by Meg Cabot
No way they were going to give him the part, Jon thought. They’d be way smarter to give it to someone cleaner-cut looking. Like Jon, for instance. Dominic was just so…obvious. For someone supposed to be playing a vampire, that is.
“Yeah,” Jon said to Paul. “I mean, Meena knows I’m here, anyway. I had to phone up in order for security to let me sign in.” He pointed to his visitor pass, clipped to the collar of his jean jacket. “But I haven’t seen her anywhere.”
“She’s in her office,” Paul said. “Under the pile of breakdowns I just handed her. You better look out. She’s in a foul mood.”
Jon frowned. “Really? Why?”
“If I had to guess, that’s why,” Paul said, nodding toward the soundstage.
Fran and Stan, Meena’s bosses, had stepped out in front of the cameras and were giving Taylor and Stefan some feedback.
“That was fantastic,” Fran, a middle-aged lady with a lot of pendant necklaces and wildly curling gray hair, was saying. “Stefan, you gave me goose bumps.”
“Thanks,” Stefan said laconically, standing around with his hip bones poking out.
Jon wanted to punch him in the kidneys.
“Right, Aunt Fran?” A skinny girl with very straight black hair and wearing a pencil skirt stepped out from behind a heavyset man. Shoshona, Jon realized. And the heavyset man was Meena’s other boss, Sy. “He’s just brilliant.”
Brilliant. About as brilliant as Jack Bauer. The dog, not the one played by Kiefer Sutherland.
“Thanks,” Stefan said again, pushing some of his dirty-looking hair from his eyes.
“I get a really good feeling from him,” Taylor said in her tinkly little voice. “I think we’ve got good chemistry. It works for me.”
Oh, God, Jon thought with an inward groan. Why had he even bothered showing up? This was just torture. To see-actually see, in real life, not on a television screen-his beloved Taylor in the arms of another? It was too much.
And then the next thing Jon knew, Taylor was coming toward him in her little white tennis shoes. He sucked in his breath-and his gut, although he didn’t have much of one, because he’d really been working out this time, not just saying he was going to, since he was serious about this police exam thing-and said, “Hey, Taylor,” as she walked by, leaving a faint scent of grapefruit in her wake.
She turned her head and saw him, her heavily glossed lips parting in surprise…then curling upward in a smile of recognition.
“Oh, hey…” She clearly couldn’t remember his name.
“Jon,” he said quickly. “Jon Harper. Meena Harper’s older brother?”
“Oh, right,” she said, giggling. “I’m so bad with names. How’s it going?”
“Great,” he said. His heart was thumping like a basketball. “I just caught the last bit of that scene with you and…what’s-his-name. That was some fantastic work.”
“Oh, thanks,” Taylor said, her eyes shining. “His name is Stefan. He’s going to play the new vampire on the show. I’m so psyched ’cause it’s really going to pull in a younger demo for the show. Isn’t Stefan fabulous?”
No, Jon thought. You’re fabulous. Not Stefan. That guy sucks.
“So they’re definitely going to cast that guy, huh?” Jon asked. “Because, you know, I did some acting in high school-”
“Oh, I think so,” Taylor said. “The network wants him. And he’s got the same manager as Gregory Bane, you know, from Lust? That guy over there. Dimitri something-or-other.”
She pointed to a man who was standing in one corner, talking to Stan and Fran and Sy and Shoshona. Dimitri Something-or-Other was huge-physically, just really tall and broad-shouldered, a little like Meena’s prince-and in an impeccably tailored suit that had probably set him back a cool three grand or so. He seemed to have a couple of bodyguards with him.
So he was rich, too.
Another guy Jon was going to have to punch in the kidneys.
“Interesting,” Jon said, pretending not to care. “Hey, what are you doing now? Wanna go grab a drink?”
“Oh,” Taylor said. “I would, but I have to go meet my trainer. Maybe next time, okay?”
Then she actually stood up on tiptoe, placed a hand on his wrist to balance herself, and gave him a little kiss-light as the brush of a butterfly wing-on his cheek.
And then she was gone, skipping away to go work off some imaginary fat.
