by Serena Bell
“Please don’t play games right now.”
He broke eye contact, his gaze finding a point on the floor.
Did he really think she’d let an empty compliment soften her up? Probably. After all, he was done with Celine. He was ready for his next conquest.
She left him at the door, grabbed a bra and T-shirt and shorts, and went into the bathroom to change. Her face was hot, and her hands shook. It sucked that he still affected her like this. All he’d said was “You look great.” Imagine how thoroughly she’d go to pieces if he kissed her.
No, no—don’t imagine that. Very bad idea. And yet her body was obviously not interested in cooperating with the master plan, because she could imagine it vividly—Brett pressing her up against the door frame, sliding a thick thigh between her legs, pressing hard muscle—or something even better—against her. She shook her head rapidly, whipped off the nightgown and struggled into her clothes, trying to distract herself from the images.
When she emerged from the bathroom, he was standing inside the door, looking ill at ease. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t make me uncomfortable.”
She couldn’t read his expression. Busted ego, she hoped.
“We should get down there before she starts dancing on the tables.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Would she do that?”
“She does have a history. Dancing on tables, getting publicly dumped, drinking too much and being escorted home by the cops, shaving her boyfriend’s initials into her pubic hair and flashing reporters.”
He rolled his eyes.
“If you have so much scorn for her, why did you accept the invitation?” She gave him a little shove toward the door.
He held it open and then let it swing shut behind her. “I don’t know.”
“Just because she asked?” She hadn’t meant to push, but the question had come out.
He frowned. They were nearing the elevator. “You don’t think much of me, do you?”
“If you were my client, I’d say you don’t think much of yourself. That’s what I say when women date anyone who expresses any interest in them. But I guess with guys it’s different, right? Sowing oats and all that. Wouldn’t want your genes to miss an opportunity. Sociobiologically speaking.”
“If you say so. You’re the expert.”
She didn’t feel like much of an expert, not around him. She felt in over her head. Drowning. He was walking fast now, giving her an eyeful of his tight butt under faded jeans, the bunch and release of hard male muscle. She followed him into the waiting elevator and instantly regretted it. Stairs would have been so much better. This was a small space, and he was a big presence, and she didn’t want to think about whether, if she cornered him, a camera would record their doings.
She couldn’t look at him. She counted the pings as they descended and practically leaped out when the doors opened.
Neither of them spoke on the path to the bar. As they approached, they could hear music coming from inside.
“Oh, no,” Brett said. “Duet.”
The sounds of a twangy, popified guitar, a steady drum machine beat and two voices reached their ears.
* * *
YOU’RE MY BEST WORST
Best worst, best worst
Friend.
And I knew there was
Only one way this could
End.
“Is that them?” Elisa asked, simultaneously horrified and impressed. She’d heard the song before—she tried to stay up-to-date on pop music, especially romantic pop music—and Celine was doing a really credible imitation of the female artist. Even more impressive, Steve could pull off a kick-ass male accompaniment.
They stepped into the lounge and stopped to let their senses adjust to the overstimulation. A thick knot of people clustered around the bar, and Celine and Steve stood on top of it, arm in arm. They gazed into each other’s eyes and belted out the song into a single handheld microphone. In Celine’s other hand, she held a peach-colored drink that periodically splashed over the top of the glass and onto the bar.
Absent his hooded sweatshirt, Steve was kind of cute. More like B-grade movie actor than pond-scum paparazzo. He was dark haired and dark-eyed, with a strong, almost aquiline nose and broad shoulders. And star quality to his performance. Neither of them was mailing it in. They were both singing for dear life.
The hoots and cheers only egged them on. Several people held cell phones aloft, capturing photos and videos, and the professionals ripped through memory cards at high speed on the sidelines.
“I thought I was kidding about the tabletop!” Elisa could barely hear her own wail over the music.
At the outside edge of the cluster of groupies, Morrow captured the whole fray on video.
“Oh, God.” Elisa held back for a moment, trying to imagine what the coverage would look like. The evening entertainment shows, with their splashy headlines, would proclaim “Celine Carr’s romantic weekend implodes in party-girl frenzy!” or something else awful. The photos would be close-ups of Celine’s alcohol-dazed face and that drink, tilted at a dangerous angle, in her hand, interspersed with longer shots of her up on the bar.
And who knew what Celine had told Steve, who, it had to be said, looked a lot more goofy than predatory. Celine was just so sweet and trusting. Elisa couldn’t let her do this to herself.
“We have to stop her,” she said over the interwoven crooning of Celine and Steve.
“How are you going to do that without making it look worse for her?” Brett asked. “If you pull her out now, you’ll cause a ruckus. Maybe this isn’t such a bad thing? She’s just singing, and she sounds good. Maybe this is a bit of fun she’s having on her boot camp weekend.”
He’d leaned close to talk to her, and she could smell his familiar scent. But worse than all the artificial scents that defined him, she could smell his skin, his Brett essence. And he was close enough that she wanted to put her lips to his cheek and slide them slowly along the roughness of his jaw to his mouth. She wanted to lick his lips, nip them, open herself and invite his tongue in.
