Although that dynamite shot he’d sold of her—the one of her kissing the chick in the swimming pool—hadn’t paid nearly as well as he’d hoped. Celebrity Crush hadn’t been an option for reasons that were obvious to anyone who’d ever done business with the lovestruck guy in charge over there, and the other big-name news outlets hadn’t been interested because a kiss on the forehead didn’t sound newsworthy to those idiots, but he’d kept at it, firing off messages to every buyer on his list until finally a start-up online gossip site that paid crap started nibbling. Crap money was better than no money, he always said, so when it looked like he wasn’t going to get a better offer, he sealed the deal. Two hours later, his shot went viral. That would teach people not to turn up their noses at his hard work.
He’d stalked her for a while after that, but nothing much had come of it. That second kiss had been interesting, but another photographer had swooped in out of nowhere and beaten him to the sale. Not being first had cost him.
He’d give her one more chance. He couldn’t shake the feeling she was going to pay off big.
He downed three slices of cold pizza and packed up his camera, his backup lens, his backup battery, and a bag of cheese curls. And a paper napkin, because last time he’d gotten cheese powder on his camera and almost damaged the lens, so he was trying to be more careful.
A little while later he was on the platform waiting for the commuter train that would take him into the city. A torn copy of Soundstar Magazine lay abandoned on a bench. He picked it up and paged through it. His gaze landed on a shot of Anatalia Gold, and he squinted, homing in on the photo credit.
Brian Washington. Brian? Brian got a shot of Anatalia Gold coming out the front door after her last concert? While yours truly was waiting like an idiot out back? Damn him. What was Brian doing at the front entrance, anyway?
Thinking outside the box, that’s what. He needed to do more of that himself if he didn’t want to go broke. He did okay in this business that rewarded patience, luck, and good instincts, but recently Lady Luck was sleeping with the other guys instead of him.
What he needed was that one shocking, hard-to-get, once-in-a-lifetime photo that sold all over the world and made him rich.
Or at least saved his house.
Because if he didn’t get some cash soon he was going to lose his home to foreclosure, and then how was he going to find a cheap rental that would let him keep his dog? Hard to hide a barking, eighty-pound German shepherd from a landlord. He’d find a way if he had to, though. Him and Fetch were a team. Wasn’t nothing gonna split up him and Fetch.
All he needed was one good shot. Then he could relax.
He continued to study the magazine, ignoring the professionally edited publicity photos for the out-of-focus crap cell phone shots made by amateurs who happened to be in the right place at the right time, updating his mental database of who was popular right now, who was selling.
Hey, what do you know, another photo of Matt Gosri throwing a punch at some photographer. Wonder if he knew the guy who’d pissed him off?
A small news item caught his eye. Kaoli Morgenroth was rumored to be cheating on her on-again, off-again boyfriend. Again. With a different chick.
While Rae Peters—rumored to be the girlfriend (or is it ex-girlfriend?) of superstar Kaoli Morgenroth and recently sidelined from the tour with extensive injuries—recuperates alone at a secret vacation hideaway, Kaoli is all smiles as she autographs the bra of a shirtless fan at last night’s birthday celebration for music legend Anatalia Gold. Is Kaoli back on the prowl?
Hmm…
Kaoli Morgenroth.
Just where he was headed right now.
He always knew one of these days Lady Luck would end up back in his bed. She couldn’t stay away.
* * *
Zach waited in the shadows of a parked semitruck and listened to the strains of Kaoli Morgenroth’s concert bleeding into the familiar nighttime sounds of the city, counting down the minutes to the start of his timetable.
Finally. He swallowed his last cheese curl and let the crinkling empty bag drop to the ground where it joined the cigarette butts that littered the asphalt until a gust of wind blew it away.
Aside from the semis, the parking area he’d snuck into held a small fleet of buses plastered with oversize images of Kaoli Morgenroth’s face, but the star’s private bus was easy to identify: it was the only one with a guard. A local rent-a-cop, judging by the uniform. Her personal bodyguard would be inside the venue with her, not out here sneaking coffee from a takeout cup.
Zach crept closer, stopping every two steps to reassess, gripping his oversize camera in both hands. In order to do his job, he had two major strategies—either hide and let his high-powered telephoto lens do the work, or get in the target’s face. It wasn’t photo time yet, but the same rules applied. Zach went for option number two and strode straight for the slouching guard.
“No visitors allowed,” barked the guard, suddenly no longer slouching.
“Kaoli in there?” Zach asked casually, even though it was obvious from the sounds coming from the venue that she was onstage.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to make me.”
No self-respecting freelance celebrity photographer ever left because he was asked to leave. They left only when forced to, and everyone knew it. It was all part of the game.
What he was about to do next, however, was not part of the game, and could get him arrested. But only if someone saw him do it. With no one else around but this one security guard—if there were others, they were inside the venue, ready to escort the star to her next destination—he figured he was safe. He clenched the sleeping pills in his sweaty palm.
The guard did that thing with his shoulders and pecs that guards always did to make themselves look even heftier than they already were. He was pretty good at it, although the coffee cup in his hand did detract from the effect.