Jon stood there staring after her for a minute or two before he was able to rouse himself enough from the spell she’d cast over him to go look for his sister. He eventually found her exactly where Paul had said she’d be, in her office-which, strictly speaking, was actually more of a cubicle than an office, although it did have a narrow window with a view.
She was typing furiously, pages spread all across her desk and every other available flat surface in a seemingly random fashion, though Jon knew from experience that if anyone dared to touch them, she’d scream bloody murder, because there was some kind of order to them; only his sister knew what it was, however.
“Hey, Meen,” Jon said. Since there weren’t many seats for him to choose from, he settled onto a stack of scripts piled perilously high on a chair in front of her desk.
“Go away,” she said. She didn’t take her eyes off the screen in front of her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Everything,” she said. “Nothing. Just go away. This place is imploding. Like my life. You wouldn’t believe the lines Fran and Stan-no way Shoshona was smart enough to write this-gave me to feed poor Taylor. Not to mention Cheryl. There’s product placement everywhere. I’ve never even heard of any of this stuff. I don’t think they’re CDI products. Revenant Wrinkle Cream? Strigoi Sunglasses? There’s even some kind of spa where Victoria goes to get a total rejuvenating make-over-have you ever heard of the Regenerative Spa for Youthful Awakening?”
Jon shrugged. “No. But, Meena, what did you expect? They’ve got this new vampire story line, and CDI thinks the show has a chance of getting some younger viewers. Why wouldn’t they throw in some product placement? They’re trying to make some money.”
She sighed. “I don’t know. I thought that they’d show some integrity. Respect for the devoted audience this show has had for thirty years. But I’m the idiot, I guess. What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Oh,” he said. “I’m here for the audition.”
“What audition?” Meena looked at him bewilderedly.
“For the part of the vampire,” Jon said. God, she really was out of it.
“There’s no audition,” she said. “Stefan has the part. They’re just making sure he and Taylor have chemistry-which basically means that he isn’t shorter than she is.”
“Yeah,” Jon said a little bitterly. “I sort of get that now.”
“Look,” she said, turning back to her computer screen. “I’m really busy. You’d better go.”
Paul had been right. She really was in a foul mood.
“What is with you?” he asked. “I mean, I get that you’re upset about the new vampire plot, but you could try being a little nicer to people.”
He thought he heard her mutter something like “I am trying” and something else about a baby. He had no idea what she was talking about. “What baby?” he asked bewilderedly.
“Just forget it,” she said to the monitor.
But there was no hiding the expression on her face, which he recognized only too well.
And like a bolt from the blue, he knew.
“That’s why you’ve been acting like such a psycho lately?” he demanded. “You had a vision about Adam and Leisha’s baby?”
“No,” she said with a laugh. “Of course not. Don’t be stupid.”
“That was the fakest laugh I ever heard,” Jon said, shaking his head. “What did you see?”
She hesitated, then abruptly gave up.
“Fine,” she said. “Whatever. And I didn’t see anything. It’s just a feeling. And it isn’t even a bad feeling, nec
essarily. I just don’t want Leisha to worry. Worrying that something bad is going to happen could be what actually causes something bad to happen. So we’re not telling her, all right? Or Adam. Because there’s nothing to tell.”
Jon shook his head. He had never really understood his sister’s gift, but he’d learned to respect it over the years. Except when girls had refused to go out with him because he was the You’re Gonna Die Girl’s brother.
“You’re sure about this?” he asked.
“Positive,” she said firmly.
“Okay,” he said. “So then what are you stressing over?”
She widened her eyes at him and he realized belatedly that he’d asked exactly the wrong thing.
“Wait,” he said, holding up a hand while she sucked in her breath. “Let me put that another way. What can I do to make things a little easier on you?”
She considered this. “Can you go downtown to pick up Jack and take him home? I dropped him off at Leisha’s salon on my way here from Lucien’s this morning. I’ll owe you so, so big-time. After selling my soul to corporate all day like this, I just want to go home and-”
“Start working diligently on the great American novel?”
“-get ready for my big date tonight,” she finished with a grin.
