to drink. So what?
Cammie didn’t like Sam’s facial reaction to this news, though. “Do not look at me in that tone of voice,” Cammie decreed, deliberately mixing the verbs. “It’s not my fault if her sister is a lush.”
“You were with her when she was polluting her body,” Dee pointed out.
Cammie pushed strawberry curls off her face. “The two of you are getting truly boring.” She took a long pull on her drink. It was all just so depressing. The only thing that would cheer her up would be a really major shopping spree. No. Ben breaking up with Anna and a really major shopping spree.
But a niggling voice in her head reminded her that even if Ben and Anna did break up, he wasn’t going to come running back to Cammie’s arms.
Hang in There, Cowboy
Cammie stumbled a little on the stone path that led from the circular driveway up to the front door. The mansion they’d moved to after her father married Patrice Koose, also known as the Stepmother from Hell, wasn’t as massive as the Sharpe compound. But it was still six thousand luxurious square feet, assessed at well north of four million dollars.
For that kind of money you’d think they could keep up the walkway, Cammie thought as she wedged her key into the front door and punched the code into the security system.
“Ah, Dorothy’s back.”
The nasty sneer came from the sunken living room. Shit. Her stepmother was up. On top of spending her evening fighting off assholes and hearing about Anna and Ben’s love life, she was going to have to deal with the Wicked Witch of the West.
“Up late sticking pins in voodoo dolls, Patrice?” Cammie asked, slipping out of the strappy pink Christian Louboutin heels that were killing her feet.
Patrice sipped something from a bone china cup. She wore a red velvet robe and had her feet propped up on the slate Spanish coffee table that had arrived from Barcelona in time for Christmas. “I thought perhaps we could share a civil five minutes of conversation.”
“Doubtful.” Cammie picked up her shoes and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “I’m going to bed.”
“Oh, that’s right. Tomorrow is a school day. I know how concerned you are about your studies.”
Cammie frowned at her. “You know, Patrice, you might want to call Dr. Birnbaum tomorrow. Your Botox is wearing off.” She padded toward the circular stairs.
“And your stepsister is moving in,” Patrice announced loudly.
Cammie turned the words over in her mind. “I don’t have a stepsister.”
“She’s my daughter and I married your father, which makes the two of you … whatever.” Patrice raised an elegantly dismissive hand. “Anyway, she’s moving in. Tomorrow.”
“Since when do you have a daughter?”
“Since I gave birth to her fourteen years ago.” Cammie shook her head. This made zero sense. Patrice was a former star and former has-been star whose career had been resurrected by Clark Sheppard. Cammie had read all Patrice’s press. There’d been no mention of a daughter.
“Her name is Mia,” Patrice went on. “When I had her, I wasn’t equipped to raise a daughter and maintain a career. So she’s lived with my sister in Valley Village most of her life.”
“She’s what?”
“I’m not going to discuss this with you, Camilla. It’s personal business. Suffice to say that I’ve invited her to move in with us. She and my sister have had some problems of late.”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s up to your father and me. And we’ve decided. I stayed up to tell you personally. Good night.”
“Hold on, Mommy dearest,” Cammie insisted, blocking Patrice’s path. “There’s no way that my father agreed to have your evil spawn move into our house. You hate children. How could you possibly have one?”
But Patrice swept right by her and climbed the stairs, leaving Cammie, her blistered feet, and the six-hundred-dollar sandals that got them that way in her wake.
Wrestling with calculus is not my idea of a good time, Anna thought, tapping her pencil against the black slate rolltop desk in what was now her bedroom. She’d already been accepted to Yale early decision and felt like high school was a thing of the past. But she did have to finish her senior year. And it wasn’t in her nature to slack off at much of anything, really.
But things at Beverly Hills High were just so complicated. Or, more specifically, the Adam Flood thing was just so complicated. She still hadn’t told him about Ben, but not for lack of trying. She just hadn’t been able to reach him by phone.
Guess now’s as good a time as any, she thought as she reached for her phone and pressed his number on speed dial.
This time there was no voice mail. “Hello?”
“Adam? It’s me, Anna. I need to talk to you.”
“I know you’ve been trying to reach me. But you really don’t have to anymore,” said Adam. “I know everything.”
“But how?”
“Sam. By accident, really. Don’t be mad at her. She thought you’d already told me.”
Anna swallowed hard, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. “Okay. Maybe … we can have lunch tomorrow? To … talk?”
Silence.
“Are you there, Adam?”
“I’m here. Everything in the world tells me to say no, but okay. Where?”
“How about … Jerry’s Deli? Near the Beverly Center?”
“Twelve thirty. See you there.”
The phone clicked off. As Anna powered it down, she realized that there was music coming from downstairs. Classical music. But she hadn’t left the CD player or radio on. And she doubted that Juanita or Consuela or any of the other half-dozen maids and cooks and bottle washers who looked after her father’s every need would have a sudden urge for a Chopin étude.
She tied the belt of her white Ralph Lauren silk robe tighter and padded downstairs, not terribly nervous— there was a superb security system in her father’s home. Besides, who was going to tarry for a little classical interlude before they robbed the place?
The instant she got to the bottom of the massive oak staircase, the mystery was solved. There at the Steinway grand, back to her, was Django. Which made sense— Django lived in the guesthouse, had keys to the place, and knew all the security codes. Now Anna remembered that Django had given her a demo tape of his, a jazz piano demo. And hadn’t she seen a photograph of Django as a boy, standing in front of a full symphony orchestra?
Not wanting to disturb him, Anna sat at the base of the stairs and listened as Django’s fingers danced over the keyboard, the music swirling through the empty house. She kept listening, right through the magnificent silence that followed the last note of the piece. Then she applauded.
Django turn
ed around, grinning. “Well, if it isn’t Miss Anna,” he drawled, his Louisiana roots evident in his voice.
She stopped and went to him. “You really have to stop calling me that. It sounds like something from Gone with the Wind.”
“Anyway, it’s fun pissin’ you off. You’re just such a lady about it.”
She had to laugh. “The Chopin was beautiful.”
“Haven’t played it since I was fourteen.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a long, not very interesting story.” Django swung his legs around and regarded Anna in a way that made her suddenly conscious that she had on nothing under her robe but a pale pink La Perla chemise.
Anna resisted the urge to tighten her belt. “Did you know I was upstairs in bed?” She blushed. The words had come out more flirtatiously than she’d intended.
“Kinda,” Django acknowledged. “Your car’s here. In this town that’s a pretty big clue. Anyway, I’m sorry. I should’ve called first. But I love this piano, and when your dad’s around, he doesn’t like it to be played.”
“It’s okay,” Anna told him. “I was wrestling with some calculus and losing.”
He tipped a nonexistent hat. “Happy to please, ma’am.” His eyes flitted over her robe. “So … ,” Django said after a long pause. “You have dinner plans? You’re not dressed for dinner, exactly, but …”
“We could order in,” she said impetuously.
“You eat Ethiopian?”
Anna smiled. “Can’t say I ever have.”
“Just so happens I’ve got a mess of leftovers in my fridge from Langano in Sherman Oaks. I’m kinda hooked on it. Be back in a flash.”
Anna hadn’t planned on company for dinner. In fact, Ben had called during the afternoon, but Anna had been so exhausted she could hardly talk to him.
While Django was retrieving the food, she got two bottles of Blu imported water that her father always kept stocked and brought them into the dining room. Then she cut up a pineapple for dessert. She was halfway upstairs (she planned to change into cashmere sweats) when the doorbell rang. Even from there, she could see Django’s keys sitting on the marble table in the front hall. Evidently he’d locked himself out.