“I said, time to leave.”
“Tough guy,” Zach said blandly. Sometimes acting bored was the best way to get these guys riled up.
“Start moving,” ordered the guard, stomping toward him.
Zach didn’t budge. He needed him close. “Too bad you’re not a real cop so you could arrest me.”
The whites of the guard’s eyes went wild with the need to grab his arm and haul his ugly ass out of the area without being sued for assault. He managed to control himself and reached for his two-way radio instead and called for backup.
Now he was close enough—and distracted. The coffee cup was at hip level. No baby-ass plastic sippy top to protect against spillage. Zach casually moved his hand and dropped in the sleeping pills. Double dose. He wasn’t happy about it, but the guard left him no choice. If he’d been friendly and invited him to wait for Kaoli’s arrival together, things might’ve been different. Besides, he was a security guard, for cripe’s sake. If he couldn’t keep an eye on his own frickin’ coffee he deserved to be drugged.
“Get out of here, paparazzi.”
“I’m going, I’m going.” Zach raised his hands and backed off. Cripes. The guy was an amateur if he thought the paparazzi ever backed off.
Zach turned a corner and tucked himself out of sight behind a truck, and the guard called off the backup. Honestly, he was making it too easy.
Fifteen minutes later, the guard was yawning. Right on time. The guy leaned against the bus, closed his eyes, mumbled to himself to stay awake. Jogged in place. Did a lap around the bus. Like that was going to help.
On his second lap, Zach slipped inside the tour bus. Quickly he scanned the layout, hopped into the bathroom, and hid behind the door. He propped the door ajar with his foot, just wide enough for his camera lens.
Heavy footsteps entered the bus. The guard. Zach shrank
into the shadows. If the guard had seen him come in, it was all over. But if he hadn’t…well, then he had no reason to search for an intruder, did he? No reason to check the bathroom. Not unless he had to take a piss after all that coffee.
Or heard loud breathing. Zach held his breath. This was not a good time for his lungs to decide to get a workout.
The guard dragged his feet past Zach’s hiding place and headed to the back of the bus. Party music kicked on. The pressure in Zach’s chest eased. The guard was getting the bus ready for the boss’s return. Or trying to keep himself awake. Either way, he was safe. Good idea. Thanks for helping me out, man. The music meant it was harder for Zach to hear the guard, but it also meant the guard couldn’t hear Zach, not if he was quiet and didn’t bang into anything.
As soon as the guard left, Zach double-checked that his camera settings were properly adjusted for the tricky lighting conditions. A few minutes later, the sound of female laughter set him on alert. He raised his camera to the crack in the door. Prayed no one would turn up the lights and screw up his shot.
Framed in the threshold was Kaoli Morgenroth. Jackpot. His heavy-duty equipment was no silent piece-of-shit camera phone, but over the pounding music, no one heard the shutter slam open and shut.
The star grabbed her companion’s hand as they entered the bus. A chick. She was with a chick. And not the swimming pool chick, either. A new one. Zach clicked. Click, click, click. Who cared if the hand-holding was innocent or not? Either way, Fetch was going to get to keep his backyard in the ’burbs.
“That was an awesome performance if I do say so myself.” Kaoli looked exuberant, still high from the show. Smiling. Great shot. Zach pressed the button again.
Her friend grabbed a sandwich from the kitchen area and put it in the star’s hands, which meant she was probably a staff person, personal assistant, something like that. Who cared? Kaoli chowed down and the chick stared at her mouth, watching her chew and swallow. She needed to get a life, if watching the star eat a sandwich she’d made—or maybe only touched—was that interesting.
It was just a sandwich, lady. Toasted ham and cheese, by the looks of it. Not something the tabloids would want to run a photo of, not even on a slow week. Not unless the hand that held the sandwich had a freakish sixth finger. But the hand-holding…that was gold.
“I have to go back and take care of the sound equipment,” the chick said. “I don’t want anyone messing with it.”
“It can wait.”
Kaoli Morgenroth pulled the sandwich chick into her arms. Kissed her. God, there was tongue.
Jackpot. Zach clicked and clicked and clicked.
Chapter Twenty
“We have to break up,” Jori told Axel in the driveway outside his parents’ house as she buckled Baylee into her booster seat in the back of his car. “Your mother’s asking me why we’re not married yet.”
“When did she ask?” Axel demanded, ignoring the important part of what she’d just said.
Breakup? Hello?
“When I was helping her in the kitchen after dinner.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That you blackmailed me into dating you and not to get her hopes up. She thought I was joking. I didn’t have the heart to convince her I wasn’t.” She was Baylee’s grandmother, after all. There was no need to be cruel.
Axel laughed like he thought Jori was joking, too. His laugh sounded a lot like his mother’s, come to think of it. Or a dashing old-fashioned mobster’s. “Don’t think of it as blackmail, darling. Think of it as a business deal. Because it is.”
“A business deal that was never intended to last indefinitely.”
“Personally, I’m okay with indefinite.”
“Is Gus?” Jori finished up with Baylee and got into the car on the passenger side as Axel slid behind the wheel. It would have been nice if the adult next to her was Rae, not Axel. Just being near her would have made this whole day more bearable. “If I were your boyfriend, I would not put up with being invisible forever.”