“Jesus,” Jon said, getting up from the towering pile of paper on which he’d been perched. “You’re seeing him again tonight? You’ve really got it bad for this guy.”
Meena’s grin widened. “You said I should start being nicer to people.”
“I meant me, but fine, I’ll go pick up your dog. And don’t worry,” he added. “I won’t say anything to Leisha about your weird non-vision concerning her unborn kid.”
“You better not,” Meena said. “Considering there’s nothing to tell. Come on, I’ll walk you to the elevators.”
As they approached the elevator bank, he heard Meena curse beneath her breath. He looked up, then saw why. Fran and Stan were standing there, along with Meena’s arch-nemesis, Shoshona; Stefan Dominic; Stefan’s manager; and the bodyguards. Quite a crowd.
“Hi, Meena,” Shoshona said in a voice dripping with honey.
“Hi, Shoshona,” Meena said. She looked like she wanted to be anywhere but there.
“I’m not sure you’ve met our newest cast member, Stefan Dominic,” Shoshona said, turning to the skinny, dark-haired guy Jon had been longing to sucker-punch just a half hour or so earlier.
“No, I haven’t had the pleasure,” Meena said politely, and she shook hands with the man who would soon be getting the pleasure of sticking his tongue in the mouth of Taylor Mackenzie on a daily basis.
“Nice to meet you,” Stefan Dominic said, looking down at Meena.
Meena, shaking Stefan Dominic’s hand, kind of froze, staring up at him. Jon knew she was having another one of her visions.
“Have we met before?” she asked curiously.
Which wasn’t what she usually said. Usually she said something like Don’t take the freeway or I’d switch to wheat from white f lour, if I were you.
“I don’t think so,” Dominic said.
“You look so familiar.” She was still holding on to his hand. “I could swear I’ve seen you before.”
“Well, Meena,” Shoshona said with a little sneer, “Stefan’s my boyfriend. You probably have seen him before. Around the office here, with me.”
“Oh,” Meena said. She let out an embarrassed little laugh and dropped his hand. “Sorry. Of course.”
With that, the elevator came, and Jon got on it, along with Dominic and his manager, who’d said good-bye to Shoshona and her aunt and uncle.
The last face Jon saw before the elevator doors closed and he rode down with them in silence was Meena’s. She looked confused.
But no wonder: she had a lot to feel confused about. Jon didn’t give Meena’s confusion a second thought.
Instead, he thought about how Taylor Mackenzie had kissed him. It seemed a much more pleasant thing to ruminate on during the elevator ride down to the lobby than the conversation he’d just had with Meena.
What Jon didn’t realize was that his thinking about Taylor Mackenzie instead of his sister actually saved his life during that elevator ride.
Chapter Thirty-four
5:00 P.M. EST, Friday, April 16
910 Park Avenue
New York, New York
Meena, after carefully scoping out the lobby of her building, realized it was countess-free and made a dash for the elevator.
She couldn’t believe it. She had actually made it past the doorman-not Pradip, thankfully, as he wasn’t on duty-and to the elevator without running into her neighbor. This week had been such a roller coaster-plummeting from best to worst to best again-that she wasn’t quite sure what to expect from moment to moment. Right now, she appeared to be on another upswing.
Except that, just as the elevator doors were about to shut, a too-familiar, heavily diamond-ringed hand appeared to keep them from closing all the way.
And then Meena heard Mary Lou’s southern-accented voice cry, “Yoo-hoo! Meena?”
The door opened to reveal the countess standing there, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, wearing a peach-colored suit with a matching picture hat and holding several armfuls of shopping bags from Bergdorf Goodman.
“Oh,” Meena said. She could hardly hide her disappointment. She was glad she’d cinched her trench coat so tightly. Maybe Mary Lou wouldn’t notice she was still wearing last night’s little black dress. “Hi, Mary Lou.”
“Well, look at you,” Mary Lou cried. “Aren’t you looking rosy cheeked and pretty as a picture? You know, I was just thinking about you. I saw your brother Jon leaving earlier and asked how you were and he said he didn’t know, that he hadn’t seen you yet today.”