Business. Her business. Her reason for being here. Two years ago, his allure had overwhelmed her good sense. But her good sense had been less developed then. She’d been more hotheaded, more of a seize-the-day girl. Now she was a businesswoman on a mission. Rendezvous and its success were more important than the longing between her legs.
Or in her heart.
She shut that thought down and wrenched her wayward brain back to the matter at hand. Maybe he was right about Celine. She could let this song finish, she could cheer along with the rest of the audience, and then she could find a way to drag Celine offstage with a subtler equivalent of a cane in vaudeville.
“Will you help me get her out of here once this song is over? I don’t want her talking to that guy. She’s not supposed to talk to anyone from the press without supervision.”
Brett nodded, then put his hand on her arm the way he had on the plane, and she controlled a shiver. “This is really important to you, huh? This weekend?”
It had been really important to her. Now all she wanted was to get Celine off this island and home before someone made a mockery of her in the media or before Celine found a way to ensure a permanent place in the celebrity halls of shame.
“Let’s just get her out of here.”
“And then later will you tell me why it’s such a big deal to you?”
She glared at him. No. She didn’t want to tell him anything. But she missed the way she had once told him everything, sitting beside him on his shabby sofa, dining across from him in her impossibly tiny eat-in apartment kitchen, riding shoulder to shoulder on the subway, while she hated herself for bathing blissfully in his warmth.
The song was ending, t
he final synth notes falling away.
There was a collective gasp from the crowd, followed by a yelp of what could only be pain.
“Oh, shit,” said Brett. He dashed into the crowd.
The actress had disappeared from the impromptu stage, and in a moment it became clear to Elisa what had happened. Celine had fallen off the bar.
7
EVERYTHING HAPPENED FAST after that. Elisa leaped into action, barking commands. “Everyone back. Give her some room. No photos.” She said it so forcefully that several cell phones snapped shut. Haven would be proud.
Oh, God, Haven.
Celine was on the floor, wedged between two barstools, clutching her ankle.
Elisa squatted next to her. “Hon? You okay?”
Celine gave her an imploring look. “It hurts.”
That wasn’t good. “How much? Where exactly?” She leaned closer. Celine smelled like a distillery, and she was bleary eyed. No wonder she’d fallen. Elisa probed the injured ankle gently, and Celine gasped. Really not good.
“We need to get a doctor to look at this. Do you think it could be broken?”
“Hurts,” Celine repeated.
“Is she okay?”
Elisa looked up to find Steve hovering over them. “This situation doesn’t need its own personal paparazzo,” she snapped.
“I’d like to help.”
She stood so she could address him face-to-face. “I think we saw enough of your brand of ‘help’ on the airplane.”
“Hey—I’m sorry about that. I was doing my job, but—okay, here’s the thing. I’ll back off.” He put his hands up, a gesture of surrender. “Celine and I were having a good time. I like her. I’m putting the camera away. Okay? No more photos.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I want Steve to stay.” The slushiness of Celine’s sibilants said she was even drunker than she looked and smelled. “He’s nice. Nice to me.”
Was Celine naive? Too drunk to be able to think through consequences?
“It’s not a good idea.”
“That’s not your decision, though, is it?” Steve’s dark eyes bored into Elisa.
“This is none of your business. I asked you to leave.”
“Someone’s gotta look out for Celine.” Steve cast his gaze critically from her to Brett and back again. “What kind of dating coach poaches her client’s date?”
Two hands shot out of nowhere and connected with Steve’s chest. He fell back against the bar. Brett stood over him. “Watch what you say, asshole. Unless you want to step outside.”
She’d never thought of Brett as physically intimidating before, probably because she’d never seen him threaten someone, but with his jaw set, his fists clenched and muscles rippling under his lightweight sweater, he was all outraged male. She wouldn’t want to tangle with him, at least not in a fight.
She wouldn’t want to tangle with him, period, she reminded herself. Because she knew exactly what would happen if she did—both the bliss of the moment and the anticlimax that would follow. Even if his shoulders and back and arms were magnificent and she couldn’t look away. He’d just physically assaulted someone who’d insulted her. She wasn’t supposed to find that attractive, was she? It was so—primitive. And sexy.
“I don’t know how you live with yourselves,” growled Steve, righting himself and straightening his clothes, like a movie cliché.
Brett stepped forward, but Elisa came to her senses and grabbed his arm. “No. Leave him alone. Do you know anything about ankle injuries?” She squatted again by Celine.
Brett knelt, too, heat pouring off him. He was close enough that his breath brushed the side of her neck, and desire unfurled low in her belly. “Not much. I’ve had a few sprains.” He took the ankle in his hands and checked it over. “The fact that you’re not screaming means it’s not broken—I know that much. You probably sprained it, Celine.” To Elisa, he said, “Do you think we could get her to a doctor?”