“Gus is okay with it. If it means he doesn’t have to show up for dinner with my folks and he gets to stay home and watch tennis instead, he’s all for it.”
“I’m not all for it.” She hadn’t been in much of a hurry to end it because they were Baylee’s grandparents, after all, but this had gone on too long. Axel’s mother, Gus, Rae…it wasn’t healthy for any of them. And Rae deserved better than a woman who couldn’t break things off with her pretend boyfriend. “We need to end this.”
“One of these days,” Axel agreed in a vague sort of way that meant it was never going to happen. He started the engine and it promptly sputtered and died. He kept his car shinier than she bothered to keep hers, but shiny didn’t make it reliable.
“One of these days, like, today.”
“Now is not a good time.”
“Now is the perfect time. Step one: I break up with you. Step two: You say Great idea.”
Axel tried the ignition again and the engine coughed to life. “Please, Jori, you said you’d be my girlfriend.”
“I was your girlfriend.” Why was he so set on keeping her? “I’ve done more than enough to pay you back.”
“A few more weeks? Until my cousin’s wedding? You promised you’d be my date.”
“I’m standing you up. Take Gus.”
“Come on, Jori. You took those dance classes and everything. Wouldn’t want those to go to waste.”
Oh, they hadn’t gone to waste. Not in the slightest. She’d never thanked him for bullying her into that and she wasn’t going to now, but she did appreciate it. Dancing with him in a room full of soon-to-be-married couples had been a small price to pay for the opportunity to put her arms around Rae. It had been the first time she’d held her, and she’d never forget it.
But that wasn’t the point. “I mean it, Axel. No more.”
She frowned out the window at the driveway they were still parked in. Were they ever going to leave? Her hand brushed against the door handle and her arm encountered the edge of something soft—one of Gus’s conservative neckties that had been abandoned and stuffed into the door’s cupholder. She hadn’t noticed it on the way over, but now she pulled it out, a sad reminder that she was occupying Gus’s usual seat. She pressed the tie flat against her thigh in a futile attempt to smooth the crumpled silk.
Axel rubbed his hands up and down the steering wheel. Finally he nodded. “Let me be the one to break it to my mother.”
Jori released the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. She folded Gus’s tie into a neat roll and returned it to where she’d found it, nestling it snuggly on top of a few spare coins. “Sure thing.”
“The news will crush her. What do I tell her?”
“That we were lying?”
“She wouldn’t believe me.” He tapped a rapid drumbeat on the steering wheel. “No. I’ll say you left me for another man.”
“Fine with me.”
Axel got into gear and pulled out of the driveway and onto the street. “They’ll yell at me for letting you get away and everyone will move on. They’ll reminisce about how great you were and I’ll tell them you married a nice, impotent, much older gentleman who never managed to get you pregnant. Mom will feel bad for you and everyone will get over it. Win-win.”
Until Baylee visited Grandma and let slip that she didn’t have a stepfather. By why mention it? Axel was smart. He’d figure it out soon enough.
“You’re really fine with this?” Jori said.
“We’ll need a reason for why you left.”
“Because the old guy was sexier than you?”
“A believable reason.”
Jori let out a snort of laughter. “You stud. Why don’t you have an affair?”
“Classy,” he said. “I always hoped—prayed—that you would forgive my indiscretions.”
The old Axel was back. She love
d him when he was being reasonable. Or maybe she just loved that this was over.
“Whoa. You’ve been cheating on me?”
“Have I?” Axel mused. “I don’t know. Maybe you should leave me for a woman. My brother would appreciate that.”
“Maybe you should get tired of waiting for me to agree to marry you.”
“I’m already tired of waiting for that.”
“Then what are you doing? You should be drowning your sorrows in the arms of another man.”
Axel’s grin spread slowly across his face. “Not his arms, darling. A bit lower down.”
* * *
Two days later around lunchtime, Rae pulled into one of the parking lots at Jori’s college and found all the parking spaces were taken. Jori had lent her her car so she could run some errands in town while Jori was taking her last exam of her last semester, and now Jori and Baylee were supposed to be waiting for her to take them home.
She parked illegally in the fire lane, hopped out of the car, and started down the short path to the back entrance of the building where Jori had asked to meet. Voices from inside the building rose and fell, loud enough to be heard through the windowless steel double doors.
The doors banged open and there was Jori. Axel stalked at her side, checking his phone.
Jori spotted Rae on the path and broke into a big smile. She pumped her fists. “Done!”
At that, Axel took notice and sauntered up to her and shook hands. “Rae, right? I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced. I’m Axel Nye.”
She knew who he was. “Congratulations on finishing your degree.”
“Thanks.” His gaze drifted past her shoulder to where Jori’s Corolla was parked, its hazard lights flashing. “You came in Jori’s car?”
Rae nodded.
Axel looked surprised. “Quite an honor that she lets you drive it, piece of shit that it is.”
“Watch what you say about my car,” Jori said, coming up on Rae’s side and taking her hand.
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