Meena made a mental note to kill Jon when he got home from BAO with Jack Bauer. “Oh, uh…,” she said intelligently. She wished the elevator floor would drop open and allow both of them to plummet to their deaths.
No such luck, however. The door closed, and they began the long ascent to the eleventh floor.
“So you liked the prince?” Mary Lou asked completely unnecessarily.
Meena would have thought it was obvious she liked him since she’d clearly spent the night with him. “Oh,” she said, giving up. What was the point? She was in love with Lucien Antonescu. The whole world was going to find out soon enough if they kept seeing each other. “I liked him, all right.” Did that sound too needy?
“I’m so glad,” Mary Lou said, beaming. “I knew you would. Isn’t he good looking? And nice. I just think he’s so nice.”
Then Mary Lou, of all people, looked worried that she’d said the wrong thing. “But not too nice, you know?” Mary Lou added. “I mean, he’s no pushover. I’ve seen him do things-well, they’d make your hair curl, let me tell you.”
Meena raised her eyebrows. She had no idea what the countess could be talking about.
“Oh, never mind me. Emil says I have a tendency to run my mouth. I just meant Lucien is a real man’s man, if you know what I mean.”
Meena knew exactly what she meant. She had the chafing to prove it.
Meena realized this little girl-talk might be a good opportunity to learn a thing or two about the prince. They had only six floors left though, so she figured she’d better hurry it up.
“I thought there was a little something…melancholic about him,” Meena said.
“Melancholic?” Mary Lou looked as if she wasn’t sure what the word meant.
“Yeah,” Meena said. She knew she had to tread carefully. She didn’t want to say anything that might send the countess yapping to Lucien, saying Meena had been talking about him behind his back. She needed to be subtle. But not too subtle. God, she’d forgotten how hard it was to be in love! “Like something might have happened to him…maybe in his childhood…that might have made him sad?”
“Oh,” Mary Lou said, rising to the bait like a champ. “You bet. Hi
s dad was a real monster. But his mother! Couldn’t have asked for a lovelier woman. A living saint. I never met them, mind you; they passed away before my time. This is just what Emil told me. But anyway, yes, his father-”
“Did he used to beat him?” Meena asked, dropping her voice even though they were alone on the elevator.
“Yes,” Mary Lou whispered back. “From what I hear.”
Meena’s heart wrenched for Lucien as she recalled his expression in the museum as they’d stood looking at the portrait of Vlad Tepes. What did it mean, she wondered, that he was so interested in a national hero who’d treated his sons the way Lucien’s own father had apparently treated him?
And no wonder he hated the show 24. It must have brought back horrible childhood memories.
The poor man! It was amazing how far he’d come in the world since his obviously traumatic beginnings.
“So what do you two have planned for tonight?” Mary Lou wanted to know. “Don’t tell me he hasn’t asked you. It’s Friday night!”
Meena felt herself blushing. She really was going to have to get over this blushing thing where the prince was concerned if they were going to be an item, at least for however long he was in town. “We’re going to the symphony,” she said.
“The Philharmonic?” Mary Lou shrieked. “Oh, how great! I got him those seats, you know. I mean, they’ve been sold out for months. But I know someone who knows someone. I’m so glad you’re going with him; it will be good for you both. You two have so much in common, you don’t even know. You both work way too hard. And you both need to relax a little, take some time off to actually enjoy life. That’s why I thought you’d be such a good couple. Now,” Mary Lou said as the elevator reached the eleventh floor and the doors opened, “you have to borrow this vintage Givenchy of mine for tonight; it will look like a knockout on you. I know I’m a little bit bigger than you, but I didn’t used to be, believe it or not.”
Meena opened her mouth to protest that she didn’t need to borrow anything to wear, but Mary Lou wouldn’t hear of it. There was no putting her off. She dragged Meena into her apartment and then her walk-in closet (which was as large as Meena’s bedroom) and dithered around in there until she found the dress she was looking for-an admittedly gorgeous vintage Givenchy cocktail dress, covered all over in hand-sewn ebony crystals that caught the light and shimmered like black diamonds.