“I don’t know how easy it’ll be to find a doctor on the island,” Elisa admitted. She needed to keep her mind on the situation, not on the way that Brett’s nearness had started a low thrum of electric heat all over her body.
Around them, people returned to the business of eating dinner. Elisa saw cell phones and cameras waggling again. But as much as she wanted to grab them out of people’s hands, drama would only make things worse.
Steve now knelt beside Celine. They smiled at each other.
It was like Stockholm syndrome. Celine was going to serve this guy her life story on a silver tray in a few minutes. Elisa had to hand it to him—he was smooth.
“You need to leave. Or I’ll call hotel security.”
“I just want to help.”
“Look, assho—”
She silenced Brett with a look. A brawl would attract more attention. So would bringing in hotel security. The best thing she could do was prevent further confrontations between Brett and Steve. “Okay, fine. Can you go find the resort manager and ask where to find a doctor?”
Steve hesitated, as if calculating whether this was another way to get rid of him.
Celine gave a little whimper of pain, and that seemed to make his decision. He took off for the hotel lobby.
“I wanted him here,” Celine pouted. “He actually cares.”
“Oh, hon, I care.”
“You only care about your business. You and Haven only care about how much money you can make off me.”
“That’s not true.” She felt a pang of guilt, though. As much as she’d tried to keep her mind on Celine, she’d been distracted all day with ambition for Rendezvous and inappropriate thoughts about the man standing beside her. She couldn’t blame Celine for feeling the way she did. “I do care—both about your ankle and finding you someone special to be with.”
Celine gave her a jaundiced look and held her injured ankle gingerly.
Elisa tried not to let it bother her. Celine was in pain, drunk and exhausted. In the morning, things would look better for both of them.
“Can you help me get her back to her room?” Elisa asked Brett. “I’d feel a lot more comfortable if we were all out of the limelight.”
Between the two of them, they hoisted Celine up and draped one of her arms over each of their shoulders. She was dead weight and uncooperative, and they more or less dragged her out of the restaurant, across the brick patio and up a small half flight of stairs. Elisa had a moment of gratitude that the star’s slim body separated Elisa from Brett, but she was still very aware of him on the other side, his strength, the ease with which he bore most of Celine’s weight.
“There’s a long flight of really narrow stairs leading up to her room,” Brett said.
“Shit.” This was too hard. This whole weekend, this whole project, had gone wrong at every turn. Maybe it was time to admit that it wasn’t meant to be. She was supposed to have a small, modest business teaching editorial assistants and bank tellers how to date.
No. She hadn’t come this far to give up. Even if she didn’t owe this to herself, she owed it to all the women who’d helped her build Rendezvous from the ground up. She wouldn’t give up on this opportunity now.
She took a deep breath, steeling herself.
“I think it might be better if we put her in your room...?” Brett began.
“Yeah.” She tried not to think about the big bed she’d been looking forward to sprawling across.
“I don’t want to be in your room.”
Elisa hadn’t even been sure Celine was conscious until she spoke.
“Tough luck,” said Brett.
Not the diplomat, but Celine was quiet, and Elisa was grateful.
They took the elevator to Elisa’s floor. By the time they unloaded her onto Elisa’s bed and prop
ped her up on the pillows, Elisa was drenched in sweat and panting. Celine had done as little as possible to aid with the transport.
Elisa called the front desk to check on Steve’s progress. A doctor was on the way, a woman with a lilting Caribbean accent told her. Elisa gave her the new room number.
A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. Brett went to look through the peephole, then groaned. “It’s him.”
“Let him in,” Celine demanded.
“Can I have a word with you?” Elisa whispered to Brett.
He stepped too close, and she had to move back to give herself room to think. “Can you convince Steve that he should leave Celine alone? Bribe him or something?”
Brett frowned, and Elisa had to wonder why he was just as hot when he was frowning as when he was smiling. Maybe it was all the little rugged lines on his face. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea. Bribes only work in movies.”
“It’s worth a try, though, right?”
“Is it really necessary? He doesn’t seem that bad to me. He seems to like her. Isn’t that what you want?”
“He doesn’t seem that bad to you,” she repeated incredulously. “You smashed his memory card on the plane and shoved him just now. What do you do to guys you don’t like?”
Something like embarrassment crossed Brett’s face. “Yeah, well, that’s different from buying him off. She likes the guy. You heard her. You have to give her a little more credit. What’s the worst thing that can happen?”
“He could destroy her in the press and break her heart.”
“Man, you have a dark mind. You seriously think that’s going to happen?”
“Brett.” She put her hand on his forearm where his sweater was rolled up, then pulled away. The dusting of curly hair over his warm skin and the cords of muscle were too distracting. She had to talk quickly because Celine was pulling herself upright, apparently prepared to limp all the way to the door. In her drunken state she was going to hurt herself worse. “This guy is very clever and sneaky. I mean, what the hell was he doing, singing karaoke with Celine in the first place? He’s got some kind of plan, and Celine’s going to get hurt.”